Full Red Rock Strings Concert recorded Nov 17 2019

Program for the November 17, 2019 performance, to be broadcast by KGLP, 91.7 FM, at approximately 12 Noon MT on November 29, 2019:

                           Red Rock String Ensemble

                         Sunday, November 17, 2019

                         First United Methodist Church

Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op 34………………………………Sergei Prokofiev

                                                                                (1891-1953)               

Lori Lovato, clarinet

                        Luiz Carlos Barrionuevo, violin

                        Kimberly Robinson Hayes, violin

                        Bill Krzymowski, viola

                        Alexander Seman, cello

                        Erin Neilson, piano

 

Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44…………………………………Robert Schumann

                                                                                  (1810-1856)

             Allegro brillante

            In modo d’una marcia.  Un poco largamente

            Scherzo:  Molto vivace – Trio I – Trio II – L’istesso tempo

            Allergo, ma non troppo

 

                        Gabriela Fogo, violín

                        Kimberly Robinson Hayes, violín

                        Bill Krzymowski, viola

                        Alexander Seman, cello

                        Caleb Lauber, piano

 

Symphony No. 100 in G major, “Military”……………………………… Joseph Haydn

                                                                                       (1732-1809)

             Adagio – Allegro

            Allegretto

            Menuetto – Moderato

            Finale – Presto

  

Red Rock String Ensemble

 Violin         Kimberly Robinson Hayes                Flute    Katrina Brown

                  Bill Krzymowski

                  Gabriela Fogo                                Oboe     Carolyn Mazarakis

                  Luiz Carlos Barrionuevo                               Kristen Cochrane

                  Sarah Jones

                  Eva Carpenter                             Clarinet     Lori Lovato

                  Elizabeth Ketner                                          Toni Neff

                  Catherine Pope

                                                                   Bassoon     Megan Wilcox

Viola           Chris Dyer                                                   John Mezoff

                  Jessie Bay

                  Emmanuel Lalunio                            Horn     Anna Zweirs

                  Joseph Pope                                                 Russ Woods

                                                                                                                       

Cello           Hans Freuden                              Trumpet     Keith Cochrane

                  Doug Mason                                                 Kaia Tempest

                  Alex Seman

                                                                     Timpani    Pat Neff

Bass           Thomas Breece

                                                                  Percussion    Sarah Silva

Conductor   Sam Pemberton                                             Isaac Jones

                                                                                      Keiyah Jones

Friends

Gabriela Fogo, Alex Seman and Luiz Barrionuevo are graduate students at UNM, Albuquerque. 

Carolyn Mazarakis, Keith and Kristen Cochrane and Megan Wilcox play professionally in Albuquerque.

Joseph and Catherine Pope and Hans Freuden are from Farmington and play in the San Juan Symphony.

Caleb Lauber is a physican and works in Fort Defiance.

Lori Lovato is clarinetist with the New Mexico Philharmonic.

This concert is made possible by support from

The Gallup Independent

                                         Program Notes

Overture on Hebrew Themes………………..……………………………………Sergei Prokofiev

Prokofiev only rarely used folk music or themes by other composers in his scores.  Early in his career, in fact, he had decided as a matter of principle that he would employ only his own melodies and creative wares in his music.  In 1919, when he was living in the United States, he was approached by clarinetist Simeon Bellison to write a chamber work on Hebrew themes.  Bellison gave the composer a book containing some themes for possible use as source material.  Prokofiev initially rejected the proposal but several days later, after playing through and improvising upon some of the themes, he decided to write the work after all.  Prokofiev sketched the Overture on Hebrew Themes in a single day and produced a finished score in less than two weeks’ time.

The work is cast in a single movement featuring two main themes, the first lively and rhythmic, with a Middle Eastern flavor, the second slow and mournful and of a similar ethnic character.  Prokofiev develops the themes, especially the first, in the middle section, and imparts much color and variety through Hebrew-flavored harmonies and lively rhythms.  Despite the music’s Yiddish flavoring, however, the composer’s distinctive voice is prominent throughout.  Prokofiev’s adroit handling of the source material had led some listeners to assume that he himself was Jewish, he was, in fact, a lapsed member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The chamber ensemble Zimro premiered the Overture on Hebrew Themes on January 20, 1920.  The group used the proceeds from the concert to establish a music conservatory in Jerusalem. 

                                       Notes by Robert Cummings

Piano Quintet in E flat, Op. 44…………………………………..………………Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann’s Quintet for piano and strings in E flat major has earned a place of distinction among piano quintets, one of only a handful, including Johannes Brahms’ one entry in the genre and Dvorak’s Op. 81, that are known to more than just a few performers.  Although Schumann’s merits as a composer of “pure” instrumental music have been debated, no astute listener can doubt that the E flat Quintet is the product of a most fertile musical imagination – fresh, buoyant, and inventive.  1842 was Schumann’s year of chamber music:  after producing three string quartets, Schumann decided to make a happy synthesis of his recently acquired fluency with strings and piano – his native instrument.  Schumann sketched the Piano Quintet in the remarkably short time of five days and completed the score in the following two weeks.

The first movement, marked Allegro brillante, commences with a joyous idea that rings in the ear long after the texture has taken on a gentler tone.  Musings on this idea are set against characteristic pianistic figurations before the second theme, a dialogue between the cello and the viola take over.  The development section begins in the key of A flat minor in the piano, fragments of melody are voiced by the other players as the music moves into distant harmonic regions. 

In modo d’una Marcia, Un poco largamente is the marking of the following movement, throughout which a funereal atmosphere predominates.  The stark, mysterious primary melody is introduced by the first violin against a background of simple quarter notes in the lower registers of the other four instruments.  The appearance of the second theme is like a welcome ray of sunlight.  It was at Felix Mendelssohn’s urging that Schumann decided to throw away the A flat major section that originally served as the middle portion of this strange movement and replace it with the furious onslaught in F minor (agitato) that posterity has come to know.  

The Scherzo, molto vivace, makes a reprise of both the tonality and vivacious character of the first movement.  Schumann chooses to use two separate trios in the movement, the first a lyrical canon, and the second a more robust section in A flat minor.

Some of Schumann’s instrumental works conclude with movements that are but pale shadows of their brothers and sisters; not so with the Piano Quintet.  From the opening attack in C minor to the final glorious contrapuntal conclusion, the composer imbues this finale with so piquant a mixture of verve, anxiety, and delicate lyricism that it must surely be considered the crowning glory of the entire work.  A double fugue serves as the coda bringing the finale to a glorious and noble conclusion.

 Symphony No. 100 in G major, “Military”…………..………………………Franz Joseph Haydn

In the wake of Haydn’s glorious first journey to England in 1791-1792 (after three decades in the Esterhaza castle on a marshy plain in Western Hungary), he grew angry and dispirited back home in Vienna, where Prince Anton had moved the court.  While he remained the official and full-salaried Esterhazy Kapellmeister, there were no duties.  Newspapers took no notice of his return or the extraordinary success abroad.

And so, when Johann Peter Salomon invited Haydn back to England for two more seasons of concerts he was primed.  Managing to finagle permission from Prince Anton (who kept him on the payroll as a trophy) he left Vienna on January 19, 1794, accompanied by his copyist Joseph Eissler.  Haydn had already composed Symphony No. 99 and portions of 100 and 101 (the latter nicknamed Clock by London audiences) for a new season of 12 concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms, where an expert orchestra now included clarinets.  He and Salomon co-conducted – from the harpsichord and the concertmaster’s chairs respectively.

His Military Symphony was the 1794 season’s third and final premiere, on March 31 – Haydn’s 62^nd birthday – and enjoyed a career high success.  The audience demanded an encore after the second movement, which introduced “Turkish” instruments (triangle, crash cymbals, and bass drum) heretofore heard only in the opera house.  Conventional wisdom has held ever since that Haydn was commemorating the war-in-progress against France.  Trumpet music in the second movement was an actual army call known as the Austrian General Salute.  Surprises include assigning the exposition of the main theme of the first movement (after an Adagio introduction) to the flute and two oboes, unprecedented in concert music before 1794.

                                          Notes by Roger Dettmer

 

Recorded and edited for broadcast on KGLP, 91.7 FM, by Trey Chavez.