Program Notes

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Nadia Boulanger, a towering figure of twentieth century music, was born in 1887 to a family of musicians and entered the Paris Conservatoire at the remarkable age of nine, where she and her sister Lili stood among Gabriel Fauré’s most promising students. Lili’s untimely death in 1918 caused Nadia to abandon composing in favor of teaching composition to the next generation of musicians. The career shift, while tragic in origin, ultimately earned Boulanger cult-like status. Composer Ned Rorem described her as the “greatest teacher since Socrates,” and her influence was particularly acute on American music, with the likes of Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Quincy Jones, and Philip Glass citing her as an important influence. While brief and self-critical, Boulanger’s compositional period yielded works that could serve as master classes in and of themselves for their rigor and harmonic interest.

                    Prélude in F Minor was composed by Boulanger in 1911 for an anthology of organ music to be published the following year. The miniature features a single melody accompanied by parallel lines throughout. Its economical style allows the listener’s ears to perk at the poignant twists of harmony and color in each phrase.

                     Trois Pièces (three pieces) were composed for organ over a number of years, but they are best known in a version for cello and piano published in 1914. Folk-like melodies and old-style counterpoint filter through modes and harmonies associated with French “Impressionist” composers like Fauré and Debussy. Rather than feature a single solo instrument, WindSync’s adaptation is scored for a more organ-like mixture of instrumental colors.

 

Elliott Carter, after studying English at Harvard, shifted his focus to the language of music, studying for three years with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and embarking on a famously prolific career spanning 75 years. His music is filled with humor and clever structures that play with the relationships between performers. The dedication of the 1948 quintet, his first, reads “To Mademoiselle Nadia Boulanger.”

                   Woodwind Quintet: “In 1948 several woodwind players asked me to write a work for woodwind quintet. On looking over some earlier quintet works, I found the composers were in the habit of overlooking the fact that each of these instruments has a different sound. I, on the other hand, was particularly struck by this, and so decided to write a work that would emphasize the individuality of each instrument and that made a virtue of their inability to blend completely.”

--Elliott Carter

 

Philip Glass is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His family’s record store influenced his early listening as much as did conservatory-style training at Peabody, the University of Chicago, and Juilliard. His career has similarly bridged several worlds, including the founding of the Philip Glass Ensemble, high-profile opera and film commissions, and jobs as a crane operator and a taxi driver.

From 1964-1966, Glass studied harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger, and in his autobiography he writes, “I have not written a note of music that wasn’t influenced by her.”

                    Etude no. 17: Glass’s interest in composing etudes calls back to the intensive training he received in Paris, building musical skills from the ground up.

The 20 etudes for piano were composed between 1991 and 2012, all in characteristic style with repetitive structures. Glass composed the first ten etudes (Book 1) to explore varied tempi, textures, and piano techniques, and as a way to improve his own piano playing. Glass describes the following ten etudes (Book 2) as “a series of new adventures in harmony and structure.” Etude No. 17, taken from Book 2, was commissioned for the 25th Anniversary of the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and premiered in 2012.

Etude #17 by Philip Glass 2012 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc. Used by Permission.

 

Dieterich Buxtehude, like many musicians in 17th century Europe, worked primarily as a church musician, and he practiced a spirituality influenced by numerology and the cosmos.

                    Passacaglia in D Minor, BuxWV 161, likely composed after 1690 originally for organ, is broken up into four different sections, each changing key. Within each section, there are seven variations on a seven-note ostinato. Historians believe that the four sections may be inspired by the four phases of the moon, which were illustrated on a clock at the back of the church where Buxtehude worked. With its repeating bass line and subtle unfolding, Buxtehude’s Passacaglia in D Minor is a musical meditation.

 

W. A. Mozart: Serenade in C Minor, K. 388: In a letter dated July 27, 1782, Mozart wrote to his father that he was composing a piece of Nacht musique (night music), a designation typically given to music for evening social events. While historians are unsure about the exact chronology of the Serenade in C Minor, most likely it is the work mentioned in Mozart’s letter. The manuscript, however, shows that Mozart ultimately titled the work Parthia (partita) before changing his mind again and inscribing Serenada (serenade).

 

Mozart’s difficulty in classifying the Serenade in C Minor speaks to its weight. Dramatic, profound, and at times even ominous, the piece proceeds more like a symphony than like party music. Particularly notable are the third movement, a clever canon, and the fourth movement, a virtuosic theme and variations.

 

The 1780s were the heyday of Harmoniemusik, small wind bands employed as entertainers by arts patrons like Habsburg Emperor Joseph II, Viennese noble Prince Schwarzenberg, and music connoisseur Prince Aloys Joseph Liechtenstein. The Serenade in C Minor, scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons, was likely written for one of these Harmoniemusik patrons. WindSync performs an arrangement by bassoonist and conductor Mordechai Rechtman, who used both the original score and Mozart’s own quintet arrangement for strings as references.