NEC New Music Ensemble: Ligeti, Li, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos, Boulez, Piazzolla

György Ligeti | Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet (1953)

Allegro con spirito
Rubato: Lamentoso
Allegro grazioso
Presto ruvido
Adagio: Mesto
Molto vivace: Capriccioso

Shengyu Cui, flute
Corinne Foley, oboe
Phoebe Kuan, clarinet
Zoe Beck, bassoon
Graham Lovely, French horn

Program note

One of the 20th century’s most original voices, György Ligeti, was born a century ago in what is now central Romania. A Hungarian Jew, Ligeti lost most of his family in the Holocaust. Educated at conservatories in Cluj and Budapest, he took an early interest in ethnomusicology and Hungarian folk music. This can be heard clearly in his early Six Bagatelles for Woodwind Quintet, as well as his brilliant sense of humor in music.

Yuan-Chen Li | Butterfly (2007/2012)

The Butterfly
Springtime
Reflection

Chia-Fen Chang, flute
Kian Hirayama, oboe
Hugo Heokwoo Kweon, clarinet
Seth Goldman, bassoon
Xiaoshu Tang, piano 

Timothy Ren '25 MM, conductor       

Program note

Born in Taiwan in 1980, Yuan-Chen Li has developed a style influenced by Taiwanese and Chinese arts, literature, and philosophy. Her chamber work Butterfly features delicate and complex textures to (in her words) “emulate the movement of butterfly’s flying and the delightful spirit of springtime.” The third section is calmer, evoking the quiet but dramatic transformation from larva to butterfly.

Igor Stravinsky | Octet (1923)

Sinfonia: Lento - Allegro moderato
Tema con variazioni: Andantino
Finale

Anne Chao, flute
Chasity Thompson, clarinet
Evan Judson, Zoe Beck, bassoon
Reynolds Martin, Eddy Lanois, trumpet
Ethan Lehman, trombone
Ki Yoon Park, bass trombone

Timothy Ren '25 MM, conductor

Program note

Igor Stravinsky’s Octet was premiered a century ago in Paris (October 18, 1923). A twenty-two year-old student named Aaron Copland was present that night. Later Copland wrote of the “general feeling of mystification that followed the initial hearing. Everyone was asking why Stravinsky should have exchanged his Russian heritage, and a neo-primitive style all his own, for what looked very much like a mess of 18th-century mannerisms. The whole thing gained Stravinsky the unanimous disapproval of the press. No one could have possibly foreseen, first, that Stravinsky was to persist in this new manner of his, or, second, that the Octet was destined to influence composers all over the world in bringing the latent objectivity of modern music to full consciousness by frankly adopting the ideals, forms, and textures of the pre-Romantic era.”

INTERMISSION

Heitor Villa-Lobos | Bachianas brasileiras No. 5

Ária (Cantilena)
Dança (Martelo)

Josie Larsen '25 AD, soprano

Kei Otake, Andrew Byun, Hechen Sun, Thomas Hung, Xinyue Zhu, J. Alexander Smith, Isaac Pagano-Toub, Jihyeuk Choi, cello

Program note

Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote nine works with the title Bachianas Brasileiras. These represent a fusion of his native Brazilian folk and popular music with the structures and counterpoint of Johann Sebastian Bach. Perhaps the best known of the group, is Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for soprano and cello choir. The languorous first movement is a nocturne about beauty and love; the second movement, a quick dance celebrating the birds of the northern Brazilian mountain state of Ceará.

Pierre Boulez | Messagesquisse

Shannon Ross, solo cello

Jonah Kernis, Sarah Tindall, Bennet Huang, Zac Fung, Hayoung Moon, Annie SeEun Hyung, cello

Program note

Messagesquisse by Pierre Boulez is among the group of works commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Paul Sacher, a Swiss conductor and patron of the arts. Sacher himself had commissioned some of the 20th century’s most important works for chamber orchestra from composers such as Stravinsky, Bartók, Honegger, Britten, Lutoslawski, Henze, Richard Strauss, and others. Rostropovich’s commissions naturally feature the cello – in this case, a soloist and ensemble of six other cellos. Sacher’s name is expressed musically in the first six notes played by the solo cello and echoed by a cello in the ensemble: S (E-flat from the German “Es”), A, C, H (German for B-natural), E, and R (the solfege “re” or D). An etude of extreme virtuosity, Messagesquisse is a set of variations on these pitches.
 

Astor Piazzolla (arr. James Barralet) | from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

3. Winter
4. Spring

Claire Deokyong Kim, GaYeon Jenny Kim, Pi-Wei Lin, Lillian Yim, Rei Otake, Shijie Ma, Asher Kalfus, Miruna Eynon, cello

Hugh Wolff, conductor
 

Program note

Astor Piazzolla brought tango and Argentine dance forms into the concert hall. As a young bandoneon (an Argentine concertina) player, he steeped himself in the tango music of Buenos Aires in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1954, wanting to broaden his musical education, he travelled to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. Returning to Argentina, he established nuevo tango, a style of purely instrumental tango music influenced by jazz and without the traditional singer. He experimented with extended forms, more complex counterpoint and harmony, and larger ensembles. All of this was controversial among tango traditionalists, but Piazzolla gradually gained recognition and a worldwide audience. The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, one of his most performed works, has been arranged for dozens of different ensembles. This evening we perform Winter and Spring in an arrangement for eight cellos by British cellist James Barralet.