Resurrection -- Easter Concert Wilderness Cello April 2022

Program Notes


Claude Debussy
Born: August 22, 1862, Paris
Died: March 25, 1918, Paris
Beau Soir, arranged by Arthur Hartmann


Justus J.F. Dotzauer
Born: 1783, Dresden, Germany Died: 1860
Study #22 Allegro non troppo in e minor


Maurice Ravel
Born: March 7, 1875, Ciboure
Died: December 28, 1937, Paris
Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte
(Composed in 1899 for piano)


Georg Philipp Telemann
Born: March 14, 1681, Magdeburg, Germany
Died: June 25, 1767, Hamburg, Germany
Concerto for Viola and Orchestra in G Major
1.Largo
2.Allegro
3.Andante
4.Presto




Claude Debussy "was the incomparable painter of mystery,
silence, and the infinite, of the passing cloud, and the
sunlit shimmer of the waves- subtleties which none before
him had been capable of suggesting."    -Henri Prunieres

In cafes, Debussy met Symbolist poet Stephane mallarme, 
and the Impressionist painters Manet and Renoir. He now
"tried to approximate in music what the Symbolists and 
Impressionists were doing in poetry and art." The
Symbolist movement was a reaction to Romanticism and a 
precursor to twentieth-century Abstractionism. Debussy
attempted a one-act opera on Symbolist Edgar Allen Poe's
Le Diable Dans Le Bellfroi (1901-1912), but never
completed it.

Debussy is best known for his two books of piano
"Preludes", 1909-10 and 1911-13.

Ironically enough, the very ethereality that characterizes
Debussy's music makes it difficult to put into writing a
concrete list of achievements, as it is the mood that lingers, not the message.


Justus J.F. Dotzauer was the founder of the school for
cello in Dresden, Germany. His pupils were F. A. Kummer
and Karl Drechsler. A critical force in cello pedagogy,
he wrote 200 etudes and exercises.
I hope to perform some of these studies as stand-alone
solo pieces, akin to the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites.

Maurice Ravel "was a brilliant student at the Paris
Conservatory. His compositorial technique had an almost
virtuoso quality, as he used rhythm, instrumentation,
melodic development, harmonic color, and counterpoint
with stunning effect."
Although often compared, I couldn't find that Debussy and 
Ravel knew each other, though they had the same friends,
were Parisian and missed each other at the Paris
Conservatory by only 5 years.

Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte and Jeux D'eau "helped
introduce a new technique of producing sonorities and
colors for the piano (particularly in the upper register)
which influenced even Debussy in all his later writings
for piano."

A contemporary of Bach and Vivaldi, Georg Philipp
Telemann was the most prolific composer of the first half
of the 18th century. He wrote everything; opera, cantatas,
masses, Passions, orchestra and chamber music and songs.
Ironically, he withdrew his application to the post of
Kantor of St. Thomas, Leipzig, paving the way for the
appointment of J.S. Bach.

The delightful and energetic Viola Concerto written in the
resonant key of G major is a gem in this instrument's
literature. It translates nicely to the cello one octave
below.


refs. Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and Their Music,
Milton Cross, Cello Story, Markevitch, The Oxford
Companion to Music, ed. by Alison Latham