BEACH
CITIES SYMPHONY NEWSLETTER:
REBECCA RUTKOWSKI, concertmaster of the
Beach Cities Symphony since 1987, began her music studies with her father, a
violinist for the Chicago Symphony, before moving to Southern California. She
is a graduate of UCLA, where she studied with Mehli Mehta and acted as both the
Assistant Concertmaster and Executive Manager of his American Youth Symphony.
As recipient of the George Szell Memorial Scholarship, she also studied with
Daniel Majeske, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. An active freelance
musician in Southern California, Ms. Rutkowski serves as concertmaster of the
Peninsula Symphony and the Topanga Symphony. In addition, she performs
regularly with the Pasadena and Glendale Symphony Orchestras. Summers find her
performing at the Mozart Festival in San Luis Obispo and at the Ojai Music
Festival. Chamber music is one of her favorite pursuits, and she is a member of
the Long Beach-based Concert a Tré with cellist Gilbert Reese and pianist Ralph
Alberstrom. She teaches violin and is a frequent judge at Southern California
competitions.
Ms. Rutkowski, when asked by Music Director Barry Brisk to choose a concerto for this performance, at first considered something by Vivaldi or the better known Bach concertos in E Major and A Minor. She switched to the Bach D Minor because “It was something new to me. Everyone knows it as a piano concerto through Glenn Gould’s famous recording,” she continues. But she became intrigued by a Canadian Broadcasting Company interview with Gould in which he mentioned a recording of the concerto by legendary violinist Joseph Szigeti. In fact, although earlier received opinion was that BWV 1052 was originally written for keyboard and strings, recent research has provided evidence that the solo part was actually first written for violin. “I could live with this piece, or something by Bach, every day of my life,” she concludes. “There’s always a different way to try the bowing, the phrasing.” Especially gratifying is the way “My part comes from within the orchestra; it doesn’t play against everyone else. It satisfies me because I consider myself a concertmaster. I want to be playing with my colleagues.” She pauses, then adds a final thought: “I am very grateful to Barry for giving me this chance to do [the D Minor]. It has expanded me.”
THE BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY
PRESENTS REBECCA RUTKOWSKI
IN A PERFORMANCE OF BACH’S VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D Minor, BWV 1052
ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2002
Marsee Auditorium, El
Camino College
Crenshaw Blvd. at Redondo
Beach Blvd.
Information: (310) 379-9725
or (310) 539-4649
FREE ADMISSION & FREE
PARKING
CONCERT TIME: 8:15 P.M.
Pre-concert lecture: 7:30
P.M.
ALSO FEATURING:
SYMPHONIES OF WIND
INSTRUMENTS BY IGOR STRAVINSKY
SYMPHONY NUMBER 5 IN C
MINOR BY LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Inside this Issue:
Stravinsky’s Symphonies of
Wind Instruments
2OO1 Revisited
New Members
SYMPHONIES OF WIND
INSTRUMENTS
by John Wisniewski
Attendees at the second
concert of the Beach Cities Symphony’s 2001-02 season will experience Igor
Stravinsky’s nine-minute Symphonies of Wind Instruments, which is written for a
wind and brass orchestra. Casual followers of orchestral music may not be aware
that Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy met in 1910 in Paris and were very good
friends until Debussy’s death in 1918 of cancer. Stravinsky was a great admirer
of Debussy and his music, and when Stravinsky composed the revolutionary ballet
The Rite of Spring, it was Debussy who played the first piano four-hands
version with the composer. Also Debussy urged Stravinsky to write a stand-alone
concert version of the piece, knowing it would rankle the listeners of the
period.
In 1920 the magazine Revue
Musicale published a suite of new piano pieces in memory of Debussy, and
Stravinsky submitted the first version of the Symphonies as a chorale for solo
piano. The magazine went on to commission the work as a piece for wind
instruments, and it was performed first at Queen’s Hall in London in June of
1921, led by Serge Koussevitsky.
The piece is titled
“Symphonies” in the plural form, because Stravinsky did not follow a symphonic
compositional form; rather, the piece is a series of scenes featuring different
combinations and harmonies of instruments, in the same way that a commercial
might describe a meal as a “symphony of flavors.”
The work has no trace of
Debussy anywhere, but may serve as a memorial to Debussy’s constant desire to
challenge the “rules” of writing orchestral music. Stravinsky himself said that
the work was “not meant ‘to please’ an audience or to rouse its passions . . .
I did not, and indeed I could not, count on any immediate success for this
work. It is devoid of all the elements which infallibly appeal to the ordinary
listener and to which he is accustomed. It would be futile to look in it for
any passionate impulse or dynamic brilliance. It is an austere ritual which is
unfolded in terms of short litanies between different groups of homogeneous
instruments.”
Listeners who are turned
off by the dissonance and tension in many of
Stravinsky’s works will be
surprised at the severity and reflection in this work. Instead of shocking us
into accepting new ideas, Stravinsky presents a series of abstract concepts
which are now acceptable and familiar because we have been stretched by the
radical ideas of Debussy presented before.
In the 1940s Stravinsky
revised many of his works to use newer methods to solve the same musical
problems in the earlier ones. The 1947 revision of the Symphonies of Wind
Instruments removed the outmoded alto flute and basset horn, and also tried to
foster the resonance of the instruments rather than the dissonance of the work,
and at the same time emphasize the “color” differences in the original work.
Like many of Stravinsky’s
works, Symphonies of Wind Instruments sounds harder to play than it actually is
because the composer breaks up difficult lines among several instruments.
Nevertheless, the piece is a challenge for winds and brass because it consists
mostly of held notes and tone colors. We can listen to it as a tribute to
Debussy’s iconoclastic nature and appreciate its contrast with the works by
Bach and Beethoven we will also be playing on January 18. They all wrote great
music; they all need to be heard.
John Wisniewski is
Principal Bassoonist and Librarian of the Beach Cities Symphony; he is also a
member of the Topanga Symphony. He is the owner of Winc Research, an embedded
software and systems development company.
NOVEMBER 16 REVISITED:
Our first concert of
2001-02 received an exceptionally positive review in the Daily Breeze. Opening
with an eye-catching headline banner, “Symphony shines with precision, clarity
in season opener,” the reviewer praised soloists María Pérez-Goodman and
Rebecca Rutkowski as well as the “consistent clarity” of the orchestra under
the “strong reins” and “precise direction” of Maestro Barry Brisk. Following
the concert, Beach Cities Symphony Association members and their guests joined
the performers at the gala reception in the upstairs lobby. Charter Member Bob
Peterson received hearty congratulations and also a plaque immortalizing his
conducting of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the beginning of the concert. The
large crowd around María Pérez Goodman added appreciative words to the standing
ovation she received following her performance of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano
Concerto. Anna and Jeff Watson, who regularly present the receptions, were
given special assistance by Jeanie and George Pelzman, who co-chaired the gala.
Our thanks go to Pavilions in Torrance for the festive cake, Albertson’s in
Redondo Beach for the vegetable platter, and Ralph’s in El Segundo for the
appetizers.
HOLIDAY ELVES’ REPORT:
Members of the Symphony
Board and the Association added their efforts to aid Santa at two stores during
the holiday season. Target in Torrance was the setting for gift wrapping and
playing carols the morning of December 4 at Target’s annual exclusive shopping
time for seniors and people with special needs. Ruth MacFarlane, Genevieve
Kiser, AdaBelle Peterson, and Jeanie Pelzman handled wrapping chores while
violinist Margaret McWilliams serenaded the shoppers. Also as part of our
community outreach, Ruth MacFarlane, Margaret McWilliams, Jeanie and George
Pelzman, Genevieve Kiser, and Bob Peterson gave out information about the
Symphony while wrapping packages at Barnes & Noble in Manhattan Beach on
November 24 and December 8. These donations of time and labor help to raise our
profile in the community and create a lasting favorable impression of our organization.
Many thanks to these kind people who gave their time during the busy holiday
season to represent us so well.
BARRY BRISK RETURNS TO
VIENNA:
Music Director Barry Brisk
spent the first part of December attending a
seminar on his former
teacher, renowned conductor Hans Swarowsky, at the University for Music and
Performing Arts in Vienna. Swarowsky, who was born in Budapest in 1899,
studied composition in Vienna with Schoenberg and Webern and conducting with
Richard Strauss, Felix Weingartner, and Clemens Krauss. Before coming to Vienna
he held positions in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Berlin, Zurich, Krakow, and Graz,
and he was chief conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from
1957 to 1959. From 1959 he was chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
and also appeared as guest conductor of the Vienna State Opera. He held master
classes in conducting at the Vienna Academy (now University) of Music and
Performing Arts beginning in 1946; some of his more famous students include
Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Zubin Mehta. He died in Salzburg in
1975.
Recalling his studies under
Swarowsky, Brisk recounted his impressions in a 1985 article for Musical
America, a shorter version of which appeared in the January 1999 issue of the
Beach Cities Symphony Newsletter: [Swarowsky] was a truly educated man with a
background in classical languages and philosophy; and he was that most rare of
species among musicians--an intellectual. He was a master of rhetoric; hence
everything he said sounded convincing. His lectures fell into two categories:
technique in all of its manifestations, and score analysis. Ninety percent of
the time was spent teaching us how to study a score, which means how to look at
it from the composer’s point of view. He explained what the composer was trying
to tell us within the composer’s own era and within musical tradition. In other
words, he taught us musical style. He taught it with wit, charm, dirty jokes,
exalted thoughts, slanderous political commentary, and reverence for the music
and its creators. We could attend his rehearsals with the various Viennese
orchestras, and listen to the tales he told upon returning from guest
appearances.
In addition to attending
seminar sessions on Swarowsky’s teaching methods and influence on others,
Maestro Brisk reconnected with several friends and fellow alumni of the Academy
during his December 2001 visit. Among them: Michael Schnitzler, grandson of
Arthur Schnitzler and principal violinist of the Vienna Symphony for 17 years;
Klaus Sattler, a Professor at the University of Vienna and violinist of the
Haydn Trio; and Christian Lange, a music agent in Munich. He also met Manfred
Huss, who published Swarowsky’s collected writings and recruited Brisk to vet
the English translation, forthcoming in 2002.
OUR 2OO2 CONCERTS:
All concerts are on Friday
at 8:15 p.m. in Marsee Auditorium at El Camino
College. Pre-concert
lectures begin at 7:30 p.m.
January 18, 2002
Igor Stravinsky, Symphonies of Wind Instruments
J. S. Bach, Violin Concerto in D Minor: Rebecca Rutkowski, soloist
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Opus 67
March 29, 2002
George Frederic Handel, Royal Fireworks Music (arr. Hamilton
Harty)
César Franck, Symphonic Variations: Linda Love, piano soloist
Richard Strauss, Death and Transfiguration
May 24, 2002
Léo Delibes, Coppelia Ballet Suite No. 1
MTAC Artists of the Future soloists
Richard Wagner, Rienzi Overture
WE WELCOME NEW SYMPHONY
ASSOCIATION MEMBERS:
Fred Armistead, Jr.
Stephen Bayliss
Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Beatty
Malina M. Hills
Sim Hixson
Dr. Richard Krebsbach
Mr. & Mrs. R. James
Lapinski
Al & Evelyn Sorensen
Robert Torres
Erland Wittig
MATCHING FUNDS
CORPORATIONS:
Arco
Best Foods
Honeywell
Mattel
TRW
Thank you for supporting our
organization!
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inquiries to:
Beach Cities Symphony Assn.
Post Office Box 248
Redondo Beach CA 90277-0248
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of upcoming concerts, contact
Dr. Peter Landecker: mailto:landecker@cyberdude.com
Information line:
310-379-9725 or 310-539-4649
VISIT OUR WEB PAGE: http://beachcitiessymphony.org/
Text: Toni Empringham
Graphics: Ralph Dame
Editor/Advisor: Margaret
McWilliams