The concert of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar de Venezuela) at the Beethoven Festival. Bonn, 2007. Conductor: Gustavo Dudamel.

The concert of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar de Venezuela) at the Beethoven Festival. Bonn, 2007. Conductor: Gustavo Dudamel.

Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra Concert Programme

  1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Opus 55 (also Italian Sinfonia Eroica, Heroic Symphony) (see notes 1)
    1. 00:00 Allegro con brio
    2. 14:35 Marcia funebre: Adagio assai in C minor
    3. 32:20 Scherzo: Allegro vivace
    4. 36:50 Finale: Allegro molto
  2. 50:04 José Pablo Moncayo, Huapango
  3. 59:07 Alberto Evaristo Ginastera, Cuatro danzas del ballet Estancia, Opus 8a/b (1941), Danza final: Malambo (3)

Notes

  1. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Opus 55 marks the beginning of the creative middle period of the German composer. It is also known as Sinfonia Eroica (Italian), meaning Heroic Symphony in English. It was first performed privately in early August 1804. The first public performance was on 7 April 1805 in Vienna. If events hadn’t intervened, and Beethoven had stuck to his original plan, his Third Symphony had been called the “Bonaparte”: the work originally was to be titled the “Bonaparte Symphony” (New Groves), as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Consul who had begun to radically reform Europe after conducting sweeping military campaigns across the continent. In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself emperor, a move that angered Beethoven. As legend has it, the composer ripped through the title page and later renamed the symphony the Eroica because he refused to dedicate one of his pieces to the man he now considered a “tyrant”.
  2. José Pablo Moncayo García (June 29, 1912 – June 16, 1958) was a Mexican pianist, percussionist, music teacher, composer and conductor. “As composer, José Pablo Moncayo represents one of the most important legacies of the Mexican nationalism in art music, after Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez.” He produced some of the masterworks that best symbolize the essence of the national aspirations and contradictions of Mexico in the 20th century. Moncayo’s Huapango was premièred on 15 August 1941, at the Palace of Fine Arts by the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico under Chávez’s baton. Programs of the 1942 season list Eduardo Hernández Moncada as assistant conductor and José Pablo Moncayo at the piano as well as in the percussion section. Moncayo began to work on an ambitious project, a symphony. That summer, and probably thanks to the recommendations of Chávez and Copland, Moncayo and Galindo were granted scholarships from the Rockefeller Foundation to study at the Berkshire Music Institute, known today as the Tanglewood Music Center. According to Dr. Jesús C. Romero, Moncayo was invited to attend there by Aaron Copland and Serge Koussevitzky. The Symphony was scheduled to be premiered by the Orquesta Sinfónica de México on 21 August 1942, but the performance was postponed. The première would take place a couple of years later. The program notes of 1 September 1944, written by Francisco Agea, explain that the two last movements were written in Berkshire: “Both movements were written in the United States, when Moncayo, invited by the director Serge Koussevitzky, attended the Berkshire Festival and the special courses taught to the new generations of composers. It is evident that the author, finding himself abroad and longing for his fatherland, felt the need to express himself in a Mexican language.”
  3. Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983) was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas.

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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