ASO at UKARIA – Garden Serenade

Program

J. S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.3 In G BWV 1048 [10′]
I. [Allegro]
II. Allegro

Stravinsky Concerto in E-flat Dumbarton Oaks [15′]
I. Tempo giusto
II. Allegretto
III. Con moto

– INTERVAL –

Shaw Punctum [10′]

Dvorák Serenade in E [27′]
I. Moderato
II. Tempo di valse
III. Scherzo: Vivace
IV. Larghetto
V. Finale: Allegro vivace

Program Note

While Stravinsky busied himself preparing Dumbarton Oaks, a concerto for orchestra, he noted: ‘I was greatly attracted to [Bach’s] Brandenburg Concertos. Whether or not the first theme of my movement is a conscious borrowing from the third Brandenburg, however, I do not know.’ 

These two works make an apt pair, both written in through-composed, three movement form, with a spotlight on the individual voices that make up each ensemble. Although, perhaps three movements is a bold claim for Bach’s work – just two chords make up the second movement, a bridging moment designed to be improvised and embellished upon by the ensemble, before launching into the energetic finale. 

Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks is a tribute to a garden, the name of the sprawling estate of its commissioners, Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss, in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary. It’s of Stravinsky’s neoclassical style – less raucous than his Rite of Spring, and yet the influence of Bach is mingled with a hint of the bubbling turmoil of the 20th century. 

It’s followed by American composer Caroline Shaw’s Punctum. Shaw might be the most contemporary composer on the program, but Punctum continues this Bach lineage. Conceived as an ‘exercise in nostalgia’, the work draws its inspiration from two sources: the first, a passage by photographer and philosopher Roland Barthes, who writes about an elusive ‘Winter Garden’ photo in his 1980 book Camera Lucida. In this description he describes the ‘punctum,’ a photographic detail that pierces the viewer, and provokes an emotional connection and response. The ‘punctum’ of this work is the second inspiration: a hint of Bach’s St Matthew Passion; beneath the distortions of sound, and shudders of violin glissandi, lies a simple hymnal. 

It’s a work that has been revised and rearranged several times, a contrast to the final work of the program, Czech composer Antonin Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings. Dvořák rapidly penned the work in only a fortnight, in the spring of 1875. At this point he was still a composer of obscurity, but after the Serenade’s rousing premiere in Prague, he was quickly becoming an international name. 

With five movements, the premiere’s reviewer noted it was ‘difficult to determine which one takes the prize.’ Each has its own, decisive character. We begin with the lilting opening, a warm ray of sunshine, to the briefly minor waltz of the second, which offers a countering twinkle of darkness. It’s short lived: almost everything about this work is steeped in radiant joy – the third movement is a breathless scherzo, with all bows of the ensemble afire. Bittersweet is movement four, but with more grace than melancholy.  

We conclude, of course, with a Bohemian dance. Its theme is inflected with cheeky exuberance, each of the instrument groups chasing one another around the ensemble. It seems as if it will finish where it began, with the gentle opening theme returning to bookend the serenade; but not without a rollicking coda, which rushes the work to its spirited conclusion. 

– Paige Gullifer

Artists

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and UKARIA honours our First Nations by fostering a shared sense of respect for this land, and we acknowledge and pay our respects to the Peramangk, traditional custodians of the land on which the Cultural Centre stands.