Weekend 2 at the Bard Music Festival...

RICHARD WAGNER & HIS WORLD: Engineering the Triumph of Wagnerism

Second of Two Bard Music Festival Weekends Opens Friday, August 21, with Symposium on “Wagner and the Transformation of European Culture”

Six Weekend Concerts Include Final Scene of Die Meistersinger,

Excerpts From All Four “Ring” Operas, Plus Chamber Music and Contemporaries’ Compositions

Sunday Morning’s Panel, “Wagner and the Jewish Question,” is moderated by Carol Kahn Strauss and includes panelists Leon Botstein, James Loeffler, and Paul Lawrence Rose

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – The second and final weekend of the 20th annual Bard Music Festival opens here on Friday morning, August 21. Concerts and symposia cover many controversies surrounding Wagner, including the creation of the Bayreuth Festival and the impact of his music on composers from Bruckner to Debussy. The opening event, at 10 am on Friday, August 21, is a symposium on “Wagner and the Transformation of European Culture” moderated by Marina van Zuylen; the evening’s concert of chamber music – preceded by Walter Frisch’s informative talk – is primarily a vocal concert comprising Wagner’s “Wesendonck Lieder” and works by Wagner, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim.

The weekend’s overall title, “Engineering the Triumph of Wagnerism,” addresses not only the composer’s lifelong campaign on his own behalf, but the posthumous cultivation of his art, his image, and more. The impact of Wagner’s music, poetry, and prose upon his own time – and even more in the 126 years since his death – is reflected in a recent New York Times comment:

“For those fascinated by the intersection of music, politics, and prejudice, Wagner just keeps on giving. As if on cue for the Bard Music Festival – a series of concerts, lectures, and panels at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., this year devoted to ‘Wagner and His World’ and beginning on Friday – two recent news reports provided fresh fodder for discussion, especially for the festival panel ‘Wagner and the Jewish Question.’”

Leon Botstein, co-artistic director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, conducts the resident American Symphony Orchestra in two concerts, one each on Saturday and Sunday. Further chamber music concerts include works by Karl Goldmark, Hermann Goetz, Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Max Bruch, Antonín Dvorák, Hugo Wolf, and Richard Strauss. Some of the French composers who came under the Wagnerian influence will also be heard, Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson among them. A less serious faction is represented too, to balance things out: satirical works by Gabriel Fauré and André Messager, Jacques Offenbach, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Johann Strauss, Jr., and Oscar Straus are on the Saturday morning chamber music program titled “Bearable Lightness: The Comic Alternative.” Richard Wilson delivers the pre-concert commentary.

The American Symphony Orchestra’s first concert, “The Selling of the Ring” on Saturday evening (preceded by John Deathridge’s introductory talk), includes excerpts from Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, with soprano Catherine Foster, tenor Gary Lehman, and bass-baritone James Johnson. The ASO’s final concert, on Sunday afternoon, is titled “Music and German National Identity” and includes the complete final scene of Wagner’s Meistersinger as well as Bruckner’s Germanenzug and Brahms’s Triumphlied. The Bard Festival Chorus under Thomas Bagwell; Devon Guthrie, soprano; Corey Bix and Scott Williamson, tenors; John Hancock and Julien Robbins, baritones; and James Johnson, bass-baritone, are also featured in this concert. Leon Botstein and others conduct.

Each of the four chamber concerts is preceded by commentary or a talk; the final one, on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 pm, is given by noted scholar and author Christopher Gibbs, co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival.

Critical acclaim:

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Barrymore Laurence Scherer recently observed, “The Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., which begins its 20th season in mid-August, no longer needs an introduction. Under the provocative guidance of the conductor-scholar Leon Botstein, it has long been one of the most intellectually stimulating of all American summer festivals and frequently is one of the most musically satisfying.” Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed has described the Bard Music Festival as “uniquely stimulating,” while Steve Smith, reporting for the New York Times, has called it “part boot camp for the brain, part spa for the spirit.”

Complete programs for Weekend Two of the 2009 Bard Music Festival:

THE BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL PRESENTS “WAGNER AND HIS WORLD”
Weekend Two: August 21-23

Friday, August 21, 2009
Symposium - Wagner and the Transformation of European Culture

Friday, August 21, 2009 at 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm / Campus Center, Multipurpose Room

10 am–noon
1:30 pm–3:30 pm

Marina van Zuylen, moderator; Larry Bensky; André Dombrowski; Lydia Goehr; Juliet Koss; David J. Levin; Kelly Maynard

Free and open to the public

BMF Program Seven
Wagner Pro and Contra

Friday, August 21, 2009 at 8:00 pm / Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

7:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Walter Frisch

8:00 pm Performance: Bernadine Blaha, piano; Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano; Catherine Foster, soprano; Devon Guthrie, soprano; Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano; Soovin Kim, violin; Piers Lane, piano; Blair McMillen, piano; Spencer Myer, piano; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello

Richard Wagner (1813–83)
“Wesendonck Lieder” (c. 1857–58)
Eine Sonate für das Album von Frau M. W. (1853)
Franz Liszt (c. 1811–86)
“Die Lorelei” (1841)
Orpheus, arr. for piano trio (1853–54; arr. Saint-Saëns)
Johannes Brahms (c. 1833–97)
Vocal Duets, Opp. 20 (1858–60) and 61 (1852–74)
Sonata for two pianos in F minor, Op. 34b (1864)
Joseph Joachim (c. 1831–1907)
Overture to Hamlet, arr. for two pianos, Op. 4 (c. 1855, arr. Brahms)

Tickets: $20, $35, $45

__________________

Saturday, August 22, 2009

BMF Program Eight
Bearable Lightness: The Comic Alternative

Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 10:00 am / Olin Hall

10:00 am: Performance

With commentary by Richard Wilson

With Jon-Michael Ball, tenor; Amy Cofield Williamson, soprano; Jonathan Hays, baritone; Jennifer Rivera, mezzo-soprano; James Bassi, piano; Melvin Chen, piano; Blair McMillen, piano

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) / André Messager (1853–1924)
  Souvenirs de Bayreuth (?1888)

Jacques Offenbach (1819–80)
  From Le roi Carotte (1872) and Die Rheinnixen (1864

Franz von Suppé (1819–95)
  From Lohengelb, oder Die Jungfrau von Dragant (1870)

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911)
  From Iolanthe (1882)

Johann Strauss Jr. (1825–99)
  From Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883)

Oscar Straus (1870–1954)
  Piano works and songs by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–94)

Tickets: $30

BMF Program Nine
Competing Romanticisms

Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 1:00 pm / Olin Hall

1:00 pm Preconcert Talk: Michael Musgrave

1:30 pm Performance: Bard Festival String Quartet; Laura Flax, clarinet; Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano; Soovin Kim, violin; Spencer Myer, piano; Noreen Polera, piano; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Ira Weller, viola; Robert Martin, cello; Jordan Frazier, double bass

Karl Goldmark (1830–1915)
  Romance, for violin and piano (1913)

Johannes Brahms (1833–97)
  Six Choral Preludes, Op. 122 (1896; arr. Busoni)

Hermann Goetz (1840–76)
  Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 16 (1874)

Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843–1900)
  Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 24 (1877)

Max Bruch (1838–1920)
  From Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola, and piano, Op. 83 (1910)

Antonín Dvorák (1841–1904)
  From Cypresses (1865)

Tickets: $35

BMF Program Ten
The Selling of the Ring

Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 8:00 pm / Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

7:00 pm Preconcert Talk: John Deathridge

8:00 pm Performance: Catherine Foster, soprano; James Johnson, bass-baritone; Gary Lehman, tenor; Daniel Mobbs, bass-baritone; Devon Guthrie, soprano; Marjorie Owens, soprano; Corey Bix, tenor; Scott Williamson, tenor; John Hancock, baritone; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Richard Wagner (1813–83)

Excerpts from Das Rheingold (1854), Die Walküre (1856), Siegfried (1871), and Götterdämmerung (1874)

Tickets: $25, $40, $55

__________________

Sunday, August 23, 2009

BMF Panel Two
Wagner and the Jewish Question

Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 10:00 am–noon / Olin Hall

Carol Kahn Strauss, moderator; Leon Botstein; James Loeffler; Paul Lawrence Rose

Free and open to the public

BMF Program Eleven
Wagnerians

Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 1:30 pm / Olin Hall

1:00 pm Preconcert Talk: Byron Adams

1:30 pm Performance: Bard Festival String Quartet; Melvin Chen, piano; Laurie Smukler, violin; David Brickman, violin; Patricia Sunwoo, violin; Ira Weller, viola; Robert Martin, cello; Piers Lane, piano; Devon Guthrie, soprano; Scott Williamson, tenor; students of The Bard College Conservatory of Music

Richard Wagner (1813–83)
  Siegfried Idyll (1870)

Henri Duparc (1848–1933)
  L’invitation au voyage (1870)

Enrique Granados (1867–1916)
  From Goyescas, Op. 11 (1909–12)

Ernest Chausson (1855–99)
  Concert, Op. 21 (1889–91)

Charles T. Griffes (1884–1920)
  From Roman Sketches (1915–16)

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)
  Italian Serenade (1887)

Songs by Richard Strauss (1864–1949); Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921); Alexander Ritter (1833–96); Claude Debussy (1862–1918); Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–94); and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

Tickets: $35

BMF Program Twelve
Music and German National Identity

Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 5:30 pm / Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater

4:30 pm Preconcert Talk: Christopher H. Gibbs

5:30 pm Performance: Corey Bix, tenor; Devon Guthrie, soprano; John Hancock, baritone; James Johnson, bass-baritone; Julien Robbins, baritone; Scott Williamson, tenor; Bard Festival Chorale, with James Bagwell, choral director; American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director

Richard Wagner (1813–83)
  Kaisermarsch (1871)
  Excerpts from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1867)

Anton Bruckner (1824–96)
  Germanenzug (1863)

Johannes Brahms (1833–97)
  Triumphlied, Op. 55 (1870–71)

Tickets: $25, $40, $55

BARD MUSIC FESTIVAL TICKET INFORMATION

For tickets, program updates, and further information on all Bard Music Festival events, phone the Fisher Center box office at (845) 758-7900 or visit the website. www.fishercenter.bard.edu.

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