Concert America; No. 1; 1984 Spoleto Chamber Music Concerts; Part 1

The General Electric Foundation makes possible Concert America, a series reflecting the variety of classical music performance throughout the United States. And this is Concert America on the American Public Radio Network. I'm Gene Parrish, inviting you to join us as we begin a new series of chamber music concerts from the 1984 Spoleto Festival USA produced by the South Carolina Educational Radio Network in cooperation with KUSC Los Angeles and made possible by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina. Concert america is a distinguished series of concerts and recitals featuring well-known artists as well as promising young newcomers. All programs in the series are recorded before live audiences in the leading performing arts centers of America. And now to set the stage for Spoleto USA 1984,

here is Martin Bookspan. From historic Charleston, South Carolina, we present the opening concert in the chamber music series of the 1984 Spoleto Festival USA. This is Martin Bookstand welcoming you to the famed Doch Street Theater in Charleston, one of America's best chamber music concert halls. The chamber music concerts at Spoleto Festival USA have proven to be among the most popular events of the festival. Once again, co-director Scott Nekritz and Paul Robeson have assembled an exciting roster of artists to perform a challenging and diverse repertoire spanning the Baroque to the contemporary. 1984 is the Spoleto Festival USA s eighth season, and of course, its founder and director is composer John Carlo Menotti. Menotti originally chose Spoleto in Italy as the European site for the festival. Because of the historical and esthetic richness of its architecture,

the suitability of its facilities, its setting and its accessibility. Spoleto was spared the disfigurements of modern change, says Menotti, and its historic beauty has remained intact for many of the same reasons. The festival chose Charleston in South Carolina as its American home. Charleston has rich musical heritage dating back to the mid 18th century, when it presented probably the first subscription concerts in the United States. As America's most beautifully preserved 18th century city, Charleston provides an environment as filled with history, art and beauty as the performances. Our performers today will be cellist ONR Bylsma, harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, mezzo soprano Katherine Kazinsky, pianist Tsarnaev Tibaldi and the Emerson String Quartet. And as those of you who have attended performances of the chamber music series here in

Charleston will know, each concert is introduced by a host, either Charles Wadsworth, the founder of the Chamber Music Concerts here in Spoleto, USA, or Paula Robeson. The co-director of our host today is Charles Wadsworth. And the applause of the audience welcomes him to the stage here in the Dark Street theater. Thank you very much. We're back. Thank goodness we all made it back here. All right. How many? How many are here for the very first time, please raise your hands for the very first time in one of these concerts. All right, keep them up there and we're delighted to have you. If you're coming for the first time, you'll learn what this is all about very fast. And then the next time you come, you won't feel at all uncomfortable. Eliseo's you'll feel at home just like everybody else. The Paula Robinson Scott Nickman have put together a wonderful series of concerts, many of the same fine artists that you've heard in the

past. And some remarkable artists are joining for the first time in the chamber music concerts. We have great joy whenever we return to Charleston. It's an extraordinary city with many remarkable qualities. I think of this city because of the it has the fastest growing basket weaving industry in the country, perhaps. I think this city, this city issues more speeding tickets per capita than any country, any city that I know. And it is noted for having the most 24 hour Piggly Wiggly in the country. We will move right on to the very first work. It's by summer. Now, what can one say about Sammartino that hasn't been already said a million times? There were three of them. They were in the late baroque period.

Three brothers, Sabattini Brothers, have a moving van company up in New York. The Martini brothers, though, one of them I was talking to the marvelous cellist on a bylsma. He said, we don't know which one wrote this, but one of them did write it. We think it was Giovanni Battista, some martini, and the piece was written around seventeen sixty. At any rate, Mr. Honorables Mother Cellist is a remarkable artist, has concentrated very much on performance on the baroque cello and that period of music. And he's beginning today playing that music. Later on, he will play a regular cello in the romantic repertoire in the classical repertoire. This work early work by Martini, as I said, written around seventeen sixty. The cello that he's playing on, it's the same size basically as a regular cello, but it has strung with gut strings, which it will have a slightly smaller sound. And he's going with a baroque bow. It's slightly smaller than a regular cello bow and very few hairs

on the bow. When all the hairs go, it's very quiet. The the harpsichord, the the harpsichordist. The harpsichordist is our favorite harpsichordist here, Kenneth Cooper, an extraordinary artist. And he is playing an instrument which was made in nineteen eighty two by Richard Kingston somewhere in North Carolina. It's patterned, we think, after a French instrument which was played on around seventeen, twenty five. And in performance of this, Kenneth demonstrates his ability at continual playing. That's the accompanying bassline and chords. And he does this, as far as I know, no other harpsichordist in the country who does it as well as he does. He only has been given by the composer, the bass single bass note and figures which indicate the name of the chord. So everything you hear him doing, running around and fancy chords and all that stuff, that is at the spur of the moment that he is improvising.

So it's quite an art and it's a lost art, except he found it. And the work has three movements. I'll tell you what they are. The first movement is Allegro. The second movement is a a slow movement and the third movement is Allegro. So the performers are on our Bill Hemmer, who we welcome for the very first time, and our old friend Kenneth Cooper in Giovanni Batiste, Sabattini Sonata in G. Major. Thank you. The Sonata in Gymnasia for Cello and Harpsichord by Giuseppe Summerfield

has been performed as the opening work on this first program of chamber music in the 1984 Spoleto Festival of USA in Charleston, South Carolina. The performance came to you from the historic Doch Street Theater, and our performers were cellist Honor Bylsma and harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, who have now been recalled to the front of the stage by the audience here in the Dock Street Theater. The next work we'll hear is a song cycle by the founder of the Spoleto Festivals in both Italy and the United States composer John Carlos Menotti. The cycle is titled Songs of Far Away, and it was composed in 1967 for Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, who sang The Premier of the Cycle. Our performers today will be mezzo soprano Catherine she's Enschede and pianist John Eve Tebow gave the audience in the Dock Street theater, applauds both Kathryn Kazinsky and Joni

Tibaldi as they make their appearance for John Kalima Naughty Song Cycle Songs of Far Away Catherine. She Sanski, you may remember, sang the role of Erica in the 1978 Spoleto Festival production of Samuel Barber's opera. Vanessa and Johnny Thibeault. Day is a young French pianist who is becoming increasingly prominent on the international music scene. One was called.

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Catherine Kazinsky, mezzo-Soprano and Tsarnaev de Pianos have performed the song Cycle Songs of Far Away by John Carlo Menotti. Mr. Menotti has been in the audience for this performance. He is, of course, the founder of the Spoleto Festival, is both in Spoleto, Italy, and here in Charleston, South Carolina.

This performance came to you from the historic Doch Street Theater as part of the opening program of the 1984 Spoleto Festival USA and its chamber music series. Next, we'll have the members of the Emerson String Quartet and one of the distinguishing features of this quartet is that the two violinists trade off performing the first violin parts. Today, it will be Eugene Drucker, who is the first violinist, and Philip Setzer will play the second violin. The violist is Laurence Dutton, the cellist David Finckel. And the work is the first string quartet by Vila Bartok. The score is in one continuous movement, but there are three distinct sections, and the Emerson String Quartet has made a specialty of the performance of the Bartok string quartets. One of the most memorable recent concerts in New York was an occasion when the Emerson String Quartet played all six of the bathtub quartets at one concert. They are being applauded now by the audience in the DOTZLER theater, and they will

perform Bartok's first string quartet.