Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 14

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918–90) The Masque from Symphony No. 2 ( The Age of Anxiety ) New York City frequently provided a backdrop for the music of Leonard Bernstein. Several well-known compositions portrayed the me- tropolis as upbeat and carefree ( Fancy Free and On the Town ), energetic and hopeful ( Wonder- ful Town ), or gritty and violent ( West Side Story ). The less familiar Symphony No. 2 shed a differ- ent light on his adopted home, one of postwar despair, pessimism, and aimlessness. Bernstein based the score on W.H. Auden’s Pulitzer Prize– winning 80-page “Baroque eclogue” The Age of Anxiety (1947). An Englishman who moved to the US in 1939 and took citizenship seven years later, Auden brought an outsider’s penetrating, critical insight to American life during the De- pression and World War II. Auden introduced the reader to four lonely peo- ple who meet by chance at a bar on Third Ave- nue. This quartet represented living examples of Carl Jung’s four psychological types: the rational pairing of feeling and thinking, and the irratio- nal coupling of intuition and sensation. Quant (intuition), an aged widower and shipping offi- cer, emigrated from Ireland at age 6. During the Depression, he occupied his time reading my- thology at the public library. Malin (thinking) is a Medical Intelligence Officer for the Canadian Air Force. Raised in England, Rosetta (feeling) is a middle-aged beauty who, amid the noise and disorder of the city, dreams of the idyllic English countryside. Emble (sensation) is a Midwestern- er whose Navy uniform makes him attractive to both sexes. The time is the Eve of All Souls’ Day. Bernstein composed The Age of Anxiety on a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation over a two-year period, whenever he could find time on a train, plane, ship, or in a hotel room. Large portions were written at the D.H. Law- rence Ranch in Taos, NM, and in Israel. Orches- tration was done during a tour with the Pitts- burgh Symphony. From the outset, he invested the symphony with an autobiographical detail: its main protagonist (Malin = piano) represents the composer. Bernstein took great pains to spin the poet’s pessimistic ending in a more positive direction. Structurally, Symphony No. 2 ( The Age of Anxiety ) groups the six major sections of Auden’s poem into two large parts. In Part II, The Masque revives music from “Ain’t Got No Tears Left,” a song dropped from On the Town , in a catchy jazz idiom. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and pianist Leonard Bernstein gave the world pre- miere on April 8, 1949. AVNER DORMAN (b. 1975) Piano Sonata No. 3 (“Dance Suite”) Israeli composer and conductor Avner Dorman came to the United States after completing his master’s degree in music, musicology, and phys- ics at Tel Aviv University. As a C.V. Starr Fellow, he completed a doctorate in music composition at The Juilliard School, studying under John Corigliano. His compositions have received nu- merous awards. In 2000, at the age of 25, he be- came the youngest composer to receive Israel’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Award for his Ellef Symphony , a work written for the Young-Eu- ro-Classical Festival in Berlin in honor of the millennium. Variations without a Theme for or- chestra won the 2004 Composition of the Year Award from the Society of Authors, Composers, and Music Publishers in Israel. Dorman received the 2018 Azrieli Prize for Jew- ish Music—a $50,000 cash prize in addition to a world premiere and professional recording—for his Nigunim for violin and orchestra. His first opera, Wahnfried (2018), was named a finalist in the World Premiere category of the 2018 In- ternational Opera Awards. Dorman currently serves as associate professor of music theory and composition at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College. Recent accomplishments include the release of his recording Letters from Gettysburg in June 2019. “Dorman’s colorful but disciplined, intensely focused style is suited to the subject matter,” wrote critic Allan Kozinn, “and he has produced a work that appeals to pacifist sen- sibilities by showing the devastation of war as human, personal, and direct.” Next season, his most recent opera, Die Kinder des Sultans , based on a libretto by Ingeborg von Zadow, will pre- miere at Theater Dortmund. In addition, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conductor James Gaffigan, and principal percussionist Cynthia Yeh will present the United States premiere of Eternal Rhythm in October. Avner Dorman provided the following back- ground for his Piano Sonata No. 3 (“Dance Suite”): “When Soheil [Nesseri] asked me to compose a new piece for his March [19, 2005] Alice Tully concert, I had already begun con- templating the writing of a suite of dances. How- ever, instead of following the traditional form of a dance suite (i.e., a sequence of unrelated dance movements), I chose to compose a dramatic piece, one that combines the vividness of dances with the emotional content of drama. “Dramatically, ‘Dance Suite’ is the journey through sound of a blind oud player. (The oud is a traditional Middle Eastern instrument that resembles a lute or a guitar.) The piece opens with a prelude that symbolically represents the blind player’s wandering through the darkness and finding his expression through sound rath- er than light. The prelude is very passionate and deals with the musician’s inner conflict. “The movement that follows the prelude (‘Oud and Kanun’) is based on a traditional Arabic maqam and incorporates several Arabic danc- es. A maqam is a series of notes or gestures that form the basis of most classical Arabic music. The second movement is constructed like a taq- sim —an improvisatory piece that is based on a single maqam. “During the second movement, sounds from a different world begin to penetrate the classi- cal Arabic music. These are sounds of modern street life and include modern dances (such as techno and house). The oud player is fascinated by these new sounds and begins to follow them instinctively in his music. “The last movement begins when, unexpectedly, the serene atmosphere disappears. The mod- ern dances take over, leading the piece into an exuberant finale. It is solely based on motives from the first two movements, combined with rhythms and gestures of modern dance styles.” –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan Leonard Bernstein Avner Dorman (photo: Felix Grünschloß) RAVINIA MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2019 96