Saturday, October 29, 2011, 8:00 p.m.
Tsai Performance Center at Boston University
Michael Gandolfi (b. 1956)
Of Angels and Neurones (2009)
First Boston Performance
Stage Wake
Stage I–NREM
Stage II (K-Complexes and Sleep Spindles)
Stage III–Delta Sleep SWS
Stage III–NREM (Deep Sleep)
Stage IV (High-amplitude Delta Activity)
Stage V–REM Sleep
Of Angels and Neurones was commissioned by Tonu Kalam with funds from Carolina Performing Arts. It is based on research related to the brainwave patterns that occur during the five stages of sleep. The concept for this piece was initiated by Dr. Burt Lesnick, Chief of Pulmonary Medicine at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, who long surmised that research related to his field might serve as source material for a musical composition. In 2006, Dr. Lesnick proposed his idea to me after hearing a performance of my orchestral work Impressions from “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation,” which is based on the physics-inspired and cosmology-inspired land-art of Charles Jencks. Soon after this meeting, I was contacted by Tonu Kalam about the prospects of accepting a commission to write an orchestral work for his newly conceived 10×10 Project (a project in which ten composers are commissioned by the University of North Carolina, each for a different ensemble, resulting in a world-premiere per year over a period of ten years). An important component of the 10×10 Project commissioning process was the proposal of a concept for the new work. Mr. Kalam was seeking something beyond simply writing an abstract piece; he was interested in the source materials and motivation for the piece. To this end I proposed to create a work based on Dr. Lesnick’s research, to which Mr. Kalam responded very enthusiastically and the project was underway.
Preparations for the writing process started with Dr. Lesnick, providing me with clear and abundant brainwave sleep-pattern data. However, I found it difficult to sustain music based solely on the data; a literal reading of this data was all I could manage and the resulting musical passages were short and seemingly without potential for expansion or development in spite of the data’s interestingly differentiated and dynamical patterns. Fortunately, by sheer serendipity, I was soon thereafter introduced to Dr. J. Allan Hobson, a leading expert in the field and the coauthor along with Hellmut Wohl of From Angels to Neurones: Art and the New Science of Dreaming (2007), in which revolutionary concepts in the fields of art and science are presented. “the autoactivating, chaotically open system of the dreaming brain provides the basis for bringing art and science together in a new, liberating synthesis. . . . the neurophysiology of dreaming offers a new insight into creativity and the creative process by accepting a commitment to unpredictability” (p. 14).This brilliant exposé of surrealist art and film, characterized as a manifestation of physical brainwave activity during sleep, provided what I earlier lacked and suggested an inspiring means to expand my piece: I used the salient features of Dr. Lesnick’s charts to glean the surface details of the musical ideas, but developed them through a surrealist-inspired framework in which musical ideas (rhythms, pitches, harmonies, and motives) flow to and from each other in ways that resemble the strange, chaotic machinations of dreams.
The large-scale shape of Of Angels and Neurones is in the form of a tone-poem with a scientific/surrealist narrative replacing the more common character-based narrative found in most tone-poems. There are seven main sections in this single-movement composition, each of which is tethered to a typical brainwave chart that correlates to a particular stage of sleep. Below is a summary of the scientific data used in the piece and the primary musical ideas that resulted from observing this data.
Stage Wake: The period prior to sleep and during the initial stages of light sleep: The relatively cyclical, smooth, broad bands of brainwave activity suggested a fugue-based exposition structure with clean lines and clear harmonic direction.
Stage I–NREM: This is the first stage of non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep. There are typically slow rolling eye movements in this stage of sleep that present a bold contrast in the data charts to the multilayered, fast, low-voltage EEG patterns, which are low in amplitude but densely active in frequency. I composed a broad melody for the horns accompanied by multilayered, fast, and active cyclical patterns in the strings, which derive their shape from the fast EEG activity charts and are motivically related to material heard at the outset of the piece.
Stage II (K-Complexes and Sleep Spindles): The brainwaves in this portion of Stage II sleep are dynamic and full of sudden spikes and high-energy bursts. Orchestral outbursts interrupt the smooth undulations of Stage I, illustrating the dynamic and transient nature of these dense pockets of brainwave activity.
Stage III–Delta Sleep SWS. The high-energy bursts of the Sleep Spindles are typically ignored during this stage of charting, which is characterized by deeper, slow-wave sleep (SWS) patterns. These charts reveal several layers of deep, rhythmical wave-form activity. This is expressed musically via orchestrational and figurational layerings: string pizzicato and high woodwinds play arpeggios in tandem while longer wavelength patterns take their shape in brass and low woodwind melodies. These dance-like sections lead to a fully realized waltz, with the violins carrying the primary melody.
Stage III–NREM (Deep Sleep): This section of the piece features the strings alone in what constitutes the “slow movement” of the piece, descriptive of the slower, steadier low-frequency brainwave patterns found in this stage of sleep.
Stage IV (High-amplitude Delta Activity): The deepest sleep occurs in this stage. The charts are full of high-amplitude delta activity and are among the most consistently dense and active of the charts that I observed. These charts suggest a fast-paced, energetic music, hence a fast-paced hybrid scherzo emerges from the harmonies expressed in the previous stage. A string fugato leads to a very loud (high-amplitude) climactic passage.
Stage V–REM Sleep: The REM period is characterized by low-amplitude, mixed frequency patterns creating charts that are in marked contrast to the active charts of stage IV. I chose to express this stage of sleep with music that explores the lower-pitched regions of the orchestra and is designed to bring the piece to a gentle, slow but rhythmical conclusion.
In spite of this detailed summary, the piece is written to function as a pure piece of music replete with thematic ideas and developments by which the formal designs of the piece unfold, obviating the need to consciously match each section with the given scientific data. Originally, I was going to write a separate movement for each chart to facilitate comprehending the connection with the data, but I realized that this would likely result in a series of dry and pedantic studies. The kaleidoscopic journey that results from combining each of these stages into a single thrust requires a more comprehensive compositional approach. This ultimately produces a work that is far more resonant with the surrealist wanderings of the brain and more accurately characterizes the dynamical flow of brainwaves as they are made manifest throughout the stages of sleep.
—Michael Gandolfi
Béla Bartók (1881–1945)
Concerto no. 3 for Piano and Orchestra (1945)
Stephen Drury, piano
I. Allegretto II. Adagio religioso III. Allegro vivace
The Third Piano Concerto was Béla Bartók’s last completed work, written while he was beset by illness, poverty, and exile from his native Hungary. Yet it is one of the composer’s most melodic and genial works, intended as a final gift to his second wife, the pianist Ditta Pásztory.
Bartók, born and trained in Hungary, was a pioneering collector of folk music as well as a successful pianist and composer with an international career when the outbreak of World War II drove him to emigrate to the United States in 1940. He struggled to find a secure position in America, despite the support of major figures such as Serge Koussevitzky and Benny Goodman. He also soon fell ill with the leukemia that would take his life.
Knowing that his time was short, in the summer of 1945 he secretly began work on a piano concerto for Ditta that he hoped would prove popular enough to help support her after he was gone. In the resulting work, the composer celebrates his musical forebears as well as, perhaps, makes peace with his impending death.
The first movement is in fairly straightforward sonata form, with the soloist stating a folk-inflected main theme followed by a playful second theme and ending with an exchange between the piano and the woodwinds. The second movement, the only work of Bartók’s to carry the notation “Andante religioso,” is built from canons and chorales that recall the music of Bach, along with echoes of Beethoven’s meditation on illness and recovery in his string quartet op. 132. In the middle section we hear bird calls, notated by the composer on his travels in the American South, before the return of the chorale. The Allegro vivace final movement follows without a break, a rondo that features a Hungarian dance tune framing lively and inventive musical episodes.
Michael-Thomas Foumai (b. 1987)
The Light-Bringer (Symphony no. 1) (2010)
Winner, NEP Call for Scores
First Boston Performance
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are narratives that chronicle the falling of angelic beings from Heaven. One of the most notorious angels to have fallen is Lucifer, one of the archangels who strived “to make his throne higher than the clouds over the earth.” Michael the Archangel suppressed Lucifer and his angels in the War of Heaven: “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12:7–9).
The title of this piece is taken from the translation of Lucifer’s Latin name, meaning Light-Bringer. Although based on an extramusical idea, the work does not entirely serve a programmatic linearity but rather uses it as a basis to construct a symphonic structure. The work is based on manipulations of the Number of the Beast, 666: “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:17–18).
While the number has been associated with the Anti-Christ, Son of Satan, for the purposes of this work, I understood it as being another representation of Lucifer. The number six is embedded within the structure of the work. It can be heard on a small level with musical motives and sonorities being repeated six times, melodic and harmonic intervals of the 6th and its inversion, a melody or harmony of six pitches, and a progression of six chords. On a larger level, the work is built on six major sections with the main climax occurring roughly 666 seconds (11 minutes and 6 seconds) into the work. On a visual and performance level, tempo markings are all multiples of six.
—Michael-Thomas Foumai
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Symphony in Three Movements (1945)
Dedicated to the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements was composed in 1942–45, during World War II. In the program note for its premiere, which he conducted on January 24, 1946, he wrote that it “has no program, nor is it a specific expression of any given occasion; it would be futile to seek these in my work. But during the process of creation in this our arduous time of sharp and shifting events, of despair and hope, of continual torments, of tension and, at last, cessation and relief, it may be that all these repercussions have left traces in this Symphony. It is not I to judge.”
For listeners wishing for a return to the staggering power of Stravinsky’s much earlier Rite of Spring (which he was revising, especially its tumultuous “Sacrificial Dance,” at the time of this symphony’s composition) and to other touches reminiscent of their favorite past works, this work provides many satisfactions, even as it began “a new period of exploration and revolution” in his own estimation.
The first movement makes references to the standard sonata form found in most symphonies—but it also has characteristics of a concerto for orchestra, which Stravinsky seems earlier to have had in mind, and the piano is given a colorful concertante role. Most striking in this powerful movement is the absence of the classical notion of melodic line and its development, replaced by sections held together by rhythmic devices and by orchestral textures that are deployed in a most original way.
The striking opening, with a rapidly rising scale and starkly bitonal chords, is followed by a first “theme” (or section) featuring rather jazzy syncopated chords and a supporting ostinato. The celli and violas then announce a new section, tranquil at first, and its theme (a second theme of sorts) is taken up with much quicker notes, as instrumental chamber groups provide their contrasting colors and the piano becomes increasingly active as a concerto voice. The recapitulation is clearly announced by the return to the jazzy syncopations and ostinati heard near the beginning of this movement. This soon gives way to a return to that second theme. The strikingly rising scale of the opening returns, now to announce a coda in which slowly sustaining harmonies over repeated eighth-note figures in the low register bring us to a resolution in a peaceful C major.
The middle movement, a gentler Andante, is in an ABA form that treats materials having connections to the first movement. Stravinsky recycled the music from its originally planned use in a film based on Franz Werfel’s Song of Bernadette, a plan not realized. In that setting, it was to accompany an “Apparition of the Virgin” scene, in which the harp—rather than the piano—is prominent. After an exchange in which materials played by the strings are transferred to the woodwinds, a short interlude brings us directly to the last movement.
The last movement, marked Con moto, combines both the harp and piano with the rest of the orchestra to create movement that perhaps functions as both scherzo and finale, the conventional third and fourth symphonic movements. It first declares C major in rapid march tempo, which speeds up further at the behest of bassoons, harp, and piano. The texture is constantly varied by interwoven dynamic accents (some reminiscent of the first movement), staccato and legato contrasts, unisons and dissonances, rapidly shifting tone colors, and thicknesses of texture—all of these techniques contributing to what Stravinsky referred to as his “new period” of composition. By the tumultuous end in D-flat major, the materials from the opening movement have reasserted themselves to provide closure to the musical argument.
—Raymond H. Rosenstock
Past Performances of the New England Philharmonic 2004-2010
October 30, 2004
Richard Wagner / Introduction to Act III of Lohengrin (1848)
Alban Berg / Five Orchestral Songs on Picture-Postcard Texts by Peter Altenberg, op. 4 (1912) / Gale Fuller, mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Maw / Concert Suite from Sophie’s Choice (2004) / Gale Fuller, mezzo-soprano / Boston premiere
Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky / Symphony no. 4 (1878)
December 12, 2004
William Kraft / Concerto for 4 Percussionists and Orchestra (1964)
Bernard Hoffer / A Concord Rag (1999) / Boston premiere
Bernard Hoffer / Fanfare, Adagio, and Dance for Brass, Harp, Timpani, and Percussion (1990) / Boston premiere
William Grant Still / Mejorana y sovacon from Danzas de Panama (1948)
Maurice Ravel / Piano Concerto in G major (1931) / Larry Weng, piano / NEP Young Artists Competition winner
Benjamin Britten / A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1946) / Steve Aveson, narrator
February 26, 2005
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Symphony no. 35, “Haffner” (1782)
Elliott Carter / The Harmony of Morning (1944)
Irving Fine / Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland (1942) / Simmons College Chorale and Boston Conservatory Women’s Chorus
Andy Vores / An Other I (Violin Concerto) (2005) / Danielle Maddon, violin / NEP commission, world premiere
Franz Liszt / Les Préludes (1855)
April 30, 2005
Igor Stravinsky / Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920)
Leon Kirchner / Orchestra Piece (1946)
Bohuslav Martinu / Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra (1933) / Lois Shapiro, piano; Bayla Keyes, violin; Rhonda Rider, cello
Thomas Osborne / The Burning Music: Prelude for Orchestra (2003) / Boston premiere
Robert Schumann / Symphony no. 4, op. 120 (1851)
October 23, 2005
Hector Berlioz / Overture to Les francs juges, op. 3 (1826)
Andrew Norman / Sacred Geometry (2003) / NEP Call for Scores winner, New England premiere
Antonin Dvořák / The Noon Witch, op. 108 (1896)
Joseph Schwantner / Magabunda: Four Poems of Agueda Pizarro (1983) / Sarah Pelletier, soprano
December 11, 2005
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Overture to The Magic Flute (1791)
Donald Erb / Music for a Festive Occasion (1975)
Sergei Prokofiev / Piano Concerto no. 3, op. 26 (1921) / Jung Eun Yoon, piano / Winner of NEP Young Artists Competition
Michael Gandolfi / Pinocchio’s Adventures in Funland (2001) / Steve Aveson, narrator
February 25, 2006
Charles Ives / Three Places in New England (1935)
Gunther Schuller / Violin Concerto no. 2 (1991) / Danielle Maddon, violin
Peter Child / The Sifting: Three Songs of Longfellow (2005) / Simmons College Chorale and Boston Conservatory Women’s Chorus / NEP commission, world premiere
Elliott Carter / Variations for Orchestra (1955)
April 29, 2006
Edgard Varèse / Tuning Up (1947; 1998)
Claude Debussy / Jeux (1912)
Chou Wen-chung / Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1992) / Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello
Edgard Varèse / Deserts (1954)
Colin McPhee / Tabuh-Tabuhan: Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos (1936; 1960)
October 15, 2006
Stephen Gorbos / Diaphony (2006) / NEP Call for Scores winner, world premiere
Colin McPhee / Concerto for Piano and Wind Octet (1928) / Stephen Drury, piano
Peter Child / Punkie Night (2006) / NEP commission, world premiere
Hector Berlioz / Symphonie Fantastique, op. 14 (1830)
December 10, 2006
Richard Wagner / Ride of the Valkyries (1856)
George Antheil / Tom Sawyer Overture (1949)
Erich Wolfgang Korngold / Violin Concerto (1946) / Julia Noone, violin / NEP Young Artists Competition winner
Richard Cornell / Umai’s Journey (1996; 2006) / Steve Aveson, narrator / Young Classical Singers
February 24, 2007
Steven Stucky / Son et lumière (1988)
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich / Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1997) / Danielle Maddon, violin
Claude Debussy / La damoiselle élue (1888) / Teresa Mai and Ariana Valdes, sopranos / Simmons College Chorale and Boston Conservatory Women’s Chorus
Richard Strauss / Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, op. 59 (1911; 1944) /
April 21, 2007: 30th Anniversary Concert
Alban Berg / Wozzeck (1925) / David Kravitz, Sarah Pelletier, Alan Schneider, Charles Blandy, Paul Guttry, Krista River, Mark McSweeney, soloists / Worcester Polytechnic Institute Men’s Glee Club / Wellesley College Chamber Singers / Handel & Haydn Society Young Women’s Chorus
October 27, 2007
Jean Sibelius / Tapiola, op. 112 (1926)
Gustav Mahler / Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883-1885) / David Kravitz, baritone
Carl Christian Bettendorf / Cryptic Circle (1997-1998) / NEP Call for Scores winner, U.S. premiere
John Harbison / Symphony no. 1 (1980)
December 9, 2007
Christopher Rouse / The Infernal Machine (1981)
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky / Violin Concerto in D major (1878) / Daisy Joo, violin / NEP Young Artists Competition winner
Aaron Copland / Old American Songs (1951) / PALS Children’s Chorus
Francis Poulenc / The Story of Babar the Elephant (1949) / Steve Aveson, narrator
February 23, 2008
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Symphony no. 36, “Linz,” K. 425 (1783)
George Tsontakis / Violin Concerto no. 2 (2005) / Danielle Maddon, violin
Gustav Holst / Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Group II, op. 26 (1909) / Simmons College Concert Choir and Wellesley College Choir
Irving Fine / Symphony (1962) /
April 26, 2008
Carlos Rafael Rivera / Popol-Vuh: Four Mayan Dance Scenes (2004) / NEP Call for Scores winner, Boston premiere
Aaron Copland / Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Jazz Concerto) (1942) / Randall Hodgkinson, piano
Béla Bartók / The Miraculous Mandarin, op. 19 (1925)
November 1, 2008
Nicholas Maw / The World in the Evening (1988) / Boston premiere
Paul Hindemith / Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Harps, op. 49 (1930) / Randall Hodgkinson, piano
Irving Fine / Serious Song: A Lament for Strings (1955)
Sergei Prokofiev / Romeo and Juliet Suites nos. 1 and 2 (1936)
December 14, 2008
John Adams / Short Ride on a Fast Machine (1986)
Dmitri Shostakovich / Cello Concerto no. 1 in E-flat, op. 107 (1959) / Bobby Chen, cello / NEP Young Artists Competition winner
Richard Strauss / Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1894-1895)
George Kleinsinger / Tubby the Tuba (1945) / Steve Aveson, narrator / Timothy J. Sliski, tuba
February 21, 2009
Robert Schumann / Overture, Scherzo, and Finale (1841-45)
Gunther Schuller / Cello Concerto (1945) / Jan Muller-Szeraws, cello / Boston premiere
Jorge Villavicencio Grossman / Pasiphae (2008-2009) / NEP Call for Scores winner, Boston premiere
Steven Stucky / Second Concerto for Orchestra (2003) / Boston premiere
April 25, 2009
Elliott Carter / Remembrance (1988)
Henri Dutilleux / L’arbre des songes (1985) / Danielle Maddon, violin / Boston premiere
Peter Child / Louisa’s War (2009) / Libretto by Michael Ouellette / Joyce Kulhawik, narrator / Simmons College Concert Choir and women of Chorus pro Musica / NEP commission, world premiere
Antonín Dvořák / Symphony no. 8 in G, op. 88
October 31, 2009
Michael Gandolfi / Impressions from the Garden of Cosmic Speculation (2007)
Manuel de Falla / Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1915) / Steven Drury, piano
Kathryn Salfelder / Dessin no. 1 (2008) / NEP Call for Scores winner, world premiere
Claude Debussy / Ibéria (1905-1908)
December 13, 2009
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Overture to The Magic Flute”(1791)
William Kraft / A Simple Introduction to the Orchestra (1961) / Joyce Kulhawik, narrator
Nathaniel Stookey (Lemony Snicket) / The Composer Is Dead (2006) / Joyce Kulhawik, narrator
February 27, 2010
Johannes Brahms / Variations on a Theme of Haydn (1873)
William Schuman / Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1950-1959) / Danielle Maddon, violin
Ronald Perera / Earthsongs (1983) / Simmons College Concert Choir and Handel & Haydn Society Young Women’s Chorus
Bernard Hoffer / Symphony “Poussette-Dart” (2008) / World premiere
May 1, 2010
John Harbison / Symphony no. 2 (1986)
Maurice Ravel / Tzigane, Rapsodie de concert (1924) / Jaclyn Freshman, violin / NEP Young Artists Competition winner
Dalit Warshaw / Camille’s Dance (2000)
Igor Stravinsky / Le Chant du Rossignol (1917)
October 30, 2010
Chris Sainsbury / “First Light,” from Symphony of the Birds (2007/2010) / U.S. premiere / Call for Scores winner
Gunther Schuller / Four Soundscapes (Hudson Valley Reminiscences) (1975) / Boston premiere
Henri Dutilleux / Correspondances (2002-2004) / Sarah Pelletier, soprano / Boston premiere
Robert Schumann / Symphony no. 3 (1850)
December 12, 2010
Engelbert Humperdinck / Overture to Hansel and Gretel (1893)
Aaron Copland / El Salón México (1936)
Sergey Prokofiev / Piano Concerto no. 1 (1911-1912) / Mackenzie Melemed, piano / Young Artists Competition winner
Richard Cornell / Umai’s Journey (1996/2006) / Joyce Kulhawik, narrator / PALS Children’s Chorus
February 26, 2010
David Rakowski / Current Conditions (2009-2010) / Boston premiere
W. A. Mozart / Piano Concert no. 23 / David Deveau, piano
William Kraft / A Kennedy Portrait (Contextures III) (1988) / David Gullette, narrator
Richard Strauss / Death and Transfiguration (1889)
April 30, 2011
Andy Vores / G Major (2003) / NEP Commission
Donald Erb / Concerto for Brass and Orchestra (1986) / Boston premiere
Earl Kim / Violin Concerto (1979) / Danielle Maddon, violin
Gustav Mahler / Symphony no. 10: Adagio (1910)
