Sunday afternoon’s Koerner Hall concert by the ARC Ensemble and baritone Peter Barrett promises to be one of the finest chamber programmes of the fall. It happens to be free, thanks to Culture Days. It also is the first in a new, six-concert series programmed by the Royal Conservatory of Music this season honouring the rich musical heritage of Italy — past and present.
Simon Wynberg is the artistic director of the ARC Ensemble, which includes several of the Royal Conservatory’s finest teachers. He was asked by performing arts executive director Mervon Mehta to come up with an Italian-themed programme for Culture Days. He also wanted to honour the ARC Ensemble’s international reputation of interpreting composers either killed or exiled by the rise of fascism in Europe after World War I.
“There isn’t a huge amount of early 20th century [Italian] chamber music in the traditional repertoire — meaning works that concertgoers will recognize,” says Wynberg. So he created a mix.
The best-loved of the pieces on the programme is the sweet string triptych I crisantemi by opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Barrett joins four string players in Ottorino Respighi’s gorgeous Il tramonto (The Sunset).
Italian-themed pieces come from Igor Stravinsky — his Suite Italienne for violin and piano — and Hugo Wolf — via the Italian Serenade.
There is one more piece on the programme, likely to be something new for pretty much everyone at Koerner Hall: The Piano Quintet No. 1 by Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He was born in Florence in 1895 and died in Beverly Hills in 1968, and is best remembered today for his fine writing for classical guitar.
Castelnuevo-Tedesco, like German Erich Korngold, was a serious composer with Jewish roots who was forced from Europe by anti-semitism. Both found open doors in Hollywood, where they became highly successful film composers.
“Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote unbelievably fast,” says Wynberg. “it was not unusual for him to write a piece of music in a day. He had an extraordinary ability to capture emotion or sentiment in just a few notes and bars, which made him very popular with film producers.”
Wynberg was looking for a substantial, post-intermission piece. His long search led him to the one and only Canadian score for the Piano Quintet, premiered in 1932 and published in 1934. “To say that it’s obscure is underestimating it,” quips the classical guitarist-turned-artistic director.
“It’s a lovely, sunny, Mediterranean piece,” he explains. “It was one of Tedesco’s favourite works.”
Like so much of the music championed by the ARC Ensemble, the Piano Quintet is excellent work that was sunk by the post-World War II shift to atonal writing, not because it is inferior music.
This Italian work is a departure for Wynberg and the ARC Ensemble, which has recorded three albums — two for RCA Victor, and the latest for Chandos — featuring the music of central European composers.
I ask if this could be the beginning of a larger Italian musical journey. The artistic director can’t say just yet, “but this piece is well worth programming,” he adds. “It deserves performances, recording and a listenership.”
There is a recording of the Piano Quintet out there, but Wynberg says it’s not good enough to warrant mention.
The ARC Ensemble, which has toured extensively to the United States, Europe, Israel, is made up of working teachers and solo performers. This makes scheduling every concert date, tour, recording and even practice session an exercise in calendar-juggling. “It’s like herding cats,” laughs Wynberg.
He says he has collected a pile of music for future consideration that he likes for everyone to play through as soon as they find the time. The ARC Ensemble decides collectively on new repertoire, “because everyone needs to feel it’s a good idea,” says Wynberg. That way, it’s easier to convince the public at large that this is music well worth sharing.
Sunday’s ensemble includes violinists Benjamin Bowman and Erika Raum, violist Steven Dann, cellist Se-Doo Park and pianist Dianne Werner.
You’ll find all the concert details here. Even though it’s free, the Conservatory is requesting that people reserve tickets ahead of time.
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The bulk of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s output lies gathering dust, so I’d like to share a couple of examples of his vibrant craft. (After arriving in California, he also taught at the Los Angeles Conservatory. His students included John Williams, André Previn and Henri Mancini.)
Tedesco was considered a fine professional pianist in his youth, so the first piece is Cipressi (Cypresses), a gorgeous tone poem for piano from 1920, played by Mariaclara Monetti.
It is followed by the Australian Symphony and conductor Harry Tresham performing Antony and Cleopatra, an orchestral overture from exile, in 1947. Shakespeare was a recurring inspiration for Tedesco, and this was the eighth and longest of 11 symphonic pieces he based on the Bard’s plays:
John Terauds