Season 47 Episode 1 | 53m 16s | Video has closed captioning.
Directed by Harry Lynch. With Maria Luigia Borsi, Aldo Gentileschi, Brad Repp, Scott Yoo. Yoo chases the story of the most recorded piece of music in the world-Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons.'
Scott Yoo crosses Northern Italy, chasing the story of one of the most recorded pieces of music in the world, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” and discovers how the composer merged religious melodies, opera and a new level of violin playing to launch a new era of music.
Aired: 09/20/19
1st Movement - Spring1. Allegro 6:002nd Movement - Summer4. Allegro non molto. In the series premiere, Scott Yoo crosses Northern Italy, chasing the story of one of the most recorded pieces of music in the world, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” and discovers how the composer. These documentaries are truly delightful, whether you are new to these brilliant composers of the late Baroque, or have lived with them or played them all your life. Violinist Scott Yoo takes us on a musical tour of Europe, visiting places that were significant in the lives of Vivaldi, Bach and Scarlatti (so far). This is PBS at its absolute best. Scott Yoo investigates the story behind Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – and discovers a new Vivaldi work, his connection to Stradivarius, a treasure trove of original manuscripts, and that Vivaldi himself was almost lost to history. Play Episode 102 Trailer S 1 Ep. 2 The Riddle of Bach.
Expires: 10/10/22
Rating: TV-G
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Two centuries offer completely different takes on how to use a string orchestra, and guest conductor Scott Yoo will explore that idea with us — right here in this century!
Although not too terribly well-known, Parry’s An English Suite makes an admirable addition to a concertgoer’s knowledge of chamber music. It is the ultimate English work, as in ‘cheers’ or ‘ta’ and ‘Bob’s your uncle.’ Some of it was composed in the late 1800s, but it was completed in 1914.
Roll back two centuries to The Four Seasons, probably the best-known piece of music in the classical repertoire. Vivaldi’s set of four violin concertos will be play / conducted by Yoo.
Make that three centuries: the present one will be well represented, too, with new music from Randolph Peters!
Randolph Peters
Winnipeg composer Randolph Peters is particularly well-known for his output of roughly 100 film scores made mostly for Canadian films. The first work of his performed by the MCO was Three Quarks for Muster Mark! in January of 1991. In addition to his Paradoxes of the Heart, we have played his Tango on several occasions.
We can’t wait to hear what’s in store for us in October!
The concert begins at 7:30 pm on October 28th in Westminster United Church, 745 Westminster at Maryland. Tickets are $30 for adults, $28 for seniors and $10 for students, including GST, at McNally Robinson, the West End Cultural Centre (586 Ellice at Sherbrook), Organic Planet (877 Westminster Ave) or MCO’s Ticketline (204.783.7377).
EXTRAS!
Check out the ‘Extras’ tab below for Haley Rempel’s ‘Two-minute Talk, ‘On Antonio Vivaldi.’ Watch for Haley’s videos to appear throughout the season!
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Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Anne Manson, Music Director
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Westminster United Church
28 October 2014
Scott Yoo, guest conductor
Randolph Peters
New composition/premiere
Manitoba Arts Council commission
Sir Hubert Parry
An English Suite
Antonio Vivaldi
Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione, Op. 8
— ‘Le Quattro Stagioni’ (The Four Seasons)
Concert sponsor / Wawanesa Insurance
Music sponsor / Red River Co-operative Ltd.
Guest artist sponsors / Sandi & Ron Mielitz
Print media sponsor / Winnipeg Free Press
Radio media sponsors / CBC Radio 2 98.3, CBC Radio One 990,
Espace musique 89,9, Classic 107.1 FM and Golden West Radio
Scott Yoo
After beginning his musical studies at age three, Scott Yoo performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony at age twelve. He received first prize in the 1988 Josef Gingold International Violin Competition, the 1989 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and the 1994 Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 1993, Mr. Yoo founded the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, conducting the ensemble in its series at Jordan Hall in Boston, and in more than ninety performances on tour.
Scott Yoo has collaborated with eminent artists Sarah Chang, Edgar Meyer, Benita Valente, and Dawn Upshaw. He is currently Music Director and Principal Conductor of Festival Mozaic (CA), and Artistic Director of the Medellín Festicámara, a chamber music program for underprivileged young musicians in Colombia.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Yoo has led the Colorado, Dallas, Indianapolis, New World, San Francisco and Utah Symphonies. He regularly conducts the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and led their Elliott Carter Festival as well as numerous subscription series concerts. In Europe, he has conducted the City of London Sinfonia, the Britten Sinfonia, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Odense Symphony and the Estonian National Symphony. In recent seasons, Mr. Yoo made his debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra in Tokyo and his Carnegie Hall debut with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
A proponent of the music of our time, Mr. Yoo has premiered 60 works by 31 composers. With Metamorphosen, he recorded Mark O’Connor’s American Seasons for Sony Classical; John Harbison’s chamber orchestra works with soprano Dawn Upshaw for Bridge, nominated for a 1999 National Public Radio Performance Today Award; and song cycles of Earl Kim with sopranos Benita Valente and Karol Bennett for New World — named a 2001 Critics’ Choice by the New York Times. His recent recording projects include complete orchestral works of Earl Kim with the RTE National Orchestra of Ireland for Naxos, and works of Carter, Lieberson, and Ruders with Bridge Records. He is currently completing recordings of the complete Mozart piano cycle, also with Bridge.
Mr. Yoo has appeared as a conductor/soloist with the San Francisco, Utah, Phoenix, Dallas, and New World Symphonies, and has performed as a chamber musician with Bargemusic, Boston Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. He has been a favourite MCO guest artist since 2004.
Mr. Yoo studied violin with Roman Totenberg, Albert Markov, Paul Kantor and Dorothy DeLay, and conducting with Michael Gilbert and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Randolph Peters
Winnipeg-born Randolph Peters is a professional freelance composer. He has written operas, symphonies, choral and chamber music as well as over one hundred film and television scores. His music has been performed around the world.
Peters has collaborated with authors such as Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, and Salman Rushdie, among others. His collaboration with the late Robertson Davies resulted in a new opera for the Canadian Opera Company entitled The Golden Ass. This work played to sold-out houses in April 1999 at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto.
As Composer-In-Residence with the Canadian Opera Company (1990-93), Peters was commissioned to write Nosferatu. This opera also appeared in the 1995 season of Manitoba Opera. Peters was also Composer-in-Residence of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1996-2001).
The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra previously commissioned his Paradoxes of the Heart (1992) and has performed his Tango for String Orchestra on many occasions.
Everything That Rises
Randolph Peters
The composer has written the following note:
The idea behind this piece refers to French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the ‘Omega Point:’
“Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.”
An English Suite
Sir Hubert Parry
Parry exercised tremendous influence over the musical life of Great Britain as composer, teacher and administrator. On the creative front, he was known above all for his choral music, such as the much-beloved anthem, Jerusalem. Born in Bournemouth, he first worked in the family insurance business, but he left it to pursue his first love, music. In this he was supported by the distinguished musician and administrator Sir George Grove, to whose distinguished dictionary of music and musicians Parry contributed numerous authoritative articles.
In 1883, Parry became professor of composition and music history at the Royal College of Music in London, of which Grove was the first head. He succeeded Grove in that position in 1895 and remained there for the rest of his life. From 1900 to 1908 he served concurrently as professor of music at Oxford University. Among the numerous distinguished future composers who studied with him were Sir Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Frank Bridge and John Ireland.
Parry’s heavy administrative duties kept him from composing as much as he would have liked to. He still managed to create a sizeable catalogue that included five symphonies, a variety of smaller-scale orchestral works, incidental music for plays, large amounts of choral music, songs, keyboard (piano and organ) and chamber works. His style blends continental (specifically German) elements with the rich traditions of English vocal music. The level of esteem in which he has been held in his homeland has waxed and waned with the tides of fashion, but a balanced view of his career and achievements reveals a musician of considerable skill.
He composed two very attractive suites for string orchestra. First to appear was Lady Radnor’s Suite, which he wrote in the mid-1890s, and which was published in 1902. The bulk of the second piece, An English Suite, dates from 1914-15, although he had composed some of the movements, such as the Pastoral and Saraband, a good deal earlier. The Air was the last to appear, in 1916-17.
The suite was unfinished at his death in 1918. Publisher Emily Daymond, who had been a pupil of Parry’s and his loyal assistant, provided definitive names for some of the movements (Caprice and Frolic) and established their order, details which Parry had not lived to complete. After two private performances in 1921, An English Suite was given its public premiere at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert in London in October 1922.
The playful Prelude immediately establishes the suite’s charm and delightful melodic invention. The graceful In Minuet Style unfolds at a moderate pace. The Saraband, the most substantial movement, displays a grave eloquence. Caprice is light and teasing, the Pastoral warm and contented. The Air resembles a lyrical folk song, while the concluding Frolic brings a charming theme cast in a bounding, frisky rhythm.
The Four Seasons
Antonio Vivaldi
Vivaldi’s busy and productive career as composer, violinist and teacher drew its due share of acclaim. He played a major role in several significant musical developments, the rise of the concerto above all. His 500-plus concertos feature a wide variety of soloists. As you would expect, the lion’s share, more than 200, focus on the violin.
His reputation suffered a severe lapse following his death. His music’s return to widespread currency dates only from the years following the Second World War. During that ‘down time,’ virtually his only piece to remain in the standard repertoire was The Four Seasons. It was published in 1725 by the Dutch firm headed by Michel Le Cène. The four concertos appeared as the first third of a collection of 12 violin concertos bearing the overall title Il cimento dell’ armonia e dell’ inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention), Op. 8. The enduring popularity of The Four Seasons has been based to great degree on its nature as descriptive or programmatic music, an area in whose orchestral division Vivaldi made pioneering efforts.
In the first edition, the solo violin part included four sonnets, one for each concerto, with block letters printed in the left margin of the musicians’ parts to indicate where Vivaldi intended the music to illustrate specific lines of the text. He may have written these verses himself.
SPRING, First Movement
Spring has arrived, and joyously the birds
now welcome her return with festive song,
and streamlets, by soft airs caressed, are heard
to murmur sweetly as they course along.
Casting their inky mantle over heaven,
thunderstorms, her chosen herald, roar;
when they have died away to silence, then
the birds take up the charming songs once more.
The birdsong imitations that Vivaldi scattered throughout The Four Seasons begin almost immediately. Furious buzzings in the orchestral strings hint that this pastoral landscape may not remain sunny and untroubled forever.
Second Movement
And now, upon the flower-strewn grass subsiding,
with leafy branches rustling overhead,
the goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Peppered throughout by the dog’s barkings (Vivaldi assigned them to the violas), the violin soloist sings a sweet ode to the warm breezes of the season.
Third Movement
By festive sound of rustic bagpipes led,
nymphs and shepherd dance beneath the shining
canopy of spring with sprightly tread.
SUMMER, First Movement
Beneath the blazing sun’s relentless heat
men and flocks are sweltering, pines are seared;
the cuckoo’s voice is raised, and soon the sweet
songs of the turtle dove and finch are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air, but the contentious
north wind sweeps them suddenly aside;
the weeping shepherd trembles at the menace
of violent storm and what it may betide.
The serenity of much of the Summer Concerto mirrors the season’s heat and the slow tempo of life that results. The first movement begins with the strings of the orchestra evoking a hot summer day by heaving what sound like long, difficult breaths. The soloist bursts in with a passage of almost brutal speed and virtuosity. The opening mood returns, followed by warblings that Vivaldi intended to imitate specific birds: the cuckoo, the turtle dove and the finch. Stillness continues to alternate with agitation, concluding with a blustery foretaste of a full summer storm.
Second Movement
His limbs are now from restful ease unbound
by fear of lightning’s flash and thunder’s roar
and flies and bluebottles that buzz around.
Rapid alterations in mood and texture continue to crop up in the second movement. Buzzing flies and bluebottles — portrayed through repeated notes on the orchestral strings — frustrate the attempts by the humans in this landscape to find genuine rest due to the oppressive heat.
Third Movement
Alas, right well has he read Nature’s lore:
the heavens growl and flash and hail-stones pound
the ripened corn that proudly stood before.
The brusque finale fulfils the predictions and foreshadowings of the two previous movements, through a howling, full-blown tempest.
AUTUMN, First Movement
With song and dance the peasant celebrates
the harvest safely gathered in his barns;
Bacchus’ flowing bowl intoxicates
and many a reveller sinks in Morpheus’ arms.
The summer doldrums give way to hearty autumn festivities in the third concerto. Vivaldi found ingenious ways of dividing the dancers at this harvest celebration into two groups: those who have had too much to drink, and those who refrain from the grape. The sober revellers refuse to let any distractions divert them from their square, regular rhythms. Their thirsty, hard-partying comrades dance more eccentrically, sometimes slowly, sometimes in stop-and-start antics, hiccupping as they weave about. Towards the close, the tempo slows completely, and the soloist takes on the role of a reveller who is close to passing out.
Second Movement
The singing and the dancing die away
as cooling breezes fan the balmy air;
the summons of the season all obey:
to yield to sweet repose without a care.
All the strings play with mutes in this placid depiction of the besotted party-goers lying in wine-induced slumber upon the ground.
Third Movement
At dawn the hunters, ready for the chase,
emerge with horns and guns and dogs and cries;
the prey breaks cover, they pursue apace.
The din of guns and dogs now terrifies
the wounded brute, who for a little space
tries wearily to flee but, harried, dies.
On the morning of the following day, a strong, brass-like, dotted-note rhythm in the orchestral strings summons everyone to the hunt. The soloist imitates the sound of the traditional hunting instrument, the horn. In due course the prey takes flight, shots are fired, and the hunting dogs bay in excitement until the quarry is captured.
WINTER, First Movement
To shiver frozen mid the frosty snow
in unrelenting winds that bite and sting,
to stamp one’s icy feet, run to and fro,
one’s teeth for bitter chill a-chattering;
The string orchestra enters gradually, almost nervously, vividly portraying a forbidding and chilly winter landscape. The soloist adds horrid, blustering winds to the scene, then combines with the orchestra to show the unhappy citizens, their legs shaking, their teeth chattering and their feet stamping, as they make their slow, reluctant way to their destinations.
Second Movement
To muse contentedly beside the hearth
while those outside are drenched by pouring rain;
Although the edges of the scene may be forbidding, with the orchestral violins playing pizzicato notes in imitation of raindrops striking the window panes, the soloist’s theme remains contented, as those people who are fortunate enough to be inside warm themselves in front of a crackling fireplace.
Third Movement
With cautious step to tread the icy path
and try to keep one’s feet with might and main;
To turn abruptly, slip, crash to the ground
and, rising, hasten on across the ice
until it cracks and splinters all around;
Scott Yoo Wikipedia
To hear the winds burst with ferocious might
their prison gates and clash with martial sound —
this is the winter, such are its delights.
At the start of the finale, the soloist undertakes in delicate fashion a slithering, treacherous walk across thin ice. People slip and fall, then the ice breaks with a snap. A brief, serene pause for breath precedes the bitter winds of the literally tempestuous conclusion, which despite the cheery words of the accompanying sonnet, sound not at all delightful!
Youtube Scott Yoo Vivaldi
Haley Rempel, two-minute talk
Number 17: ‘On Antonio Vivaldi’
Now Hear This Scott Yoo Vivaldi
Praised for her warm tone and expressive playing, Canadian flutist Haley Rempel is gaining reputation for her sophisticated interpretations as well as her unique ability to capture audiences. Haley facilitates the MCO’s Pizza Club events.