CYPRUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - MUSICAL LANDSCAPES

 CYPRUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

MUSICAL LANDSCAPES

Lemesos: Thursday 15 April 2021, Rialto Theatre, 20:30

Lefkosia: Friday 16 April 2021, Pallas Theatre, Pafos Gate, 20:30

The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra presents a tribute to 20th century music with three outstanding musical works, which seem to be closely connected to a geographical place, whether inspired by its sensations, nature, life or vibe.

Our concert starts off with Orawa (1986) for string orchestra by the Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, one of his most popular works. The piece was inspired by the region Orawa, located between Slovakia and Poland in the Tatra Mountains and forms the last piece of his cycle “Tatra Mountain works”. As the composer stated in an interview: “Orawa is the only piece in which I wouldn’t change a single note, though I have looked at it many times. [...] What is achieved in it is what I strive for – to be the best possible Kilar”.

And from the 1980s we head back to the 1940s and to the emblematic work Appalachian Spring (1944) by the American composer Aaron Copland. The piece was originally commissioned as ballet music for the famous Martha Graham Dance Company and the setting is a 19th century farmhouse in Pennsylvania. The ballet was a huge success and Copland received a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his achievement. Copland was consequently commissioned to create an instrumental suite from the ballet, which resulted in the ballet suite for 13 instruments you will hear in our concert.

Our programme closes with Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů's Sinfonietta “La Jolla”, written in 1950 while Martinů was in the USA. The piece took its title from the town of La Jolla, Florida for which it was commissioned. As a part of the commission, Martinů was requested to compose music that would be tuneful and accessible. And so he did! His Sinfonietta is a joyful piece full of spirit, energy and colour, and thus concludes our 20th century musical journey with a positive vibe.

Wojciech Kilar: Orawa

Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring, suite for 13 instruments

Bohuslav Jan Martinů: Sinfonietta La Jolla, H. 328

Conductor: Patrick Gallois

Supporters: Rialto Theatre, Limassol Municipality

Ticket prices: €12, €7 (18-26 yrs, pensioners), €5 (under 18)

Ticket presales: · For the concert at the Rialto Theatre, online at rialto.interticket.com - Rialto App and at the Box Office, Mon-Fri 10:00-15:00.

· For the concert at Pallas Theatre, online at cyso.interticket.com and at the Box Office every Wednesday 16:00-19:00.

· Τickets will not be available at the theatre box offices on the concert day.

Rialto Theatre (Andrea Drousioti 19, Heroes Square, 3040 Lemesos, 77777745)

Pallas Theatre, Pafos Gate (Rigainis and Arsinois corner, 1010 Lefkosia, 22 410181)

PROGRAMME NOTES

Welcome to our tribute of 20th century music with three truly outstanding musical works, which seem to be closely connected to a geographical place, whether inspired by its sensations, nature, life or vibe.

WOJCIECH KILAR

July 17, 1932 | Lwów, Poland

December 29, 2013 | Katowice, Poland

Orawa, symphonic poem for sting orchestra

The Polish composer Wojciech Kilar belonged -together with Bolesław Szabelski, his student Henryk Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki- to the Polish Avant-garde music movement of the Sixties, sometimes referred to as the New Polish School.

Our concert starts off with Orawa (1986) for string orchestra, one of the most popular works of Kilar. The piece was inspired by the region Orawa, located between Slovakia and Poland in the Tatra Mountains as well as the homonymous river that flows through it. It forms the last piece of his cycle “Tatra Mountain works” and it was premiered by the Polish Chamber Orchestra, on March 10th, 1986 in the Tatra capital of Zakopane. One can listen to the same piece in many other arrangements made by the composer itself, such as for a string quartet, twelve saxophones, an accordion trio, eight cellos and other ensembles.

Orawa is a dialectic of nostalgia and elements of nature, broadly phrased and saturated with primeval rhythms. The pentatonic and scalic structure of ideas serves to give the work an archaic character. The heterophony serves to stylize the highlanders’ music-making. The echoes reverberating from mountain slopes affect the sounds and approaches of the musicians’ performing practice.

As the composer stated in an interview: “Orawa is the only piece in which I wouldn’t change a single note, though I have looked at it many times. [...] What is achieved in it is what I strive for – to be the best possible Kilar”.

AARON COPLAND

November 14, 1900 | Brooklyn, NY

December 2, 1990 | Peekskill

Appalachian Spring, suite for 13 instruments

Appalachian Spring was composed between 1943 and 1944, for Martha Graham on a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. The world premier took place in Washington, D.C on October 30th, 1944 in the Library of Congress, performed by Martha Graham and her company.

Except of the original ballet version for thirteen instruments, the composer has also created various other versions of the piece. Tonight’s version of the Appalachian Spring is scored for the original chamber ensemble. It is a condensed version of the ballet (identical with the original suite derived from the ballet for symphony orchestra), which retains all essential features but omits those sections in which the interest is primarily choreographic than musical.

The action of the ballet concerns a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the 19th century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites.

Although the general sound of the work can be found elsewhere in Copland’s works of this period, this is the music that established its vocabulary as representing the quintessential “American sound.” That seemed to evoke something inherently American, which made it irresistible to composers of strictly commercial music, whereas in a sentimentalized form it thrives even today as the inspiration for countless movie and television soundtracks.

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ

December 8, 1890 | Policka, Czechia

August 28, 1959 | Liestal, Switzerland

Sinfonietta “La Jolla”, H. 328

Sinfonietta “La Jolla” was composed in 1950 and it was first performed on August 13, 1950 in La Jolla, California by the orchestra of the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla under the direction of Nikolai Sokoloff.

Martinů was among the multitude of European refugees who fled to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. He intended eventually to return to his home in Czechoslovakia, but the ascension of Communism made this impossible, and for this reason he took American citizenship in 1952.

It was the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla who actually requested the Sinfonietta La Jolla, asking the composer to write something tuneful and accessible to the general public. Martinů, who once commented that “music must be beautiful, or it wouldn’t be worth the effort,” gladly acquiesced to this request.

The stage is set with a lively rhythmic movement making extensive use of ostinatos (musical fragments that are continuously repeated) and syncopated rhythms, over which Martinů introduces soaring lyrical melodies. The second movement grows introspective, with a yearning piano line supported by gently rocking string accompaniment. A perky oboe wakes us from this dreamy mood and launches the third movement, a charming conversation of playful melodic fragments exchanged between members of the orchestra.

Dr. Francis Nectarios Guy

Conductor - Musicologist

PATRICK GALLOIS

Patrick Gallois belongs to the generation of French musicians leading highly successful international careers as both soloist and conductor. At the age of seventeen he studied the flute with Jean-Pierre Rampal at the Paris Conservatoire and became solo flutist in Lille National Orchestra.

At the age of twenty-one he was appointed as principal flutist in the Orchestre National de France, under Lorin Maazel. He then began a seven-year career playing and recording under the direction of many well-known conductors, including Pierre Boulez and Seiji Ozawa. During this period, he studied with Leonard Bernstein and Sergiu Celibidache. In 1984, he decided to focus on a solo career which has taken him throughout the world, beginning in Japan, where he toured and sold 100,000 CDs of the Mozart flute concerto in one year. This success led to an exclusive contract with Deustch Grammophon Gesellshaft for which he recorded ten records.

His career took a new dimension as a conductor and he signed an exclusive contract with Naxos. He has a wide repertoire both as a conductor and a flutist, with a strong taste for contemporary music. Many new works have been dedicated to him. Married to the Finnish painter Tiina OSARA; they work regularly together, mixing symphonies of Franck, Bruckner

or Strauss on “action painting” but also both of them improvising on stage. Patrick Gallois was Artistic Director of the Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä for 9 years.

He has recorded over 40 CDs for Naxos, including 25 on which he conducted the early symphonies of Haydn, Mauricio Kagel and Peteris Vasks. The first CD of ballet music from Massenet with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra appeared recently, as well as Mozart’s piano concertos with Idil Biret and the London Mozart Players. Now he is recording Michael Haydn’s symphonies with the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra.

www.cyso.org.cy