From Spain and the Plains to the plain

MCO’s guest artist list reads like a Who’s Who of the international music scene, and that flavour is reflected in our programming. It’s how we hooked Anne Manson.

"When I first came to the MCO, we were doing a fair number of cross-cultural projects, such as the one with Kiran Ahluwahlia, and we talked about something similar. I thought this would be a way to still play classical music, but music with a strong cultural presence and folklore. This concert is focused not just on Spanish music, but beyond, into a range of things Spanish."

Guest conductor Jesús Amigo comes to us directly from Spain, while mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne hails from Québec.

Maestro Jesús Amigo

Jesús Amigo’s repertoire includes all styles and periods, from Baroque to contemporary music, giving special attention to Spanish music. Perfect for this concert, says Anne Manson. "With these musical materials, we wanted someone Spanish to conduct, and Jesús is very skilled at this repertoire."

*Pre-concert event *

Work by Flamenco choreographer Claire Marchand; 6:45 pm

Programme

Joaquín Rodrigo
Dos miniaturas andaluzas

Joaquín Turina
Serenata, op. 87

José Evangelista
Cantares, for mezzo-soprano and strings

Joaquín Turina
La oración del torero

Isaac Albéniz
Cadiz, Saeta Suite Española, op. 47
— arr. Fruhbeck de Burgos

Manuel de Falla
El amor brujo

Concert sponsor: Gail Asper Family Foundation

Jesús Amigo

Jesús Amigo has been tightly linked to music since his early childhood. His father, at the time leader of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, introduced him to this enthralling world. Later, Amigo attended the Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga Conservatory in Bilbao studying piano, composition and flute.He graduated in Orchestral Conducting with maestro Octav Calleya and continued his studies with maestros Enrique García Asensio, Antoni Ros Marbá and Sergiu Comissiona. Important influences in his career were Sergiu Celibidache and Carlo Maria Giulini — whom he met through their frequent concerts and conferences in Madrid. Amigo gives special attention to Spanish music but his repertoire includes all styles and periods, from baroque to contemporary music.

Amigo's career started as the leading conductor of both the Symphony Orchestra (1995-1999) and the Grupo de Música Contemporánea of the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Madrid. With these groups he worked extensively as a teacher and as a concert artist. In 2000 he was appointed Music and Artistic Director of the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra; since then, he and the orchestra have created an enviable reputation with their high-quality performances, their ambitious and attractive programming and their acclaimed recordings.

Jesús Amigo is sought after as a guest conductor and has conducted orchestras in Europe, the US and Asia — among them the Spanish National Orchestra, Reina Sofia Chamber Orchestra, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Seville Symphony Orchestra, Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Mexico State Symphony Orchestra, Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, North Czech Philharmonic, Robert Schumann Philharmonie, Kammerorchester Berlin, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Greenville Symphony, Sinfonica di Roma, Beijing Symphony and the Gyeonggi Philharmonic. He has collaborated with artists such as Joaquín Achúcarro, Maria Joao Pires, Félix Ayo, Teresa Berganza, María Orán, Radovan Vlatkovic, Christian Lindberg, Gerard Caussé, Benjamin Schmid, Alexandre Da Costa and Jorge Luis Prats.

Maestro Amigo is a keen proponent of contemporary music; he has commissioned and premiered numerous works and has also made recordings of the least played twentieth-century repertoire — for example works by Portuguese composers Freitas Branco, Joly Braga Santos and Armando José Fernandes. During the next seasons Jesús Amigo will perform in Germany, Portugal, Canada, USA, Switzerland, Mexico, Italy, China and Spain.

Julile Boulianne

A multi-prize-winning graduate of McGill University's Schulich School of Music, French-Canadian Julie Boulianne has been acclaimed for the agility and expressive power of her dark-hued mezzo-soprano in a wide repertoire. Having a voice The New York Times calls "subtle and pure," she distinguished herself in the role of Isolier in Rossini's Le Comte Ory while still a member of the Juilliard Opera Center.

Julie Boulianne opened the 2010/11 season of Pacific Opera Victoria in her signature role of Rossini's La Cenerentola. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Diane in Stephen Wadsworth's production of Iphigénie en Tauride, conducted by Patrick Summers, and returned to that company as Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette, under the baton of Plácido Domingo.

During the 2009/10 season, Ms. Boulianne made her New York City opera debut in Chabrier's comedic opera L'étoile, sang Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro at Vancouver Opera and portrayed the title role in Massenet's Cendrillon at l'Opéra de Montréal and at l'Opéra de Marseille. Her concert calendar included Ravel's Shéhérazade with Emmanuel Villaume and the Utah Symphony and Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été with l'Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean.

Julie Boulianne has appeared frequently at Montreal Opera, Quebec Opera and McGill Opera. She has also performed extensively in France and made her U.S. debut in 2006 at Nashville Opera in the title role of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges — subsequently singing Isolier in Le Comte Ory and Mrs. Soames in the New York premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town at the Juilliard Opera Center. In March 2009, Naxos Records released a CD featuring Julie Boulianne and the Nashville Symphony, which was nominated for the Grammy award for Best Classical Album.

In addition to her operatic work, Julie Boulianne has a flourishing concert career, and is a regular guest of orchestras including l'Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, l'Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, Les Violons du Roy and the Montreal, Nashville, Quebec and Edmonton Symphony Orchestras. She has recorded for Chaîne Culturelle de Radio-Canada, Radio France, and on the Naxos label.

Dos miniaturas andaluzas (Two Andalusian Miniatures)
Joaquín Rodrigo

Known above all for the enchanting Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra (perhaps the most-performed concerto of the twentieth century), Rodrigo composed a large catalogue of other music as well. It includes additional concertos (for violin, piano, flute, cello, harp, two and four guitars), miscellaneous orchestral pieces, numerous solo guitar works, a ballet, a zarzuela (operetta), and many songs — nearly 200 works in all.

Blind from the age of three, he began his musical education in Valencia, then moved to Paris for composition lessons with Paul Dukas. He returned to work in Madrid after the Spanish Civil War. While his reputation as a composer grew steadily, he was also active as an academic, music critic and radio producer. Later he toured the world, teaching, lecturing and attending festivals devoted to his music. He received many honours during his nearly 98 years, including major awards in France, the United States, Spain and Belgium.

This is how the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians summed up his career: "Rodrigo's music was fundamentally conservative, 'neocasticista' or 'faithful to tradition' to use the composer's own words. His first works revealed the influence of composers such as Granados, Ravel and Stravinsky, but his individual musical voice was soon heard in the songs, piano works and orchestral pieces composed during the 1920s and 30s. As he matured, his wide knowledge of and sympathy with the music and culture of earlier times bore fruit. His forms were traditional, but appropriate for his purposes, and his musical language, drawn from Classical and nationalist sources, underpinned a melodic gift of remarkable eloquence. He made many of the finest settings of classical Spanish poetry, his guitar pieces are in the central repertory, and his concertos are the most significant such works composed in Spain."

Rodrigo composed Dos miniaturas andaluzas for string orchestra in 1929, 10 years prior to the Concierto de Aranjuez. The music languished in his personal archive in Madrid for 70 years. The premiere took place in Valencia, Spain, on November 1999, just four months after his death.

The opening Preludio is slow and rather melancholy in character, perhaps evoking the music of the past that fascinated Rodrigo throughout his career. In the second section, Danza, the mood shifts to bright and sunny, animated by the lively rhythms of Spanish folk music.

Serenata (Serenade), Op. 87
Joaquín Turina

Turina's parents wanted him to pursue a career in medicine, but the musical gift that he had displayed from early on could not be denied. His studies began with piano lessons and progressed to composition. Early successes emboldened him to visit Madrid in hopes of having an opera performed there. This proved impossible for an unknown composer from the provinces.

Under the guidance of a generous and more experienced composer, Manuel de Falla, he tried his hand at composing zarzuelas. Finding no success in that field either, he relocated to Paris and undertook further study. His instructors at the Schola Cantorum included Vincent d'Indy. He composed several works in a modernist style, but they generated little enthusiasm.

In 1907, he and Falla took part in a Parisian performance of a Turina quintet. The celebrated Spanish composer, Isaac Albéniz, was in the audience. Afterwards he took his two young colleagues to a café and recommended that Turina cast off his conservative models and look to Spanish folk music for inspiration. Turina decided to take this advice, but only to the point of making folk flavouring one ingredient in his style. The shift earned him the breakthrough he had been longing for, through such pieces as the vivid orchestral tone poem, La procesión del Rocio (1913).

Turina composed this attractive Serenata, in its original form for string quartet, from 1933 to 1935. This version for string orchestra received its premiere in 1943. The music exhibits considerable charm, as it passes through moods ranging from sweet and intimate to playful and vivacious.

Cantares (songs)
José Evangelista

The composer has written
the following note:

Cantares (Singings) is based on 16 traditional songs from Spain, mostly from Castile. There are religious songs, love songs, social songs and a lullaby.

The songs are presented as close as possible to the source. Contrary to usual arrangements, the melodies are not harmonized or embellished with counterpoint. Nor are they formally developed. The instruments provide an accompaniment by ornamenting the melody or playing drones and, sometimes, ostinati. I have already applied this way of treating traditional songs in other compositions. My idea is that there are still ways of presenting traditional material without imposing a harmonic language. Most of the songs are probably fairly old and present modal features that may be difficult to reconcile with the tonal language. Some songs use microtonal tunings. My arrangements are monodic and I often use heterophonic techniques inspired by traditional musics of world cultures.

La oración del torero (The Toreador's Prayer), Op. 34
Joaquín Turina

Turina composed La oración del torero in 1925. He originally scored it for a quartet of lauds, a guitar-like Spanish folk instrument. When the manuscript was lost, he produced new versions for string quartet and string orchestra. Here is his description of this atmospheric music's inspiration: "One afternoon of bullfighting in the Madrid arena … I saw my work. I was in the court of horses. Behind a small door, there was a chapel, filled with incense, where toreadors went right before facing death. It was then there appeared, in front of my eyes, in all its plenitude, this subjectively musical and expressive contrast between the hubbub of the arena, the public that awaited the fiesta, and the devotion of those who, in front of this poor altar, filled with touching poetry, prayed to God to protect their lives."

Cádiz, from Suite española, Op. 47
Isaac Albéniz

Albéniz led an early life of Hollywood-style adventure. At 12, and already a seasoned concert pianist, he stowed away on a ship bound for the Americas. Returning to Europe, he undertook formal musical instruction, including lessons from Franz Liszt. His youthful compositions are lightweight, cosmopolitan salon music. Under the tutoring of noted teacher Felipe Pedrell, he began creating music with a distinctly Spanish tang. After spending several years in Paris, where he became friends with Debussy, Chausson and other prominent composers, he hit his creative stride by merging Spanish earthiness and French refinement.

His catalogue is dominated by piano music, but also includes a number of theatre works, songs and a handful of pieces involving the orchestra. The Suite española (Spanish Suite, published in 1886) is one of his most popular piano creations, though it is heard as often in transcriptions for guitar as it is in its original form. The Spanish/German conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos prepared an orchestral version in the 1960s. From it you will hear Cádiz. It is a sweet, lyrical serenade in tribute to that Spanish city. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos scored it for strings alone.

El amor brujo (Love, the Magician)
Manuel de Falla

Falla's music blended Spanish folk roots with the impressionism of composers such as Debussy and Ravel, whom he, like Albéniz before him, came to know personally during the years he spent in Paris. Their influence and encouragement helped him to lead Spanish music onto a new path, away from its tradition of providing little more than simple illustration and more toward the mainstream of international twentieth-century composition.

He composed El amor brujo shortly after his return to Spain from France. Pastora Imperio, a well-known gypsy dancer from Falla's native province of Andalusia, approached him and author Gregorio Martinez Sierra to commission a song and dance for her to perform. The folk songs she and her mother sang to Falla, and the gypsy fables they told Sierra, sowed the seeds for what became not just a single number but a full ballet with song.

The first performance of El amor brujo, which took place in Madrid in 1915, used a chamber ensemble to accompany the action. Only the dancers found it to their liking, the critics denouncing it as "a minor essay" and, astonishingly, "lacking in Spanish flavour." Falla and Martinez made major revisions. It is the second, more elaborately orchestrated version that has been performed ever since.

The revised scenario revolved around the gypsy girl Candelas, whose former lover was a handsome but evil man. Since his death, his ghost has driven away anyone who has shown interest in her. Carmelo, a young gypsy, is determined to win Candelas, who welcomes his attentions. Carmelo arranges a midnight ritual of exorcism. As this is taking place, in a cave illuminated by torchlight, he persuades another gypsy girl to divert the ghost's attention. Candelas and Carmelo seal their love with a kiss, whose power breaks the ghost's hold upon her. As dawn breaks, the lovers are free to spend a happy life together.

Falla's music matched this exotic storyline for colour, atmosphere and excitement. He didn't quote any traditional Spanish or gypsy themes but, through his small orchestra and the colourful song fragments that dot the score, he recreated their spirit and style with perfect understanding. This earthier, less prettified approach is more authentic than the styles adopted by such French and Russian composers as Bizet and Rimsky-Korsakov in their well-known homages to Spain.

The jewel of the score, the hypnotic Ritual Fire Dance, was first made famous in transcription by the legendary pianist, Artur Rubinstein. "When I first played it in concert, as an encore," he recalled, "the public went wild. I had to repeat it three times."