A Trip to France

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“A Trip to France,” features the music of French composers, all but one of whom lived during both the 19th and 20th Centuries.  Camille Saint-Saens and Maurice Ravel are the most well-known, but Carlos Salzedo, Jacques Ibert and Andre Jolivet are also highly  respected, influential French composers.

Opening the program is the Catalyst Quartet performing the third movement of Maurice Ravel’s only string quartet, the Quartet in F Major. The movement is labeled “Assez vif – trez rhythme” – quite lively and very rhythmic.

Following this, Dr. Heidi Hernandez –frequent guest harpist with the Arizona Symphony for decades –performs one of Calos Salzedo’s most famous pieces, Chanson dans la nuit, Song in the Night. Salzedo was an innovative and influential harpist whose compositions and playing style have had a huge impact on many harpists.

Viviana Cumplido Wilson, Principal Flutist with The Phoenix Symphony, then joins Hernandez in a performance of Jacques Ibert’s Entr-acte, or Intermission. Ibert was a prolific composer across the genres.

The Louisiana State University Band rounds out the first half with trumpet soloist Brian Shaw, performing Andre Jolivet’s Concerto for Trumpet No. 2, with Damon Talley conducting. Jolivet was also a prolific composer whose influences include jazz and electronic music. He believed music could connect humans with the spiritual and universal.

For the second half of “A Trip to France,” saxophonist Steven Banks and pianist Dr. Xak Bjerken present selections by Camille Saint-Saens and Maurice Ravel. Saint-Saens, a child piano prodigy who became France’s premier pianist and organist, composed only three woodwind sonatas, all in his final year of life. Banks and Bjerken start with his Oboe Sonata in D Major, Opus 66, a standard part of the modern oboe repertoire.

Lastly, Banks and Bjerken perform Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mere L’Oye – Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant, the Sleeping Beauty Pavane. Originally a five-movement piano duet written for the children of friends, Ravel later orchestrated and adapted La Mere L-Oye, Mother Goose, for ballet. Ravel’s most famous work, Bolero, was not one of his own favorite compositions but has brought him fame and earned his estate tens of millions of dollars since his death in the 1930s.

Ravel  – Quartet in F Major – Catalyst Quartet

  1. II. Assez vif – tres rhythme

Salzedo – Chanson dans la nuit – Heidi Hernandez, harp

Ibert – Entr’acte – Viviana Cumplido Wilson, flute; Heidi Hernandez, harp

Jolivet – Concerto for Trumpet No. 2 – Louisiana State University Band; Damon Talley, conductor; Brian Shaw, trumpet

  1. I. Mesto-Concitato
  2. II. Grave
  3. III. Giocoso

Saint Saens – Oboe Sonata in D Major, Op. 166 – Steven Banks, saxophone; Xak Bjerken, piano

  1. I. Andantino
  2. II. Ad libitum – Allegretto – Ad libitum
  3. III. Molto allegro

Ravel – Ma Mere I’Oye – Steven Banks, Saxophone; Xak Bjerken, piano

  1. I. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant. Lent
  2. II. Petit Poucet. Tres modere
  3. III. Laideronnette, Imperatrice des pagodes. Mouvement de marche
  4. IV. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bete. Mouvement de valse modere
  5. V. Le jardin feerique. Lent et grave
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