RedlandsSymphony

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Orchestration

4 trumpets, 4 horns, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani.

Born into a musical family, Richard Strauss proved early that he was a composer to watch out for. Conductor Hans von Bülow called the composer’s Serenade for Thirteen Winds (1881), written when Strauss was just 17, evidence that the young man was “by far the most striking personality since Brahms.”

Strauss is perhaps best known for popularizing and refining the form of the tone poem, with works such as Don Juan (1888–89), Till Eulenspiegel (1894–95), and Also sprach Zarathustra (1895-96), as well for operas such as Salome (1903-05) or Der Rosenkavalier (1909-10). However, Strauss also had a long and fruitful career as a conductor, leading the Berlin Royal Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Strauss even took the Vienna Philharmonic on a tour of South America in 1920, and collaborated on several works for the group, including the fanfare heard in today’s concert.

The Fanfare für die Wiener Philharmoniker was written in 1924 for the organization’s first benefit ball, which raised money for the musician’s pension fund. Held on March 4 of that year, the ball took place during the holiday called Fasching in German-speaking countries and known as Carnival or Mardi Gras in other countries. The piece was played while honored guests, such as the Matron of the Ball, arrived at the event. The work has been played every year since at the Philharmonic’s annual balls.

Being the son of the principal horn player for the Munich Court Orchestra may have had something to do with the composer’s ability to write for brass, but whatever his influences, this brief fanfare certainly demonstrates his affinity for striking brass textures. The piece is scored for a large brass ensemble and two sets of timpani. It opens simply, with a single note on the trumpets repeated in the characteristic fanfare rhythm. This expands to a triad, and then the other sections enter one at a time: trombones, horns, timpani, each adding rhythmic and textural complexity. The main theme arrives, marked by the entrance of the tuba. A brief development leads to an even briefer second subject, played more softly and without the triplet motor propelling it. After just a few measures the main theme returns, soon reaching a climax featuring a riff in the horns climbing three octaves. Short but stirring, one can easily understand why any Matron of the Ball would ensure that this piece has remained in the Philharmonic’s active repertory for 80 years.

By Barbara Heninger for the Redwood Symphony (2005).

Rouse (1949­—)

Orchestration

solo trombone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, xylophone, glockenspiel, chimes, marimba, two suspended cymbals, snare drum, tenor drum, five tom-toms, two bongos, bass drum, a pair of crash cymbals, two tam-tams, and strings.

Composer’s Note:

I completed my Trombone Concerto in Fairport, New York on April 5, 1991. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its principal trombonist, Joseph Alessi, in honor of the orchestra’s sesquicentennial. This was the first in a series of back-to-back concerti I composed for various instruments, later ones being composed for violin, violoncello, and flute.

It occurred to me as I was planning the piece that composers, when writing concerti for brass instruments, have often elected to give such works something of a light character. As a result, I set out to compose a work which, while requiring substantial virtuosity from the soloist, would contain music of a primarily somber and introspective character, one whose tone was serious in tone. I was aided in this by my wish to dedicate a score to the memory of Leonard Bernstein, and it seemed natural to ally such a desire to the realization of a work for the New York Philharmonic, the orchestra which Mr. Bernstein so loved and which he directed for many years.

I got the opportunity to know Mr. Bernstein only in the summer of 1989, although I had admired his work as composer, conductor, and musical evangelist for most of my life. He remains for me a figure of inestimable importance in the history of music, one whose passion for and commitment to his art was unsurpassable, and his sudden death in October 1990 robbed us all of an almost superhuman musical giant. The third movement of my concerto is, in particular, a memorial to Mr. Bernstein, and the quotation of what I call the “Credo” theme from his Symphony No. 3 (“Kaddish”) a gesture of the most profound affection and gratitude, mingled with sorrow at his passing.

The concerto is organized as two adagios flanking a central scherzo. The first movement begins and ends with sparse, ritualized music of an understatedly rhetorical nature, with its centerpiece being an expanding passacaglia featuring the soloist accompanied by the strings of the orchestra. The middle movement alternates scurrying music (which introduces the orchestral brass section for the first time in the score) with a more dancelike central part—the music ultimately builds to a loud, almost apocalyptic climax, and this gives way to the elegiac finale, primarily a funeral march, in which the Bernstein quote leads the music back to the hieratic material which began the piece. Each of the movements is connected by a brief cadenza for the solo trombone. This work was awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Reprinted with kind permission of Christopher Rouse.

Brahms (1833 – 1897)

Orchestration

Maestro Jon Robertson is now in his twenty-sixth season as music director and conductor or the Redlands Symphony Orchestra. The extraordinary quality of this orchestra is attributed to the blend of devotion he has for the musicians and his artistic vision. Dr. Robertson is currently Dean of Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida, where he resides. He also served as Chair of the Music Department and Professor of Conducting/Director of Orchestras at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Robertson’s career as a concert pianist began at age nine with his debut in Town Hall, New York. He continued to give concerts throughout Europe and South America. His degrees are from the Julliard School of Music (B.M, B.S., and D.M.A.) in piano performance and he also studied choral conducting with Abraham Kaplan at Julliard and orchestra conducting with Richard Pittman of the New England Conservatory. He later traveled to Sweden and East Germany to study under Maestro Herbert Blomstedt, former conductor and music director of the Sun Francisco Symphony.

In 1972, Dr. Robertson became conductor and music director of the Thayer Conservatory of Music Orchestra. He served as conductor and music director of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra in Norway, from 1979 to 1987. Dr. Robertson made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove as guest conductor. He received critical acclaim, and was invited for return engagements during the Symphony’s subscription series at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. Dr. Robertson has conducted the Beijing Central Philharmonic in China, the Gavele Symphony in Sweden, the American Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dr. Robertson has served as a panelist on the NEA orchestral review panel and on the grants and touring panel of the California Arts Council. He has also served on the board of director of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras. He has an interest in theology and is sought after as a consultant, lecturer, and motivational speaker.

Andrew Glendening is Principal Trombonist of the Redlands Symphony Orchestra and Dean of the School of Music at the University of Redlands. A native of Logansport, Indiana, he earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Trombone Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music before attending Indiana University where he was awarded the school’s highest honor, the Performer's Certificate, by unanimous vote of the faculty. He also earned his Master of Music and was the first person to receive the Doctor of Music degree in Trombone Performance from the Indiana University School of Music. He has studied trombone with M. Dee Stewart, Per Brevig, Thomas Cramer, and Frank Crissafulli.

A proponent of new music for the trombone, Dr. Glendening has premiered over 100 works including three concerti. In 1998 he was awarded Morehead State University's Distinguished Creative Productions Award for his solo CD is titled "Pathways: New Music for Trombone.” In 1999 he premiered the wind ensemble version of Robert Parris's Trombone Concerto with the U.S. Army Band "Pershing's Own." In November of 2002, Glendening was the featured performer at the American Music Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Prior to Redlands, Dr. Glendening was Chair of the Department of Music at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He has also served on the faculties of Morehead State University and Northeastern Illinois University. He resides in Redlands with his wife Candace and sons Liam and Logan.