Lake Villa District Library, Lake Villa, IL 7pm

Program Notes:

My Name Is Red is titled after a novel by Nobel-winning Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. The book, a profound meditation on style, memory, and the vocation of the artist, employs the device of multiple narrators, as successive chapters are told through the eyes of each of the main characters, mostly manuscript illuminators in the old Ottoman Empire. Some of the artists’ own paintings, one of which consists only of a splotch of red ink, even take turns as narrator (hence the title). The main plot thread of the story concerns whether the painters would betray their artistic and religious traditions by adopting the innovations of Italian Renaissance painting, such as linear perspective and individualized portraits, recently introduced to Istanbul through trade with Venice. This sense of multiple viewpoints and cultural mixing carries over into Pearl’s musical rendition. Much of the piece is based on the same chord progression, treated in various styles from a Venetian barcarolle (with a quote from Mendelssohn’s “Venetian Boat Song,” Op. 19 No. 6) to textures suggestive of Middle Eastern and Central Asian plucked instruments such as the saz or bağlama. According to Pearl, these serve “to evoke the musical traditions that developed throughout the Islamic world.”

Johannes Brahms’ first big orchestral piece was expected to be “Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony,” as famous composer and critic Robert Schumann had anointed him the Next Big Thing in the German-speaking music world. Feeling the weight of expectations, Brahms worked and re-worked for years to create something that could live up to the hype. Indeed, the majestic, hymn-like tune which is the main theme of this movement can be heard as the answer to the triumphant finale of Beethoven’s 9^th (“Ode to Joy”). Brahms uses the traditional sonata-allegro form but, as usual, puts his own creative twist on it. Barely has he finished laying out the main ideas of the piece before the “hymn” tune bursts in again, eager to have another go. However, this second time through, it keeps being interrupted by bits and pieces flying off into new and faraway keys, creating drama and uncertainty. In music theory terms, the recapitulation of the primary theme and transition area is interspersed with the entire development section, instead of being separate sections as expected.

François Fowler’s Shadowlands was inspired by the works of theologian/novelist/literary scholar C. S. Lewis. Shadowlands in particular was the title of screen and stage adaptations of Lewis’ memoir A Grief Observed. The piece is in two parts, entitled “Longing” and “Of Joy, Sorrow, and Doubt.” Both feature a descending half-step motive, which in the second part expands into a longer melody. Near the end, Fowler quotes the triumphant brass chorale which frames the finale of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1, before letting the original motive “bring the piece to an end shaded in doubt.”

The title of Subway and Light Rail Stations is mostly self-explanatory: Each movement is inspired by a stop to or from which I’ve ridden the subway or light rail often, either in my home city, or in places I’ve visited repeatedly. I do love all kinds of trains, but I had to limit the scope of the piece somehow, so I’m not thinking of long-distance or heavy commuter rail (Metra, Amtrak, SNCF, etc.). The order of movements is not geographical or chronological, but an arch form (movements 1 and 7 have much in common, as do 2 and 6, and 3 and 5, with 4 as the centerpiece).

1. (Denver): The platform commands a sweeping view of the hills rolling off into the distance towards Pikes Peak. The repeated pattern of the landscape reminded me of the spiraling structure of the music of Leo Brouwer, which I studied deeply while I lived there.
2. (Boston): The shady residential neighborhood feels sheltered from the city just a couple miles away. Overlapping notes and harmonics hang in the air like the ocean breeze.
3. (Paris): This mouthful of a station (yet pronounced suavely by the onboard audio) includes a maze of tunnels with newsstands, coffee carts, and fresh fruit vendors. An older elevated Metro line with its big rubber tires crosses over the subway here, so another platform is rather surprisingly in the open air.
4. (Baltimore): On a calm October day, color-saturated leaves lazily float down off the trees in Druid Hill Park. A late-afternoon sunbeam pokes through the rumpled clouds.
5. (Minneapolis): This station hidden underneath the airport is memorable mostly as a portal to exciting faraway destinations. The jittery electric whine over the wires can be heard well before the train headlights appear in the tunnel.
6. (Toronto): The air is often cold and gray coming off Lake Ontario. For those who make it to the other side of the upscale shopping arcades, the Rosedale parkway is a haven of quiet, as depicted in Toru Takemitsu’s In the Woods.
7. (Washington DC): An especially long escalator leads up from the turnstiles to a bustling plaza. Schoolchildren, tourists, and bureaucrats on lunch break mingle by the fountain. Art and food from all kinds of cultures are excitingly close at hand.