PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIXTH SEASON

Chicago Symphony OrchestraRiccardo Muti Zell Music Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant

Sunday, April 2, 2017, at 3:00Kenwood Academy High School

All-Access Chamber Music Series

TRIO CALICOGina DiBello ViolinYouming Chen ViolaGary Stucka Cello

GreensteinGrosse Tugenden

INTERMISSON

Bach (arr. Sitkovetsky)Goldberg Variations, BWV 988

The All-Access Chamber Music series is generously underwritten by an anonymous donor.

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COMMENTS by Laura Sauer

G rosse Tugenden (Great virtues) acquired its title from a line in Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children

in which the title character comments that invoking virtues to justify one’s actions is a sure sign that those actions are immoral. Greenstein’s piece uses this statement as inspiration, and the composer describes it as a work that “grapples with the concepts of virtue and heroism.”

Grosse Tugenden is divided into four principal sections. The main melody does not reveal itself at first, unlike the Bach, which opens with an aria tune from which the thirty subsequent adaptations unfold. The frantic beginning of the Greenstein diverts into a trio of jagged rhythms fueled by an anxious bass line played by the cello. Three distinct voices, each repeating phrases with

growing urgency, cry out from the dissonant harmonies as if struggling to be heard.

The second section emerges slowly, linked to the opening passage by a sustained high note from the violin that gradually reveals itself as an iteration of the melody, gently accompanied by a dirge-like march from the viola and cello. The key abruptly changes from minor to major—the first thread of hope in what has so far been a desolate tonal landscape. The sweetness of that brief major shift makes the swift return to minor bittersweet.

The cello provides a steady beat to anchor the next variation and, above it, violin and viola wail in sparse descending patterns, this time reduced to only a few notes as opposed to the opening section’s descending scales. Violin, viola, and cello finally come together in unison to declare the melody, coupled with entwining, ascending scales. The violin returns to play the principal theme, a final utterance from Greenstein’s “morally just individual . . . finding one’s way.” Greenstein says, “If the work comes across as

It seems difficult at first to find a connection between Bach’s Goldberg Variations, penned in 1741 for harpsichord, and Judd Greenstein’s Grosse Tugenden, written almost 250 years later for violin, viola, and cello. However, similarities become apparent in this performance in which Bach’s keyboard work has been transcribed for string trio by Dmitry Sitkovetsky. Each instrument contributes its own color, which highlights the music’s contrapuntal layering. The foundation of each work is a single melody spun into variations, each with its own distinct personality, that speak to the composers’ bountiful creativity. More universally, both pieces use music to represent the life experience and to restore the human spirit. Greenstein says of his Grosse Tugenden, “I believe it to be a piece about finding one’s way as a morally just individual in a world where morality is often defined by one’s willingness to accept a set of prepackaged, institutionalized virtues.” As Greenstein states, life can often be a complicated journey, and music can provide much needed solace. Perhaps Bach had the same thought in mind when he inscribed the title page to his Goldberg Variations: “Composed for music lovers, to refresh their spirits.”

Judd Greenstein

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quite tragic, that is due to its being an honest representation of the world, from my perspec-tive. If the work seems hopeful, it is for the same reason.”

B ach’s Goldberg Variations are actu-ally titled Aria mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen (Aria with diverse

variations), but the collection of aria and thirty variations is colloquially referred to by its aforementioned nickname. Bach suppos-edly wrote the variations for his thirteen year-old pupil Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who was also harpsichordist for Count Keyserlingk, and was asked to play something suitable to lull the count to sleep. The anecdote surrounding it is highly unlikely and has never been proven. In actuality, the Goldberg Variations are the final section in Bach’s Clavier-Übung, a four-part volume of music published to tutor keyboardists in technical development and instrumen-tal virtuosity.

The mellow aria that begins the Goldberg Variations is grounded by a thirty-two- measure bass line that appears in every variation. Each possesses its own personality and showcases Bach’s contra-puntal craftsmanship in short musical explorations that last from about one to five min-utes. Every third variation is a canon in which the melody repeats in a manner similar to a traditional round, like “Frère Jacques.” Each requires tremendous technical skill—sometimes subtly and some-times with great complexity—requiring the performer to cross hands, as the piece was

originally intended for a harpsichord with two manuals.

The final variation perhaps best represents Bach: it is not a strict canon, but rather, a quodlibet, a more relaxed piece that quotes popular music of the day. Bach’s quodlibet blends two songs entitled “Cabbage and Beets Have Driven Me Away” and “I Have Been Away from You so Long.” According to the composer’s first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the Bach family had a long-standing tradition of composing quodlibets:

For now they sang popular songs, the con-tents of which were partly comic and partly naughty, all together and impromptu, so that the several extemporized parts made a kind of harmony together . . . and not only could laugh heartily at it themselves, but excited an equally hearty and irresistible laughter in everybody that heard them.

Unlike many later composers whose perfor-mances garnered them celebrity status, Bach

Today’s performance includes the following selections from the Goldberg Variations.

Aria 1. Two-part invention 2. Three-part invention 3. Canon at the unison 4. Four-part invention 5. For crossing hands 6. Canon at the second 7. Siciliana 8. For crossing hands 9. Canon at the third 10. Fughetta 11. For crossing hands 14. For crossing hands 16. Overture in the French style to signify the beginning of the second

half; followed by a fugue 17. For crossing hands 19. Dancelike 21. Canon at the seventh, in the minor 24. Canon at the octave 25. A long accompanied solo, in the minor 26. For crossing hands 29. Tempestuous 30. Quodlibet, combining two German folk songs with the theme Aria da capo

J.S. Bach

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Laura Sauer is a regular preconcert lecturer and market-ing associate for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

dedicated most of his time to teaching, con-ducting, and composing. When asked about his Goldberg Variations, his response was charac-teristically humble and wry: “There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”

Bach’s Goldberg Variations may lend themselves to various arrangements so well because the composer himself played a variety of instruments, includ-ing violin and viola. Throughout his life, he wrote pieces mostly for himself, his students, and his own ensembles. Greenstein has followed suit as an enthusiastic proponent of new music who started his own music festival. He also writes for the NOW Ensemble, of which he is a founding member. The Goldberg Variations continue to refresh the human spirit as Bach originally intended. In its broad representation

of a world that is simultaneously tragic and hope-ful, Greenstein’s piece embraces the same pathos almost 300 years later.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky, who transcribed the Goldberg Variations for string trio

The title page to Bach’s Clavier-Übung, part 4, known as the Goldberg Variations, from France’s National Library

© 2017 Chicago Symphony Orchestra