Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
23 October 2007

Alain Trudel, guest conductor
Patricia Green, soprano
Robert Pomakov, baritone

 

Guillaume Couture (1851-1915)
Le souvenir

Charles A.E. Harris (1862-1929)
The Happy Birds

Gena Branscombe (1881-1977)
Serenade

Ernest Lavigne (1851-1909)
Novembre — arr. Alain Trudel

Camargo Mozart Guarnieri (1907-1993)
Concerto for strings and percussion

Intermission
Refreshments are available upstairs in the concert hall.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony no. 14, op. 135

1. Adagio. De profundis (Federico García Lorca)
2. Allegretto. Malagueña (Federico García Lorca)
3. Allegro molto. Loreley (Guillaume Apollinaire)
4. Adagio. Le Suicidé (Guillaume Apollinaire)
5. Allegretto. Les Attentives I (On watch) (Guillaume Apollinaire)
6. Adagio. Les Attentives II (Madam, look!) (Guillaume Apollinaire)
7. Adagio. A la Santé (Guillaume Apollinaire)
8. Allegro. Réponse des Cosaques Zaporogues
au Sultan de Constantinople (Guillaume Apollinaire)
9. Andante. O, Del’vig, Del’vig! (Wilhelm Küchelbecker)
10. Largo. Der Tod des Dichters (Rainer Maria Rilke)
11. Moderato. Schlußstück (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Concert sponsor / LBL Holdings
Season sponsor / The Great-West Life Assurance Company
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio Two 98.3,
CBC Radio One 990 and Golden West Radio
Chamber Chatter sponsor / PricewaterhouseCoopers
Electronic media sponsor / Shaw Cable

 

Alain Trudel

Born in 1966, Alain Trudel has established himself internationally as a truly remarkable musician. He is widely hailed as a conductor, having led professional orchestras and ensembles on three continents and in a wide variety of repertoire, with repeated return invitations.

In 2006 Trudel was named Principal Conductor of the CBC Radio Orchestra based in Vancouver, the only Radio Orchestra in North America. Together, he and the Orchestra will explore new and exciting artistic territories. In addition, In addition, he served as Artistic Advisor to the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra for the past two years.

Alain Trudel was unanimously named Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra in 2004, a position that brings him great pride and joy and in which he will continue until June 2008.

In Canada, Trudel has been invited and re-invited to conduct numerous orchestras, including the Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria Symphony Orchestras, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestra London, l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the Hamilton Philharmonic, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. He has also conducted in several special contexts, including leading Les Violons du Roy in a live recording at the Montreal International Jazz Festival and l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal at the FestiBlues International Festival.

Beyond the borders of Canada, he has conducted the the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Guatemala, the Tokyo Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia in the UK, and several others.

First known to the public as a trombone soloist, Alain Trudel made his debut at the age of 18, with Charles Dutoit at the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal. He has been guest soloist with leading orchestras on five continents, including the Deutsche-Symphony (Berlin), l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Paris), the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Austrian Radio Orchestra (Vienna) and the Polish National Radio Television Orchestra.

He was the first Canadian to be an International Yamaha Artist. In the mid 1990s, Yamaha invited him to design an ‘Alain Trudel’ signature trombone mouthpiece, which they now market internationally.

During his seven-year tenure (four of them as president) at the Fondation pour les arts et la culture de Chambly-Carignan, Trudel encouraged excellence among the young through competitions and prizes in music, painting and literature.

Trudel has taught conducting and orchestral literature at the Glenn Gould Professional Music School (Royal Conservatory, in Toronto). He teaches trombone at the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec à Montréal. In the past decade he has trained some of Canada’s best trombonists and is very proud of their successes around the world.

Alain Trudel has recorded, both as trombonist and conductor, on the Naive, Atma, Warner, and Naxos labels and has numerous awards, among them the Virginia Parker (one of the most prestigious awards in Canada), Le grand prix de l'Académie Charles Cros (France), an Opus prize and a Juno.

Patricia Green

Praised for her “warm creamy voice” and three-octave ease, mezzo-soprano Patricia Green has gained international renown for her remarkable versatility and exceptional musicianship. A busy concert career has taken her to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, l’Opera de Montreal, Roy Thomson Hall and the Kennedy Center with distinguished conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Peter Eötvös, Zoltan Pesko, Sir David Willcocks, Reinbert de Leeuw and Pascal Rophé.

Career highlights include acclaimed performances of Ligeti’s Requiem with l’Orchestre de Radio-France and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the spectacular opening of the Terrace Gardens in Haifa, Israel with the Northern Israel Philharmonic, a European and Canadian tour of Claude Vivier’s opera, Kopernikus, and a “terrific” (The Globe and Mail) performance of Pierre Boulez’s Improvisation I & II (Pli selon pli), under the baton of the composer. Recent engagements include Bach cantatas with the Washington Bach Consort, the world premiere of Lady Lazarus by Laura Schwendinger in San Francisco, Mozart’s Mass in C minor in New York, Russian vocal duets and songs of Shostakovich with the Russian Chamber Arts Society in Washington and acclaimed performances of Puneiga by Heinz Holliger and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Hommage à T.S. Eliot with New Music Concerts in Toronto. Ms Green is arriving in Winnipeg from performances in St. Petersburg, Russia.

She has been featured in oratorios and chamber music with the Bethlehem Bach Society, Posthoornkerk Concerts, The Theatre Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center, Washington Bach Consort, Soundstreams Canada, Left Bank Concerts, Baltimore Choral Arts, Library of Congress Concerts, the National Symphony, the US Memorial Holocaust Museum Chamber Music series, Vancouver New Music, Cathedral Choral Society, Philharmonia Virtuosi of New York, Cornell University Stravinsky Festival, Wolf Trap Festival, Scotia Festival, Elora Festival and the Michoacan Tri-National Arts Festival in Mexico.

Patricia Green’s performances have been broadcast nationally on television and radio in Holland, France, Israel, Germany, Canada and the United States. Her discography includes recordings on Newport Classics, Albany Records, and Live Unity Productions. A fervent educator, she is currently on Faculty at the University of Western Ontario.

Robert Pomakov

Canadian bass Robert Pomakov has already earned attention for his unique voice and musicianship in opera, concert and recital. Only 25 years old, he is a recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During the current season, he sings his first performances as Fasolt in Das Rheingold at the Canadian Opera Company — with whom he has been singing regularly for many years.

He also makes his debut at Chicago’s Lyric Opera in a new Francesca Zambello production of Salomé conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, and at the Bordeaux Opera as Don Fernando in Fidelio. After this he returns to the COC to sing in a new production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In concert, he sings Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in Florida, Toledo and Calgary.

In earlier seasons Robert made his Washington Opera debut, to superb reviews, as Leporello in Don Giovani conducted by Placido Domingo and also sang for the first time in Houston, St. Louis, Montpellier, London and Brussels.

Robert Pomakov graduated from the world-renowned St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto in 1999 and since then has performed with numerous organizations including festivals such as Ravinia, Lanaudiere and Elora.

Robert Pomakov has performed two recitals at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio, one of which was broadcast by the CBC. He sang the Verdi Requiem with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, an opera gala with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 14 with the COC and a European tour of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne which has been issued on Naxos Records.

Robert Pomakov has been a prizewinner in several of the world’s premier singing competitions: he was a finalist in the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Belgium, won second place at the Belvedere Competition in Vienna and third place in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia. In September 2006, Mr. Pomakov was decorated with the Simeon I Honorary Medal from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria, and with a Diploma from the Minister of Culture for his achievements in opera’s art and special merit to Bulgarian culture and its dissemination all over the world.

Le Souvenir (1907)
Guillaume Couture

Guillaume Couture is considered by some to be the first great musician in the history of Canada. Born in Montreal, his gifts manifested early (by the age of 13 he was serving as choirmaster of his local church), and in 1873 he received sponsorship to travel to Paris, studying with great success at the Conservatoire. On his return home in 1875, he became a critic for La Minerve, but his high standards and exacting attitude towards the music of others unfortunately won him the animosity of his colleagues, and he returned to Paris the following year. He was held in high regard by the leading French composers of the day, and could have looked forward to a promising career there but, according to his grandson the composer Jean Papineau-Couture, his sense of duty to his homeland soon won out, and he returned to Montreal for good in 1877, pursuing a career primarily as a conductor and educator. Le souvenir was written in 1907, and is firmly in the tradition of French art song, although it also recalls the Lacrimosa of Verdi’s Requiem (Couture’s own setting of the Requiem premiered in 1906). While the singer‘s music remains the same from verse to verse, the accompaniment varies, painting the doleful and nocturnal scene of the poem, and capturing the insistence of unhappy memory.

The Happy Birds (1896), from Torquil
C.A.E. Harriss

Charles Harriss was born in London and educated in the English cathedral tradition. He was organist and choir director at several churches before finally succeeding his father to the post of organist-choirmaster at St. James the Apostle in Montreal, where he served from 1886 to 1894. In 1897 a favourable marriage allowed him to become an impresario, a career he pursued with great gusto. He brought many British artists to North America for extensive tours, and likewise introduced Canadian musicians in London. He was not, it seems, one to think small; among the many festivals and concerts he organized (some of which he also conducted) was a 1911 tour of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the US, entitled the Musical Festival of the Empire. He was also the force behind the Imperial Choir, a 4500-voice ensemble which formed the core of the 10,000-voice group that performed in 1911, and again in 1919 in celebration of the end of the First World War. Harriss’s compositions were performed throughout the British Empire during his own lifetime. Like the other Canadian works on this program, The Happy Birds (an aria from his opera-oratorio Torquil) is in a style very much in keeping with contemporary continental influences.

Serenade (1905)
G. Branscombe

Gena Branscombe was born in Picton, near Kingston, Ontario, but spent most of her career in the United States. She studied composition, songwriting and piano at the Chicago Musical College from 1897 to 1903 (winning gold medals in composition in 1900 and 1901) and in 1909 traveled to Berlin to study with Engelbert Humperdinck. In 1928 she received the League of American Pen Women annual prize for her choral drama Pilgrims of Destiny, for which she wrote both text and music, and in that same year she became president of the Society of American Women Composers. Branscombe went on to have a long and productive career as a composer, conductor, teacher, pianist, and public figure, serving and holding office in both musical and women’s organizations. While she composed in a wide range of genres, she is best known for her vocal and choral works, and made especially significant contributions to the repertoire for women’s chorus. Serenade was composed in 1905 during her time in Chicago. The song is brief but expressive, with a simple beauty and sentimentality that recalls early Richard Strauss.

Novembre (1882)
Ernest Lavigne — arr. Alain Trudel

Ernest Lavigne was a bandmaster, cornettist, composer, publisher and entrepreneur. As a young man he joined the French army, and soon became the solo cornettist in the band of the Roman Zouaves. By 1873 he had seen much of Europe; by 1878 he could say the same of the eastern United States, where he had garnered many awards as an instrumentalist and as the leader of Montreal’s Bande de la Cité. Beginning in 1874 he led a varied musical life in Montreal and Quebec City, organizing and conducting brass bands in the region, running a music store with his brother Arthur, and founding a publishing firm and, using proceeds from that venture, an amusement park. As a composer Lavigne mainly wrote parlour songs with simple, tuneful melodies; Novembre (composed in 1882) is a more serious work, and reflects the turn toward Schubertian lied that French song in Canada took in the 1780s.

Concerto for strings and percussion
Camargo Mozart Guarnieri

The Brazilian composer and conductor C.M. Guarnieri spent most of his professional career in his native São Paulo, serving as conductor of the Symphony starting in the late 1940s, and founding the string orchestra of the University of São Paulo in 1976 (he served as director until 1992). His international reputation was established through a fellowship trip to Paris in 1938 (where he met Boulanger, and studied with Koechlin and Ruhlmann), and through award trips in the 1940s to the US, where he conducted his own works with the Boston Symphony.

Like his countryman Villa-Lobos before him, Guarnieri was heavily influenced by the neoclassicism of Stravinsky. The first movement of the Concerto for strings and percussion hews closely to this model, with the snare drum in particular recalling L’histoire du soldat. Guarnieri uses typically neo-classical wrong-note harmonies, points of imitation and irregular rhythms to create a frenetic and urban sound, into which he then weaves Latin elements, especially samba (or samba-like) rhythms. The second movement follows without pause, omitting percussion in favour of a tranquil mood founded on lavish string textures and harmonies.

The finale opens with an homage to Prokofiev’s Toccata for piano solo. The insistent and methodical rhythms promise a perpetuum mobile; the solo violin meanwhile hints at a hoe-down. After a time, however, this all fades out, almost as if it were a train receding on the horizon. This image is immediately reinforced by the ensuing percussion cadenza, which fades both in and out — passing in pursuit, leaving the listener standing alone, watching as two puffs of smoke race into the distance. A lone violin steps in to occupy the resulting silence with an almost baroque interlude, which presently picks up just the tiniest bit of momentum, and we’re back to the beginning again, but watch out! The timpani catch that motor and beat out a tattoo to rattle the rafters, and it’s over.

Symphony no. 14, op. 135
Dmitri Shostakovich

Speaking at the premiere of his 14th Symphony in 1969, Shostakovich is reported to have stated, “Death is terrifying, there is nothing beyond it. I don’t believe in life beyond the grave.”

Shostakovich had been given plenty of time to think about his subject. While he had managed — unlike many of his colleagues — to survive the worst years of the Soviet Union, he nevertheless spent much of that time in danger. His troubles began with words. In 1936, an article appeared in the state press condemning his (to that point very successful) fourth opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. It is difficult for those who have grown up in an open society to imagine, but this article, rumoured to have been written by Stalin himself, was tantamount to a death threat. Shostakovich got the message, and shut up. He made no further significant contributions as an opera composer.

His self-censoring did not end there. Whereas two of his four symphonies to that point had included chorus, the next eight were purely instrumental. Even these became more careful: the listeners who experienced only the symphonies were given no reason to question the loyalty of their author. In these high-profile, public compositions (and also in his professional life), Shostakovich became by necessity a model man of the state. It was only in the chamber works, some of which he did not allow to circulate, that he granted himself a cautious license to express the fear and suffering of a composer and a society driven underground.

This dynamic changed somewhat after Stalin’s death. Responding to the ‘Thaw’ under Krushchev’s premiership, Shostakovich made so bold as to include in his 13th Symphony these words by the poet Yevtushenko: “Fears are dying out in Russia, like the wraiths of yesteryear… I recall them strong and potent at the Court of Lies Triumphant. Fears all ‘round like shades were lurking… When we should have kept silent, they made us scream, and when we should have screamed, they kept us silent… The silent fear of anonymous accusation, the fear to hear a knocking at the door…”

The Symphony was derided in the press, and Yevtushenko was forced to alter his words by command of the government. When Shostakovich’s next symphony was set to premiere, the state arranged to review it first in private.

Despite this scrutiny, in the 14th Symphony one senses that the cat is already out of the bag. The piece bridges the gap that Shostakovich had built between his public and private music, using the orchestra to speak directly and in firm tones about tyranny and imprisonment, but also making use of the intimate and at times excruciating language of the chamber works.

The composer’s personal situation may have contributed to this candor. From the time of its inception through to the premiere, Shostakovich believed himself on the verge of death — where he would be out of reach of the authorities. He was wrong, but a diffident spectre had entered into his composition, and would remain with him to colour his last works. The opening notes of the Symphony are in this new mode, whose pale cast takes the anonymity of the ‘knock on the door’ one step further, into a cold, even monumental indifference. Halfway around the world, at roughly the same time as this symphony was being created, Kurt Vonnegut was writing this: “even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.”

 

 

MCO's 2008/09 season is sponsored by The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Support has been received from Media sponsors The Winnipeg Free Press, CBC Radio One 990,
CBC Radio Two 98.3, Golden West Radio & Shaw Cable. MCO's Chamber Chatter newsletter
is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Heartstrings gala
sponsor: Mackenzie Financial Corporation.

© 2008 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra