Bard Music Festival, Bard SummerScape
Weekend 1: 18th Annual Bard Music Festival
August 10–12, 2007
Grandeur and Intimacy in Victorian England
Among Elgar’s compositions, his “Enigma” Variations and the series of Pomp and Circumstance marches most clearly embody the poles that defined Victorian England: imperialist expansion and an inward-looking pride, sentiment, and romanticizing nostalgia.
Elgar’s status changed virtually overnight with the first performance in 1899 of the “Enigma” Variations. Premiered by Hans Richter, the internationally renowned conductor and one of Wagner’s devoted protégés, these coruscating orchestral variations revealed fully for the first time the composer’s astonishing orchestral virtuosity. Elgar’s sudden achievement of a position of preeminence as an English composer is itself a subject of fascination, since as a provincial, middle-class autodidact and Catholic, he was subject to ostracism. It is ironic that it would be his music that would come to embody early 20th-century English private and public sentiment, not only within the British Empire, but also to audiences all over the world.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 10
PROGRAM ONE
Elgar: From Autodidact to “Master of the King’s Musick”
SOSNOFF THEATER
7:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Leon Botstein
8 pm Performance: Daedalus Quartet; Piers Lane, piano; Bard Festival Chamber Players; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director; members of the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Sursum Corda for organ, brass, strings, Op. 11
Harmony Music No. 4
Chanson de nuit, Op. 15, No. 1
Chanson de matin, Op. 15, No. 2
Salut d’amour, Op. 12
Sevillana, Op. 7
Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op. 84
Choral Works
Tickets: $20, 35, 45
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11
PANEL ONE
Elgar the Man and His Worlds
OLIN HALL
10 am–noon
Christopher H. Gibbs, moderator; Byron Adams, Diana McVeagh
Free and open to the public
PROGRAM TWO
Music in the Era of Queen Victoria
OLIN HALL
1 pm Preconcert Talk: Christina Bashford
1:30 pm Performance: Daedalus Quartet; Thomas Meglioranza, baritone; Simone Dinnerstein, piano; Anna Polonsky, piano; Bard Festival Chorale, James Bagwell, choral director
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
O Salutaris Hostia
Ave verum, Op. 2, No. 1
Ecce sacerdos magnus
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771–1858), Introduzione ed aria all’inglese, Op. 65, for piano
W. Sterndale Bennett (1816–75), Impromptu, Op. 12, No. 2, for piano; Piano Sextet, Op. 8
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–47), Fantasia for piano in E Major,“The Last Rose of Summer,” Op. 15
Songs and glees by T. F. Walmisley (1783–1866); John Stainer (1840–1901); C. E. Horn (1786–1849); Liza Lehmann (1862–1918); J. L. Hatton (1809–1886); and Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900)
Choral works by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy; S. S.
Wesley (1810–76); and F. A. Gore Ouseley (1825–89)
Tickets: $35
SPECIAL EVENT
Pianistic Anglophilia: Elgar, Ireland, and Grainger
OLIN HALL
5 pm Performance with commentary by Kenneth Hamilton
Free and open to the public
PROGRAM THREE
Elgar and the “English Musical Renaissance”
SOSNOFF THEATER
7 pm Preconcert Talk: Byron Adams
8 pm Performance: Piers Lane, piano; American
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
In the South (Alassio), Op. 50
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4, Op. 39, in G Major
Funeral March from Grania and Diarmid, Op. 42
Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”), Op. 36
Hubert Parry (1848–1918), Symphonic Variations
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924), Concert Variations on an English Theme (“Down among the Dead Men”), for piano and orchestra, Op. 71
Tickets: $25, 40, 55
SUNDAY, AUGUST 12
PANEL TWO
Das Land ohne Musik?: Views of British Music in the 19th Century
OLIN HALL
10 am–noon
Christina Bashford, moderator; Kenneth Hamilton; Barrymore Laurence Scherer; Richard Wilson
Free and open to the public
PROGRAM FOUR
Elgar and the Victorian Spirit
OLIN HALL
1 pm Preconcert Talk: Christopher Fifield
1:30 pm Performance: Bard Festival Chamber Players; Claremont Trio; William Ferguson, tenor; Weston Hurt, baritone; Melvin Chen, piano
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Six Songs
Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Variations on “Sweet Robin,” for flute, oboe, and piano
Arthur Somervell (1863–1937), Six Songs, from Maud
Hubert Parry (1848–1918), Piano Trio in E Minor
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924), Serenade (Nonet), Op. 95
Tickets: $35
PROGRAM FIVE
Imperial Pomp and Pastoral Nostalgia: British Music for Brass and Strings
SOSNOFF THEATER
4:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Richard Wilson
5:30 pm Performance: Laura Ahlbeck, oboe; Randolph Bowman, flute; Gramercy Brass Orchestra of New York, John Henry Lambert, conductor and music director; members of the American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director; and others
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Civic Fanfare, for brass
Severn Suite, Op. 87
Serenade in E Minor, Op. 20
Introduction and Allegro, Op. 47
Granville Bantock (1868–1946), Symphonic Prelude: Prometheus Unbound
Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Feierlicher Einzug der Ritter des Johanniterordens
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Gustav Holst (1874–1934), Fugal Concerto, for flute, oboe, and strings
John Ireland (1879–1962), Comedy Overture
Percy Grainger (1882–1961), Irish Tune from County Derry
Tickets: $25, 40, 55