Lee's 'ART' music

Synopsis

Commedia dell’arte was a kind of theater popular throughout Italy during the 18th century. In this improvised, rough and tumble genre, a group of stock figures with names like Harlequin, Pierrot, and Punchinello would appear in awkward and farcical situations which modern audiences might recognize from the TV sitcoms — only the earthy 18th century version often more R-Rated.

These characters were attractive to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers: Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire sets dreamy, surreal texts sung by a lovesick commedia dell’arte clown; Richard Strauss’ opera Ariadne auf Naxos offers an earthy commedia dell’arte troop as unlikely commentators on a serious Greek legend; and Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella recasts elegant 18th century musical forms into a robust modern score whose title character, according to Stravinsky was “a drunken lout whose every gesture was obscene.”

On today’s date in 1996, a more refined chamber work inspired by commedia dell’arte characters received its premiere at Boston College. It was commissioned and premiered by the Artaria Quartet, and was given the punning title, ART: Arias & Interludes. The music is by the Chinese-born American composer Thomas Oboe Lee, with each movement of Lee’s work related to a different commedia dell’arte figure.

Music Played in Today's Program

Thomas Oboe Lee (b. 1945): ART: Arias and Interludes; Hawthorne String Quartet; Koch 7452

On This Day

Births

• 1740 - American-born Moravian composer John Antes, in Frederickstownship, Pennsylvania

Deaths

• 1654 - German composer Samuel Scheidt, 66, in Halle

• 1916 - Spanish composer Enrique Granados, 48, dies at sea returning to Europe from New York City when the S.S. Sussex is torpedoed in the English Channel by a German submarine during WWI

• 1921 - French composer Deódat de Sévérac, 48, in Céret

Premieres

• 1784 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15, at the Trattnerhof in Vienna, with composer as soloist

• 1860 - Joachim: Violin Concerto (Hungarian), in Hannover, Germany

• 1868 - Brahms: Piano Quintet, in Paris, with pianist Luise Langhans-Japha, with an unidentified string ensemble

• 1881 - Verdi: opera Simon Boccanegra (second version, with libretto revised by Boito), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala

• 1924 - Sibelius: Symphony No. 7, in Stockholm, with the composer conducting

• 1932 - Randall Thompson: Symphony No. 2, in, Rochester, New York

• 1941 - Shostakovich: incidental music for Shakespeare’s King Lear, in Leningrad, at the Gorky Bolshoy Dramatic Theater

• 1949 - Panufnik: Tragic Overture, in New York City

• 1984 - Philip Glass: opera Akhnaten, in Stuttgart, at the Wurttemberg State Theater, with Dennis Russell Davies, conducting

• 1996 - Thomas Oboe Lee: ART: Arias and Interludes for string quartet, in Gassoon Hall at Boston College by the Artaria Quartet

• 2001 - Chihara: Songs of Love and Loss, by violist Geraldine Waltherthe and the 20-voice San Francisco Chamber Singers, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, California, directed by Robert Geary

Others

• 1721 - J.S. Bach dedicates his six Brandenburg Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, whose orchestra apparently never performed them