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7:30 PM THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2018
MARTIN THEATRE
JORGE FEDERICO OSORIO,
piano
BACH
Two Chorale Preludes
(transcr. Busoni)
Ich ruf ’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ *
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
FRANCK
Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue
DEBUSSY
Selections from
Préludes
Voiles (Book 1, no. 2)
La puerta del vino (Book 2, no. 3)
La sérénade interrompue (Book 1, no. 9)
La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (Book 2, no. 7)
Les collines d’Anacapri (Book 1, no. 5)
Feux d’artifice (Book 2, no. 12)
Des pas sur la neige (Book 1, no. 6)
Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (Book 1, no. 7)
–Intermission–
CASTRO
Mazurca melancólica
PONCE
Three Mazurkas
No. 1 in F minor *
No. 7 in F-sharp minor *
No. 23 in A minor *
ALBÉNIZ
Mallorca (Barcarola)
Granada (Serenata)
from
Suite española
Aragón (Fantasía)
from
Suite española
PONCE
Rapsodia cubana
No. 1
*
Intermezzo No. 1
*
Balada mexicana
*
*
First performance at Ravinia
Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of
Sponsor
Diana and Bruce Rauner
.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)
Two Chorale Preludes
(transcribed for piano by Ferruccio Busoni)
Congregational participation in the worship
service was encouraged after the Protestant Ref-
ormation of 1517. Martin Luther redesigned the
Catholic Mass so that much of the singing pre-
viously done by the choir was now taken over by
the congregation, without accompaniment and
in unison. Congregational hymns came to be
known as “chorales.” Many of the early chorale
melodies were borrowed from the Catholic ser-
vice or from secular sources. Others were newly
composed by Martin Luther and his fellow reli-
gious reformers. Chorale melodies came to be
such an integral part of the Lutheran service that
most of the music, including organ and choral
pieces, was based on them.
Chorale preludes were designed so that the or-
gan could introduce the chorale melody before
the congregation sang its verses. The organ also
played settings of the chorale melody between
the congregational verses. Bach composed cho-
rale preludes throughout his long career. Three
early sets of variations on chorale melodies were
composed during his tenure at the New Church
in Arnstadt. Bach’s final composition was a cho-
rale setting that he dictated to his son-in-law
after he had gone completely blind.
Pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866–
1924) was a gifted composer of operatic, orches-
tral, chamber, and piano works. His father was
the Italian clarinetist Ferdinando Busoni, and his
mother the German pianist AnnaWeiss-Busoni. A
precocious child, Busoni developed into one of the
foremost virtuosos at the turn of the 20th century.
Busoni edited and transcribed a large number of
works by Bach for the piano. The two chorale pre-
lude transcriptions performed on this occasion—
Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
, BWV 639, and
Nun
komm, der Heiden Heiland
, BWV 659—originated
in Busoni’s collection of Ten Chorale Preludes,
published in 1898 with a dedication to Portuguese
pianist José Vianna da Motta.
The Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment of Johann
Sebastian Bach
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