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2nd

Unusual

Instruments

Concert



Music on Thursdays - Online

Thursday 13th August 2020


Unusual Instruments - 2


Artistes include:


Starts: when you are ready
latecomers will be admitted at your personal discretion

Listening position:

Relax with your choice(s) of beverage, in a place of your choosing, alone, or with company
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Unusual Instruments


Programme

Traditional    (2m20)
Tyurgem kam    Grandfather's Song

performed by Jorgan (pronounced Tjorgan) on Jew's harp and with throat singing


Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738)    (3m10)
Dr John Stafford, or O'Carolan's Receipt
 
 performed by Stefan Dollak on a 4-course mandora


Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809)
Concerto for Jaw's Harp, Mandora and Orchestra (c1765)    (18m20)
    1 Allegro moderato
    2 Andante
    3 Menuetto. Moderato
    4 Allegro molto

performed by Fritz Mayr, Jew's harp • Dieter Kirsch, mandora
Münchener Kammerorchester, Hans Stadlmair, conductor


Kalevi Ensio Aho (b1949)    (7m50)
Concerto for Contrabassoon and Orchestra
    II Presto

performed by Lewis Lipnick
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton, conductor


Lewis Lipnick
Intro to the Contraforte    (8m47)


Tan Dun (b1957)
Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra (1998)    (12m03)
Prelude: Large molto rubato
    1 Adagio molto misterioso

performed by Eric Poe, percussion
Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Liza Grossman, music director

Extra Concerto

Tan Dun
Concerto for String Orchestra and Zheng (1999)    (24m17)
    I     Andante molto – Melancholia – Tempo I
    II   Allegretto
    III  Adagio
    IV  Moderato – Allegro – Tempo I Andante molto

performed by Yuan Li, guzheng
hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra), Julian Kuerti, conductor

The Top Ten Concerts for Unusual Instruments, as published by BBC Magazine 2020

A-1) Albrechtsberger concertos for Jews Harp, Mandora and strings. OK I think I have heard this one
X2) Hindemith Concerto for Trautonium and String Orchestra.- The Trautonium is a monophonic electronic musical instrument 
A-  3) Gliere : Concertofor Coloratura Soprano.  YES
X4) Jolivet: Concerto for Ondes Martenot     sorry, no electronic tomfoolery allowed
X5) Villa-Lobos: Concerto for Harmonica.  I feel the harmonica is alien to the orch. no blend, generally uninteresting feel. Quite disappointed. We have a harmo player in October.
    6) Piazzola: Concerto for Bandoneon String Orchestra and Percussion. thing is, I like Piazzolla anyway, so am I just biased?
    7) Maxwell Davies: Piccolo Concerto. Well, we might struggle with this, and it doesn't help that there are no online visuals
A-8) Tan Dun: Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra YES YES YES unexpectedly beautiful, and well out of our western idiom. brilliant It's dedicated to Takemitsu.
     9) Kalevi Aho: Concerto for Contrabassoon and Orchestra. INteresting. Not easy to find the full perf online
     10) Gabriel Prokofiev: Concerto for Bass Drum and Orchestra.magic, and great to watch, but it is 34 minutes 
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A recent BBC Magazine podcast gave a list of 10 concertos for unusual instruments.

Number one on their list, and the one that will ease us gently into the 'genre', is Viennese composer Albrechtsberger's Concerto for Jew's Harp, Mandora and Orchestra. Alongside his compositions, Albrechtsberger is noted for his theoretical writings and teaching. Beethoven was one of his pupils,  and a notable collection of his writings on harmony was published in English, by Novello's in 1855.

He composed seven or more concertos for Jew's harp, three of which survive in the Hungarian National Library, in Budapest.

The instrument has many names:  jaw harp, mouth harp, gewgaw, guimbard, khomus, trump, Ozark harp, Galician harp, or murchunga. It is a lamellophone instrument, consisting of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame.

The mandora was a lute with 6 to 9 courses (pairs) of strings, popular in the 18th to early 19th centuries in Northern Italy  and Central Europe. In Germany it was often known as the gallichon.

First let's listen to the instruments on their own, briefly:
This, is Tjorgan §. His video answers most of these questions:
    1 How do you play the Jew's Harp?
    2 Does anyone play the Jew's Harp nowadays?
    3 Would a Jew's Harp work in the pop world?
    4 And what about that Mongolian throat singing?
    5 What's the ideal outfit for a bruisingly hot TV studio?

I think this is Estonian TV. I have no idea whether he won.
It gives a flavour of the instrument before we move on. And the song is called Tyurgem kam meaning Grandfather's Song. 
        §He corrects an interviewer's pronunciation in another video.
Stefan Dollak plays his arrangement of Dr John Stafford, or Carolan's Receipt on the four-course lute, or mandora.

This tune is by the great Irish harper and composer Turlough O'Carolan, a contemporary of Geminiani and Corelli, and a composer who influentially blended Irish traditional styles with the Italian baroque.

This four-course lute is sold by Mid-East Mfg. under the name "lute-kulele."
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809)
Concerto for Jaw's Harp, Mandora and Orchestra (c1765)    (18m20)
1 Allegro moderato
2 Andante
3 Menuetto. Moderato
4 Allegro molto

performed by Fritz Mayr, Jew's harp • Dieter Kirsch, mandora • Münchener Kammerorchester, Hans Stadlmair, conductor
The contrabassoon plays one octave below the bassoon, although it's music is written as for the bassoon. Fingering, however, has many differences from that of the bassoon.

Number 9 on the BBC Magazine list is Finnish composer Kalevi Aho's Contrabassoon Concerto. I didn't manage to find online recordings for the first Mesto not the third Misterioso, movements. Here then is the central Presto movement:
Kalevi Ensio Aho (b1949)    (7m50)
Concerto for Contrabassoon and Orchestra
II Presto

performed by Lewis Lipnick • Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton, conductor
Before we move on to the next unusual concerto, here's evidence that even classical instruments continue to develop.

Lewis Lipnick is Principal Contrabassoon of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC.

Here he demonstrates a new instrument with the same melodic range as the contrabassoon, and perhaps a more pleasing sound. It broadens the dynamic range of the original instrument, giving softer playing, and louder sounds too. The inventors also say they have placed the keys in better positions than on the contrabassoon. Bassoon fans, listen here:

Lewis Lipnick
Intro to the Contraforte    (8m47)

further info:

Next we hear a soprano, but using her voice in its open natural form, a voice without words.

Glière's Concert for Coloratura Sorpano is a beautiful work in just two movements. The Andante first is is a more reffective, melancholic movement, this the faster second, Allegro, has that extra aspect of the word allegro, the lightness.

I know some are less keen on pure voice, but if that is you, I urge you to listen to just the expressive first movement, sung here bu Anna Netrebko. If you want the full experince, who better than Joan Sutherland to hold your hand for the complete concerto?
Reinhold Moritzevich Glière (1875 Kiev -1956 Moscow)
Concerto for Coloratura Soprano & Orchestra
in F minor Op 82 (1943)
1 Andante    (6m50)

performed by Anna Netrebko, in the Mariinsky Theatre,
in a concert celebrating the 300th anniversary of the founding of St Petersburg
Reinhold Moritzevich Glière
Concerto for Coloratura Soprano & Orchestra in F minor Op 82
1 Andante    ♦    2 Allegro    (11m40)

performed by Joan Sutherland, with the London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, conductor
For the final piece in this week's concert we have a recording of the first movement of Tan Dun's Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra.

The water percussion are instruments we would never experience in a Western orchestral concert. They bring us new and interesting sounds, with a distinctly Eastern feel. This is the first work of Tan Dun's Organic Music.

Tan Dun's works often call for instruments made of materials such as paper, stone, or water, but the compositions he classifies as organic music feature these instruments most prominently. The first major work for organic instruments was this Water Concerto in 1998, dedicated to the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.

According to the composer, the sounds made by the soloist are inspired by the sounds of everyday life growing up in Hunan. Basins are filled with water, and the contents are manipulated with bowls, bottles, hands, and other devices. Other water instruments used include the waterphone. Various means of amplification are used, including contact microphones on the basins.
A waterphone, ocean harp or AquaSonic waterphone, consists of a stainless steel resonator bowl or pan with a cylindrical neck, and bronze rods of different lengths and diameters around the rim of the bowl.

The resonator may contain a small amount of water giving the waterphone a vibrant ethereal sound used in film soundtracks, record albums, and live performance.

It was available in four sizes: Standard (7" diameter), Whaler (12"), Bass (14") and MegaBass (16"). It is generally played in a seated position and either bowed or drummed, with movements to affect the water inside.

This combines the resonant characteristics of the bowl and rods with the movement of the water. The sound of the waterphone is often used to evoke mystery and suspense.

The instrument was invented by American Richard Waters (1935- 2013). He was influenced by a Tibetan drum he encountered in the early 1960s, which contained a small amount of water, affecting its timbre.
Tan Dun (b1957)
Water Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra (1998)    (12m03)
Prelude: Large molto rubato
1 Adagio molto misterioso

performed by Eric Poe, percussion, Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Liza Grossman, music director, at the Waetjen Auditorium of Cleveland State University


Follow the score on this link:

https://issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/water_concerto_33596

Extra Concerto


If you enjoyed that visit to the Eastern idiom, then you may also enjoy another of Tan Dun's works that was not on the BBC Magazine list.

This concerto is for Guzheng, or Zheng, a Chinese form of zither. This is the familiar plucked string we associate with Chinese and Japanese music. It is tuned to the same major scale we are used to hearing in Western music. The bridges on the guzheng are movable. Click on the instrument to see more detail.

In this concerto Tan Dun matches the instrument with western strings and, although not stated in the title, you will hear feet. This 24-minute work is composed straight through without the traditional breaks between movements.
Tan Dun
Concerto for String Orchestra and Zheng (1999)    (24m17)
I    Andante molto – Melancholia – Tempo I
II   Allegretto
III  Adagio
IV  Moderato – Allegro – Tempo I Andante molto

performed by Yuan Li, guzheng
hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra), Julian Kuerti, conductor
If this concert selection has been well-received, perhaps we can slip in another unusual instruments concert in November, or early in the New Year.

Presenter: Peter Steadman
Assisted by: Richard Miller & Jane Forrester

We hope you have enjoyed your Unusual Instruments  Concert Online


Watch your email and this website for next week's concert

comments welcome:  musiconthursdays@gmail.com
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Did we make it for MENCAP ?

Well of course we made it. I believed all along there was £5,000 out there among Mollie's friends and the friends of these concerts.

When I looked on Tuesday we had reached £5,030. Adding Gift Aid will take us a long way past the target.

A very big thank you (see below) to everyone who took part. I'm told there are quite a lot of 'anonymous' donations, so I'm guessing that accounts for many of you, our generous, and modest, audience.

Below is a very personal thank you to Mollie, from Harry, at MENCAP.
Picture
you can still click on the image above to donate to Mollie Canning's 100th Birthday Appeal for MENCAP
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Concert Selections Still Available for your listening on this Website:

Thursday 9th
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anytime
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under the hands and fingers of 55 pianists playing on 31 pianos (not all at once, of course)

and including some quite famous names among the pianists

access this concert: by clicking on the picture or the date

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plus extra listening  by Purcell • Gounod • Albert E Brumley (New Orleans)

to access our From Sagbutts to Trombones concert please
click on the Date above or on the trombone player image

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LCAS President's 100th Birthday Concert
Harp Haven - a sequence of music for the harp

Harpists: Heather Brooks ♦ Fern Brooks ♦ Rhys Whatty ♦
Anne Denholm* ♦ Gwenllian Llŷr
*with The Hermes Experiment: Oliver Pashley, clarinet
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Composers: Fern Brooks  •  André Caplet  •  CPE Bach  •  Grandjany  •  Deborah Henson-Conant  •  Scarlatti • Meredith Monk • Scriabin • Haldon Evans • David Watkins

access this Harp Haven concert: by clicking on the dateline or on the picture ►
Picture
Gwenllian Llŷr

Thursday

30th
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anytime
Music on Thursdays  - Online
Oboe Omnibus

Artistes include oboists: Nicholas Stovall ♦ Lajos Lencses
Bradley Shoemaker-Webster ♦ Bernice Lee ♦ Maurice Bourgue
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Music by: Carl Nielsen • Christoph Förster • Edmund Rubbra • Ravel • Telemann
Saint-Saëns • Grieg

access concert: by clicking on the date or the picture
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