2020-09-16

Music: Sun Sep 20

 

This morning’s musical selections reflect the desire of many classical composers to give voice to the musical expression of indigenous peoples. Folk music--orally transmitted, frequently tied to agricultural economies--found some degree of permanence and universal dissemination in the works of Unitarian composers Edvard Grieg and Bela Bartok, as well as the British-born composer of African descent Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the Spaniards of Catalonian ancestry Carlos Surinach and Federico Mompou, and the Polish Frederic Chopin. To claim a moral agenda on the part of these musicians might amount to reframing their work to suit our contemporary sensibilities, however. Equally retrospective would be the dismissal of such compositions as exploitative or patronizing. In all likelihood, these composers were motivated by a romantic desire to idealize the natural world, rejecting the artificiality of the city—with its concert halls and conservatories—and replacing it with the alleged innocence of pastoral life. What this music means to us today morally, what it accomplished unwittingly or otherwise, is left to us to determine.  Read on for programming details.


Gathering Music: Adam Kent, piano 

Take Nabandji

                                    Southeast African, arr. by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Norwegian Melody, Op. 12, No. 6

Halling, Op. 47, No. 4

                                    Edvard Grieg

15 Hungarian Peasant Songs, Nos. 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10

                                    Béla Bartók

Centering Music:

Rumanian Dances

            Dance with Sticks

            Waistband Dance

            Stamping Dance

            Hornpipe

            Rumanian Polka

            Quick Dance

                        Bartók

Opening Music:
Mazurak in F Minor, Op. 7, No. 3

                                    Fredric Chopin


Musical Interlude:
Chanson et danse espagnole No. 3

                        Carlos Surinach


Musical Interlude:
Canción y danza No. 1

                                    Federico Mompou

Meditation:
Mazurka in E Minor, Op. 41, No. 1

                        Chopin

Music for Parting:
The Bamboula

                                    West Indies, arr. by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

 

No comments:

Post a Comment