December 3, 2022: Music for Movies

Saturday, December 3, 2022, 7:30 p.m.
Gershwin Performing Arts Center | Murrieta Mesa High School

Tonight’s Program

Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990)

Music for Movies

1. New England Countryside (from the documentary film The City, 1939)
2. Barley Wagons (from the Hal Roach production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, 1939)
3. Sunday Traffic (from The City)
4. Grover’s Corners (from the Sol Lesser production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, 1940)
5. Threshing Machines (from Of Mice and Men)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K. 299

1. Allegro
2. Andantino
3. Rondeau – Allegro

Elena Yarritu, flute
Elena Mashkovtseva, harp

INTERMISSION

Pietro Mascagni (1863 – 1945)

Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

Darius Milhaud (1892 – 1974)

Le Boeuf sur le toit

Thanks to the Murrieta Valley Unified School District for their support of this concert.

Concession sales this evening benefit the Murrieta Educational Foundation for the Arts.

Flutist Elena Yarritu enjoys an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and teacher.  She has earned a MM degree from Yale University School of Music, a DMA from Stony Brook University, and has studied with many distinguished flutists in the U.S. and abroad. She performs principal flute in the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus and records on the MSR Classics Label. Her performance with pianist Gabriel Sanchez on her debut CD Scree has been described as “fearsome and adventurous” by Fanfare Magazine while being “wholesome and jubilantly virtuosic” (American Record Guide). Her second CD, Emigrantes, released in 2015 features arrangements of music by Astor Piazzolla and original works of young Argentinian composer/pianist Exequiel Mantega and a special collaboration with flutist Paulina Fain.

Dr. Yarritu has served as Artistic Director of the Carmel Valley Library Family Music Concert Series and performs with harpist Elena Mashkovtseva as DUO ELENA. Invested in teaching, she currently serves as president of the San Diego North Chapter CAPMT (Ca. Assoc. of Professional Music Teachers) and her pupils are top prize winners in local, regional, and national competitions including the Music Teachers’ Association of California, National Youth Orchestra, Helen B. Goodlin Scholarship, San Diego Musical Merit, San Diego Flute Guild, The National Flute Association High School Soloist Competition, Young Arts, and Spotlight, among others. In the Fall of 2021, she joined the music faculty at MiraCosta College in Oceanside.

Members of the California Chamber Orchestra

All musicians performing in this concert are members of
The American Federation of Musicians, Local 325

Program Notes

The earliest films, known as “silent films” were not actually silent. Theater audiences were entertained by live musicians on piano or organ to help set the mood, further the action, and be a part of the film’s storytelling. These musicians were often improvising, or “making-up,” the music. If you saw a silent film in two different theatres, the musical accompaniment would be different. Each organist and pianist had their own unique musical style.

When films moved into the “talkie” phase, around 1927, music was able to be included in the final product. “Talkie” films relied on actors delivering their lines, and the support of music specifically chosen for a scene. The birth of sound with films also produced a new job category called Film Composer.

Tonight’s concert takes us on a journey into famous classical pieces and their connections to 20^th century films.

Upon returning to America, the young composer’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered with the Boston and New York Symphonies. This major early success launched Copland’s career as one of the most well-known 20^th Century American composers.

Copland connected with Hollywood in the mid-1930’s, not long after “Talkies” started in theaters. He intended for film composing to be a new way to expand his musical reach. His first film score, written in 1939, accompanied Of Mice and Men.

The arrival of the Great Depression changed Copland’s view of American classical music and its role in society. According to The Copland You Know – And the Copland You Don’t by Canadian musicologist Colin Eatock, Copland believed in creating a new American music sound that would appeal to a broad audience. “I see no reason,” Copland wrote, “why composers any longer should write their music solely with the concert audience in mind. New listeners, such as radio provides, may not be cultivated listeners, but at least they have few of the prejudices of the typical concert-goer.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was commissioned to write the Concerto for Flute and Harp by French diplomat and military officer Duc de Guines. The duke was a flutist, and his daughter a harpist. As part of the contract, Mozart composed the concerto for the father-daughter duo and also tutored the duke’s daughter in composition. Mozart wrote the piece in April of 1778.

Mozart lived long before films, but he was no stranger to another form of visual entertainment that relied on music to set the mood: Opera. Mozart wrote his first opera when he was 12 years old.

A general characteristic of Mozart’s music, and certainly this concerto, is the musical dialogue between solo instruments and the orchestra. Mozart’s concerto balances the brilliance of the flute with the heavenly sounds of the harp, creating different moods and colors through changes in dynamics, musical ranges, and modes.

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was one of Les Six (The Six), a group of young French composers who wanted to revolutionize French music. Le Boeuf sur le toit (The Bull on the Roof) was inspired by the composer’s two-year stay in Rio de Janeiro and is named after a popular Brazilian song. The piece is a rondo form of sorts, whereby Brazilian melodies, tangos, sambas, and other types of music are interjected between a recurring main theme.

— Dana Zimbric

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