Serenade Notes Matinee

The Dvořák Serenade for Strings always makes me think of the freshness of spring
time, with feelings of optimism and amiable associations. The key of E major helps
to convey the buoyancy and energy I sense so strongly in this delightful work.
ERIC MCCRACKEN, NCS VIOLIN
Orawa
WOJCIECH KILAR
BORN July 17, 1932, in Lviv, Ukraine; died December 29, 2013, in Katowice, Poland
PREMIERE Composed 1986; first performance March 10, 1986, in Zakopane, Poland, by The Polish
Chamber Orchestra, Wojciech Michniewski conducting
OVERVIEW
Polish composer Wojciech Kilar studied in his native country and in Paris with the mentor of so many mid-
20th-century composers, Nadia Boulanger. A composer of more than 130 film scores, including Bram
Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (2000), Kilar has also composed
five symphonies and a number of other orchestral and choral works. In the 1960s, he was a leader of the
Polish avant-garde, considering John Cage “the pope of modern music.” But after the mid-1970s, much of
his inspiration derived from the indigenous music of the highlands of southern Poland, where he has spent
most of his life.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

Composed in 1986, Orawa — the name of a hilly region spanning the Polish-Slovakian border — is based
on the folk melodies and rhythms of the region. Kilar’s music sounds like a cross between Béla Bartók and
Phillip Glass. Like Bartók, Kilar works with short kernels of melody rather than entire songs or dances; like
Glass, he repeats melodic fragments, making gradual changes in the melody and subtle variations in
orchestration, all to a constant meter, or beat.
In the nine or so minutes it takes to perform, Orawa progresses through a series of brief melodies,
beginning from the barely audible to a screaming finale.
INSTRUMENTATION
Strings
Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra
TERRY MIZESKO
BORN 1946, in Morehead City

PREMIERE Composed 2017; the North Carolina Symphony gives the world premiere in these performances
OVERVIEW
A native of eastern North Carolina, bass trombonist Terry Mizesko is among that small number of the
North Carolina Symphony’s homegrown composers. In addition to his 46 years in the back row of the
orchestra, Mizesko has regularly faced the ensemble to conduct Holiday Pops and educational concerts.
He has taught trombone at Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and St. Augustine’s College. His composing
and arranging must be crammed into a hectic schedule of teaching, touring, and practicing. He holds a
bachelor’s degree from East Carolina University — not in trombone, but in composition and theory.
Mizesko’s first orchestral work, Highland Suite (1996), was a personal project; but since then, NCS
has gone back to the well for a number of works from their in-house resource. In addition to Sketches
from Pinehurst, the orchestra premiered Four Scenes for Flute and Orchestra (2001) and Last Voyage of
the Currituck (2006). His colleagues, past and present, have also supported his habit. Former principal
violist Hugh Partridge commissioned Sundays at Shackleford Banks for the Triangle Youth Philharmonic in
2006; and NCS Assistant Principal Clarinet Michael Cyzewski commissioned the Divertimento for Clarinet
and String Quintet.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

Mizesko composed this concerto at the suggestion of NCS Principal Double Bass Leonid Finkelshteyn, to
whom it is dedicated. Mizesko describes the first movement as dominated by the second theme, a Yiddish
dance. The second movement is a Romanza within a march, showing the incongruity of a double bassist
playing a concerto with an orchestra — he gives the goose-stepping march to the orchestra, interrupted
by long lyrical phrases by the bass.
Mizesko describes the Scherzo as an homage to Bruckner and Mahler: angular, at times angry, at
times humorous. The finale features two dances evoking the peasant music of Eastern Europe — Yiddish
in style, with a mix of Slavonic dances and pizzicato imitating a balalaika orchestra.
INSTRUMENTATION
Solo double bass, strings
Serenade for Strings in E Major, Op. 22
ANTONÍN DVORÁK
BORN September 8, 1841, near Prague; died May 1, 1904, in Prague

PREMIERE Composed 1875; first performance December 10, 1876, in Prague, Adolf Čech conducting
OVERVIEW
Given his current stature as one of the foremost composers of the 19th century, Antonín Dvořák was
something of a late bloomer, although not for want of musical talent and industry. Dvořák’s father was a
butcher, and had expected his son to go into the family trade. Only after his uncle had agreed to finance
the boy’s musical education was he able to follow his passion for music. Although trained as a church
organist, Dvořák took his first job as principal viola in Prague’s new Provincial Theatre Orchestra. During
this time, he practiced composition, producing songs, symphonies, and entire operas, but without
recognition — much less appreciation — until he was in his 30s.
Already influenced by the nationalist Bohemian style of Bedřich Smetana, Dvořák met and became
a disciple of Brahms in 1875. Vienna’s famous curmudgeon music critic, Eduard Hanslick, also encouraged
the not-so-young composer and gave him prominent billing in his reviews. In the same year, Brahms and
Hanslick also supported him when he entered and won the competition for the Austrian State Prize in
music for young, poor, and talented musicians (Dvořák won the competition twice more). The committee
report stated that “...the applicant, who has never yet been able to acquire a piano of his own, deserves
a grant to ease his strained circumstances and free him from anxiety in his creative work.” Brahms and
Hanslick also urged Dvořák to move to Vienna, but his love for his native Bohemia kept him in Prague.
Dvořák sensed condescension in the support and encouragement of the Austrian musical
establishment and was resentful at being forced by economic necessity to accept government stipends.
He nevertheless responded to this encouragement with a creative outpouring that included, in the course
of a few months, the Symphony No. 5, the Piano Trio Op. 21, the Piano Quartet Op. 23, the Moravian
Duets Op. 20, and the Serenade for Strings. Like Smetana, Dvořák freely incorporated folk elements into
his music, utilizing characteristic peasant rhythms and melodic motives although seldom actually quoting
entire folk melodies.
The 19th-century serenade, true to its 18th-century origins, is less intense than a formal
symphony, but this one sits on the fence between the two genres. Three of the five movements are
expanded A–B–A structures, including the first, which one would have expected to be in sonata-allegro
form. Nevertheless, the serenade does contain elements characteristic of more formal symphonic
practices of the period: a slow movement that contrasts with the other four; a scherzo middle movement
that, despite its title, does not completely conform to the scherzo/trio symphonic form. The finale, a
combined rondo and sonata-allegro form, quotes the main theme of the opening movement, a unifying
device common in many more weighty symphonies and chamber works of the period.
INSTRUMENTATION
Strings
©2018 Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn

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The Dvořák Serenade for Strings always makes me think of the freshness of spring

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

BORN 1946, in Morehead City

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

BORN September 8, 1841, near Prague; died May 1, 1904, in Prague

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