Bard Music Festival “Stravinsky and His World” Weekend Two opens Friday, August 16
“Stravinsky Re-invented: From Paris to Los Angeles,” the second and final weekend of the 24th annual Bard Music Festival in New York’s Annandale-on-Hudson, follows Igor Stravinsky from Europe to post-war Hollywood, investigating his subsequent shift in style from neoclassicism to serialism. The weekend opens on Friday, August 16, with a screening of film clips that document the great Russian innovator, with commentary by Professor Charles M. Joseph, author of Stravinsky Inside Out. This special session is followed by the weekend’s first concert, “Against Interpretation and Expression: The Aesthetics of Mechanization,” a program of postmodernist ensemble classics by Stravinsky, Bartók, Varèse, Hindemith, and Messiaen; soloists include Grammy-nominated pianist Peter Serkin and So Percussion’s Eric Beach. Among the weekend’s other highlights are two programs featuring the festival’s resident American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leon Botstein, co-artistic director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival. The first considers Stravinsky and Schoenberg as émigrés in America, while the second comprises two of Stravinsky’s operatic works, Oedipus Rex and Perséphone, in a choral-orchestral tour de force that draws the weekend – and all seven weeks of SummerScape – to a gripping close.
Two chamber programs further contextualize the Russian-born composer. “Stravinsky in Paris” presents three masterpieces of his neoclassical period – Duo concertant, Les cinq doigts, and the Octet for Winds – alongside music by Prokofiev and other Paris-based composers who embraced the new stylistic development. And “The Poetics of Music and After” proffers Stravinsky’s late Septet and Circus Polka together with works by Piston, Carter, Copland, and Chávez.
A free panel discussion on Saturday morning, moderated by Bard’s Scholar-in-Residence, Tamara Levitz, considers “Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Music, Ethics, and Politics.” Five of the weekend’s six programs are augmented by a pre-concert talk from a distinguished scholar (Christopher H. Gibbs, Manuela Schwartz, Richard Wilson, Levitz, and Botstein himself); Klára Móricz provides commentary on a sixth, which investigates Stravinsky, his spirituality, and the choral tradition.
As in previous seasons, Weekend Two’s choral programs feature the Bard Festival Chorale directed by James Bagwell. Among the many notable musicians who will also perform are eight-time Grammy Award-nominee, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore; bass-baritone John Relyea, winner of both Richard Tucker and Beverly Sills Awards; violinist Jesse Mills, of the Horszowski Trio; cellist Robert Martin, director of Bard’s Conservatory of Music; and pianist Piers Lane, for whom “no praise could be high enough” (Gramophone).
Critical acclaim:
The Bard Music Festival has impressed critics worldwide. The New York Times reports that “performers engaged by Bard invariably seem energized by the prospect of extending beyond canonical routine, and by an audience that comes prepared with open ears and open minds.” As the Wall Street Journal’s Barrymore Laurence Scherer observes, the Bard Music Festival “has long been one of the most intellectually stimulating of all American summer festivals and frequently is one of the most musically satisfying.” Reviewing a previous season of the festival, the New York Times reported, “As impressive as many of the festival performances were, they were matched by the audience’s engagement: strangers met and conversed, analyzing the music they’d heard with sophistication, and a Sunday-morning panel discussion of gender issues in 19th-century culture drew a nearly full house. All told, it was a model for an enlightened society.”
Getting to the Bard Music Festival: New York City Round-Trip Bus Transportation
A round-trip bus service is provided exclusively to ticket-holders for the performances listed below. Reservation is required, and may be made by calling the box office at 845-758-7900. The round-trip fare is $40, and the bus departs from Lincoln Center at the times indicated:
Program 6: Friday, August 16 at 8 pm (preconcert talk at 7:30 pm) 2:30 pm
Program 11: Sunday, August 18 at 4:30 pm (preconcert talk at 3:30 pm) 11:30 am
Bard’s delightful Spiegeltent will be open for lunch and dinner throughout “Stravinsky and His World,” and there will be a special closing party in the tent on August 18.
Complete programs for Weekend Two of the 2013 Bard Music Festival follow.
Program details of Bard Music Festival, “Stravinsky and His World”
WEEKEND TWO: Stravinsky Re-invented: From Paris to Los Angeles
Friday, August 16
SPECIAL SHOWING
Filming Stravinsky: Preserving Posterity’s Image
Weis Cinema
5 pm: Commentary by Charles M. Joseph
Free and open to the public
Program Six
Against Interpretation and Expression: The Aesthetics of Mechanization
Sosnoff Theater
7:30 pm Pre-concert Talk: Christopher H. Gibbs
8 pm Performance: Eric Beach, percussion; Judith Gordon, piano; Jonathan Greeney, percussion; Imani Winds; Piers Lane, piano; Peter Serkin, piano; Gilles Vonsattel, piano; Bard Festival Chamber Players and students of The Bard College Conservatory, conducted by Leon Botstein
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Concerto for Piano and Winds (1923–24)
Sonata for Two Pianos (1943–44)
Béla Bartók (1881–1945)
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz 110 (1937)
Edgard Varèse (1883–1965)
Octandre (1923)
Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)
Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 2 (1922)
Olivier Messiaen (1908–92)
From Quatre études de rythme (1949–50)
Tickets: $25, $35, $50, $60
Saturday, August 17
Panel Three
Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Music, Ethics, and Politics
Olin Hall
10 am—noon
Tamara Levitz, moderator; Tomi Mäkelä; Simon Morrison; Richard Taruskin
Free and open to the public
Program Seven
Stravinsky in Paris
Olin Hall
1 pm Pre-concert Talk: Manuela Schwartz
1:30 pm Performance: Xak Bjerken, piano; Randolph Bowman, flute; Sara Cutler, harp; Jordan Frazier, double bass; Marka Gustavsson, viola; Robert Martin, cello; Jesse Mills, violin; Harumi Rhodes, violin; Sharon Roffman, violin; Laurie Smukler, violin; Bard Festival Chamber Players
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Les cinq doigts, for piano (1921)
Octet for Wind Instruments (1922–23)
Duo concertant (1931–32)
Albert Roussel (1869–1937)
Sérénade, for flute, harp, and string trio, Op. 30 (1925)
Bohuslav Martinu (1890–1959)
String Quartet No. 4, H. 256 (1937)
Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953)
Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 56 (1932)
Arthur Lourié (1892–1966)
Sonata for Violin and Double Bass (1924)
Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986)
Sonatina for Flute and Piano (1925)
Tickets: $35
Program Eight
The Émigré in America
Sosnoff Theater
7 pm Pre-concert Talk: Leon Botstein
8 pm Performance: John Relyea, bass-baritone; Rebecca Ringle, mezzo-soprano; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Jeu de cartes (1936)
Symphony in Three Movements (1942–45)
Ode (1943)
Requiem Canticles (1965–66)
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)
Kol Nidre, Op. 39 (1938)
Hanns Eisler (1898–1962), Score for Night and Fog (1955), a film by Alain Resnais
Tickets: $30, $50, $60, $75
Sunday, August 18
Program Nine
Stravinsky, Spirituality, and the Choral Tradition
Olin Hall
10 am Performance with commentary by Klára Móricz, with the Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; Frank Corliss, piano; Bard Festival Chamber Players
Choral works by Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971); Gesualdo da Venosa (1566–1613), Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643); Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750); Sergey Rachmaninoff (1873–1943); Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), and Ernst Krenek (1900–91)
Tickets: $30
Program Ten
The Poetics of Music and After
Olin Hall
1 pm Pre-concert Talk: Richard Wilson
1:30 pm Performance: Rieko Aizawa, piano; Imani Winds; Alexandra Knoll, oboe; Piers Lane, piano; Jesse Mills, violin; Bard Festival Chamber Players
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Circus Polka, arranged for piano (1942, arr. 1944)
Septet (1952–53)
Anton Webern (1883–1945)
Variations for Piano, Op. 27 (1936)
Walter Piston (1894–1976)
Suite, for oboe and piano (1931)
Aaron Copland (1900–90)
Nonet (1960)
Elliott Carter (1908–2012)
Woodwind Quintet (1948)
Ellis Kohs (1916–2000)
Sonatina for Violin and Piano (1948)
Carlos Chávez (1899–1978)
From Ten Preludes (1937)
Tickets: $35
Program Eleven
The Classical Heritage
Sosnoff Theater
3:30 pm Pre-concert Talk: Tamara Levitz
4:30 pm Performance: Gordon Gietz, tenor; Jennifer Larmore, mezzo-soprano; Sean Panikkar, tenor; John Relyea, bass-baritone; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director; and others
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Perséphone (1933–34, rev. 1948)
Oedipus Rex (1926–27, rev. 1948)
Tickets: $30, $50, $60, $75
All programs subject to change.
Bard SummerScape Ticket Information
For tickets and further information on all SummerScape events, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or visit www.fishercenter.bard.edu.
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©21C Media Group, August 2013