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| About this Concert Allan Gilliland wrote his jazz-inspired concerto Dreaming of the Masters I as both a homage to great clarinet players of the past, and as a showcase for Leduc-born clarinet virtuoso James Campbell. Leonard Bernstein’s Fancy Free was a breathtaking Jerome Robbins ballet that inspired the acclaimed musical On the Town. Its vivacious score is matched with two works by Bernstein’s friend and legendary American composer Aaron Copland. James Campbell presents Copland’s famous Clarinet Concerto, while his Music for the Theater is also featured. Join us in the Upper Circle lobby at 7:15 pm for Symphony Prelude, hosted by D.T. Baker. Featured Repertoire COPLAND: Music for the Theatre BERNSTEIN: Fancy Free: Ballet Suite COPLAND: Clarinet Concerto GILLILAND: Dreaming of the Masters I for Clarinet |
Additional Performances Fri, March 9, 2012 Next Landmark Classic Masters March 31, 2012 Rolston plays Dvořák Thank you to our sponsors!  Series Sponsor |
Ticket Information$75 Dress Circle (A)$65 Terrace (B) $52 Orchestra (C) $38 Upper Circle (D) $28 Gallery (E) $20 Orchestra Front (F) Tickets subject to applicable service charges. |
| This performance is part of the Landmark Classic Masters series. |
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Program Info
Program
BERNSTEIN
Fancy Free (24’)*
Enter the Sailors
Scene at the Bar
Enter two girls
Pas de deux
Competition Scene
Three Dance Variations
Variation I: Galop
Variation II: Waltz
Variation III: Danzon
Finale
COPLAND
Clarinet Concerto (18’)*
INTERMISSION
COPLAND
Music for the Theatre (21’)*
Prologue
Dance
Interlude
Burlesque
Epilogue
GILLILAND
Dreaming of the Masters I (2003 ESO commission) (17’)*
Benny’s Bounce
Stranger on the Prairie
Rhythm Buddy
Program subject to change
*indicates approximate performance duration
Program Notes
Music for the Theatre
Aaron Copland (b. Brooklyn, 1900 / d. Westchester, NY, 1990)
First performance: November 20, 1925 in Boston
This is the ESO premiere of the work
At only 25 years old, Aaron Copland was already becoming an important voice in American music, a fact borne out by the numerous commissions he received for works to be conducted by Russian-born Serge Koussevitsky (1874-1951). In 1924, Koussevitsky became Music Director of the Boston Symphony, and began a steady stream of commisions of new American music. In 1925, the newly-formed League of Composers selected Copland for their first-ever commission, a work for chamber orchestra to be conducted by Koussevitsky.
Copland eventually settled on a multi-movement work he intended to call Incidental Music for an Imaginary Drama, changing it to Music for the Theatre, subtitled Suite in Five Parts. It is scored for an orchestra of as few as 18 musicians, perhaps recalling the pit orchestras common in American music halls. Each of the descriptive titles to the parts provide important musical directions; moreover, the work as a whole forms an arch. There are jazz and blues elements to the Prologue, while the Dance is no polite ballroom affair – this is a seedy nightclub romp – in which some instruments are directed to play deliberately “a little sharp,” or, “a little flat.” The Interlude slows and hushes things down, with deft touches for English horn, trumpet, and violin. The raunchy side of American entertainment returns in the Burlesque, an A-B-A structure with an A section inspired by vaudeville comedian banter, and an inner section a suggestive dance with a trumpet part marked “grotesco” (!). Music from the Prologue returns in the final Epilogue, but made more yearning. Music from the Interlude is also interpolated, as are small solos for clarinet, viola, bassoon, and violin.
Clarinet Concerto
Aaron Copland
First performance: November 6, 1950 on an NBC Radio broadcast
Last ESO performance: February 1990
American bandleader Paul Whiteman had proven that classical music and the American-born genre of jazz could successfully unite on the concert stage, so not long after his first pioneering efforts, other musicians jumped on the new crossover bandwagon. As one of America’s leading composers, Aaron Copland was much sought-after for these projects. After fielding offers from both Woody Herman and Benny Goodman, Copland accepted the more lucrative commission from the latter for a jazz concerto. He completed the first version in 1948, but revised it soon after, following concerns expressed by Goodman about some of the high notes and other technically difficult aspects. The revised version premiered on nationwide radio broadcast in 1950, with Fritz Reiner conducting.
Scored for an orchestra of strings, harp, and piano, the Clarinet Concerto is split into two sections, slow followed by fast, separated by a cadenza. “I think it will make everyone weep,” Copland himself opined about the lush, romantic first movement, which is in an A-B-A format. The “A” section’s dreamy dance quality, delicately set to the measured rhythm of the harp, derives from its origins in sketches Copland had worked on for a pas de deux. The central “B” section, for just the clarinet and strings, is sweetly romantic and touching. Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman says that the cadenza’s bridge into the finale takes us, “from classic chalumeau to licorice stick,” or in other words, from the world of classical music to the realm of jazz as the final movement heats things up. In what Copland called a “free rondo form,” the second movement’s spiky rhythms, set up by the strings prior to the soloist’s entrance, are in stark, spiky contrast to the opening movement. The clarinet enters, and begins a quirky dance. While there are plenty of staccato notes, there are also a surprising amount of lyrical lines amid the constantly shifting rhythmic landscape. The piano adds just the right amount of dance-club feel. Perhaps in a final nod to those groundbreaking Paul Whiteman shows (in which Gershwin’s celebrated Rhapsody in Blue premiered), there is a grand glissando for the clarinet (which is how Gershwin’s Rhapsody begins) as the cheeky final movement concludes.
Dreaming of the Masters I (2003 ESO commission)
Allan Gilliland (b. Darvel, Scotland, 1965)
First performance: September 26, 2003 at the Winspear Centre
Last ESO performance: Symphony Under the Sky 2005
Program note by the composer:
This work was composed in 2003 during my tenure as Composer in Residence with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Clarinetist James Campbell was scheduled to open our 2003/04 Pops series, and it was suggested that I compose a work for clarinet and orchestra. For a few years I had been thinking about how to combine my experience as an orchestral composer with my background as a jazz player. This led to the concept of a series of Jazz Concertos for soloists who were comfortable in both the classical and jazz idioms. Each concerto would be inspired by the great jazz soloists of that particular instrument, hence the title Dreaming of the Masters, but it would also allow the player the opportunity to improvise.
The complete title of the work is Dreaming of the Masters I, a Jazz Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra and, as mentioned above, an important jazz clarinetist inspires each movement. Movement I, titled Benny’s Bounce, is inspired by Benny Goodman. The sound of this movement is very much in the style of Louis Prima’s classic song Sing Sing Sing, one of Benny’s biggest hits. This movement also begins with one of the most famous moments in the clarinet repertoire, which I won’t give away here. Movement II is the slow movement, and is inspired by some of the great clarinetists of the 20’s and 30’s - artists like Pee Wee Russell and Barney Bigard. The title, Stranger on the Prairie, is an inside joke. One of the biggest hits for the clarinet is Acker Bilk’s Stranger on the Shore. Since Jim Campbell is from the Canadian prairies, I titled my movement Stranger on the Prairie. The final movement is called Rhythm Buddy, and its inspiration is Buddy DeFranco, one of the few clarinetists from the Bebop era. It is written on the chord changes to I Got Rhythm and quotes other famous “rhythm-changes” tunes. But it also has room for the solo instrument to show what it can do in the hands of a skilled player.
Fancy Free
Leonard Bernstein (b. Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1918 / d. 1990)
First performance of the ballet: April 18, 1944 in New York
First performance of the suite: January 14, 1945 in Pittsburgh
This is the ESO premiere of the work
“Three sailors explode on stage. They are out on shore leave, looking for excitement, women, drink, and any kind of fun they can stir up. Right now they are fresh, full of animal exuberance.” So began the sketchy outline an ambitious young dancer with New York’s Ballet Theater had dreamed up for a dance he wanted to create. But before Jerome Robbins could bring it to life, he needed a composer. Vincent Persichetti turned it down, but suggested Robbins try a young firebrand named Leonard Bernstein.
It was an auspicious time for Bernstein. In 1943, he had conducted the New York Philharmonic in an acclaimed concert broadcast throughout the United States. Just weeks before the ballet premiered, his “Jeremiah” Symphony had also won accolades. With the success Bernstein would enjoy with Jerome Robbins with the ballet Fancy Free, “Lenny” was now one of America’s hottest musical figures.
The scenario for Fancy Free doesn’t get a lot more complicated or involved than the Robbins sketchy description outlined above. The world was at war, men in uniform were ubiquitous on American city streets, and the lighthearted and energetic escapades Robbins put this three sailors to were a tonic for ballet audiences.
“The seven scenes of Fancy Free are actually symphonic pieces, but ballet audiences to not react to them as such, so well integrated is the music with the inventiveness of the choreography,” writes scholar Jack Gottlieb. The story of Robbins’ ballet is apparent in the movement descriptors for Bernstein’s score, which is imbued (hardly surprisingly) with jazz elements, and even an improvised nature. Bernstein quotes from an already-existing tune – “Big Stuff,” a hit for Billie Holiday, is heard at the outset, and forms the basis for the Pas de deux as well. With this score, Bernstein showed that he was ready to take on the musical theatre world, and only nine months after Fancy Free premiered, a more fully fleshed-out show had been made of it. With book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, an all-new score by Bernstein, and choreography once again by Robbins, On the Town ran for 462 performances, and later became a hit movie.
Program notes © 2012 by D.T. Baker, except as noted
Artist Info
William Eddins, conductor
William Eddins is in his seventh season as Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his tenure, he has made it a priority that he conduct performances in nearly every subscription series the orchestra has presented, as well as a wide variety of special concerts and galas.
Bill Eddins began playing the piano at age five, but was bitten by the conducting bug while in his sophomore year at the Eastman School of Music. In 1989, he decided to begin conducting studies with Daniel Lewis at the University of Southern California. Assistant Conductorships with both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony (the latter under the leadership of Daniel Barenboim) honed his skills even further.
Mr. Eddins has many interests outside music. He is fond of biking, tennis, reading, pinball, and cooking. He recently completed building his own recording studio at his home in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife Jen (a clarinetist), and their sons Raef and Riley. While conducting has been his principal pursuit, he continues to perform on piano in Edmonton and elsewhere. He accepts a limited number of guest appearances each year. In 2008, he conducted a rare full staging of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for Opéra de Lyon, which won him great acclaim, leading to a repeat engagement in Lyon in July and September 2010, as well as Edinburgh in August 2010, and in London in September 2010. During August 2009, Bill toured South Africa, conducting three gala concerts with soprano Renée Fleming and the kwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.
James Campbell, clarinet
James Campbell has followed his muse to five television specials, more than 40 recordings, over 30 works commissioned, a Roy Thomson Hall Award, Canada's Artist of the Year, the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal and Canada's highest honor, the Order of Canada. Called by the Toronto Star "Canada's pre-eminent clarinetist and wind soloist", Mr. Campbell has performed solo and chamber music concerts in 30 countries in many of the world’s great concert halls. He has been soloist with over 60 orchestras, including the Boston Pops, the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Russian Philharmonic, and the Montréal Symphony, and has performed Copland's Clarinet Concerto four times with Aaron Copland conducting. Mr. Campbell's recording of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Allegri Quartet was voted "Top Choice" by BBC Radio 3 and the London Times. Stolen Gems, a recording of lighter classics, won a Juno Award. Sony Classical has recently re-released his recording of the Debussy Premier Rhapsody with Glenn Gould.Since 1985, James Campbell has been Artistic Director of the Festival of the Sound, the annual summer Canadian chamber music festival, and has programmed over 1300 concerts for the festival. Under his direction the Festival has traveled to England, Japan, and the Netherlands, and it has been the subject of documentaries by BBC Television, CBC Television and TV Ontario. Mr. Campbell continues to explore and expand musically, his most recent collaboration being Spirit '20, created at Festival of the Sound, in 2010. The six member ensemble explores the music of the roaring 20's in new and innovative ways. James Campbell has been Professor of Music at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University since 1988.
Mr. Campbell last appeared with the ESO in January 2009.
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