RITUAL FIRE DANCE with SIUDY GARRIDO MAURICE RAVEL. November 18/19

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1 notesby Dr. Richard E. Rodda November 18/19 RITUAL FIRE DANCE with SIUDY GARRIDO 30 SECOND NOTES: Maurice Ravel was born in the Basque region of southwestern France, and the Alborada del gracioso ( Morning Song of the Jester ) is one of his works influenced by the spirit and music of neighboring Spain. The Concierto de Aranjuez is Joaquín Rodrigo s musical evocation of the elegant 18th-century court set in that verdant oasis city in the barren plateau of central Spain. Manuel de Falla s ballet El amor brujo ( Love, the Magician ) is the tale of a couple exorcizing the ghost of the girl s dead lover. MAURICE RAVEL born March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, Basses- Pyrénées, France; died December 28, 1937 in Paris. ALBORADA DEL GRACIOSO (1905; ORCH. 1919) Orchestral version first performed on May 17, 1919 in Paris, conducted by Rhené-Baton. These concerts mark the first performances of this piece by the Des Moines Symphony. (Duration: ca. 8 minutes) The alba, or song at dawn, is one of music s most ancient forms the earliest extant example, from the repertory of the troubadours of Provence in southern France, dates from the 11th century. These poems dealt with a lover s departure in the early morning after a night spent with his beloved, and are often cast in the form of a dialogue between the lover and a watchman who warns of approaching danger. (Wagner revived the form in the second act of Tristan und Isolde, during which Brangäne alerts the fated couple of King Marke s return.) As the alborada, it was later taken over by the musicians of Galicia in northern Spain, who made of it a type of dance played on a rustic oboe, called a dulzaina, accompanied by a small drum. Ravel, a native of the Basque region of southern France that shares many aspects of its cultural heritage with its Spanish neighbors, knew the alborada and other Spanish music, and he incorporated its spirit and style into several of his important works, including the Alborada del gracioso, the fourth of five pieces written in 1905 for the piano suite Miroirs. In 1918, he made a glittering orchestral transcription of the Alborada, first heard the following year at a concert of the Pasdeloup Orchestra. The title Miroirs, Arbie Orenstein wrote, implies an objective, though personal, reflection of reality, and each composition is pictorial to some extent. The picture Ravel painted in the outer sections of Alborada del gracioso is one of thrumming guitars ringing across a sun-baked landscape: vibrant rhythms shifting with subtle allure between complementary metric patterns; harmonies full of spice and color; orchestral

2 sonorities evoking the guitar s steely brilliance. However, the soulful bassoon solo of the central section of this miniature tone poem calls forth another image the gracioso, or Spanish clown or jester. The gracioso was a popular character in the Spanish theater who was depicted by Calderón and Lope de Vega as the fool in love in the household of a noblemen. The jester soon forgets his love, however, and the scintillating music of the opening returns to bring Ravel s Alborada del gracioso to a whirling conclusion. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, tambourine, xylophone, crotale (A), castanets, two harps and the usual strings consisting of first violins, second violins, violas, violoncellos and double basses. JOAQUÍN RODRIGO born November 22, 1901 at Sagunto, Valencia; died July 6, 1999 in Madrid. CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (1940) First performed on November 9, 1940 in Barcelona, conducted by César Mendoza Lasalle with Regino Sainz de la Maza as soloist. First performed by the Des Moines Symphony November 22 & 23, 1980 with Yuri Krasnapolsky conducting and Ernesto Bitetti as soloist; subsequent performances occurred on November 17 & 18, 2001 with Joseph Giunta conducting and Manuel Barrueco as soloist. (Duration: ca. 22 minutes) Though Joaquín Rodrigo, born on November 22, 1901 at Sagunto, Valencia, on Spain s eastern coast, lost his sight when he was three from diphtheria, he early showed a pronounced aptitude for music. His parents enrolled him in a school for blind children in the nearby city of Valencia, and at age eight, he began formal lessons in harmony, piano and violin. During the 1920s, Rodrigo established himself as a pianist with performances of challenging recent works by Ravel, Stravinsky and other contemporary composers, and he began composing seriously in 1923 with the Suite para Piano and the Dos Esbozos ( Two Sketches ) for Violin and Piano. His first work for orchestra, Juglares (written, like all of his scores, on a Braille music typewriter and then dictated to a copyist), was played in both Valencia and Madrid in 1924; his Cinco Piezas Infantiles, also for orchestra, won a National Prize the following year. In 1927, he followed the path of his compatriots Albéniz, Granados, Falla and Turina, and moved to Paris, where he enrolled at the Schola Cantorum as a pupil of Paul Dukas; he later also studied at the Paris Conservatoire and the Sorbonne. The outbreak of civil war in Spain in 1936 prevented Rodrigo from returning home, and he spent the next three years traveling in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and living in the French capital. He returned to Madrid after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, and established his position among the country s leading musicians with the premiere of the Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra the following year. His prominence in Spanish musical life was recognized with many awards, honorary degrees and memberships, and, in 1947, the creation for him of the Manuel de Falla Chair at the University of Madrid. In addition to teaching at the University, Rodrigo also served as Head of Music Broadcasts for Spanish Radio, music critic for several newspapers, and Director of the Artistic

3 Section of the Spanish National Organization for the Blind. He died in Madrid on July 6, The small town of Aranjuez, thirty miles south of Madrid on the River Tagus, is a green oasis in the barren plateau of central Spain. In the mid-18th century, a palace, set amid verdant forests and parks, was built at Aranjuez as a summer retreat for the Spanish court. Generations of Spanish kings thereafter settled into Aranjuez every spring, when the countless nightingales would serenade them from the cedars and laurels, the court ladies would promenade in the cooling shade, and the men would hone their equestrian skills with the famous cream-colored Andalusian horses bred nearby. When Rodrigo sought inspiration for a new concerto in the difficult, war-torn year of 1939, it was to the elegant symbol of by-gone Spain represented by Aranjuez that he turned. Having conceived the idea of a guitar concerto, he recalled, it was necessary for me to place it in a certain epoch and, still more, in a definite location an epoch at the end of which fandangos transform themselves into fandanguillos, and when the cante and the bulerias vibrate in the Spanish air. He further stated that he had in mind the early decades of the 19th century when composing this Concierto de Aranjuez. Of the work s mood and the character of its solo instrument, the composer wrote, Throughout the veins of Spanish music, a profound rhythmic beat seems to be diffused by a strange phantasmagoric, colossal and multiform instrument an instrument idealized in the fiery imagination of Albéniz, Granados, Falla and Turina. It is an imaginary instrument that might be said to possess the wings of the harp, the heart of the grand piano and the soul of the guitar... It would be unjust to expect strong sonorities from this Concierto; they would falsify its essence and distort an instrument made for subtle ambiguities. Its strength is to be found in its very lightness and in the intensity of its contrasts. The Aranjuez Concierto is meant to sound like the hidden breeze that stirs the tree tops in the parks, as dainty as a veronica. In his Concierto de Aranjuez, Rodrigo adapted the three traditional movements of the concerto form to reflect different aspects of the soul of Spanish music the outer movements are fast in tempo and dance-like, while the middle one is imbued with the bittersweet intensity of classic flamenco cante hondo ( deep song ). The soloist opens the Concierto with an evocative, typically Spanish rhythmic pattern of ambiguous meter that courses throughout the movement. The orchestra, in colorful fiesta garb, soon enters while the guitar s brilliant, virtuoso display continues. The haunting Adagio, among the most beautiful and beloved pieces ever written for guitar, is based on a theme of Middle Eastern ancestry, given in the plangent tones of the English horn, around which the soloist weaves delicate arabesques of sound as the music unfolds. The finale s lilting simplicity (one commentator noted its similarity to a Spanish children s song) serves as a foil to the imposing technical demands for the soloist, who is required to negotiate almost the entire range of the instrument s possibilities. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and the usual strings. MANUEL DE FALLA Born November 23, 1876 in Cádiz, Spain; died November 14, 1946 in Alta Gracia, Argentina. EL AMOR BRUJO (1915) First performed on April 15, 1915 in Madrid

4 conducted by Moreno Ballesteros. The movement Ritual Fire Dance was first performed by the Des Moines Symphony on March 16, 1947 with Frank Noyes conducting. Subsequent performances occurred on November 17 & 18, 2001 with Joseph Giunta conducting. These concerts mark the first Des Moines Symphony performances of the entire ballet. (Duration: ca. 25 minutes) After his years in Paris absorbing the riches of what was then the world s most vibrant musical city (and simultaneously befriending Debussy, Ravel and Dukas), Falla retreated to Spain in 1914 in the face of the German invasion of France. Soon after Falla s arrival, Pastora Imperio, the reigning doña of Gypsy music, asked him to provide the accompaniment for a song and dance for her act. For some authentic inspiration, Pastora arranged for her mother, Rosario la Mejorana, to meet with Falla and the playwright Gregorio Martínez Sierra, who was to provide the text for the song. So fervent was Rosario s singing of the traditional songs and recounting of the Gypsy legends that Falla and Martínez Sierra decided to create not just a song and dance but a full ballet. The playwright devised the scenario and Falla worked feverishly on the score, completing it in five months. Despite the popularity of Imperio and her troupe, the premiere of El amor brujo gained little success. Perhaps the combination of such an earthy subject with Falla s new style, which distilled native folk music to its most elemental components, was not to the audience s taste; or perhaps the small instrumental ensemble of the original version (piano, flute, oboe, trumpet, horn, viola, cello and double bass) may have been too limited to fully realize the glowing orchestral colors inherent in the music. At any rate, Falla immediately began revising the score, mainly by cutting some numbers and expanding the orchestra. In so doing, he created a work that seems the very quintessence of the spirit of his native land. El amor brujo is set in Andalusia. A passionate motto theme, which runs through the ballet, is heard at once in the introduction. To the accompaniment of singing, the heroine of the ballet, Candelas, appears. She has been in love with a dashing Gypsy, recently dead, who lives on in her memory and keeps returning to haunt her. Always Candelas remains under the influence of this specter. A live and handsome villager, Carmelo, loves Candelas and wants to marry her but the ghost intervenes. His sorcery prevents her from granting Carmelo the kiss of perfect love. Desperate, Candelas tries to drive off the specter through a Ritual Fire Dance. She fails, so Carmelo tries to trick the ghost, whose habits were known to him in life. Since the deceased always had a strong taste for attractive women, Carmelo decides to use Lucia, a companion of Candelas, as a decoy. Carmelo comes to woo Candelas. Jealous, the specter appears, but when his eye is caught by the pretty Lucia, he ignores Candelas and follows her friend. Carmelo convinces Candelas that his own devotion to her is greater than that of the ghost. As morning dawns and the bells of the village sound, the pair at last exchange the perfect kiss and exorcise the ghost forever. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, chimes, piano and the usual strings.

5 EL AMOR BRUJO (LOVE, THE MAGICIAN) 1. Introduction and Scene 2. With the Gypsies Night 3. Canción del Amor Dolido ( Song of Heartsick Love ) Ay! Yo no sé qué siento, Ay! I don t know what I feel, Ni sé qué me pasa I don t know what happens to me Cuando éste mardito gitano me farta. When this accursed gypsy s away. Candela que ardes, Only Hell s fire burns hotter Más arde el infierno que toita Than all my blood burning with jealousy! mi sangre abrasá de celos! Ay! Cuando el rio suena, Ay! When there are rumors, qué querrá decir? Ay! what could they mean? Ay! Por querer a otra se orvía de mí! Ay! For the love of another, he forgets me! Ay! Cuando el fuego abrasa, When the fire burns, Cuando el rio suena... When there are rumors... Si el agua no mata el fuego, If they cannot kill the fire, A mí el penar me condena! Suffering condemns me! A mí el querer me envenena! Love poisons me! A mí me matan las penas! Sorrow kills me! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! 4. The Ghost 5. Dance of Terror 6. The Magic Circle The Fisherman s Tale 54 Des Moines Symphony

6 7. Midnight Sorceries 8. Ritual Fire Dance 9. Scene 10. Canción del Fuego Fatuo ( Song of the Will-o -the-wisp ) Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo, Like the will-o -the-wisp, Lo mismito es er queré. The very same is to love. Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo, Like the will-o -the-wisp, Lo mismito es er queré. The very same is to love. Le juyes y te persigue, You run from it, and it follows you, Le yamas y echa a corré. You call it, and it runs away. Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo, Like the will-o -the-wisp, Lo mismito es er queré. The very same is to love. Malhaya los ojos negros Accursed the dark eyes Que le alcanzaron a ver! That succeeded in seeing him! Malhaya los ojos negros Accursed the dark eyes Que le alcanzaron a ver! That succeeded in seeing him! Malhaya er corázon triste Accursed the saddened heart Que en su llama quiso ardé! That wanted to burn in his flame! Lo mismo que er fuego fatuo Like the will-o -the-wisp Se desvanece er queré. Love vanishes the same. 11. Pantomime 12. Dance of the Game of Love 13. The Bells of Dawn dmsymphony.org 55