A Fine Night for Dancing
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It’s a fine night for dancing, and our first hour provides dance music galore, from an English 16th-century dance suite to an American dance overture.
Jordi Savall brings us an authentic-instrument version of the Bach Gamba Sonata No. 1, playing a Pellegrino Zanetti viola da gamba made in Venice back in 1550. Then it’s time to dance. The Buffalo Guitar Quintet plays a suite of five dances they’ve arranged from keyboard works by William Byrd. Then Roberto Abbado conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra in the ballet music from Act III of Verdi’s “Macbeth.” The self-taught 20th-century New York composer Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio) won a number of awards and citations, was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s, but seldom heard today. Correcting that briefly, we bring you an invigorating performance of his “Dance Overture” by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller.
Nino Rota is well known for his film music, but all well appreciated for his chamber works, among them the Nonetto presented this evening by nine fine players. Mozart may not have played the clarinet himself, but he was an enthusiastic proponent of the instrument, and his many works for the instrument are considered collectively to be the cornerstone of its repertoire. Richard Stoltzman, tonight’s soloist, needs no introduction. He is joined for the Quintet in A, K. 581, by the Tokyo String Quartet.
We celebrate two birthdays this evening: that of Conlon Nancarrow (1912), as Joel Sachs conducts the ensemble Continuum in his “Piece No. 1 for Small Orchestra”; and that of Dominick Argento, with tenor Chad Shelton singing “Le tombeau d’Edgar Poe,” backed by the Minnesota Orchestra under Eiji Oue.
Jordi Savall brings us an authentic-instrument version of the Bach Gamba Sonata No. 1, playing a Pellegrino Zanetti viola da gamba made in Venice back in 1550. Then it’s time to dance. The Buffalo Guitar Quintet plays a suite of five dances they’ve arranged from keyboard works by William Byrd. Then Roberto Abbado conducts the Munich Radio Orchestra in the ballet music from Act III of Verdi’s “Macbeth.” The self-taught 20th-century New York composer Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio) won a number of awards and citations, was very popular in the 1940s and 1950s, but seldom heard today. Correcting that briefly, we bring you an invigorating performance of his “Dance Overture” by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller.
Nino Rota is well known for his film music, but all well appreciated for his chamber works, among them the Nonetto presented this evening by nine fine players. Mozart may not have played the clarinet himself, but he was an enthusiastic proponent of the instrument, and his many works for the instrument are considered collectively to be the cornerstone of its repertoire. Richard Stoltzman, tonight’s soloist, needs no introduction. He is joined for the Quintet in A, K. 581, by the Tokyo String Quartet.
We celebrate two birthdays this evening: that of Conlon Nancarrow (1912), as Joel Sachs conducts the ensemble Continuum in his “Piece No. 1 for Small Orchestra”; and that of Dominick Argento, with tenor Chad Shelton singing “Le tombeau d’Edgar Poe,” backed by the Minnesota Orchestra under Eiji Oue.
