One of Canada's foremost musician and a widely praised double bassist on the world stage, Joel Quarrington is presenting Garden Scene, a long-awaited album.
Korngold: Garden Scene
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was one of the most gifted child prodigies in music history and was often compared to Mozart. He was born in what is now Brno, Czech Republic, on May 29th 1897 and moved to Vienna when he was four. Many of his teenage works were championed by the greatest musical minds of the era, including Mahler, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, Schnabel, Nikisch, Weingartner and Bruno Walter. His most celebrated opera, Die Tote Stadt, dates from 1920 as does his incidental music to a production of Shakespeare's
Much Ado about Nothing; the
Garden Scene on this recording is drawn from the violin and piano arrangement of that orchestral score.
In 1934 he began writing scores for Hollywood movies and he is especially remembered for his Oscar winning contributions to the swashbuckling Errol Flynn films, including
The Adventures of Robin Hood, as well as
Captain Blood and
The Sea Hawk.
After the war, Korngold said goodbye to Hollywood and attempted to return to his former life of concert compositions. The
Cello Concerto Op.37 and the
Violin Concerto in D major (premiered by Jascha Heifetz in 1947), are important creations from this time with his gorgeous violin concerto being considered one of his greatest and most cherished compositions.
Korngold finally returned to Europe in 1949, but unfortunately concerts of his music were not well received. Returning to the United States and feeling dejected and forgotten, Korngold died in Hollywood in 1957 at the age of 60.In the decades since his death, Korngold's music has gained more and more popularity and is now finally appreciated around the globe.
Bottesini: Elegy in D
Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) was an Italian double bass virtuoso, conductor and composer. He chose to play the double bass because, upon his application to the Milan Conservatory in 1835, it was one of only two remaining scholarships, the other being for bassoon. After leaving school, he toured the world and mesmerized everyone that heard his beautiful tone and "bel canto" style. His acrobatic movements up and down the fingerboard earned him the nickname of "the Paganini of the double bass."
Bottesini's use of the highest notes on the instrument was revolutionary and always enchanted audiences wherever he went; he moved one reviewer to gush,"How he bewildered us by playing all sorts of melodies in flute-like harmonics, as though he had a hundred nightingales caged in his double-bass!".
For many years he was associated with the Italian Opera Company of Havana, which often toured to the United States. A typical evening at one of their concerts would invariably have Signor Bottesini performing some of his incredibly stunning operatic fantasias to wild applause and swooning women!
From approximately 1870 on, he devoted an increasing amount of time to composition, turning out operas, songs, orchestral pieces, and works for the double bass. The
Elegy in D is one of Bottesini's most popular works.
Casadesus: Viola Concerto in C minor in the style of J. C. Bach
Although the
Viola Concerto in C minor (transposed here in G minor) by
J. C. Bach (1735-1782) is a well known and popular work, it was actually written by
Henri Casadesus (1879-1947), a gifted violist and, as it turns out, a rather good composer. He came from a large musical family and one of the things he and his brother Marius became famous for was debuting 'rediscovered' works of 18th century composers such as Mozart, C.P.E. Bach, and Handel. In fact, the Casadesus brothers had written all these works including the well-known
Adelaide Violin Concerto attributed to Mozart. Regardless, this music is pleasing to hear and Henri Casadesus's
Viola Concerto in the style of J.C. Bach has charmed music lovers especially with its very beautiful slow movement.
Glière: Four Pieces for Contrabass and Piano
Reinhold Glière (1875-1961) was celebrated in 1945 as the "Father of Soviet Composers", not only for his genius in composition but also for his great success as a teacher. Such brilliant composers as Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky all studied with him. Glière was friends with Serge Koussevitsky, the bass soloist and conductor. Glière dedicated some of his orchestral scores to Koussevitsky and wrote the works for him that are found on this recording. The
Intermezzo and Tarantella Op. 9 date from 1902, and the
Präludium and Scherzo Op.32 from 1908.
In 1927 he wrote the music for the ballet
The Red Poppy, but later revised that to
The Red Flower to avoid the connotation of opium. This ballet and his concerti for soprano, harp and horn are his most famous works.
Weinberg: Sonata for Solo Contrabass
Mieczyslaw Weinberg (or Moishei Vainberg) (1919-1996) is one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, although until recently, he had largely been unknown and neglected. Weinberg composed 26 symphonies, seven concertos, 17 string quartets, 28 sonatas for various instruments, seven operas, several ballets, incidental music for 65 films and many other works, including a
Requiem.
Weinberg was a victim of both the Nazi and Soviet tyrannies. Born in Warsaw, in 1941 his entire family was burned alive by the Nazis. As a refugee, Weinberg first fled to Minsk and then, in advance of the invading Nazi armies, to Tashkent. In 1943, he sent the score of his
First Symphony to Shostakovich, who was so impressed that he arranged for Weinberg to be officially invited to Moscow. For the rest of his life, Weinberg remained in Moscow. He and Shostakovich became friends and colleagues.
Weinberg's life was very difficult due to Stalin's anti-Semitism campaign and he was actually arrested in 1953 on the absurd charge of plotting to set up a Jewish republic in the Crimea. Fortunately, the death of Stalin released him from his imprisonment.
Weinberg's music often sounds quite like Shostakovich and he embraced the similarity, declaring unabashedly, "I am a pupil of Shostakovich. Although I never took lessons from him, I count myself as his pupil, his flesh and blood". In turn, Shostakovich called Weinberg one of the most outstanding composers of the present day.
The
Sonata for Solo Contrabass heard on this recording was prepared from a manuscript facsimile that was edited by the great bass virtuoso Rodion Azarkhin.
© Joel Quarrington
