Program Notes
Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 3 Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Respighi was born into a musical family in Bologna and took his first piano and violin lessons from his father before specializing in violin, viola and composition at the conservatory. At 21 he played principal viola in the Russian Imperial Theatre Orchestra in St Petersburg for a season of Italian opera. While there he met Rimsky-Korsakov, whose works he greatly admired; his student works showed such potential that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed to teach him for his remaining five months in St. Petersburg.
After touring for a number of season as first violinist of the Mugellini Quintet, Respighi settled in Rome to become Professor of Composition at the St. Cecilia Conservatory, remaining in that position from 1913 until his death in 1936. When Italy entered the First World War Respighi’s role at the Conservatory exempted him from military service. During Italy’s turbulent inter-war politics and the rise of Mussolini he was carefully apolitical, with his beautiful music ensuring respect from whichever party or movement prevailed at any particular time.
The works for which he is best known, the tone poems The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome and his suite The Birds, show the modern, colourful, almost cinematic character of much of Respighi’s music. But he was also a scholar fascinated with ancient music. He transcribed and arranged dozens of works from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, infusing them with contemporary colours while still respecting their original characteristics.
Respighi made three suites for string orchestra from pieces he found in collections of 16th- and 17th-cenutry lute works, calling them Ancient Airs and Dances. The Third Suite is the only one entirely for strings, and is the most popular. Respighi conducted the premiere in Milan in January 1931.
The opening Italiana is arranged from a lute galliard, a dance with complex steps, reflected in Respighi’s fluid composition of individualistic parts for each string section. The Arie di Corte is a mini-suite based on six passionate 16th-century songs for lute and voice, joined into a sequence of sections in different tempos ranging from Andante cantabile to Vivacissimo and a variety of metres and phrase lengths. The Siciliana is an arrangement of a well-known folksong, the spagnoletta which begins serenely but flows into musical rapids. The final Passacaglia presents a complex set of variations over a ground bass, taking over a 1692 composition for lute by Roncalli. The spacious breadth of the first section is gradually intensified into great activity before a brief coda draws the suite to a grand conclusion.
A Distant Point in the Vast Heavens: Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 98 Andrew MacDonald (1958 - )
World premiere
Notes from the composer:
I composed this new concerto for Christina Bouey, a brilliant violinist who recently played my solo work, The Great Square of Pegasus, at her Carnegie Hall debut concert. I wrote my first violin concerto for the legendary Canadian David Stewart who recorded it on the BIS label with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Simon Streatfeild. Besides winning the 1995 JUNO Award for Best Composition, it has been heard in concert halls across the country.
This new concerto is very different than my first, given that it is scored for the unique timbre of string soloist against string orchestra. The title, A Distant Point in the Vast Heavens, reflects a certain approach to the concerto aesthetic: the one against the many, both within and without. A distant star or exoplanet among the multitudes of others, it flourishes — an entire world within itself.
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Appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022 for his lifetime achievements in composition and performance, Andrew Paul MacDonald has won many prestigious prizes, including the 1995 JUNO Award for “Best Classical Composition” for his Violin Concerto No. 1. His works have been performed by all of Canada’s major symphony orchestras, Sinfonia Toronto, Esprit Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Evergreen Club and I Musici de Montréal.
He has had works commissioned by orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo performers, competitions, the Canadian Opera Company and the CBC. His works have been performed in Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and the US. 35 of his compositions have been recorded on 20 cd’s to date, and one of his works for violin and piano won the 2005 East Coast Music Award and the 2005 Canadian Independent Music Award. MacDonald also performs in concert as guitarist, lutenist and conductor, and is a recently retired professor of composition at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke (Lennoxville), Québec.
Serenade for Strings in E Flat Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, the son of a German painter and his Italian wife, created his music in the space between these two cultures. His works unite the seriousness of German academia and the energetic spirit and grace of Italian bel canto.
Although he studied piano as a boy, Wolf-Ferrari actually wanted to become a painter, like his father, and studied art in Venice, Rome and Munich. But in Munich he finally decided to focus on music. He took lessons from Josef Rheinberger and then enrolled at the Munich conservatory. He composed his first works in the 1890’s and achieved rapid success. In the first decade of the 20th Century his operas were among the most-often performed in the world. In 1902 he was appointed director of the Liceo Benedetto Marcello in Venice.
The outbreak of World War I plunged Wolf-Ferrari into cognitive dissonance and depression. He had been splitting his time between Munich and Venice, and suddenly the two countries he loved were at war with each other. He moved to Zürich and did not compose much for several years. When he resumed writing more actively in the 1920’s, his works included more complex emotions and sombre, melancholy passages, and he produced one masterpiece after another, recognized in 1939 with his appointment as professor of composition at the Salzburg Mozarteum. His last years were clouded by war once again as World War II ravaged Europe. Suffering from heart disease and perhaps taking refuge in more intimate expression, he returned to his early love of chamber music before dying of a heart attack in early 1948.
The Serenade is an early work, started in 1892 while Wolf-Ferrari was still at the Royal Conservatory in Munich. He finished it the following year; it was performed at the Conservatory’s year-end concert. His composition professor Josef Rheinberger recommended it to the Munich publisher Steingraber who issued it in 1894. The opening Allegro is a bright movement, full of joie de vivre. The second movement Andante is calm and sentimental at its beginning and end but includes a martial Presto section in the middle. After the short, lively Scherzo the fourth movement Presto opens with a skittish fugue which soon busts into a cheerful, ebullient final ensemble.
BIOGRAPHIES
Giulio Marazia, Conductor has conducted at festivals and concerts throughout Italy and abroad in numerous theaters and concert halls. From 2015 to 2016 he was assistant conductor at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno and at the Opera Royal de Wallonie in Liège, Belgium. He has recorded with the Campana Philharmonic and the Pergolesi Orchestra of Milan for the 'NovaRecords label.
Among the orchestras he has conducted are Orchestra Alfaterna, Orchestra Sinfonica Ensemble Contemporaneo, Valle del Sarno Orchestra, I Pomeriggi Musicali, Orchestra Sinfonica del Conservatorio di Milano, Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra of New York, Opera Royal de Wallonie di Liège, Venice Chamber Orchestra, Pugliese Philharmonic Orchestra, Pergolesi Orchestra of Milan, Castelbuono Classica Symphony Orchestra, Israeli Moshavot Chamber Orchestra of Tel Aviv, Asti Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Foggia, Orquestra Simfonica Julia Carbonell de Lleida (Spain), Kodaly Philarmonic (Hungary), Pazardzhik Symphony (Bulgaria), Orquestra Sinfonica National do Teatro Claudio Santoro of Brasilia. During the 2023/2024 season he conducted the Abruzzo Sinfonic Institution, the Orchestra Filarmonica de Stat Sibiu (Romania) and the Filharmonii Dolnośląskiej w Jeleniej Górze Orchestra (Poland).
Maestro Marazia has served as Artistic Director of the Collegium Vocale Salernitano (2006-2012), of the Contemporary Ensemble (2006-2013), Pergolesi Orchestra of Milan (2018-2020) and of the Teatro S. Alfonso of Pagani (2019-2021). He is currently artistic and musical director of the Campana Philharmonic. With this orchestra he has toured China in 2019 with 28 concerts dedicated to Italian opera in some of the most prestigious theaters and concert halls.
Canadian/American violinist, Christina Bouey, is hailed by the New York Times for playing “beautifully,” the New York Post, “When violinist Christina Bouey spun out that shimmering tune, I thought I died and went to heaven,” and by Opera News, for playing “with exquisite, quivering beauty.”
Christina most recently won 1st prize at the Waldo Mayo Violin Competition which resulted in her concerto debut at Carnegie Hall. Other prizes include the Grand Prize at the Vietnam International Chamber Competition, 1st Prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in the chamber division, Grand Prize at the Fischoff Competition, 1st place in the American Prize, and 2nd prize at the Osaka International Chamber Competition. Among her other top awards include Canadian National Music Festival, Queens Concerto Competition, and the Balsam Duo Competition.
She has performed as soloist with the Greenwich Symphony, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Salina Symphony, River Cities Symphony, Symphony of the Mountains, Tonkünstler Ensemble, Metro Chamber Orchestra, Bergen Symphony, Prince Edward Island Symphony, Ithaca College Orchestra and the Banff Orchestra to name a few. Her solo and chamber highlights in the United States include Carnegie Hall- Weill and Zankel Halls, Alice Tully Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Gilder Lehrman Hall, Schneider Series, Rockefeller Tri Noon Series, Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Merkin Concert Hall, National Gallery of Art in DC, Jordan Hall, Dame Myra Hess series, La Jolla SummerFest, Kneisel Hall Festival, Highlands-Cashiers Music Festival, Music Mountain, Chautauqua Institution, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City, Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem, Eastman School of Music, Westchester Chamber Music Society, Mayfest at Cornell University, and the Kansas International Music Festival. Christina has also been invited to perform internationally in the Esterházy Palace in Austria, Taiwan National Recital Hall, Harbin Grand Theatre, Wigmore Hall, Fundacion Juan March in Madrid, Sociedad Filarmonica de Bilbao, Ciclo De Camara y Solistas in Salamanca, Sociedad Filarmonica de Vigo, Picasso Museum in Malaga, Premiere Performances Hong Kong, Vietnam Connection Music Festival, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama, Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy, Teatro Mayor Julio Santo Domingo in Bogota, Sala Nezahualcoyotl in Mexico City, Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul, Winnipeg Virtuosi Concerts, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Cecilia Concerts in Halifax, Montreal Chamber Festival, Kelowna Community Concert Association and the Under The Spire Music Festival. She toured as a soloist for Prairie Debut during the 2021-22 season and Debut Atlantic during the 2017-18 season with pianist Pierre-Andre Doucet.
Christina graduated from Manhattan School of Music (2013) with a Professional Studies Certificate in Orchestral Performance, studying with Glenn Dicterow and Lisa Kim as a full scholarship student, (2012) with a Professional Studies Certificate, studying with Laurie Smukler, and in 2011 she received a Master of Music, while studying with Nicholas Mann. Her Bachelor of Music is from the Boston Conservatory where she studied with Irina Muresanu as a full-scholarship student. She plays a 1790 Storioni violin on generous loan from a private donor.
Sinfonia Toronto now in its 26th season, has toured twice in Europe, in the US, South America and China, receiving glowing reviews. It has released six CD’s, including a JUNO Award winner, and performs in many Ontario cities. Its extensive repertoire includes all the major string orchestra works of the 18th through 21st centuries, and it has premiered many new works. Under the baton of Nurhan Arman the orchestra’s performances present outstanding international guest artists and prominent Canadian musicians.
Sinfonia Toronto respectfully acknowledges that we work in the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation
and the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee peoples
