A colourful and exciting programme led by Korean conductor Shiyeon Sung. There's a French focus for much of the concert, but it opens with Salina Fisher's tribute to a great Polynesian navigator.
Piano soloist is Javier Perianes for Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain.
Salina Fisher Photo: Hagen Hopkins
Salina FISHER: Tupaia
Salina Fisher’s Tupaia is a work she was inspired to write after learning about the Polynesian master navigator who sailed with James Cook on the Endeavour. He played a vital role when they landed in New Zealand, especially with his ability to communicate with Māori because of the similarities between Polynesian languages.
Tupaia transcribed his extensive memorised geography of the Pacific using newly-acquired map-making skills, and this fascinating record of cultural and navigational interaction is what inspired Fisher while she was writing the work. As well, the idea of celestial navigation: the constant and gradual shift in perspective necessary to see the ‘rise and fall’ of stars to be able to move forward.
FALLA: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Manuel De Falla began Nights in the Gardens of Spain in 1909 in Paris as a set of three nocturnes for piano. But friends, and especially the pianist Ricardo Viñes, advised him to transform it into a work for piano and orchestra. Instead, the composer put the work aside and didn’t return to it until 1915, after he returned to Spain.
Just imagine: a gentle, warm evening breeze, the scent of jasmine and citrus trees, perhaps even the trickle of a water fountain in the distance. Who wouldn’t want to spend some time here? And that’s exactly the mood de Falla creates with this work.
Manuel de Falla himself dismissed the idea of a specific narrative for his musical portrait. He referred to it as ‘symphonic impressions’, and the three movements are each given a place.
For the opening movement, we’re in the Generalife, the gardens that surround the summer palace at the Alhambra. Then in the Danza Lejana (Distant Dance), you can hear the traditional flamenco running through the movement; the piano leads without interruption into the third movement, where we’re in the gardens of the Sierra Cordoba mountains – and there’s gypsy dancing and singing going on long into the night.
Lili BOULANGER: D'un matin de printemps; D'un soir triste
Lili Boulanger was the first woman to ever win the Prix de Rome award for composition.
She wrote both these works just before she died at the tragically young age of 24.
Boulanger developed her short tone poem, D’un matin de printemps (On a spring morning) over some time, beginning as a duet for violin and piano, then a trio for flute, violin and piano, before it became a duet for flute and piano, and finally in 1918 the orchestrated version. Each version is slightly different.
That same year, she wrote D’un soir triste (On a Sad Evening).
The two pieces share the same three-beat rhythm, the same harmonic colour and the same melodic theme. Lili was able to finish the first in her own hand, but her declining health meant that she had to dictate the second to her sister Nadia to notate.
STRAVINSKY: The Firebird, Suite (1919)
Sergei Diaghilev was developing an ambitious new ballet for his Ballets Russes with the choreographer Michael Fokine. They based it on two Russian folk characters – the magical Firebird and the evil Kashchei, the Deathless.
At least three established composers turned down the project before Diaghilev tried the 27-year-old Stravinsky. He was the last choice.
The Paris premiere in 1910 was met with universal acclaim. Nearly every musical and literary figure in Paris was at the first night and suddenly Stravinsky, who just the day before had been a complete unknown, was shaking hands with Claude Debussy and Marcel Proust.
Every good ballet needs a suite made from it, and Stravinsky revisited the piece three times: 1911, 1919 and 1945, to adapt it for concert performance. He chose his favourite numbers and reduced the scoring to a more practical size from Diaghilev’s opulent orchestra which included an overflowing brass section, unusual percussion and three harps.
Recorded by RNZ Concert
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
