David Amram's Theme and Variations
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
David Amram’s Theme and Variations on the song “Red River Valley” was written for the 20th anniversary of the Kerrville Music Festival in Kerrville, Texas in 1991.
David’s piece was dedicated to his wife, Lora Lee, and to the memory of Hondo Crouch, with whom he played music at the Lukenbach, Texas general store. Flutist Julius Baker and the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra under Richard Alden Clark bring us a definitive performance. Ton Koopman presides over the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra from his harpsichord as we hear Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G Minor.
Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Orchestral Suite from the pastorale “Nais” gets us going in the second hour. Frans Bruiggen conducts the Orchestra of the 18th Century in this evocation of a lost Arcadia. Violinist Gidon Kremer is joined by pianist Helene Grimaud for an authoritative and lovely reading of the Schumann Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A Minor.
Film music, as always at about 9:00pm, followed by George Rochberg’s “Transcendental Variations,” Christopher Lyndon-Gee conducting the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony. The word “transcendental” in no way refers to Liszt or to the 19th century American literary movement of that name. Rather, it has to do with Rochberg’s vision of timelessness, as he explored the slow movement from his Third String Quartet, reworking and revising it for string orchestra and offering us a musical vision of impenetrable mystery. Ingram Marshall’s “In My Beginning Is My End” is played by the Dunsmuir Piano Quartet, for whom it was written.
David’s piece was dedicated to his wife, Lora Lee, and to the memory of Hondo Crouch, with whom he played music at the Lukenbach, Texas general store. Flutist Julius Baker and the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra under Richard Alden Clark bring us a definitive performance. Ton Koopman presides over the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra from his harpsichord as we hear Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G Minor.
Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Orchestral Suite from the pastorale “Nais” gets us going in the second hour. Frans Bruiggen conducts the Orchestra of the 18th Century in this evocation of a lost Arcadia. Violinist Gidon Kremer is joined by pianist Helene Grimaud for an authoritative and lovely reading of the Schumann Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A Minor.
Film music, as always at about 9:00pm, followed by George Rochberg’s “Transcendental Variations,” Christopher Lyndon-Gee conducting the Saarbrucken Radio Symphony. The word “transcendental” in no way refers to Liszt or to the 19th century American literary movement of that name. Rather, it has to do with Rochberg’s vision of timelessness, as he explored the slow movement from his Third String Quartet, reworking and revising it for string orchestra and offering us a musical vision of impenetrable mystery. Ingram Marshall’s “In My Beginning Is My End” is played by the Dunsmuir Piano Quartet, for whom it was written.
