Britten - Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra:
Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell

In early 1946, the British Ministry of Education asked Benjamin Britten to write a piece of music introducing the instruments of the orchestra to children. He agreed to the project, and he chose the form of theme and variations for the piece. For a theme, Britten chose a little hornpipe from Henry Purcell's incidental music to the play Abdelazar, or The Moor's Revenge from 1695. The piece is in three large sections: the first presents the full orchestra and then the "four teams of players," as the narration calls them; the second section is a series of variations for the individual instruments; the third section is a fugue, based loosely on the original melody.

Though this piece was written for children, there is nothing childish about the work itself. Dually titled The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, Britten's brilliant craftsmanship places this piece next to Brahms's Haydn Variations and Elgar's Enigma Variations in scope and reputation.

Saint-Saens - Carnival of the Animals

Camille Saint-Saens was a member of the Parisian cultural society known as La Trompette. In 1886, for the society's annual Mardi Gras concert, Saint-Saens conceived a good-humored composition that he called "A Grand Zoological Fantasy" - The Carnival of the Animals. The party and the composition were both great successes, but Saint-Saens considered the piece a lighthearted joke, and he did not want to be publicly attached to the work. With the exception of the Swan movement, Saint-Saens forbade the publication or performance of the Carnival of the Animals for the rest of his life. In his will, Saint-Saens wrote, "I expressly forbid the publication of any unpublished work, except Le Carnaval des Animaux, which may be issued by my usual publishers." The work had its public premiere two months after his death, and it quickly became his most loved and performed work.

Tchaikovsky - Waltz from Sleeping Beauty

At the time he began work on Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky was already the most famous composer in Russian history. While Tchaikovsky was working on his fifth symphony, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg, asked him to write a ballet on the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky was wary about writing another ballet after Swan Lake's lack of success, so this time, he asked the choreographer Marius Petipa to give him a very detailed plan of the ballet's action and the specific music required to accompany it. The resulting composition was a great success, so much so that one year later, Petipa, Vsevolozhsky, and Tchaikovsky collaborated on another ballet - The Nutcracker.

de Falla - Three Cornered Hat Suite

This collection of dances comes from a ballet that was written for the Ballets Russes in 1919, with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso and choreography by Leonide Massine. Folk music of de Falla's birthplace of Andalusia (in southern Spain) is pervasive throughout as is rich detail of orchestral color.

The three dances excerpted from de Falla's Three Cornered Hat tonight are, at their core, orchestral versions of flamenco music. All three are taken from the second act of the ballet, which concerns a lecherous Governor who constantly tries to seduce the Miller's Wife.

The first movement, Seguidillas, depicts the evening gathering of the neighbors at the Miller's home where they feast and dance in celebration of St. John's night. Metrically fluid in its accentuation, the music effervesces with interplay between a languid melody and rhythmic underpinning.

Following the flourishes of French Horn and English Horn solos, the Miller dances a Farruca for his guests. Immediately following, the Governor has the Miller arrested on trumped up charges. The Miller escapes and manages to switch clothes with the Governor (who had removed his after clumsily falling into a stream while once again pursuing the Miller's Wife) which includes his three-cornered hat.

The general confusion that ensues is depicted in the Final Dance - Jota. But all ends happily as the Governor's true identity is eventually discovered and the townspeople toss him in a blanket (heard clearly in the orchestra with a rising and falling motive repeated many times), a traditional activity on St. John's Night!

Mascagni - Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

Mascagni's one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana is one of the first verismo operas, or operas that deal with "normal" people in a realistic manner. The story takes place in the square of a Sicilian village on Easter morning. Turiddu returns home to find that his sweetheart, Lola, has married Alfio, but Turiddu and Lola reunite for an adulterous affair. Alfio discovers the affair, and he angrily promises revenge. A crowd fills the square after the Easter service, and Turiddu is killed in a duel with Alfio. The intermezzo, one of the most beautiful orchestral excerpts in all of opera, occurs after Alfio determines to confront his rival, Turridu.

Music Director and Conductor: Kyle Wiley Pickett
Resident Conductor: William Todd Hunt