Contact: Gabriel Langfur
info@chameleonarts.org
617-427-8200
Chameleon Arts Ensemble presents “like woven sounds of streams”
February 27, 2009 – Boston, MA – On Saturday, March 28 at 8 PM, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble will present like woven sounds of streams, a program of music inspired by water, nature’s greatest force of regeneration and renewal. The concert is at the Goethe-Institut Boston, 170 Beacon Street in the Back Bay. Schubert’s Trout Quintet is featured, as well as two works inspired by the great Viennese composer: Dan Welcher’s Mill Songs: Four Metamorphoses after Schubert for oboe and bassoon, and Dominick Argento’s To Be Sung Upon the Water for soprano, clarinet/bass clarinet and piano. Notably, Chameleon will present a rarely heard but seminal work by the brilliant German exile Hanns Eisler, his Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain for flute, clarinet, string trio and piano.
Hanns Eisler’s story is fascinating. A wounded veteran of the First World War, Eisler studied with Schoenberg and Webern between 1919 and 1923 in Vienna. A lifelong communist and close friend and collaborator of Bertolt Brecht, Eisler was forced into exile in the United States by Hitler’s Third Reich. He was subsequently deported as one the first victims of the Hollywood blacklist and lived out his life in East Germany. Eisler’s music ranges from strictly avant-garde 12-tone technique to clearly diatonic text-setting that perfectly served the Socialist messages of his vocal works. Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain is a highly expressive example of the former and one of his rare pieces of chamber music, composed in 1941 in the United States to accompany Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens’ 1929 experimental film Regen. It was dedicated to his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, premiered at his 70th birthday celebration and labeled Opus 70 despite the fact that Eisler had long since stopped numbering his works.
Schubert’s Quintet for Piano and Strings in A Major “Trout” is one of the most gracious and beloved works in the entire chamber music repertoire. The subtitle comes from the use of Schubert’s own song “Die Forelle” (The Trout) in the theme-and-variations last movement. Schubert has long been a model for other composers; Robert Schumann wrote of him: “No music except Schubert’s is so psychologically remarkable for the development and association of ideas and the impression of logical transition that it conveys.” Schubert’s prodigious gift for song, specifically, has been an inevitable model for every composer of art song since, and Dominick Argento is certainly no exception. Argento is remarkable among American composers in that his major contributions have been to opera and song repertoire. To Be Sung Upon the Water is a cycle for high voice, clarinet and bass clarinet, and piano, on poems of William Wordsworth. The texts are connected by themes of water, and Argento uses traditional forms such as the Barcarolle to suggest the motion of water. The heart of the cycle is a song titled “In Memory of Schubert.” Dan Welcher, an award-winning composer, conductor and bassoonist, pays tribute to the 19th century master with his Mill Songs: Four Metamorphoses after Schubert for oboe & bassoon.
In a city immersed in music, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble is distinguished by superb artistry, luminous performances, and dynamic musical dialogues. Since its founding in 1998, Chameleon and artistic director Deborah Boldin have earned unqualified praise for integrating old and new repertoire into unexpected chamber music programs that are themselves works of art, and were recently recognized nationally with a 2009 CMA/ASCAP award for adventurous programming, their second such award in three years. The Boston Globe praised her “discerning ears and cosmopolitan tastes” and remarked that “planning a good chamber music program is an art unto itself, and few in town have mastered it as persuasively as the Chameleon Arts Ensemble.” This innovative ensemble draws capacity audiences of those who love the adventure of music—classic and contemporary. A Chameleon concert is a multifaceted experience in an intimate environment joining audience and musicians in an exuberant celebration of music.
For tickets or more information, concertgoers can call 617-427-8200
or visit www.chameleonarts.org. Individual tickets are $38,
$28 and $18. $5 discounts for students and seniors are available.
The Goethe-Institut is a wheelchair accessible venue.
#####
top
|
|
|
info@chameleonarts.org
