Travel by Train
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Starting with Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train,” we travel on a variety of musical choo-choos throughout the evening. No tickets or reservations needed. Just hang on for a great ride!
Inspired by a letter from Mozart to his Dad complaining about a long carriage ride, Aaron Jay Kernis takes four themes from the Divertimento, K. 563, and tosses them around for a whirlwind tour of the modern American musical landscape that he calls “Mozart en route, or A Little Traveling Music.” The Divertimento itself follows immediately, using the same instrumentation of violin, viola, and cello; in this case, the players are Jascha Heifetz, William Primrose, and Emanuel Feuermann.
Mozart’s “To Chloe,” featuring baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, sparked another side trip, this time to Ravel’s “Daphis et Chloe” Suite No. 2, Charles Munch leading the Philadelphia Orchestra through an ecstatic evocation of dawn to the reunion of the star-crossed lovers.
And then back to the trains, with the Kronos Quartet’s inimitable performance of Steve Reich’s “Different Trains.” Reich prerecorded his governess reminiscing about their trips together, a Pullman porter remember his life on the rails, Holocaust survivors speaking of the war, and trains sounds of the 1930s and 1940s. The Kronos members made four different recordings to combine with all those other taped sounds to create this unforgettable journey through America and Europe before and after Word War II.
More train trips follow, but to find out where we go and with whom, you have to stay with us. Toot toot!
Inspired by a letter from Mozart to his Dad complaining about a long carriage ride, Aaron Jay Kernis takes four themes from the Divertimento, K. 563, and tosses them around for a whirlwind tour of the modern American musical landscape that he calls “Mozart en route, or A Little Traveling Music.” The Divertimento itself follows immediately, using the same instrumentation of violin, viola, and cello; in this case, the players are Jascha Heifetz, William Primrose, and Emanuel Feuermann.
Mozart’s “To Chloe,” featuring baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, sparked another side trip, this time to Ravel’s “Daphis et Chloe” Suite No. 2, Charles Munch leading the Philadelphia Orchestra through an ecstatic evocation of dawn to the reunion of the star-crossed lovers.
And then back to the trains, with the Kronos Quartet’s inimitable performance of Steve Reich’s “Different Trains.” Reich prerecorded his governess reminiscing about their trips together, a Pullman porter remember his life on the rails, Holocaust survivors speaking of the war, and trains sounds of the 1930s and 1940s. The Kronos members made four different recordings to combine with all those other taped sounds to create this unforgettable journey through America and Europe before and after Word War II.
More train trips follow, but to find out where we go and with whom, you have to stay with us. Toot toot!
