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Santa Barbara Music Club Free Concerts

December 1, 2018 @ 3:00 am PST

On Saturday, December 1 at 3 p.m. the Santa Barbara Music Club will present another program in its popular series of concerts of beautiful Classical music. The program features works that reconcile old and new, nostalgia and progression: J.S. Bach’s Sonata in D for Viola da gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1048; Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet in Eb, Op. 47; and Alexander Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances arranged for two pianos. This concert will be held at First United Methodist Church, 305 East Anapamu (at Garden), Santa Barbara. Admission is free.

The Baroque (or Early-Modern) period carries a reputation for the dramatic, as Europe experienced rapid social, economic, and intellectual change. An instance of such change occured the technological advances brought to instruments. For example, the cello and piano gradually replaced the viola da gamba and the harpsichord, respectively, as the former offered players increased range, dynamic expression, and resonance. But thanks to the Early-Music revival of the 20th century, we can enjoy J.S. Bach’s Sonata in D Major for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1048, performed today by Andrew Saunders and Ellie Melton, respectively. The composer did not so much “intend” the instrumentation to be set in stone; rather, such were the resources at his disposal. Composed around 1740 in Leipzig, Bach (1685 – 1750) comixed in this piece the old and the new: increasingly antiquated instruments cast in the fresh slow-fast-slow movement scheme. Archangelo Corelli popularized the three-movement plan, which became standard for compositions like the sonata da camera, sonata da chiesa, and the concerto. Bach, however, played a bit with the scheme and imbued concerto-like features in the D Major Sonata. On the one hand, he prefixed the opening movement with a brief Adagio, a practice that became more common in Classical-era works. On the other hand, the harpsichord originally had an accompanimental role, Bach gave it prominence almost equal to that of the viola da gamba.

Bach symbolized endless inspiration to the Romantics. Many composers forged strong associations between Bach and the city of Leipzig, as it was there he composed among his most monumental, contrapuntal works. It was also in Leipzig that Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered Bach and introduced his music to a general public in 1829. Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) also lived and composed in Leipzig. It is no surprise, then, both composers were members of the so-called “New Leipzig School.” In fact, possibly as an homage to Bach, Schumann often reserved contrapuntal writing for finales to his multi-movement compositions. Schumann’s Piano Quartet in Eb, Op. 47, demonstrates such a finale. Written in 1842, almost 100 years after Bach’s composing the D Major Sonata, Schumann’s Piano Quartet resulted from his year of composing chamber music almost exclusively. Its form recalls that of Bach’s Sonata, the fast-slow-fast plan; however, Schumann interpolates a fourth movement, a light, dance-like scherzo modeled after those of the Viennese Classical composers. The first movement is a typical fast movement in sonata-form; then comes the scherzo. A lyric, song-like slow movement follows as the third movement. Finally, Schumann’s nostalgic turn to Bach emanates from the fourth movement in the form of fugal writing a thrilling ride of virtuosic bravura presented today by violinist Carol Pool, violist Tom Turner, cellist Elizabeth Olson, and pianist Robert Hale.

Schumann is not the only composer on today’s program who found inspiration from the past. The original version of Alexander Borodin’s (1833 – 1887) most beloved contribution to the Western art-music repertory, the Polovtsian Dances, included a chorus. And it opens with rhetoric that smacks of nostalgia: “On the wings of gentle zephyrs seek thou, / O tender song, my native country, / The land where many a time I used to listen / To songs most sweet and dear to free-born maidens.” Borodin scored these dances as a climax to the second act of his unfinished opera Prince Igor, the story of which is based on an arguably spurious Russian medieval tale. Authentic or not, however, the “oldness” of the tale fit well into the 19th-century Russian Nationalist movement within the arts. Borodin, one of Russia’s “Mighty Handful” of composers, took on the project to compose Prince Igor as a means to distinguish Russian music from that of the then-hegemonic Germany. So what better way to do it than to draw upon an irretrievable – possibly even fictitious – past and clothe it in some of the most memorable 19th-century melodies? Since its premiere at the Saint Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre in November of 1890, the Polovtsian Dances has enjoyed life beyond that of its original operatic context. The work has appeared in countless arrangements for instrumental ensembles and used for several representational programs often involving the intersection of Russian and Eastern culture in general. Today, pianists Betty Oberacker and Eric Valinsky perform an arrangement of the Polovtsian Dances for two pianos.

The mission of the Santa Barbara Music Club is to contribute to the musical life of our community through the following:

1.Presentation of an annual series of concerts, free to the public, featuring outstanding solo and chamber music performances by Performing Members and invited guests;
2.Presentation of community outreach activities, including bringing great music to residents of area retirement homes;
3.Aiding and encouraging musical education by the disbursement of scholarships to talented local music students.

For information on this or other Santa Barbara Music Club programs and performing artists, visit SBMusicClub.org.

Details

Date:
December 1, 2018
Time:
3:00 am PST

Other

Event Ticket Type
Free
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