Measha & Mahler
April 25, 2020 | 8:00 PM | Hill Auditorium
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. SEE HERE FOR MORE INFO.
Behind the Music
Your A2SO’s historic 2019/2020 season comes to a commanding conclusion with a glowing performance from Soprano Measha Brueggergosman. Feelings of love, longing, and loss from three compositional generations will be sung in Brueggergosman’s debut with the A2SO. Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits D’été (Summer Nights) sets the text of Théophile Gautierand in an unusually passionate and personal manner. While it is a mystery who Berlioz wrote the songs for, a powerful feeling of desire is undeniable. The sway of a waltz in Erik Satie’s Je Te Veux is mesmerizing and you will lose yourself in the story of passion told by Henry Pacory’s text. Selections from William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs are a “highbrow” nod to the composer’s “lowbrow” days growing up in Seattle playing in vaudeville shows. The ambitious program for the season finale is rounded out with Mahler’s sprawling and tempestuous First Symphony.
PROGRAM
BERLIOZ Summer Nights (selections)
SATIE Je te Veux
BOLCOM Cabaret Songs (selections)
MAHLER Symphony No. 1 in
D major, “Titan”
Measha Brueggergosman, soprano
Oriol Sans, guest conductor
The A2SO performs Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 for the first time in 20 years.
MEASHA BRUeggergosman, Soprano
Fast Facts
Stuck With The Titan
Wrapping your head around a Mahler symphony is no easy task and for Mahler’s audiences of the 19th-century, the enormity of his First Symphony and its sound was a lot to absorb. The piece divided audiences who were used to the sound of works by Brahms and Beethoven. When the symphony was premiered in 1889, Mahler gave the audience the tip that the music was based on the novel The Titan by Jean Paul. As the composer started to revise his symphony he made attempts to distance it from the association he originally forged, but the name remains attached to the symphony to this day.
Building Song Structure
The range of William Bolcom’s compositional work has amassed a catalog with everything from solo piano pieces to symphonies that explore modernism, pastiche, pop, and cabaret. His prolific career began at the age of 11 when Bolcom enrolled at the University of Washington. While minoring in English, he built a foundation of knowledge that he used to explore American popular song and write his own songs often collaborating with his wife and and singer, Joan Morris.
FURTHER LISTENING