The 15th Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival
Highlights

Johann Sebastian Bach
BWV 82, "Ich habe genug," Cantata for Bass Voice, Oboe, and Strings; Aria I
Bach (1685-1750) wrote numerous church cantatas to illuminate specific gospel readings. Cantata 82 ("I have enough") was written in 1727 for the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Leipzig. Its associated gospel includes the Nunc Dimittis, the prayer of Simeon requesting worldly release after seeing the arrival of Jesus. The anonymous text adapts the Song of Simeon, who addresses God afterward. The opening aria text reads: "I have enough; I have taken the Savior, the hope of the Gentiles, into my yearning arms. I have seen him, my faith has held Jesus to my heart." The oboe's poignant introduction and florid concluding solo frame the solemn, expansive opening aria (C minor). Bach was fond of this aria, perhaps an echo of "Erbarme dich" from the St. Matthew Passion, and later rescored the vocal line for soprano.

Samuel Barber
Dover Beach for String Quartet and Baritone, Opus 3
Barber (1910-1981) composed his setting for Mathew Arnold's 1867 poem in 1931 while he was a student at the Curtis Institute. Although written during the expansionist era of Victorian England, the poem is deeply pessimistic. Material progress, in Arnold's view, does not protect society from conflict and war. The moonlit world of the viewer at Dover Cliffs is beautiful but unreal - merely a land of dreams. The true world is one of darkness "where ignorant armies clash by night." The poem's sonorous imagery lends itself to music, and Barber represents the poem's nuances through descriptive musical details. For example, rocking figures in the string parts represent shifting light on the sea. The setting gradually builds to an impassioned conclusion at the final stanza ("Ah, love, let us be true to one another!"), where preceding images take on full emotional weight.

Franz Schubert
Erlkönig
Like many early Romantics, Schubert (1797-1828) admired Goethe's 1782 poem."Der Erlkönig," a depiction of a child pursued by a supernatural spirit visible only to one about to die. In 1815 Schubert created a solo voice and piano setting for the poem, and in 1821 he published the lied as his Opus 1. The soloist develops this miniature drama by interpreting four personae with individual nuances and vocal ranges - the narrator in the middle register; the father, the hopeful rescuer, takes the low range; the terrified child sings in a high voice; the seductive Erlkönig sings his undulating lines softly in the major mode. The father and son attempt to escape on a galloping horse, conveyed rhythmically by rapid triplet figures in the vivid piano accompaniment.

Kelly-Marie Murphy
"Ashes" for String Quartet (World Premiere)
The composer (b. 1964) describes her 2007 quartet, commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music: "The initial inspirations for 'Ashes' were elements of fire - friction, spark, flame, burn, combustion - and their parallel to our lives. Fire leads to imagery of great intensity and turbulence. But occasionally small, delicate particles drift to the air and ride the heat waves and wind. The quartet has a single movement. The introductory material is like the spark of a flint. It takes a few tries before the fire ignites. Once started, the music is propulsive and energetic. The title is taken from Leonard Cohen, who said: 'Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.'"

Dimitri Shostakovich
Two Pieces for String Octet, Opus 11
Shostakovich (1906-1975) wrote his brief Opus 11 during experimental post-student years, a time when he wavered between the prevailing "revolutionary Romanticism" of 1920s Russia and astringent classicism. The Octet, his first important chamber work, emerged soon after his delicately transparent First Symphony (Opus 10). The emotionally intense D minor Prelude (1924) explores its chromatic themes with rhythmic freedom. After the declamatory opening section, a Presto unfolds with numerous points of imitation. In the concluding section a violin cadenza leads to a recapitulation of the opening material. Satirical and dissonant, the G minor Scherzo (1925) suggests avant-garde influence. Propelled by ever more rapid canons, decorated by numerous glissandi, the Scherzo is notorious for being the wildest movement in all octet literature.

Produced by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
PO Box 40845, Tucson, AZ 85717
520.577.3769
www.ArizonaChamberMusic.org

Cover: Brenda Semanick
Notes: Nancy Monsman
Design: GroundZero
Recording/Mastering: Matthew Snyder