Detroit Symphony Orchestra & American Romanian Festival Present
Sunday, November 10, 2024 / 7:00 p.m.
The War Memorial, Alger Center Ballroom, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra & The American Romanian Festival celebrating its 20th-anniversary season present an evening of works centered around the subject of death. The first work on the program, Rota II by Romanian composer Cornelia Tăutu, is a duet for violin and violoncello that opens slowly and austerely and evokes the contemplative nature of a long-forgotten ancestral melody. George Crumb’s reaction to the horrors of the Vietnam War is expressed through his threnody, Black Angels. The work is structured around the numbers 13 and 7, numerals often related to fate and destiny, and several tonal musical quotations can be found throughout the piece, including snippets from our next work on the program, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet. Written in 1824, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” was the composer’s coming to terms with his long-term illness and impending death, and has been called “one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire.”
Cornelia Tăutu (1938–2019)
Rota II for Violin and Cello (2005)
George Crumb (b. 1929)
Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970)
I. Departure
1. THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects,
2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes
3. Lost Bells
4. Devil-music
5. Danse Macabre (Duo alternativo: Dies Irae)
II. Absence
6. Pavana Lachrymae (Der Tod und das Mädchen) (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)
7. THRENODY II: BLACK ANGELS!
8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)
9. Lost Bells (Echo) (Duo alternativo: Sounds of Bones and Flutes)
III. Return
10. [Solo: Aria accompagnata] God-music
11. Ancient Voices
12. Ancient Voices (Echo)
13. THRENODY III: Night of the Electric Insects
INTERMISSION
Franz Schubert (1787–1828)
String Quartet No. 14, “Death and the Maiden”
I. Allegro
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo – Allegro molto
IV. Presto
