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THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS SUBSCRIPTION SERIES |
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The Romantic Spirit Lakeland Baptist Church, Lewisville, Texas. (Directions)
The concert co-sponsored by the City of Highland Village
Adron Ming, Music Director/Conductor
I
Allegro maestoso Domenico Codispoti, Piano Adron Ming, Conductor
Mr. Codispoti records on the Dynamic label The Lewisville Lake Symphony's 127th concert Domenico Codispoti was born in 1975, in Catanzaro, close to the Mediterranean in the southernmost part of Italy. Although nobody in the family was a musician, his father was determined that his son should learn the piano.
Thus, at the age of six, Domenico was placed front of a piano, found pushing the keys to be noisy fun and soon proved to be very adept player. A year later, the family took him on the ferry to Massina in northern Sicily where he won first prize in the “City of Messina National Piano Competition.” Since that auspicious start, he has collected more than 20 top prizes in national and international piano contests. His family, says Domenico, has always supported his determination to be a concert pianist despite the fact that it is an intensely competitive profession. After studying with Bruno Mezzena, he graduated cum laude and with honorable mention from the Conservatory of Pescara, Italy, in piano, and again cum laude from the Accademia Musicale Pescarese in piano and chamber music. In 2001 he was among the 15 pianists selected worldwide for the “TCU-Cliburn Institute” held in Fort Worth. Later that year, he won the First Prize at the prestigious Pilar Bayona International Piano Competition in Zaragoza, Spain. He has also been the winner of the First Prize at the “Ferrol International Piano Competition”, and 2nd Prize at the “Jaen International Piano Competition”, together with the Special Prize “Rosa Sabater” for the best performance of Spanish music. Domenico was awarded the Joel Estes Tate scholarship to study with Joaquin Achucarro at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He received the Don Nobles Memorial Award in 2002 and graduated from SMU in 2003. He admits that moving from Italy to Texas produced some culture shock but he says he found the ‘mixed cultural air’ of SMU was also exhilarating fresh air. Since his debut at sixteen with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Pescara, Dominico has been a soloist with the Sinfonica de Galicia, the Iceland Symphony, State Philarmonic of Brno, the Plovdiv and the Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon, among the others. His recital appearances have included performances throughout Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, Iceland, Ecuador and the USA. He has been regularly featured in the ‘Cliburn Musical Awakening’ educational program organized by the Van Cliburn Foundation in Fort Worth. He recorded Rachmaninov’s Sonata n.2 op.36, for the Dynamic label and has performed live on Vatican Radio and TV and for the National Icelandic Radio. He also recorded for the Spanish National Radio (RNE) and Television (TVE2). In 2003-2004 he served as a collaborative pianist and vocal coach for the Opera and Voice Departments at SMU. He regularly gives piano master classes in Spain and Iceland. He enjoys jazz, especially Bill Evans and Brad Mehldau. Also, being a good Italian, he is an avid soccer fan. He also notes that his home town of Catanzaro has a team, the Red Eagles, which, along with Rhinos Milan, is one of the oldest teams in the Italian Federation of American Football. Thus, he says he arrived in Dallas with a working knowledge of the local sports obsession and watches the Cowboys whenever he has the opportunity. Domenico plays Chopin´s 1st Concerto with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra shortly before performing the same work with the Lewisville Lake Symphony.
Felix
Mendelssohn
(1809-1847)
In his own time, Mendelssohn was universally accepted by the public across Europe as a master composer, conductor and musician. His music was particularly popular in England where he was also in demand as a conductor. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were enthusiasts and enjoyed piano recitals at Windsor Castle by their friend Mr. Mendelssohn whenever he visited the country. As well as leaving a large body of music, Mendelssohn had a major influence on the art of conducting. In 1835, he became Director of the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig and, in short order, made the town the musical capital of Germany. He also established an orchestral model that would be familiar to today’s concert-goers. The orchestra’s size was increased from forty to fifty, a top flight concertmaster was engaged and pensions were secured for each player. His spirited, dictatorial, high-strung approach produced a precision unit where his players suffered his frequently lost temper if they didn’t meet his expectations. He was one of the first conductors to use a baton, used gestures sparingly and was very insistent on accurate rhythm and smooth ensemble. Mendelssohn revised the orchestra’s repertory by tossing out now forgotten composers like Fesca, Neukomm and Ries, making Mozart and Beethoven the backbone of the schedule with Haydn, Bach and Handel not far behind. At the time there was little interest in Bach's music, but Mendelssohn used his own popularity and the four hundred singers and soloists of the Singakademie to help renew interest in the great composer's work. He also introduced Leipzig audiences to newer composers like Rossini, Chopin and the almost unknown Schubert. He also got rid of the customary variety programs which promoters felt sugar-coated serious music for a larger audience. A Beethoven symphony would be stopped after two movements and a harpist or cellist or singer would entertain the audience before the symphony resumed. Mendelssohn died of a stroke at thirty-eight, living only three years longer than Mozart.
Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, (Italian)
I. Allegro vivace
The Symphony No. 4 earned its name of Italian principally because of its vivacious first and last movements. The underlying rhythm of the opening movement, Allegro vivace, suggests an Italian tarantella, though the music follows the prescribed form for symphonic first movements. The tarantella, a rapid Neapolitan dance, may have derived its name from the poisonous spider, the tarantula, whose sting, according to superstition, the wild dance was effective in curing. The second movement, Andante con moto, has sometimes been referred to as the “Pilgrims’ March,” though some writers contend that the theme is of Bohemian origin. Actually, this is a lovely, melodious movement that may well have stemmed from one of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. Proceeding in an equally smooth, flowing fashion is the third movement, Con moto moderato, which takes the form of a minuet. Most Italian of all is the finale, Presto. It is in the form of a saltarello, an extremely lively dance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially popular in the vicinity of Rome. Mendelssohn may have witnessed the dancing of the saltarello at the festivities attending the Carnival at Rome in February 1831. Back to top
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Chopin was born
in 1809 or 1810 in Zelazowa Wola, a town not far from Warsaw, of a Polish
mother and French father. Chopin devised new ways to play the piano. His ideas about pedaling, fingering, rhythm and color were immediately taken up by every one of the younger pianists and composers of his day and the concepts dominated the second half of the 19th century. Chopin also favored rubato, a kind of displacement where the right hand is hesitant or impatient but the left always holds the rhythm steady. "Look at these trees!" Franz Liszt told one of his pupils, "the wind plays in the leaves, stirs up life among them, the tree remains the same. That is Chopinesque rubato." More established professionals had a difficult time getting a hold on the Chopin’s ideas. Mendelssohn, one of the best musical minds of the time, initially found Chopin’s music disturbing. However, in a short while he wrote, “…there is something entirely original in his piano playing and it is, at the same time, so masterly that he may be called a perfect virtuoso.” Chopin has been described as somewhat feline, with a personality that was witty, malicious, suspicious and charming. Although a great pianist as well as a composer, he realized his physical frailty and style were better fitted to intimate venues than large halls. This contributed to the unease and envy in his long relationship with Liszt. Chopin was the pianist’s pianist. Liszt was the public’s pianist, a showman with power, good looks, an extraverted personality and a Teflon ability to cheerfully ride out one scandal after another. He sincerely admired Chopin’s music, and could use it hypnotize a large audience in a way that Chopin could not. Chopin and Sand decided to escape the press by wintering in Majorca. The tryst became a nightmare. The rain was constant, their rented house was eternally damp and Chopin became extremely ill. Sand found herself taking an unplanned detour from lover to nurse. The three best doctors on the island had, according to Chopin, completely different ideas about his condition. Chopin claimed one had decided he was dead, the next that he was dying and the third that he was going to die. Fortunately, it took sixteen years for any of diagnoses to prove true and the lovers were both able to move on to other affairs.
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
No. 1
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Lewisville
Lake Symphony
I. Allegro vivace
His father had picked up a love of classical music from a part time job
when he was a college student. In those days, movie theatres showed
a main feature and a ‘B’ movie, a news-reel and a cartoon. There was a significant interval
between the two movies so the theatre could sell refreshments to
the audience. To help pay for tuition, his father played classical records over the sound system during the intermission
and gained an informal musical education by working his way through the
movie theatre’s record collection. 
While
Wagner provided a mythology for the Nazis, Mendelssohn presented a
problem. The Nazis tried to discredit him, taking down his statue in
Leipzig, forbidding the study and performance of his music and ordering
all the Mendelssohn descendants still living in Germany to leave the
country. Mendelssohn himself, was presumably indifferent since he
had been dead for almost a hundred years. His music had become tainted because his
parents, dead even longer, and members of a wealthy, conservative
banking family, were Jews although they had found it prudent to convert
to Christianity in order to blend with Berlin Society in the early 19th
century. Further, Mendelssohn had retained his grandparent’s last name instead of
using Bartholdy, the name taken by his parents. (Most biographies split the
difference with a hyphen -- Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.) 
Mendelssohn
was fond of traveling, and his travels often had an effect on the music
he composed. Thus, a trip to Scotland in 1829 inspired the creation of
the Scotch Symphony and the Hebrides Overture. In 1830-31
he journeyed to Italy, spending a considerable amount of time in Rome
and Naples. From Rome he wrote in February 1831, “I am making great
progress with the Italian Symphony”. However, the symphony was not
finished while the composer was in Italy, nor for some time thereafter.
It was possibly a commission in November 1832 from the London
Philharmonic Society to compose “a symphony, an overture, and a vocal
piece” that inspired him to complete the Italian Symphony in
March 1833. It was first performed by that orchestra under the
composer’s direction two months later. It has been noted that the
symphony made a great impression on the audience. Despite the success
of the composition, Mendelssohn was not altogether satisfied with it.
The following year he began to make revisions in the score, and even
contemplated rewriting the first movement. This dissatisfaction caused
the publication of the work to be delayed until after the composer’s
death.
He studied composition under Joseph Elsner, a
teacher who was wise enough to recognize that Chopin was something
special and needed to be treated carefully. Elsner wanted Chopin to
compose symphonies, sonatas and perhaps Polish national opera but
allowed his pupil to develop naturally. In 1835 Chopin moved to Paris
which in the 1830s and ‘40s was in one of its cycles as the temporary
center of the artistic universe. 
Chopin had fame
and contacts. His titled fellow Polish émigrés in Paris had introduced
him to the Rothschilds who acted as a ticket into the highest
levels of society. Chopin was able to charge unprecedented amounts as
teacher and lived in luxury and had more than his share of love affairs,
which he kept to himself, being somewhat prudish. This
changed when Liszt introduced him to Aurora Dudevant, who, was descended
(illegitimately) from the king of Poland and had written
two notorious and very successful novels under the pen name of George
Sand. Nominally married with two children, she had a long succession of
lovers, probably including Liszt, and an unerring instinct for keeping
herself in the public eye. Wearing men’s clothes for a time and smoking
cigars, her independence and disdain for social propriety were catnip
for the Paris newspapers. This year, being the bicentenary of her
birth, she is the subject of exhibitions, music festivals and
conferences across France.
This
concerto was composed in Warsaw in 1830 when Chopin was twenty years of
age. (The Second Concerto, Op. 21 in F minor, was actually written a
year earlier, but not published until 1836, three years after the
“First”.) The score reads “for the pianoforte and orchestra”, and it is
indeed an accompaniment by the orchestra. Chopin was not concerned with
the “classic concerto principle” of contrast between the orchestra and
soloist. He did not have the two forces join toward a common end as
Mozart liked to do, nor have them battle each other for dominance as
does the grand romantic display concerto. The accompaniment, for him,
was a setting to intensify the beauty of the pianistic jewel – the
simpler it was, the more luminously it enhanced the output of the solo
instrument. One of the distinguishing features of the Chopin style is
the rubato: the holding-back on crucial notes, the rhythmic
freedom which animates a phrase and gives it meaning. A complex
orchestral part would have made such a degree of “controlled liberty” a
virtual impossibility for all performers.
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