ARTIST BIOS
Norwegian-born conductor Arild Remmereit took his first piano lessons at age 6 and his first trumpet lessons at 8; he also had a career as a boy soprano. Later he joined pop and jazz bands playing keyboards. He has lived in Vienna, Austria, since 1987.
In 1986, he graduated from the Norwegian Conservatory of Music in Oslo, where he studied piano, song and composition. He attended the Aspen conducting seminar in Colorado (1985), and he graduated from Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna under the direction of Professor Karl Österreicher. At the same institution, he attended a master class with Zubin Mehta.
He studied with Leonard Bernstein at Santa Cecilia in Rome and assisted him with recordings in Vienna (1987–90). He worked with Myung-Whun Chung at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo in 1989 and at the National Opera in Paris, France, in 1994.
Remmereit conducted Wiener Residenz Orchester from 1989 to 1992. He was artistic director at the Ukrainian State Opera in Kharkov from 1992 to 1995, during which time he also conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra in Kiev. He led these ensembles on tours through Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Remmereit has conducted orchestras and opera companies worldwide, including the Baltimore Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Copenhagen Royal Theatre, Detroit Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala Milan, Houston Symphony and KBS Symphony.
He has conducted at international festivals including Beethoventage, Kirchenmusiktage and Jazzherbst in Austria; Tchakarov Festival in Bulgaria; Janácek-May in the Czech Republic; Donaufest and Weber Musiktage in Germany; Umbria Music Festival in Italy; the Oslo Chamber Music Festival in Norway and the Grand Teton Music Festival in the United States.
His collaboration with jazz musicians like Joe Zawinul and singer Maria Joao shows a versatile repertoire that includes contemporary music.
An artist of immense range and insight, Vladimir Feltsman is recognized as one of the most imaginative, versatile and constantly interesting musicians of our time. He regularly appears on the most prestigious concert series and music festivals worldwide.
Highlights of the 2008–09 season include performances of Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in New York, Chicago, Budapest and Paris with the London Symphony Orchestra, and concerts with the Orchestra de Paris, New World Symphony, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
Feltsman’s repertoire encompasses music from the Baroque to 20th-century composers. He expressed his lifelong devotion to the music of J.S. Bach in a cycle of concerts that spanned four consecutive seasons at the Tisch Center for the Performing Arts in New York. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented his recent project Masterpieces of the Russian Underground, unfolding a panorama of Russian contemporary music through the unprecedented survey of piano and chamber works of 14 different composers from Shostakovich to the present day.
Feltsman debuted with the Moscow Philharmonic at age 11. In 1969, he entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Music to study piano under Jacob Flier. In 1971, Feltsman won the Grand Prix at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition in Paris.
He holds the Distinguished Chair of Professor of Piano at the State University of New York, New Paltz, and teaches at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He is the founder and artistic director of the International Festival-Institute Piano Summer at New Paltz, a month-long training program for students that offers a unique, multifaceted approach to all aspects of piano performance and attracts musicians from all over the world.
His extensive discography has been released by Sony Classical, Music Heritage Society and Camerata, Tokyo. A U.S. citizen since 1995, he lives in upstate New York. |
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PROGRAM NOTES
BY LAURIE SHULMAN, ©2008
FIRST NORTH AMERICAN SERIAL RIGHTS ONLY
Bright Blue Music
Michael Torke
Born September 22, 1961 in Milwaukee
Colors, and their connection with sounds, were a recurrent concept in Michael Torke’s music during the 1980s. He produced a series of major orchestral scores with titles like Ecstatic Orange (1985), Copper (1988), Slate (1989), Verdant Music (1986—later renamed Green) and Bright Blue Music (1985).
How many colors in the spectrum?
Torke’s horizons look beyond the limitations of the color palette. During his “color phase,” people frequently asked him, “What will you do when you run out of colors?” He would chuckle and respond that the question was as immaterial as asking, “What will you do when you run out of notes?” Torke has strong tonal associations with certain colors; for example, he perceives D Major as a blue key, from which comes the tonal center and title of this work. The composer’s note in the score explains:
Inspired by Wittgenstein’s idea that meaning is not in words themselves, but in the grammar of the words used, I conceived of a parallel in musical terms: harmonies in themselves do not contain meaning; rather, musical meaning results only from the way harmonies are used. Harmonic language is then, in a sense, inconsequential. If the choice of harmony is arbitrary, why not use the simplest, most direct, and (for me) most pleasurable: tonic and dominant chords. Once this decision was made, an unexpected freedom of expression followed. With the simplest means, my musical emotions and impulses were free to guide me. Working was exuberant; I would leave my outdoor studio and the trees and bushes seemed to dance, and the sky seemed a bright blue.
That bright blue color contributed toward the piece’s title, but in conjunction with another personal association. The key of D Major, the key of this piece (from which there is no true modulation) has been the color blue for me since I was five years old.
Torke’s music is an amalgam of cultures, drawing upon diverse sources ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Luciano Berio, rhythm and blues, Steve Reich and popular music. His appeal derives from an instinctive sense for establishing emotional contact with his audience. Like most of his scores, Bright Blue Music is fresh, happy, upbeat and energetic.
About the composer
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Torke left graduate school at Yale when his career took off in 1984. He collaborated for five years with Peter Martins and the New York City Ballet and has since worked with other major dance troupes and a wide variety of orchestras. The Skylight Opera presents the premiere of his opera Central Park West in Milwaukee this month. He also has forthcoming projects with the Metropolitan Opera and the Grant Park Music Festival.
Bright Blue Music is scored for three flutes (two doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, suspended cymbal, maracas, tambourine, woodblocks, claves, bongo, crash cymbals, two brake drums, triangle, piano, harp and strings.
Timing: Approximately 9 minutes.
Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 15
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany
Died March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria
Confusion in numbering
Despite its designation as “first” and having an early opus number, the C Major concerto was not Beethoven’s first piano concerto. An early work in E-flat Major dates from his teenage years in Bonn. Better known than that youthful effort is the Concerto in B-flat, Op.19, which was composed in 1795 and appeared on Viennese concert programs in the mid-1790s. (That work will be performed by the NJSO this November, as part of this season’s complete survey of the Beethoven keyboard concertos.)
He composed C Major concerto slightly later—possibly in 1796 but no later than 1798. It figured prominently as a concert vehicle for Beethoven himself early on in his career, when he had a formidable reputation as a pianist.
Influence of the Salzburg master, Mozart
Many listeners will detect the strong imprint of Mozart on this work. In particular, the ceremonial air, military character and shared tonality of Mozart’s Concerto No. 25 in C, K. 503, invite comparison. Less obvious but equally compelling is the parallel in virtuosic figuration patterns with Mozart’s D Major concerto, K. 537 (“Coronation”). Clearly, Beethoven had studied Mozart’s works carefully.
Beethoven expanded significantly on the Mozartean concerto model. The first movement expands to about 17 minutes, in part because of Beethoven’s elaborate solo cadenza, but also because of the symphonic treatment of the whole. Despite its unusual length, the first movement is compact. The characteristic reworking of motivic ideas mingles with some surprisingly singable melodies.
The slow movement is a lovely cantilena in the key of A-flat. Both its rich ornamentation and its tranquil spirit look forward to the “Emperor” Concerto (the last of Beethoven’s five piano concertos—the NJSO will perform that work in this season’s final program). An expressive clarinet solo contributes an intimate, chamber-music-like dialogue to this movement. The bubbly finale is among the wittiest movements that Beethoven ever composed. Even its subsidiary themes exude rhythmic vitality, fully realizing the scherzando (joking) instruction of Beethoven’s subtitle.
The score calls for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, solo piano and strings.
Timing: Approximately 36 minutes.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Modest Mussorgsky
Born March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia
Died March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg, Russia
Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel
Born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrenées, France
Died December 28, 1937 in Paris, France
Musician and painter: portraits in sound
The trumpet solo that opens Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the most recognizable melodies in all of classical music. It is also one of the most personal: a self-portrait of the composer, who casts himself in the principal role of the visitor wandering through the exhibition the title suggests. The other principal character, who appears vicariously through his paintings, is Victor Hartmann, a prominent Russian artist and close friend of the composer. When Hartmann died in 1873 at the age of 39, Mussorgsky was shattered, for the two young men had shared artistic ideals and ambitions as part of their friendship.
Memorial exhibit and musical tribute
A year after Hartmann’s death, an exhibition of his paintings, watercolors and architectural drawings was organized in St. Petersburg by Vladimir Stassov, director of Fine Arts at the Imperial Library. In an attempt to illustrate some of the paintings in music and pay tribute to his friend, Mussorgsky commenced work on a set of piano pieces. The resulting composition, Pictures at an Exhibition, remains one of the cornerstones of the virtuoso keyboard repertoire, but is far less well known than the version orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. Ironically, the exceptional difficulty of Mussorgsky’s piano writing prevented the cycle from achieving a niche in the amateur repertoire. The cycle was not even published until 1887, six years after the composer’s death.
The succeeding generation of Russian composers busied itself not only by composing new works, but also with completing those left behind by composers who had died young, including Borodin and Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazounov. Not until Ravel put his magical hand to the score of Pictures at an Exhibition in 1922 did it find a permanent place in concert programs.
Parallel with Schumann
Pictures at an Exhibition is ingenious in both its piano and orchestral incarnations. Structurally, it is a suite of 10 miniatures connected by a recurring interlude that varies slightly each time it returns. Mussorgsky’s musical precedent for such an idea is the large programmatic solo-piano works of Robert Schumann, particularly Papillons, Carnaval and Kreisleriana.
Other striking parallels between Mussorgsky and Schumann come to mind. Like his German predecessor, Mussorgsky composed best in the first flush of inspiration; the refinement of ideas often presented problems. Writing to Vladimir Stassov (the eventual dedicatee of the piano pieces) in June 1874, Mussorgsky exclaimed:
Hartmann is bubbling over, just as Boris did. Ideas, melodies come to me of their own accord, like the roast pigeons in the story—I gorge and gorge and overeat myself. I can hardly manage to put it all down on paper fast enough.
The immediacy of Mussorgsky’s impressions keeps them as fresh and vivid as the colors of Hartmann’s paintings.
Paintings translated into music
Mussorgsky’s incisive portraits of human nature are some of the finest in all music: women haggling over market prices at Limoges in search of a daily bargain, children squabbling at play in the gardens of the Tuileries and, perhaps the most trenchant of all, the caricature of ponderous Samuel Goldenberg, the wealthy Jew, conversing with the poor obsequious chatterer Schmuyle. Mussorgsky himself was especially fond of the several Promenades, and they remain the closest we have to a musical self-portrait of this elusive Russian composer.
The celebrated Russian-born conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who was based in Paris from 1920 to 1924, commissioned Ravel to orchestrate Pictures at an Exhibition. Koussevitzky owned the exclusive rights to the orchestral version for many years.
The score calls for three flutes (second and third doubling piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), two clarinets, one bass clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion (including triangle, tam tam, bass drum, glockenspiel, bells, celesta, rattle, whip, xylophone and timpani), two harps and strings.
Timing: Approximately 35 minutes. |
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