Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

PAVILION 8:00 PM FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2022 CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor YEREE SUH, soprano † MATTHIAS GOERNE, baritone CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS MICHAEL BLACK, guest director BACEWICZ Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion ** Allegro Adagio Vivace –Intermission– BRAHMS A German Requiem Selig sind, die da Leid tragen Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras Herr, lehre doch mich, daß ein Ende mit mir haben muß Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Herr Zeboath! Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt Selig sind die Toten Yeree Suh; Matthias Goerne; Chicago Symphony Chorus † Ravinia debut ** First performance by the CSO and at Ravinia Tonight’s concert is performed in memory of Keene H. Addington II . Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of The Brahms Requiem Consortium , which comprises Judy & Merrill Blau, Howard & Roberta Goss, Mr. & Mrs. David R. Kahnweiler, and The Prussian Family. The Chicago Symphony Chorus’s appearance is made possible in part by the Jim & Kay Mabie Guest Artist Fund . GRAŻYNA BACEWICZ (1909–1969) Muzyka na smyczki, trąbki i perkusję ( Music for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion ) Scored for five trumpets, celesta, xylophone, snare drum, timpani, and strings Grażyna Bacewicz often is described as a pio- neer, the first woman composer to gain ac- ceptance in the male-dominated Polish musi- cal establishment. Bernadetta Matuszczak, spokesperson for a later generation of cre- ative artists, credited Bacewicz with blazing a trail for all female composers: “Afterwards, we had an open path, and nobody was sur- prised: ‘My God, a woman composer again!’ Bacewicz had been there, so the next one had a right to exist.” Bacewicz also became the first woman vice president of the Union of Polish Composers, a position she held be- tween 1955 and 1957 and from 1960 until her death nine years later. Impressive though they might be, these ac- complishments offer a very incomplete pic- ture of this remarkable woman. Grażyna was the third of four children born to a Lithuanian father, the violinist and music teacher Vincas Bacevičius, and Polish mother, Maria Mod- lińska, who came from a family of landown- ers. Their children all began violin and piano studies with Vincas before entering the Hele- na Kijeńska-Dobkiewiczowa Conservatory of Music in Łódź. Kiejstut, Witold, and Grażyna later developed into professional musicians. Wanda, the youngest, became a writer, poet, and caretaker of her sister’s legacy. Grażyna studied violin, piano, and composition (with Kazimierz Sikorski) at the Warsaw Conser- vatory while pursuing a philosophy degree at the University of Warsaw. After graduating summa cum laude in 1932, she heeded Karol Szymanowski’s advice to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Violin lessons continued there with Carl Flesch and André Touret. Upon returning to Poland, Bacewicz estab- lished herself as a violinist, becoming con- certmistress of the Polish National Radio Grażyna Bacewicz (1939) Symphony Orchestra and a recitalist with her brother Kiejstut. She taught harmony, counterpoint, and violin at the Conservato- ry of Music in Łódź off and on over the next decade. Bacewicz divided time between con- certs and composition until 1954, when inju- ries from an automobile accident effectively ended her performing career. By then, she had received several compositional awards, including second prize in the Chopin Contest for Composers (1948) and first prize at the Liège Contest for Composers (1951). Bacewicz was one of the founders of the War- saw Autumn International Festival of Con- temporary Music, which began in 1956 and continues to this day. Three of her composi- tions, including the Concerto for String Or- chestra, were performed that inaugural year. Her works garnered numerous awards, in- cluding a Gold Medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1966) for her Violin Concerto No. 7. That year, Bacewicz became professor of composition at the State High School of Music in Warsaw. The honors continued to mount even after Bacewicz’s untimely death in 1969. The Polish Composer’s Union dedicated its 1989 confer- ence to the life and works of Grażyna Bace- wicz on the 80th anniversary of her birth and 20th anniversary of her death. On July 2, 1999, the Conservatory of Music in Łódź was renamed the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music. The Muzyka na smyczki, trąbki i perkusję ( Mu- sic for Strings, Trumpets, and Percussion ; 1958) was a landmark composition, representing a new amalgamation of formal structures and ensemble sonorities. In many respects, the score forms a companion piece to Hungari- an composer Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta , composed two de- cades earlier in 1937. Each work segments the ensemble into three principal instrumental sonorities; each composer builds thematic material from small motivic cells. “So, I will continue to write for our old instruments, but Kiejstut Bacewicz (1926) RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 18 – JULY 31, 2022 30