Here - Tyalgum Festival of Classical Music

CONCERT C4
CELLO ORCHESTRA
Saturday 3 September 4.30 pm
Danielle Bentley, Dan Curro, Louise King, Patrick Murphy, Katherine Philp, Andrew Shetliffe
Patrick Suthers, Shannon Tobin – cellos
Anna Grinberg – piano
Palestrina
Surge illuminare Jerusalem
Hodie Christus Natus Est
Popper Requiem Opus 66
Piazzolla
Le Grand Tango
Bruch Kol Nidrei Opus 47
Gubaidulina
Fata Morgana: Die tanzende Sonnee
(Mirage: The Dancing Sun)
Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No 1
Surge illuminare Jerusalem
Hodie Christus Natus Est
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in the small town in Italy from which he took his name. From choirboy to choirmaster
at the Basilica of St Peter in Rome, he lived his entire life in that city. From his post as Composer of the Papal Chapel, he
became the greatest champion of polyphony of the Counter-reformation. Palestrina was tasked with revising liturgical books to
enact changes made by the Council of Trent, changes intended to purge the Roman Catholic Church music of "barbarisms,
obscurities, contrarieties, and superfluities". He is, in fact, credited with saving Western music as we know it, as the Council of
Trent nearly banned polyphony in worship because they feared it obscured the text.
Palestrina's approach gives the listener a strong sense of chordal harmony, which became the basis of Western classical
music from the Baroque to the twentieth century. His music exemplifies the stile antico, a conservative style for its time,
embracing the clarity of individual melodic lines.
These two short eight part antiphons, Surge Illuminare Jerusalem and Hodie Christus Natus Est, are from "Motettorum Book
3" (first published in 1575).
Requiem Opus 66
David Popper (1843-1913)
David Popper was an Austrian cellist/cello composer who wrote many studies and warm-ups for the cello. He is famous for his
"High School of Cello Playing (Opus 73)", a book of cello etudes that is used almost universally by advanced cello students.
His shorter showpieces were written to highlight the unique sound and style native to the cello extending the instrument's
range to heights with pieces such as Spinnlied (Spinning Song), Gnomentanz (Dance of the Gnomes), or the Ungarische
Rhapsodie (Hungarian Rhapsody). An old edition of the "Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" described him thus: "His
tone is large and full of sentiment; his execution highly finished, and his style classical".
Popper's most famed work is his Requiem, which was originally written for three cellos and orchestra (1891).
Le Grand Tango
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Tempo di tango
Meno mosso: libero e cantabile
Piu mosso: Giocoso
Le Grand Tango was composed by the great Argentinean bandoneónist and composer Astor Piazzola as a commission for the
Russian cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich. Piazzolla composed tangos of such melodic and rhythmic complexity that both worlds,
Classical and Popular, claim him as their own. Studying composition under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger, Piazzolla at first
tried to hide both his tanguero past and his bandoneón work, it was only when Nadia insisted that she hear Piazzolla in the
compositions did the composer play her a tango, to which Nadia responded "Astor, your classical pieces are well written, but
the true Piazzolla is here, never leave it behind".
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