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Takács Quartet violist performs music by Telemann and Piazzolla Saturday
By Peter Alexander Feb. 29 at 11:07 p.m.
Violist Richard O’Neill has a wide-ranging background, each geographically and musically.
For instance, when he performs as soloist with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra Saturday (7:30 p.m. March 2; particulars beneath), he polished certainly one of his items by taking part in with members of Germany’s distinguished early-music ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, and the opposite he researched close to the docks in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The primary could be the Concerto in G main for viola by the prolific Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann; the opposite is the “Grand Tango,” initially for cello, by Argentine bandoneon participant and band chief Astor Piazzolla. Different works on this system, that includes the BCO strings below music director Bahman Saless, are Valse Triste by early Twentieth-century Czech composer Oskar Nedbal, and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge (Nice fugue), initially the finale of the composer’s String Quartet in B-flat, op. 130.
Two extra completely different composers than Telemann and Piazzolla could be exhausting to think about. And but, O’Neill says, they aren’t incompatible. “They’re very contrasting, most likely on polar reverse ends of the musical timeline,” O’Neill says. “However they share some commonalities—most of all of the spirit of the dance.”
The Telemann is the primary identified true viola concerto, and it’s a piece that O’Neill performs typically. “I believe it’s a stunning, superb piece,” he says.
O’Neill recorded the concerto in 2008 when he was requested to make a recording with members of Musica Antiqua Köln. It was positively a studying expertise for O’Neill, giving him a possibility to work with a Baroque-style bow that has a lot much less pressure on the bow hairs, and to improvise in Baroque music.
The latter didn’t come naturally, he admits. “I bear in mind them asking me, ‘play a cadenza, be free! Do no matter you want!’” O’Neill says. “I did one thing, and it was free for certain! I used to be stopped and it was like, ‘Who’re you, Yo-Yo Ma?’ However it was all stated with a smile.
“One factor I realized, issues had been lots completely different when performers and composers had been the identical particular person. And it was superb how prolific (Telemann) was. Loads of instances you have a look at the rating and it’s very naked, however in some methods it has every thing you want—you simply have to know what you’re going to do.”
His strategy to Piazzolla’s music was very completely different. O’Neill first heard Piazolla’s music when he was a 15-year-old scholar in Las Vegas, and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano performed Piazzolla’s “4, for Tango.” “I used to be utterly blown away!” he says.
“I had by no means heard something like this. It was so rhythmic, so enjoyable, the devices had been doing all of those cool, bizarre results like percussive results and (taking part in) behind the bridge. I used to be, ‘what’s going on there?’ I discovered the Kronos (Quartet) recording and listened to it on a regular basis. I fell in love with Piazzolla.”
Later he had the possibility to check Piazzolla’s musical origins up shut. He was in Buenos Aires, and noticed a possibility to be taught extra. “I needed to see what the tango was about,” he says.
“I went all the way down to the docks (in Buenos Aires), the place the Argentinian tango was initially from. I used to be shocked to search out out it wasn’t the Parisian model of tango, which is Romantic and dignified. It was really actually tough. I went to some tango reveals in cafes, however it was primarily the vibe of Buenos Aires that modified me.”
Piazzolla initially wrote the “Grand Tango” for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, however the viola association that O’Neill performs matches the instrument very properly. “Piazzolla wrote a variety of the (authentic cello) half very excessive,” he explains—which means he can play it on the identical pitch on the viola.
O’Neill loves each items he’s taking part in on BCO’s program, however it’s the Piazzolla that will get him excited. “The music is simply so unbelievable and evocative,” he says. “It’s nearly prefer it’s so rhythmic that you could’t assist being swept away by it.”
Nedbal’s Valse triste is from the ballet Pohadka o Honzov (identified in English because the Story of Easy Johnny). It was composed in 1902 for orchestra, however Nedbal later organized the Valse for string quartet, through which kind it has turn into particularly in style. Skilled as a violinist and a composition scholar of Dvořák, Nedbal was principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic 1896–1906.
When Beethoven wrote his String Quartet in B-flat in 1825, he offered an uncommon finale: an in depth double fugue that takes as much as 16 minutes in efficiency. That motion was criticized on the time for its complexity and for being “a confusion of Babel.” Since then, nevertheless, its standing has risen, to the purpose that Stravinsky famously stated that it “shall be modern endlessly.”
Beethoven’s writer was afraid that such a tough finale would hinder gross sales of the quartet, so Beethoven wrote a shorter motion that appeared with the String Quartet in B-flat. He then revealed the Grosse Fuge individually in 1827. Right this moment it’s hailed as one of many composers best compositions.
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“Virtuosity!”
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With Richard O’Neill, viola
- Oskar Nedbal: Valse Triste
- Telemann: Concerto in G for viola and orchestra
- Astor Piazzolla: Grand Tango
- Beethoven: Grosse Fugue, op. 133
7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 2
Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 345 Mapleton, Boulder
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