Events

• Jon Nakamatsu, piano

• June 1-2, 2012 8:00 PM
• Buy tickets Audio sample
• where: Dell Hall directions
• conductor: Peter Bay

Zack Stanton
b. 1983 in Conway, Arkansas.

Triple Venti Latté.
Triple Venti Latté is a nine-minute jittery and upbeat concert overture that I wrote with the desire to explore rapidly changing meters and shifting tonalities based primarily on the octatonic scale (an eight-note scale consisting of alternating whole steps and half steps). It is laid out in a simple ABA form, with hyperactive outer sections sandwiching a lyrical slow section. The original version of the piece (for a chamber ensemble of 12 players) was written for the University of Texas New Music Ensemble, who premiered the work in 2008. This version, for large orchestra, was created at the invitation of Peter Bay, Music Director and Conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra.

Perhaps the best way to introduce Triple Venti Latté is to describe the circumstances going on in my life as I was writing the piece. I began work in January of 2008, just prior to my second semester as a graduate student, and just preceding the birth of my oldest son, who was born during the first week of that spring semester. Having a newborn obviously requires major adjustments to one’s life, and for me the biggest modification was learning to function (in any capacity) while seriously sleep deprived. Any new parent is familiar with the need to develop this essential skill, because at some point we have all gone to work feeling (and perhaps looking) like a zombie. My son was an exceptionally bad sleeper—unbelievably bad. My wife and I read all the books on how to get babies to sleep and none of them helped in the least. My son had obviously not read any of those books.

The primary reason I was able to survive this season of life was because I held the perfect part-time job for a full-time graduate student/first-time parent—I was a barista at a Starbucks Coffee Company. Because I worked at Starbucks several days a week, I had almost unlimited access to caffeine, and coffee/espresso became my fuel that semester. I had always been a big coffee drinker, but only because I loved coffee. Now I not only loved coffee—I needed it. I never thought I would become that person, but parenthood does weird things to you.

While I did not set out to write a piece of music specifically about coffee, espresso or caffeine, the title Triple Venti Latté captures the over-caffeinated and frothy nature of the piece with its hyperactive meter changes, quirky harmonic language, and even a caffeine crash in the middle.

© 2012, Zack Stanton

Sergei Rachmaninoff
b. 1 April 1873 in Semyonovo, Russia; d. 28 March 1943 in Beverly Hills, California.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in c, Op. 18. Premiere: Rachmaninoff performed the second and third movements on Dec. 2, 1900 and the complete work was first performed on October 27, 1901 with the composer as soloist and his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting. The premiere was a major triumph and the concerto quickly became Rachmaninoff’s greatest hit, nearly replacing the beloved c-sharp minor prelude in the public’s affection.

The concerto is dedicated to Nikolai Dahl, a specialist in Paris known for curing alcoholism through hypnosis. Undone by the appalling premiere of his First Symphony, Rachmaninoff had begun to drink heavily. Also prone to anxiety, depression and a crippling, dark side of his nature that the public never saw, Rachmaninoff went to Dahl for help. Through hypnosis therapy, Rachmaninoff emerged from his gloominess to complete the Second Piano Concerto. Remaining a signature achievement of Rachmaninoff’s work, it is indeed a breakthrough opus in the vast repertoire of Romantic-era piano concerti.

We tend to forget this, but Rachmaninoff was an American composer, an American citizen, but one who remained true to his cultural Russian heritage. Rachmaninoff’s main occupation was as a concert pianist and through concretizing he became a popular figure. Yet, viewed as a contemporary of Stravinsky, Debussy and Schoenberg, he was unfavorably reviewed by the music critics.

Rachmaninoff, who early on developed his own musical language, (one can always recognize his music from listening to just a few measures) found himself an outsider in the mainstream of Western musical development. He was deeply troubled by this and his attempts to conform only created greater failure. The sessions with Dahl changed him and in the Second Piano Concerto, his first mature work, he created his masterpiece.

With no orchestral preparation, the concerto begins with expansive chords in the piano that grow to a grand fortissimo, like the tolling of great bells. A thoroughly Russian melody decorated by filigree, the piano transitions into a swirling, sweeping accompaniment, over which the strings sing an emotive song. After development, the piano takes on a solo theme. The opening material returns majestically in the strings, this time with the piano pounding out a chordal counter-theme. The second theme follows in an emotional passage in the horn over glistening, pianissimo strings. A flash of electricity ignites the movement’s closing bars. For all the soloist’s continuous bravura, however, its role throughout this movement is more often that of an ensemble player, an accompanist, or even member of the orchestra. This is one of Rachmaninoff’s most cohesive movements.

After a chromatic introduction, the piano begins the Adagio sostenuto with a triplet figuration beneath the main theme in the flute and clarinet. This arpeggiated figure, a hemiola (contrasting duple/triple rhythm), is a prominent feature of the movement and fundamental to Romantic writing. The momentum builds and emerges from its trance into an explosion of sound; a brilliant cadenza resolves into the opening nocturne. Like the first movement, the relationship between piano and orchestra is unusually delicate throughout, and the soloist and orchestra again trade roles: the piano plays the theme, while the woodwinds and strings continue the triplet figure.

The finale, Allegro scherzando, begins with extremely sparse orchestration; instruments are added in quick succession, while the piano’s flurried solo establishes the rhythmic tone for the movement. An alluring contrasting theme follows, much in the vein of the two preceding movements, and again Rachmaninoff produces luxurious and elegant writing. A return to the brilliant opening is not far off and is followed in turn by the lush second theme. A somber C-minor section transitions to C-major, heralding the sparkling coda. The final word is given to the piano, in an outburst of glittering bravura.

The writing is truly idiomatic, rich, sonorous and passionate. Rachmaninoff was the first to recognize the melody’s attraction and he uses it three times in the finale. Each time freshening it with new touches, the last and grandest of these inspired countless Hollywood composers. It is little wonder so many popular songs of the 1930s and 1940s were based on this concerto’s themes. One made a fortune for Buddy Kaye and Ted Mossman (and not a cent for Rachmaninoff) as “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” The young Sinatra made his classic recording in 1945, two years after Rachmaninoff’s death.

Carl Nielsen
b. 9 June 1865 in Nørre Lyndelse on the Danish island of Funen; d. 3 October 1931 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Symphony No. 3, FS 60 (Op. 27). Premiere: February 28 1912 at a concert of the Orchestra of the Royal Theatre at the Odd Fellow Hall in Copenhagen. Nielsen also introduced his Violin Concerto at the same concert.

Carl Nielsen began his musical exploration when he discovered that logs in the woodpile yielded different pitches according to their size. He also made progress, at age six, on his father’s three-quarter-size violin followed by a new fascination with the piano. At fourteen he became a bandsman in the Royal Danish Army, acquiring new instrumental skills. During this time, a fellow musician showed him the central classics of European music. With these models before him, he began to compose. In 1884 he was admitted to the Copenhagen Conservatory as a scholarship student in violin and piano. Meanwhile, he supported himself by playing violin in the orchestra at the Tivoli Gardens and for many years he depended financially on his playing and conducting.

In the summer of 1910, Carl Nielsen, then the second conductor in the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, began a new symphony, one that he called Sinfonia espansiva; the nickname “espansiva” may have come from the composer but has provoked varying explanations. He wrote the first two movements during the summer and completed the entire work on April 30, 1911. Nielsen, at 47, was emerging to undeniable predominance in Danish music. He was also perfecting his techniques of what analysts have called “progressive” tonality, a pattern of composing not in but toward a basic key.

From its smashing opening chords this symphony gives the impression of spilling over itself, looking outward, growing, expanding. The Sinfonia espansiva gets off to an amazing start with a series, twenty-six of them, of violent and accelerating explosions all on the note A. Oddly spaced, the repetitions hasten the music into the main theme, a rolling, compelling melody in 3/4 time. Adjusting to the triple meter rather than the duple meter more common to symphonic first movements, the movement progresses into a short fugue and on to a characteristically wry waltz. The energy gradually subsides into the second theme. Introduced by solo woodwinds, it is a broad melody which, at the subsidence of more than a hundred measures of fortissimo, calms down to a long-sustained chord. The surprisingly brief development begins delicately with a solo flute, but the rollicking energy of the symphony’s opening is never far away, and it finally returns to compel the movement to an impressive close. Whether driving or relaxed, this dramatic outcome is not quite convincing and is certainly not final. The end of the symphony has not yet arrived as Nielsen has planned the harmonic strategies to encompass the entire span of the work.

After the dynamic first movement, Nielsen creates a different world altogether. In the magical stillness of the Andante pastorale, Nielsen alternates long woodwind solos with an impassioned hymn for strings. Interrupting the calm, there is a startling, though quiet, rumble from the timpani and basses. This sets in motion some ruminative woodwind melodies and leads to a full-throated melody. These elements provide the material for the entire movement. At the very closing, a soprano and a baritone sing a wordless melodic line on the syllable A, their voices joining the texture of the orchestra expressing the movement’s overall sense of pastoral tranquility.

The third movement, Allegretto un poco, is not quite the expected scherzo. Fairly leisurely in gait it is in 2/4 (rather than the standard triple meter). Nielsen himself called this movement “the work’s heartbeat.” An effervescent energy alternates with more rustic interludes. Harmonically, it explores new territory. Like the first movement, it begins with a series of purely preparatory gestures; like the second movement, it begins with French horns – Nielsen enjoyed these connections. The oboe melody, however, is a witty example of the Nielsen twist and the whole movement is delightfully diverse.

Nielsen commented on the character of the last movement: “The Finale… is straightforward: a hymn to work and the healthy enjoyment of daily life.” The Allegro bursts to life in an impressive melody that seems to exude the health Nielsen described. He revisits many features of the previous movements, including some harmonic language, the bold use of timpani as directional signal and the light-footed fugues. The timpani powerfully carries the momentum, and with the conclusion now firm and incontrovertible on an immense unison A, we see why Nielsen had deliberately made the close of the first movement not quite convincing.

© 2012, Jeanne Rogers

• Tickets
• 2011-2012 Subscriptions
• Seating Charts
• Stage View Chart
• Group Sales
• Student "Rush" Discounts