Lee's "ART" music

Synopsis

“Commedia dell'arte” is the name given to 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 reappear time and time again in various farcical situations—situations which modern audiences would probably recognize from the TV sitcoms of today, only the earthy 18th century version was not exactly “G-rated.”

These characters were attractive to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers: Schoenberg’s “Pierrot lunaire” is a song-cycle setting dreamy, surreal texts sung by a love-sick commedia dell’arte clown; Richard Strauss’s opera “Ariadne auf Naxos” interpolates an earthy comedia dell’arte team as unlikely commentators on the action of an otherwise oh-so 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, who lives and works in Boston. Each of the movements of Lee’s work related to a different commedia dell’arte figure. This section is entitled “Pantaloon’s Bolero.”

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, Pa.;

Deaths

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

• 1916 - Spanish composer Enrique Granados, age 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, age 48, in Céret;

Premieres

• 1784 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15 in Bb, K. 450, at the Trattnerhof in Vienna, with composer as soloist;

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

• 1868 - Brahms: Piano Quintet in f, Op. 34, in Paris, with pianist Luise Langhans-Japha, with an unidentified string ensemble;

• 1881 - Verdi: opera "Simon Boccanegra" (2nd 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, N.Y.;

• 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, Calif., 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.