MCO’s Overgrown Paths can be heard on Thursday 7 May 7:30pm at Melbourne Recital Centre; Friday 8 May 7:00pm at Yackandandah Public Hall; Saturday 9 May 3:30pm at Peninsula Community Theatre, Mornington; and Sunday 10 May 2:30pm at Melbourne Recital Centre.
Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)
Italian Serenade
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer most remembered as a writer of lieder. His work is a great extension of the lieder developed by Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms. He was influenced by Wagner and made a significant contribution to the genre. Two of his remarkable collections are the Spanisches Liederbuch (1889) and the Italienisches Liederbuch (1891). In addition, he composed a small number of instrumental and orchestral works. His tragic life was dominated by depression, and he died from general paresis.
The Italian Serenade was composed in a few days in May 1887 as a string quartet, named Serenade in G Major, and developed in 1892 for small orchestra. Wolf made a number of attempts to compose subsequent movements, but these were never realised. The work is dominated by a playful energetic spirit.
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
Selections from On an Overgrown Path JWVIII/17 (arr string orchestra Daniel Rumler)
1. Naše večery (Our Evenings)
5. Štěbetaly jak laštovičky (They Chattered Like Swallows)
3. Pojďte s námi! (Come With Us!)
9. V pláči (In Tears)
10. Sýček neodletěl! (The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away!)
The Czech composer Leoš Janáček stands alongside his countrymen Smetana and Dvořák in reputation. John Tyrrell, writing in Grove Music Online, describes him, “as one of the most substantial, original, and immediately appealing opera composers of the 20th century”.
Many of his large-scale works were produced in the last two decades of his life. His operas Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropoulos Affair, and The House of the Dead, and works such as the Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass remain firmly in the repertoire. He wrote a considerable amount of choral and chamber music.
Janáček began composing On an Overgrown Path JWVIII/17 in 1900 and it was published in 1911 for solo piano. It is a cycle of 15 miniatures that are deeply personal and autobiographical in character. Along with the suite V mlhách (In the Mists) JWVIII/22 and the sonata, 1.X. 1904 JWVIII/19, this makes up his major compositions for solo piano.
The arrangement for string orchestra was completed in 2017 by the Slovakian violinist Daniel Rumler.
Libby Croad (b 1981)
Selections from Portraits for string orchestra
Landscape
Heartache
Hope
Mind
Libby Croad is a composer, arranger and violinist based in London, who studied at the Royal Academy of Music. In an interview for The Strad in 2023 she said, “I’ve been told that my music sounds very English! I think this stems from my love of composers such as Vaughan Williams and Elgar. I love using modes in my writing and there’s often a folk feel to my music. As a violinist I love writing close emotional string harmonies, and a good melody!” On melody she said, “A good melody may be the key to unlocking accessibility and overcoming pre-conceived ideas to contemporary music.”
Portraits for string orchestra is a work in five movements with poems by violinist Eleanor Percy that the composer says describe the feelings and emotions over the pandemic. The work was premiered in July 2022.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
The Four Seasons
Concerto in E major Op 8 No 1 RV269, La primavera (Spring)
I. Allegro
II. Largo e pianissimo sempre
III. Allegro pastorale
Concerto in G minor Op 8 No 2 RV315, L’estate (Summer)
I. Allegro non molto
II. Adagio e piano – Presto e forte
III. Presto
Concerto in F major Op 8 No 3 RV293, L’autunno (Autumn)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio molto
III. Allegro
Concerto in F minor Op 8 No 4 RV297, L’inverno (Winter)
I. Allegro non molto
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Antonio Vivaldi is regarded as one of the most original and influential Italian composers of his generation. His contributions to musical style, violin technique and the art of orchestration were substantial. Although not an inventor of musical forms, he creatively adapted, refined and expanded them.
His output was prodigious, and he wrote across a range of genres including masses, vespers, motets, cantatas, oratorios and operas. His instrumental works include solo sonatas, trio sonatas, sinfonia and concertos. He wrote approximately 500 concertos with about 350 for strings and solo instrument, including violin, viola d’amore, cello, oboe, flute, bassoon, mandolin and recorder.
Vivaldi’s most popular Four Seasons (Le quattro Stagioni) is the first four of twelve concertos for solo violin, strings and continuo composed in 1723 and published in 1725 as Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (The Contest between Harmony and Invention) Op. 8. Each concerto includes evocative characteristics of the particular season it represents. All four are in three movements (fast, slow, fast).
Program Notes: David Forrest