Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

8:00 PM SATURDAY, JULY 17, 2021 CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor LUKÁŠ VONDRÁČEK, piano RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin Prélude Forlane Rigaudon Menuet GINASTERA Variaciones concertantes Tema per Violoncello ed Arpa Interludio per Corde Variazione giocosa per Flauto Variazione in modo di Scherzo per Clarinetto Variazione drammatica per Viola Variazione canonica per Oboe e Fagotto Variazione ritmica per trombe e trombone Variazione in modo di Moto perpetuo per Violino Variazione pastorale per Corno Interludio per Fiati Ripresa dal Tema per Contrabasso Variazione finale in modo di Rondo per Orchestra BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) Allegro Adagio un poco mosso [ attacca ] Rondo: Allegro Lukáš Vondráček There will be no intermission in this program. Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Featured Sponsor The Negaunee Foundation . Lukáš Vondráček’s appearance is made possible in part by the Maxine M. Hunter Guest Artist Fund . PAVILION MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937) Le tombeau de Couperin Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two French horns, trumpet, harp, and strings The tombeau (literally, “tomb”) was an artistic tribute to a deceased colleague that originated within the literary world of 16th-century France. Musicians adopted this commemora- tive practice a century later, at first composing for lute, then keyboard and viola da gamba. These lamentations often bore descriptive ti- tles and programmatic effects as a means of personalizing the emotional outpouring to the departed. Over time, composers incorpo- rated speech rhythms, as a kind of musical eulogy, and dance rhythms into their tombeaux . Maurice Ravel was not the only 20th-centu- ry French composer to revive the “tombeau” form. Several others (Dukas, Roussel, and Dupré) considered it a perfectly descriptive, and nationalistically appropriate, term for a memorial. Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin ostensibly commemorates a distant musical ancestor—the renowned harpsichordist and composer François Couperin (1668–1733). Originally composed in six movements for solo piano, this piece pays stylistic homage to French Baroque forms. Commemoration occurs at a deeper and more personal level in the tombeau . Ravel attempted to enlist in the French air force in 1914 but was refused for health reasons. Instead, he volunteered for the motor trans- port corps, shuttling the sick and wound- ed by ambulance from the front to medical care facilities. Work on a little “French Suite” for solo piano was placed on hold for three more years until, while recuperating from the stresses of war and mourning his beloved mother’s death in 1917, Ravel returned to the suite, which he renamed Le tombeau de Couperin . Each movement is dedicated to the memory of a friend who died during the war: Maurice Ravel Lieutenant Jacques Charlot ( Prélude ), Jean Cruppi ( Fugue ), Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc ( Forlane ), brothers Pierre and Pascal Gaudin ( Rigaudon ), Jean Dreyfus ( Menuet ), and Cap- tain Joseph de Marliave ( Toccata ). Ravel or- chestrated four movements in 1919. ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916–83) Variaciones concertantes , op. 23 Scored for two flutes and piccolo, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, trombone, timpani, harp, and strings Argentine composer and educator Alberto Ginastera wrote the Variaciones concertantes , op. 23, for chamber orchestra in 1953 on a commission from the Asociación Amigos de la Música in Buenos Aires. He dedicated the published score to Leonor H. de Caraballo and Igor Markevitch—who conducted the premiere on June 2, 1953, at the Teatro Colón—“as testimony of deep gratitude and friendship.” This work originated during a pe- riod of great political tension under Argentine president Juan Perón. One year earlier, the president had removed Ginastera from the di- rectorship of the Conservatorio de Música y Arte Escénico in La Plata for opposing efforts to rename the institution in memory of Perón’s recently deceased wife, Eva (“Evita”). Admired widely as a nationalist composer, Ginastera infused many of his early works with the melodic and rhythmic vitality of Ar- gentine folk music and celebrated the roman- ticized lifestyle of the gauchos (cowboys) on the vast plains of southeastern South America ( pampas ). By the 1950s, Ginastera had fully assimilated stylistic elements of Argentine folk music into his compositional style, a type of “subjective nationalism” no longer reliant on actual folksong. He explained this concept in relation to the Variaciones concertantes : “These variations have a subjective Argentine character. Instead of using folkloristic materi- al, the composer achieves an Argentine atmo- sphere through the employment of original Alberto Ginastera RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 23, 2021 54