Spanish Brass-Program and Notes

CABANILLES
Batalla Imperial

"Through very developed forms of an extreme contrapuntal density, he gave birth to a learned style that was compact, granite-like and monumental, though very ornamented. Exploiting to the fullest all the resources of seventeenth-century organ art, he guided that art towards a completion that was also a culmination." Reading this description, one might imagine that it is about J. S. Bach. However, it is about Juan Cabanilles, a Spanish organist and composer at the Valencia Cathedral. Considered by many to have been the greatest Spanish baroque composer, Cabanilles has indeed been referred to as “the Spanish Bach.”  (A batalla is a piece that portrays a military battle.)

BACH
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565

One of the towering geniuses in the history of the arts, Bach produced a phenomenal amount of great music throughout his life. Wagner called him “nothing less than the most stupendous miracle in all music." Bach can evoke the full range of emotions, and crystallize them in structural forms as intricate as their spiritual content is profound.

Bach wrote the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ in his early twenties. Canadian Brass member  Fred Mills  was  inspired to make this arrangement by conductor Leopold Stokowski, who himself had reworked the same piece for full orchestra.  Both arrangements are now part of the standard repertoire.

PLOG
Four Sketches

The music of Anthony Plog has been performed in over thirty countries around the world.  A founding member of both the Fine Arts Brass Quintet and the Summit Brass, Plog is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant as well as numerous commissions from, among others, the Malmo Symphony (Sweden), the Utah Symphony, the Summit Brass, the GECA Brass Ensemble in France, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the University of Texas at Austin, and the St. Louis Brass Quintet. In 1990 an entire CD (Anthony Plog--Colors of Brass) was devoted to his works for brass.

At the beginning of his compositional career, Plog wrote almost exclusively for brass. But he has broadened his creative horizons, and now writes in many different mediums. He has composed three children's operas, the first of which, HOW THE TRUMPET GOT ITS TOOT, was premiered by the Utah Opera and Symphony in 2004. His works have been required pieces at international brass competitions in Germany, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, and Finland.

The Four Sketches were written in 1989 for the St. Louis Brass Quintet. The first and fourth of these create a climate of agitation that skillfully reveals the idiomatic resources of each movement. The third, calm and atonal, radiates an intense meditative atmosphere. The second features the two trumpets (muted with very quiet mutes) whose supple and rapid staccato lines intertwine with subtlety, creating a soft musical murmur.

The composer says:  “Perhaps of interest is the fact that the first version of the piece was called Five Sketches.  I was not happy with that version, threw out four of the five movements, and wrote three completely new movements. As a result, part of the piece is rather technical, colorful (hopefully!) and angular, while the third movement (the only remaining movement from the first version) is more lyrical.”

GRANADOS
Andaluza (Danza Española No. 5)

One of the most colorful turn-of-the-century Spanish musicians, Granados was one of the great pianists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Virtually all of his music relies heavily on the Catalan and Spanish folk idiom which, along with fellow Spaniard Albéniz, Granados was instrumental in bringing to the attention of the contemporary European musical establishment. 

In 1916, while returning from the USA (where the opera Goyescas had received its New York première, and where Granados had performed in the White House for President Wilson), the liner Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Among the casualties were Granados and his wife.

Andaluza (also known as Playera) is the fifth and most famous of the twelve Spanish Dances that Granados composed for piano between 1882 and 1900. The exact dates of composition of the dances are unknown, but the composer said that most of them were written in 1883 when he was sixteen years old.

GIMÉNEZ
Intermedio (La Boda de Luis Alonso)

Gerónimo Giménez was a child-prodigy violinist who went on to become a leading composer and conductor.  He took a special interest in the zarzuela, a form of Spanish opera, and as such his music is noticeably influenced by Spanish folk songs and dances.

Giménez wrote La Boda de Luis Alonso (“The Wedding of Luis Alonso”) as a sequel to his previous zarzuela, El Baile (“dance”) de Luis Alonso.  Both are about the celebrated Spanish dancer and teacher, Luis Alonso. They are among Giménez’s most famous compositions and among Spain’s most popular zarzuelas.

BRETÓN
Seguidillas (La Verbena de la Paloma)

One of the great figures of the Spanish musical establishment during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Bretón trained at the Madrid Conservatory as a violinist, pianist, and composer, while at the same time acting as music director of an equestrian circus. In 1872 he won the conservatory’s first prize for composition, jointly awarded to him and his future great rival Ruperto Chapí.

Zarzuela is a form of Spanish opera, and La Verbena de la Paloma is perhaps the greatest zarzuela of all. Paloma is a street in Madrid, famous for a statuette of the Virgin which performed popularly attested miracles in the late eighteenth century. This was celebrated by the annual verbena, or local religious festival, spilling over into dancing and street-carnival revelry. The music presents a slice of life on such a hot carnival night, with characters drawn from the working people Bretón would have observed every day in Madrid. The characters include chulapas, young working-class girls smartly dressed for a night on the town; lecherous, well-to-do tradesmen; and Julián, a model of the educated working-class young man whose honesty and intelligence set him apart from the mob. Perhaps the most vivid creation of all is seña (Señora) Rita, the sympathetic older woman.

ROTA
Un po’ di Fellini

Nino Rota, whose centennial is being celebrated this year, was an extraordinarily prolific Italian composer best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini. He also composed the music for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, receiving for the latter the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1974.  Of local interest, Rota was encouraged by Arturo Toscanini to come to Philadelphia from 1930 to 1932 and study orchestra with Fritz Reiner.

PIQUERAS
De Cai

Born in the Valencia municipality Quart de Poblet in 1973, Piqueras has composed works for various ensembles including band, band and chorus, orchestra and brass quintet, which have been performed and recorded by numerous groups such as Spanish Brass, Strombor Brass Quintet, Vent de Llevant, and Orsaxcova. He holds professional degrees in trumpet, music theory, and conducting, and is an active jazz performer as well as conductor.   

De Cai is the Andalusian pronunciation of de Cadiz (“from Cadiz”), a city and port in southwestern Spain.  The composer writes:  "Inspired chiefly by flamenco-tango rhythms, this piece aims to bring together one of the most versatile chamber ensembles, the brass quintet, and the most essential and universally appreciated genre of Spanish music, flamenco. 

While this piece was originally written for brass quintet, I was soon asked to arrange it for various other kinds of ensembles, perhaps because of its catchy melody, perhaps because of the fusion of diverse rhythms that thrive in today’s popular music. In any case, to use a gastronomic metaphor, 'De Cai' does leave a good taste in people’s mouths, and that was all the composer intended: for the audience to have a good time."

JOBIM
Chega de Saudade

Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim, also known as Tom Jobim, was a Grammy-winning Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, pianist, and guitarist.  A primary force behind the creation of bossa nova, Jobim is acknowledged as one of the most influential popular composers of the twentieth century. His songs have been performed and recorded by many singers and instrumentalists in both Brazil and around the world.

Chega de Saudade is considered the first bossa nova song. Composed by Jobim to lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes, it was popularized through performances by João Gilberto, whose version was chosen for the Grammy Hall of Fame.  The title can be translated roughly as "enough longing"—though the Portuguese word “saudade” has a more complex meaning, including an intense homesickness.  Its English version is entitled “No More Blues.”

MORGAN
The Sidewinder

The Philadelphia-born trumpeter and superb bop stylist Lee Morgan apprenticed with Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey, before emerging as a leader in his own right in the early 1960s for Blue Note Records. Although Morgan owed a stylistic debt to both Gillespie and Clifford Brown, he quickly developed a voice of his own that combined half-valve effects,

Latin inflections, and full, fluid melodies. The Sidewinder, Morgan’s 24-bar blues with an infectious bass line and backbeat, is one of the most popular pieces in modern jazz history.

WALLER
Handful of Keys

Thomas Wright Waller was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer. His first piano solos (Muscle Shoals Blues and Birmingham Blues) were recorded at age eighteen in 1922. Pianist and composer Oscar Levant dubbed Waller "the black Horowitz," in a comparison to Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz.  Waller was a “stride” piano player, in which the left hand leaps rapidly across the keyboard, playing a low note followed immediately by a chord in the middle range.

One of the most popular performers of his era, Waller enjoyed success both here and in Europe. Also a prolific songwriter, many of his works are still popular--Honeysuckle Rose and Ain’t Misbehavin’ are two examples. Handful of Keys is from an RCA album released in 1960.