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bernard herrmann (1911–1975) Psycho Suite for Strings (1960)Adam Barnett-Hart, Sean Lee, Wu Jie, Kristin Lee, violins; Paul Neubauer, Geraldine Walther, violas; Dane Johansen, Dmitri Atapine, cellos; Scott Pingel, bass

andré caPlet (1878–1925)Conte Fantastique (The Masque of the Red Death) (1922–1923)Bridget Kibbey, harp; Kristin Lee, Sean Lee, violins; Paul Neubauer, viola; Dane Johansen, cello

ottorino reSPighi (1879–1936) Il tramonto, P. 101 (1914)Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano; Jorja Fleezanis, Sean Lee, violins; Geraldine Walther, viola; Dmitri Atapine, cello

INTERMISSION

igor StravinSkY (1882–1971)L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) (1918)Kay Kostopoulos, Narrator; Max Rosenak, Soldier; James Carpenter, Devil; Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet; Marc Goldberg, bassoon; David Washburn, trumpet; Timothy Higgins, trombone; Christopher Froh, percussion; Jorja Fleezanis, violin; Scott Pingel, bass

July 29sunday, July 29, 6:00 p.m., the Center for performing arts at menlo-atherton

Program overvieWMusic and drama have been intertwined throughout his-tory. From the earliest operas to present-day cinema, music has added unrealized dimensions and intensity to drama. “Enhanced” explores four works that intensify the under-lying drama. The program begins with a suite taken from Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score originally written for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho. André Caplet’s The Masque of the Red Death draws inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’s dark short story. Respighi’s ethereal Il tramonto brings forth the Romantic poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. The program concludes with Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, based on a Russian folktale.

This program is underwritten by Michael Jacobson and Trine Sorensen through their gift to the Tenth-Anniversary Campaign.

SPECIAL THANKS

Music@Menlo dedicates this performance to Iris and Paul Brest with gratitude for their generous support.

Sorcerers and witches on Sabbath dancing to violin, from Compendium Maleficarum, 1626, by Francesco Maria Guazzo, Italian demonologist. Photo credit: Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY

concert program iv:

Enhanced: tales intensified

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bernard herrmann (Born June 29, 1911, New York; died December 24, 1975, North Hollywood)

Psycho Suite for strings

Composed: 1960

other works from this period: The Birds (1963); North by Northwest (1959); Vertigo (1958)

approximate duration: 15 minutes

Bernard Herrmann can arguably be considered the most important film composer of the twentieth century. Born in New York City in 1911, Herrmann studied music from an early age, eventually matriculating at New York University and the Juilliard School, where he studied with noted composers Percy Grainger and Philip James. Joining the Colum-bia Broadcasting System as a staff conductor in 1934, Herrmann came into association with Orson Welles, with whom he collaborated on the epic 1941 film Citizen Kane. However, Herrmann’s closest collaborative relationship would not begin until 1955, when he met the film direc-tor Alfred Hitchcock. Herrmann would go on to write music for every Hitchcock film between 1955 and 1964. He redefined the idea of a film composer’s role and never deferred solely to the creative will of the film director. Herrmann once stated:

I have the final say, or I don’t do the music. The reason for insisting on this is simply, compared to Orson Welles, a man of great musical culture, most other directors are just babes in the woods…and Hitchcock, you know, is very sensitive, he leaves me alone. It depends on the person. But if I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way.

Bernard Herrmann’s score to the 1960 iconic Alfred Hitchcock film, Psycho, demonstrates the undeniable power of music to accentuate and enhance onscreen drama. Hitchcock had made the creative decision to shoot the film in black and white, a decision on which Herrmann later commented: “I knew that musically I had to counter-reinforce his deci-sion, and I decided to use only string instruments throughout the entire movie.” The striking variety of sounds and effects that Herrmann elicits from the string orchestration is remarkable. Psycho contains probably the single most iconic and influential passage of movie music ever com-posed. Hitchcock originally intended for the film’s pivotal shower scene to remain eerily silent, but Herrmann insisted that Hitchcock try it with the musical cue that he had composed; Hitchcock agreed, and the result-ing scene has become one of the most notorious in cinematic history. Herrmann’s shrieking strings, mimicking the violent stabbing of Janet Leigh’s character, make this one of the most terrifying moments in all of film. Hitchcock himself later acknowledged that “33 percent of the effect of Psycho was due to the music.” The score’s harmonic originality, bold gestures, and rhythmic ingenuity are emblematic of Herrmann’s composi-tional craft, and it continues to be a stunning musical achievement.

—Isaac Thompson

andré caPlet(Born November 23, 1878, Le Havre; died April 22, 1925, Neuilly-sur-Seine)

The Masque of the Red Death

publisher: Durand

Composed: 1922–1923

other works from this period: Le miroir de Jésus, mystères du Rosaire (1923); Panis angelicus (1920); Epiphanie, fresque musicale d’après une légende éthiopienne (1924)

approximate duration: 17 minutes

André Caplet, born in Le Havre in 1878, showed an early talent for music and by fourteen was playing violin at the Grand Theater in his hometown. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1896 as a student in composition and there developed his creative gifts sufficiently to win the Prix de Rome for his cantata Myrrha in 1901. While still in school, Caplet began conducting and performing (as a timpanist) in various Parisian orchestras, and in 1899 he was appointed Director of Music at the Théâtre de l’Odéon. His other Parisian posts included conducting appointments at the Opéra as well as the Lamoureux and Pasdeloup Concerts, and from 1910 to 1914, he was the conductor of the Boston Opera Company. Caplet is also remembered for his close friendship with Claude Debussy, who entrusted him with proofreading his scores and orchestrating Le martyre de Saint Sébastien and the Children’s Corner Suite. He volunteered for military service during World War I, and the injury to his lungs from gas forced him thereafter to curtail his conducting in favor of composing and hastened his death from pleurisy in 1925. Caplet’s long involvement with opera gave him a keen sense of the possibilities of the human voice, and most of his compositions are songs or works for small vocal ensembles, many showing the influence of Debussy’s Impressionism. Among his few compositions for instruments are chamber works for flute and piano and cello and piano, a score for military band, a concert work for cello and orchestra, two divertissements for harp, and the Conte Fantastique for harp and string quartet.

In his Conte Fantastique (Fantastic Story), Caplet created a minia-ture tone poem based on Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling tale The Masque of the Red Death. The score contains the following preface:

Death, that horrible and fatal specter, haunts the region, seeking its prey. A young prince and his friends challenge the plague by shutting themselves into a fortified abbey. There, the prince rewards his guests with a magnificent masked ball. However, every hour, at the striking of an ancient clock, the dancers’ movements seem paralyzed. When the echo of the chimes dies away, the party resumes, but each time with less spirit and a growing sense of foreboding. Still, the music animates the dancers again. The couples whirl fever-ishly. Suddenly, the prince stops the music with a brusque gesture. There, standing in the shadow of the clock just as it booms out its midnight toll, is a figure wrapped in a shroud. A mortal terror runs through the hall. It is the Red Death, come like a thief in the night. One after another the guests fall, convulsed, to the floor of the hall, covered with a deadly dew.

—Richard Rodda

ottorino reSPighi(Born July 9, 1879, Bologna; died April 18, 1936, Rome)

Il tramonto, p. 101

Composed: 1914

other works from this period: Ouverture carnevalesca, P. 99 (1913); Sinfonia drammatica, P. 102 (1914); La sensitiva, P. 104 (1914)

approximate duration: 16 minutes

Program Notes: Enhanced

*Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 107.

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Though Ottorino Respighi is primarily remembered as a symphonic com-poser of such epic works as the Pines of Rome and the Fountains of Rome, he was also a prolific composer of vocal music. Hailing from a musical family, Respighi studied violin and piano from an early age in his native Bologna, eventually attending that city’s Liceo Musicale. After completing his studies in 1901, Respighi embarked on a career as an orchestral musician while composing on the side. In 1911, Respighi’s solo cantata Aretusa was premiered to much acclaim, prompting him to dedi-cate more of his time to composition. Aretusa also marked the beginning of Respighi’s fascination with the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, transla-tions of whose work he would use in many of his vocal works.

Il tramonto is based on the Shelley poem “The Sunset,” written shortly before Shelley’s death in 1822. The poem embodies many of the romantic sensibilities and subjects that permeated much of Shelley’s work: love, grief, longing, and death. Perhaps foreshadowing the fascina-tion numerous composers had with Shelley’s poetry, nineteenth-century British poet Matthew Arnold wrote: “It always seems to me that the right sphere for Shelley’s genius was the sphere of music, not poetry.”

Respighi’s setting of “Il tramonto” offers a revealing look into the breadth of his compositional style. In contrast to the grandeur of his colorful symphonic works, Il tramonto is subtle and intimate. The piece begins with a dramatic string quartet opening, leading into the calm and lyrical entrance of the soprano. The ebb and flow of the poetry are painted through Respighi’s music, from the opening stanza, describing the passion of two lovers, to the concluding stanza, vividly portraying the plea of an aging woman. Respighi’s richly textured and contrapuntal string writing provides added drama to the poetry, with the soprano weaving in and out of the textures, often doubling the string voices. The work ends in quiet reflection, meditating on the peace found through death.

—Isaac Thompson

igor StravinSkY (Born June 5/17, 1882, Oranienbaum [now Lomonosov], near St. Petersburg; died April 6, 1971, New York)

L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), by arrangement with g. schirmer, Inc., publisher and copyright owner

Composed: 1918

published: Chester, 1924

First performance: September 28, 1918, Lausanne, conducted by Ernest Ansermet

other works from this period: Ragtime (1917–1918); Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo (1918); Suite no. 2 for Orchestra (1915–1921)

approximate duration: 65 minutes

The breadth of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s influence on music history is difficult to exaggerate. That he was the twentieth century’s greatest composer remains the contention of many. Living from 1882 to 1971, Stravinsky absorbed virtually every significant musical innovation of the twentieth century, from neoclassicism to serialism, each of which consequently became a part of his arsenal of compositional techniques. In his own words: “I stumble upon something unexpected. This unex-pected element strikes me. I make note of it. At the proper time, I put it to profitable use.”

Stravinsky composed L’histoire du soldat in 1918, five years after Paris infamously rioted at the premiere of The Rite of Spring. It is one of numerous stage works Stravinsky composed over his career. Scored for a large ensemble of clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, violin, double bass, and percussion plus three actors (Narrator, Soldier, and Devil) and, in many performances, one dancer (the Princess), L’histoire du soldat tells the darkly comic parable of a soldier named Joseph who

sells his violin to the Devil for a magical book which forecasts the future of the economy and promises untold wealth.

L’histoire du soldat illustrates Stravinsky’s neoclassical style—an aesthetic, prevalent during the early twentieth century and pioneered particularly by Stravinsky, characterized by a preoccupation with the musical principles of the Classical period. Though its sound is distinctly modern, L’histoire du soldat, like Stravinsky’s other neoclassical works, values melodic and formal clarity and avoids the dramatic excesses of Romanticism. The plot of L’histoire is made perfectly clear in perfor-mance through the spoken narration. But independently of the overtly theatrical elements of the work, the music is remarkably vivid and truly brings the story to life. Stravinsky later made an abridged suite based on L’histoire scored just for clarinet, violin, and piano, which is very dra-matically satisfying in its own right—so clearly does Stravinsky’s music illustrate the story.

The work begins with “The Soldier’s March,” whose affable gait and colorful instrumentation set the tone for the ensuing folk tale; Stravinsky mischievously transfigures this music at the work’s conclusion in the form of “The Triumphal March of the Devil.” Also notable among the work’s many musical delights is the multicultural suite of three dances that Joseph plays after reviving the fallen princess from her ill-ness: to mark this celebratory turn in L’histoire, Stravinsky puts together an Argentinean tango, a Viennese waltz, and an American rag.

—Patrick Castillo