Program Notes: March 11, 2007
Modest Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition in 1874 as a piano suite, after viewing an exhibition of his friend Viktor Hartmann's watercolors and drawings in St. Petersburg (even if his title is somewhat misleading, since only three of the pictures he includes were part of that exhibition). Today, the work is best known through its orchestration by Ravel nearly fifty years later. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the piece, considering its once great but now waning popularity, is how very good it is, especially in how deftly it establishes a palpable relationship between the imagined visitor and the art he views. The musical setting of the pictures themselves are quite evocative, and well distributed not only for contrasting effects and moods, but also in terms of the historical travelogue they evoke. Thus: "The Gnome" (Latin), "The Old Castle" (Italian), "Dispute between Children at Play" (French), "Polish Oxcart," "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" (Russian), "Samuel Goldenberg and Schmulye" (Yiddish, referring to a rich Jew and a poor Jew), "The Market at Limoges" (French), "The Catacombs" (Latin), "The Hut on Hen's Legs (Baba Yaga)" (Russian), and "The Great Gate of Kiev" (Russian). But major interest also arises from the character of the viewer--clearly a pompous and somewhat ungainly burgher, given the odd rhythms of the opening "Promenade"--who manages to see a gratifying reflection of himself in many of the pictures he stops to absorb (hence the many echoes of the Promenade theme).
Gioachino Rossini's La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie, 1815) has contributed one of the composer's most enduringly popular overtures, especially in the wake of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, which used the music to turn gang violence into a kind of horrific ballet. Yet, this seemingly odd use has a kind of appropriateness to it; although the overture, taken in itself, seems exciting and upbeat, it originally introduced a politically tinged melodrama "inspired by a true story," of a serving girl wrongly executed, for a theft committed by a bird. Although the opera marked an important arrival for Rossini--the most successful of his "semi-serious" operas--the overture is shaped by an utterly conventional structural formula, characteristic of his overtures. Briefly, he uses the expected repetitions of the two-part overture form he inherited, in which we hear the same succession of tunes twice, so as to build to a climax in the first half without delivering it, in order to make the delivery of that climax in the end all the more effective. The formula is a particularly effective one, especially when placed, as here, at the service of Rossini's seemingly inexhaustible melodic invention.
Andre Myers heads his description of Colored Shadows (2001) with an inscription from African American poet Lucille Clifton: "shadows ... promising the answers to questions impossible to ask." These lines are drawn from a collection published in 1990, and hint at deeper themes behind their surface engagement with womanly sensuality. In this evocative aspect the lines are eminently musical, and invite us to listen deeply to the music they inspired. Myers concludes his description with a dedication: "Colored Shadows is dedicated to my ancestors, my ancient families, who have long since passed on, and whose names I might never know. I felt close to their spirits while I composed this piece, and I hope their song continues to guide my hand."
-- Raymond Knapp
Andre Myers, composer
A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Andre Myers received his B.Mus. in composition from the Eastman School of Music, and his M.Mus. and A.Mus.D. from the University of Michigan. His principal teachers in composition were William Banfield, Warren Benson, Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, David Liptak, Robert Morris, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom, Evan Chambers and Erik Santos. Recent commissions include two works for the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Composer-in-Residence for the orchestra's CLASSical music outreach program, works for the new music groups Prime Directive and Warped Consort, and music for theater and multi-media installations. His works have been played by the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Plymouth, University of Michigan, and Occidental/Cal-Tech, featured on Minnesota public radio, and performed in conferences across the United States and in Europe. Honors include the University of Michigan's Rackham Merit Fellowship and King Spirit Award, the inaugural awarding of the University of Michigan's Willis Patterson Medal, and an associate artist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Andre Myers lives in Los Angeles, where he is an assistant professor in the music department at Occidental College.
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