Program Notes | Third Chair Chamber Players

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Program Notes

November 6 & 8, 2009 (notes by Ashley Hassebroek Wegner)
Normand A. Pepin: A Sweet Suite
Rick Sowash: Trio No. 3—Shadows of November (Les Ombres de Novembre)
Christian K. Ellenwood: Trio, Elegy, Ballad, Lop-Sided Love Song
Eric Ewazen: Trio for Trumpet, Violin and Piano
Alberto Ginastera: Danza del gaucho matrero

Normand A. Pepin: A Sweet Suite (1985)

Normand Pepin is a Jesuit priest who took an interest in composing “out of necessity.” As a young priest and a teacher in the mid–20th century, he often needed secular music for special events, such as a wedding for a former student, according to a 1997 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Since he began, Pepin has composed several motets, masses, and organ music works, as well as a Pulitzer-Prize–nominated Easter oratorio, which he considers his magnum opus.

As far as his composition background and training goes, he is mostly self-taught. Though he began studying piano at age 6 and organ at age 17, his composition skills were “inspired and self-taught by listening to great music from Bach and Bernstein all my life,” according to the 1997 Post-Gazette article.
The Sweet Suite is light, happy and fun. The first movement, Sin-Copation Without Repentance, is a quick work based on two short motives in F major: the first motive is two measures long; the second is five measures. They are repeated throughout to create a happy, ragtime mood reminiscent of a rollicking work from the early 1900s.

The second movement is titled Polluted Ayre and is written in G minor. This Andante showcases the trumpet and the clarinet as soloists. The trumpet takes the lead first with the clarinet offering counterpoint. Then the roles are reversed with the clarinet taking the melody in the low register.
Pepin’s happy-go-lucky suite ends with The Gigue is Up, a tempo di giga in F major. This lively dance leaves little to the imagination, but will definitely put some skips in the steps of listeners.

Rick Sowash: Trio No. 3—Shadows of November (Les Ombres de Novembre) (1998–2004)

The question is not what does Rick Sowash do. Rather, it’s what doesn’t he do? The Ohio-based composer runs an online book and music publishing business with his wife, Jo; he is a speaker, a humorist, an author, a filmmaker and the former commissioner of Richland County (Ohio). In the midst of all of these professions, Sowash manages to make time for the profession for which we are particularly interested in him tonight—composer.

Over the past several decades, Sowash, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has had a prolific composing career, with an output of more than 400 orchestral, choral, solo and chamber works. He has also written works for film, including the soundtrack for Ohio: 200 Years, a PBS documentary that was created for the Ohio Bicentennial in 2003. It’s not the money that motivates Sowash to create his innovative brand of American classical music. Rather, it’s his friends. Nearly every work he creates is written for a specific musician friend or friends, including this trio.

November Shadows (Les Ombres de Novembre) is the third of 13 trios Sowash wrote for his friends, the three French musicians known as “les Gavottes.” Sowash was so inspired by their superb playing that he decided to undertake a lengthy and in-depth exploration of the possibilities of trio music for the clarinet, cello and piano. Each of the 13 trios “goes in a direction that is opposite of what one might expect from having heard the trio that preceded it,” Sowash wrote. For example, the second trio was gentle, pastoral and sunny, so the third was written to sound “rough, even thunderous.”

Here is how the composer himself describes it: “The first movement assures us that the dark energy of Nature continues uninterrupted even at the bleakest time of the year, unimpressed by our little human stories of searching and loss. This trio attempts to express the ambiguity of November, a harsh yet beautiful time when, seemingly, everything has died, yet everywhere there is evidence of life. The trees and hills are bare, yet the underlying shapes of the trees and hills are seen more clearly in November. The leaves of summer and autumn have fallen and lie dead and brown on the forest floor, yet every twig bears a bud, a hint of the spring to come. The grief we feel in November is deep and heartfelt and this is expressed in the unabashedly sad second movement. Then comes the final movement reminding us of the super-abundant exuberance of Nature, at times almost vulgar. Being part of Nature ourselves, after all, we simply sit and mourn in November. Instead, we stretch our limbs, warm ourselves at the fire, drink wine and join our friends in laughing, right into the face of Death. The great god Pan never dies, after all; his energy is forever reaffirmed.”

Christian K. Ellenwood: Trio (2007), Elegy (1990), Ballad (2005), Lop-Sided Love Song (2005)

If you love the clarinet, you’ll love the music of Christian Ellenwood. The composer, also an Associate Professor of Clarinet at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, has spent much of his career performing music on the clarinet and writing for his primary instrument. As a clarinetist, Ellenwood has performed with several chamber groups; he is frequently heard in live broadcasts on Wisconsin Public Radio; and he has performed as principal clarinetist for many musical groups including the Skylight Opera of Milwaukee, the Woodstock Mozart Festival (IL), Madison Symphony Orchestra, and the Madison Opera. If that isn’t impressive enough, consider a list of solo and chamber music recitals he has presented throughout the United States and the Pacific islands of Japan, Guam and Hawaii.
Suffice it to say, he knows the clarinet pretty well. As a composer, he’s also had significant success. His compositions have been performed in the United States and Canada and he is currently working on several commissions.

The Trio for clarinet, cello, and piano was composed during the fall and winter of 2006, and the premiere performance was given on March 6, 2007, at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. The work was also performed on a live radio broadcast over the Wisconsin Public Radio Network in 2008. According to the composer, “The materials and inspiration for this work come from the deepest parts of my being, and much of it is so personal and intense that I have difficulty articulating an explanation. The Trio is comprised of three movements, each of which increases in length and depth. Although I do not consider the work to be programmatic, each movement has come to represent something for me: the first movement is trauma, the second movement is grief, and the third movement is motion, through pain, towards healing.” On this concert you will hear the first two movements, which spotlight each of the three instruments in solo passages that are emotive and often virtuosic.

The Elegy and Ballad, according to the composer, “explore materials and idioms from jazz and popular music. Both pieces were inspired by Russ Gibson, a dear friend and fabulous jazz pianist who was well-known to musicians in Lincoln and in the Midwest. Some of my earliest musical memories are of Russ showering me with cascading arpeggios and liquid ornaments as his fingers danced around the keyboard. I especially loved to hear him play tunes like ‘But Not for Me,’ ‘Embraceable You,’ and ‘A Foggy Day.’ Elegy was written shortly after Russ’s death; Ballad is a 1930s-style popular song with a bit of Latin funk thrown in the middle.” Both pieces premiered in 2005 at the Edgerton Performing Arts Center in Edgerton, Wisconsin.

The Lop-Sided Love Song, a duet for clarinet and cello, is described by the composer as “an energetic, dancing, and lyrical five-part rondo. The title of the piece refers to the lop-sided rhythm that is felt throughout the piece, as well as the lop-sided nature of the relationships described in many pop music songs.”

Eric Ewazen: Trio for Trumpet, Violin and Piano (1992)

Like many composers, Eric Ewazen’s “niche” as a composer specializing in works for brass instruments was born from friendships with musicians.

It all started back in college. When Ewazen was studying music at Eastman School of Music, he met Chris Gekker, a talented trumpet player in the Eastman Brass Quintet who was fond of new music and passionate about expanding his instrument’s repertoire. The two musicians became quick friends and collaborators. Ewazen began composing more and more pieces for trumpet, and Gekker introduced Ewazen to other musicians who were interested in performing his music—many of whom were brass players.

He met members of the American Brass Quintet who began performing his music regularly. He became acquainted with Joseph Alessi, principal trombone player with the New York Philharmonic, who premiered works and introduced him to members of the Juilliard Trombone Ensemble, who eventually commissioned and played many of his works. Then there was Charlie Vernon, the bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony, who frequently performed Ewazen’s music and recorded some of his works on his solo CD.

Today, these friendships and collaborations have spurred a repertoire of music that has not only made a substantial impact on 20th-century brass repertoire, but it has also given Ewazen a revered reputation as a successful American composer. His music has been premiered by orchestras and chamber music groups around the world in destinations ranging from Taipei to Paris to Chicago. He has been a guest composer at more than 100 universities and colleges throughout the world and his music can be heard on more than 50 recordings.

The Trio for trumpet, violin and piano is one of Ewazen’s more popular works, written in 1992 with Gekker, that memorable brass player he met in college. The four-movement work showcases the qualities of the violin and trumpet and how they complement and contrast each other. The first movement begins peacefully, but with foreboding drama. Next we hear a lively Allegro written in sonata-allegro form with two themes, the first of which is big and bold and the second of which is energetic yet smooth. The third movement is a sad-sounding elegy, written shortly after the composer’s mother passed away. The trio ends with a final movement full of energetic rhythms, spirited melodies and the sounds of Mexican Mariachi music. Ole!

Alberto Ginastera: Danza del gaucho matrero (1937)
Arranged by John Jensen (1993)

Alberto Ginastera was an ambitious musician, to say the least. The Latin American composer, born in Buenos Aires in 1916 to immigrant parents, began his musical training at an early age, and by the time he was 12 had entered the Williams Conservatory. Several awards and honors followed, and his ambition and love for music led him to help begin a league for composers in Buenos Aires, as well as found the La Plata Music and Performing Arts Conservatory and the Latin American Center for Advanced Music Studies at the Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires.

With all of these accomplishments, some might expect an incredibly prolific output of new compositions. However, while Ginastera was ambitious, he was also a bit of a perfectionist. Throughout his life, which ended in 1983, his total output was slightly over 50 works, some of which were taken out of his catalogue because he saw them as not quite perfect. Despite these meticulous tendencies, the music he did produce was significant enough to give him a reputation as one of music’s most important Latin American classical composers.
Danza del gaucho matrero is the third movement from Ginastera’s beloved set of three Danzas Argentinas for solo piano. This arrangement was made by John Jensen for Helios, a contemporary music and jazz ensemble in St. Paul, Minnesota. TCCP percussionist Joe Holmquist, a member of Helios and fluent in both the language and music of Spanish-speaking countries, translates the title as “The Savvy Gaucho.” Joe explains, “The word matrero means perspicacious, distrustful, skeptical—he's an older gaucho who's been around enough to be not easily convinced.”

This is the quickest, most furious, most energetic and perhaps most fun of the Danzas Argentinas. We will hear complicated and irregular rhythms, bizarre accent patterns, and flamboyant dissonance. The original piano piece is virtually intact, with all its excitement and requisite stamina. Jensen’s arrangement enhances the work with well-placed accents and melodic motives by the strings, and colorful and rhythmic nuances by the marimba.