the most moving passages the composer was ever to write.
These precise and ingeniously observed sketches never lose
sight of Britten's own immediately recognisable fingerprints.
The parody is not bitter and the individual pieces form a series
of smaller, affectionate tributes embedded within the more
personal homage celebrated in this virile, exuberant and
brilliantly effective composition.
Musica Viva Australia
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
las cuatro estaciones Porteñas
(the Four Seasons of the Porteñas)
Primavera Porteña (Spring)
Verano Porteño (Summer)
Otoño Porteño (Autumn)
Invierno Porteño (Winter)
Atle Sponberg (Violin)
Camerata of St John's
In 1954 Astor Piazzolla won a scholarship to study with the
legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He was by this stage
acknowledged as a great composer of tangos and performer
on the bandoneón in his native Buenos Aires (though,
incidentally, he spent many of his earliest years in New York)
and had already studied with Alberto Ginastera. But Piazzolla,
like Gershwin, yearned to be a serious composer and played
down the importance of tango at first. Boulanger, however,
showed her usual perspicacity. Hearing Piazzolla play tango on
the bandoneón she famously said `Astor, your classical pieces
are well written, but the true Piazzolla is here, never leave it
behind' echoing Ravel's advice to Gershwin that there was
nothing he could teach the American.
Tango itself was originally far from high art, and while its origins
are complex it was the music of the porteños and porteñas
inhabitants of the slum port areas of Buenos Aires in the
early twentieth century which is the root of Piazzolla's art.
These four pieces, composed between 1964 and 1970 and
much arranged, are tango portraits of a particular aspect of
Buenos Aires life through the year.
Gordon Kerry © 2009
I N T E R V A L
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
the Four Seasons
Jack Liebeck (Violin)
Atle Sponberg (Violin)
Brendan Joyce (Violin)
Camerata of St John's
Damien Beaumont (Narrator)
Vivaldi's third collection of concertos, entitled Il cimento
dell'armonia e dell'inventione (`The Contest of Harmony
and Invention'), opus 8, was published in Amsterdam in
1725. Vivaldi dedicated the twelve concertos in it to count
Wenceslaus Morzin of Prague. Morzin had heard four of the
concertos some years earlier in Venice, or so Vivaldi's letter of
dedication reminded him, `earnestly imploring you not to be
surprised when Your Highness discovers, among these few
and modest concertos, The Four Seasons, which so long ago
encountered Your Highness's generous magnanimity'.
Concerto in E, RV 269
la Primavera Spring
Allegro (Spring has arrived; Birdsong; Running founts;
Thunder; Birdsong)
Largo (The sleeping goatherd; Murmur of fronds and
plants; The barking dog)
Allegro (Pastoral dance)
Jack Liebeck (Violin)
The opening music of the Spring Concerto recurs at key points
throughout its first movement. Such refrain-like sections are
called appropriately ritornelli (`returns'), between which fall
the violinist's solo episodes. In the first of these, the solo
violin is joined by two other violinists in a trio captioned in
the score as `Song of the birds'. Similar captions occur at
key points throughout each movement of the set, as when
a brief reprise of the ritornello extends into a quiet evocation
of `flowing fountains'. Suddenly thunder breaks with flashy
rising scales, the soloist's jagged figurations representing
lightning. A brief ritornello in a minor key leads into a tentative
transformation of the earlier bird song, and a final ritornello. In
the contrasting minor-key second movement, Vivaldi gives out
all three components of his musical picture simultaneously: the
solo violin representing a sleeping goatherd, the other violins
rustling branches and leaves, and the violas a barking dog. The
final movement is a pastoral dance, its ritornello evoking the
zampogna (Italian bagpipes) with its drone from the cellos and
double basses.
concerto in G minor, rv 293
L'estate Summer
Allegro non molto Allegro (Faintness for the heat;
The cuckoo; The little turtle-dove; The goldfinch; Balmy
zephyrs; A multitude of winds; Boreas wind; The
lament of the young peasant)
Adagio Presto (The fear of fierce thunder and
lightening prevents the weary limbs from resting; Flies
and blowflies; Thunder)
Presto (Impetuous summer weather)
Atle Sponberg (Violin)
The Summer Concerto is, perhaps, the most realistic of the
four, paying less attention to the usual 3-movement concerto
outline than to its continuous dramatic presentation of the
accompanying sonnet. Its opening ritornello expresses the
utter prostration of all creatures due to the extreme heat. All,
that is, except a few birds, like the cuckoo which sets up a
veritable racket in solo violin's virtuoso first episode, and later
the turtledove and goldfinch. The rest of the strings introduce
gentle breezes softly, and then the turbulent north wind. After
a ritornello, the solo violin portrays the tearful shepherd, fearful
of the oncoming storm. In the slow second movement the
solo violin sings an almost operatic lament on behalf of the
shepherd, to the buzzing, intrusive accompaniment of insects,
and cracks of approaching thunder. In the third movement, the
storm breaks, the detailing of this picture so unmistakable that
Vivaldi gives no further verbal cues in the score. The musical
highlights are two extended episodes for the solo violin of
quite extraordinary brilliance.
concerto in F, rv 293
L'autumno Autumn
Allegro Allegro assai (Dancing and singing of
peasants; The Drunkards; The dozing drunkards)
Adagio molto (The dozing drunkards)
Allegro (The hunt; The fleeing wild animal; Rifle shots
and dogs; The fleeing wild animal It dies)
Atle Sponberg (Violin)
After the meteorological dramas of summer, the Autumn
Concerto is on a more human scale, opening with a dance
song for the villagers whose music also serves as basis for
the solo violin's first episode. The second solo episode
portrays a drunkard, the violin sliding and tumbling all over
the place, answered by other drunks, and ending up quite
unmistakably in the gutter, there to fall asleep. The second
movement focuses on the strange dreams of the sleeping
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