Saturday, June 22 – 7:30 pm – “Mystic Latin”

Enjoy a night of fantasy and dream adventures alongside Don Quixote and sorcery

Heitor Villa-Lobos: Sexteto Místico – Mystic Sextet

Flute, Oboe, Alto-Sax, Guitar, Harp, Celesta.

Gabriela Lena Frank: Quijotadas for String Quartet

Georg Philipp Telemann: Don Quixote Suite

Manuel De Falla: “’El Amor Brujo” for Piano Sextet (1926)

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

Sexteto Místico

    Flute – Les Roettges   Oboe – Eric Olson   Alto-Sax – Jordan Gilman

    Guitar – Jordan Taylor   Harp – Justine Tiu   Celesta – Yukino Miyake

Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos has been called “the single most significant creative figure in 20th century Brazilian art music.” A multi-talented composer, conductor, cellist, and guitarist, Villa-Lobos combined Brazilian street music with the European influences of composers such as Claude Debussy and Erik Satie.

This sextet, for flute, oboe, alto saxophone, harp, and celestina, is a single movement with each instrument introducing itself in the opening section with intermingled harmonies. The effect conveys lightness and delicacy, segueing into a somber oboe solo. In the final section, Villa-Lobos extracts a hidden motif from the earlier sections to a more distinctly pronounced bright melody. This sextet is notable for its unusual instrumentation as well as its delicately implemented dissonance and polytonality.

Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)

Quijotadas

I. Alborada 

II. Seguidilla para La Mancha 

III. Moto Perpetuo: La Locura de Quijote

IV. Asturianada: La Cueva 

V. Danza de los Arrieros

    Violin – Nigel Armstrong, Gabriela Peña   Viola – Jorge Pena   Cello Betsy Federman

American Gabriela Lena Frank is a contemporary composer who draws on her family’s Lithuanian, Jewish, Peruvian, and Chinese backgrounds. The composer describes her work as “…a byproduct of my always trying to figure out how Latina I am and how gringa I am.” A characteristic of her compositions is the use of conventional orchestrations to mimic folk instruments such as the pan flute and charango guitar.

This string quartet in five movements is an homage to Cervantes Don Quixote. The first movement, Alborada, is patterned on a Spanish song of welcome, often played on a panpipe. The Seguidilla is described by the composer as a “…free interpretation of the spirited dance rhythms . . . of La Mancha.” The pizzicato mimics a Spanish guitar. Moto-Perpetuo, the third movement, imagines Don Quixote alone in his house, absorbing the deceptive lure of chivalry, eventually leading to madness. Asturianada: La Cueva uses the style of a traditional mountain song. The finale, La Danza de los Arrieros, imagines Don Quixote encountering the bullying arrieros or mule drivers who prey on our hapless hero.

New Zealand music critic William Dart was enthusiastic about the “Bartokian gusto” of the string quartet which “embraced a wealth of music, punctuated by pizzicatos of every hue.”

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Don Quixote Suite (TMV 55:G10)

I. Overture

II. Quixote’s awakening

III. His Attack on the Windmills

IV. Amorous Sighs for Princess Dulcinea

V. Sancho Panza Fooled

VI. Rocinante’s Gallop

VII. The Gallop of Sancho Panza’s Donkey

VIII. Quixote’s bedtime

Violin I – Gabriela Pena, Nigel Armstrong, Igor Khukhua   Violin II – Ingang Han, Victoria Stjerna

Viola – Jorge Pena, Lauren Burns Hodges   Cello: Jin Kim, Betsy Federman

Bass – Paul Strasshofer   Harpsichord – Yukino Miyake

Telemann’s day job may have been in the wealthy churches of Hamburg, but a playful sense of humor found its way into the composer’s works. This orchestral suite shows his skill as a programmatic composer. Although the exact date of composition is unknown, its first known performance was in the last years of Telemann’s life when he was well into his 80’s.

The work, often referred to as a “burlesque,” is in seven short movements. According to Los Angeles Philharmonic Annotator John Mangum, “The primary musical influence is French, clear immediately from the construction of the overture [1st movement], with its slow, dotted-rhythm section contrasted with a spirited allegro.” A minuet [2nd] signals Quixote’s awakening, followed by [3rd] a spirited if futile attack on a windmill. The sighs of love [4th] pour out of the violins as Quixote longs for the lovely but unattainable Dulcinea. Sancho Panza gets thrown [5th] in the air for failing to pay the innkeeper. Quixote’s feeble horse and Sancho Panza’s braying donkey [6th] represent clever musical onomatopoeia. Quixote dreaming of further “triumphs” [7th] is the finale to the suite.

Manuel De Falla (1876-1946) Arr. De Falla

El Amor Brujo

I. Pantomime 

II. Ritual Fire Dance

Although the volume of music he created was modest, Manuel De Falla is still considered one of Spain’s premier composers, along with such luminaries as Francisco Tárrega, Enrique Granados, and Isaac Albeniz. Born in Cadiz, De Falla lived, studied, and performed in Spain until 1907, when he moved to Paris. The Paris music community was vibrant, with Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, and Isaac Albeniz influential in his musical development.

This sextet, excerpted from the complete opera El Amor Brujo (1915; loosely translated as “The Love Magician”) was arranged by the composer. The piece shows the careful attention De Falla pays to instrumentation. A sales brochure for musical score observes, “De Falla’s art of orchestration (and notably his feeling for instrumental idiom) gives his score a profound sense of balance.” The sextet consists of two parts, the melodic Pantomime and the lively and familiar Ritual Fire Dance.