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DAVID RUSSELL | GuitarSaturday, March 21, 2020 | 7:30pmHerbst Theatre

J. DE SAINT-LUC La Prise de Gaeta Allemande Courante Sarabande Gigue a la maniere anglaise Minuet Passepied Rigaudon pour les trompettes Caprice en Passacaille

F. COUPERIN Les Silvains * Les Barricades Misterieuses* Les Tours De Passe-Passe*

G. REGONDI Air Varié, Opus 21

INTERMISSION

J.S. BACH Chorale Prelude BWV 645* “Wachet auf, ruft us die Stimme” Chorale Prelude BWV 147* “Jesu bleibet meine Freude”

S. ASSAD Phyllis’ Portrait BARRIOS Caazapá Sueño En La Floresta

*Transcription: David Russell

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ARTIST PROFILESan Francisco Performances presents David Russell for the 13th time. He first appeared in the Guitar Series in March 1993.

Classical guitarist David Russell is world renowned for his superb musicianship and inspired artistry, having earned the high-est praise from audiences and critics alike. In recognition of his great talent and his international career, he was named a Fel-low of The Royal Academy of Music in Lon-don in 1997.

In May 2003 he was bestowed the great honor of being made “adopted son” of Es Migjorn, the town in Minorca where he grew up. Later the town named a street af-ter him, “Avinguda David Russell.”

In November 2003 he was given the Medal of Honor of the Conservatory of the Balearics.

David Russell is a Grammy award win-ner for his CD Aire Latino in the category of best instrumental soloist in classical music. After winning the Grammy, the town of Nigrán in Spain where he resides, gave him the silver medal of the town in an emotional ceremony.

During his studies at the Royal Acad-emy, David Russell twice won the Julian Bream Guitar Prize. Later he won numer-ous international competitions, including the Andrés Segovia Competition, the José Ramírez Competition and Spain’s presti-gious Francisco Tárrega Competition .

David Russell spends his time touring the world, appearing regularly at pres-tigious halls in main cities, such as New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Madrid, Toronto or Rome. Concertgoers every-

where are in awe of his musical genius and inspired by his captivating stage presence. His love of his craft resonates through his flawless and seemingly effortless perfor-mance. The attention to detail and pro-vocative lyrical phrasing suggest an innate understanding of what each individual composer was working to achieve, bring-ing to each piece a sense of adventure.

In May 2005 he received a homage from the music conservatory of Vigo, culminat-ing with the opening of the new Audito-rium, to which they gave the name “Au-ditorio David Russell.” In 2009 David was named honorary member of “Amigos de la Guitarra”, the oldest guitar society in Spain. He received an Honorary Doctorate in Music by the University of Arizona in Tucson in 2014 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Guitar Foundation of America in 2018.

A prolific recording artist, his collection includes 17 CDs with Telarc International.The New York Times wrote about his perfor-mance: “...Mr. Russell made his mastery evident without ever deviating from an approach that places musical values above mere display. It was apparent to the audi-ence throughout the recital that Mr. Rus-sell possesses a talent of extraordinary dimension.”

Upon hearing him play in London, An-drés Segovia wrote: “My congratulations on your musicality and guitaristic technique.”

PROGRAM NOTES

La Prise de Gaeta

JACQUES DE SAINT-LUC(1616–1710)

Jacques de Saint-Luc was a Baroque lute-nist and composer influenced by the great French lutenist Denis Gaultier. Saint-Luc is credited with over 200 compositions but recent scholars point to the unlikely 94-year-long life indicated by the dates of his birth and death and suggest that some of the compositions credited to his name were actually composed by his son. Saint-Luc wrote La Prise de Gaeta (The Cap-ture of Gaeta) to honor a military victory. The suite includes a traditional series of Baroque dances—Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, Passepied—and closes with a march-like Rigaudon pour les trompettes and a Caprice en Pas-sacaille (Caprice in the Form of a Passaca-glia) built on a repeating bass pattern.

Les Silvains Les Barricades Misterieuses Les Tours De Passe-Passe

FRANÇOIS COUPERIN (1668–1733)

François Couperin was one of the great-est composers of the French Baroque. Many of his pieces have evocative, pictur-esque titles and express distinctive moods through unusual key choices and adven-turous harmonies. They have attracted the attention of composers from Brahms and Strauss to Dušan Bogdanović and Sergio Assad. Les Silvains (The Woodland Fauns) evokes an idyllic pastoral mood. Les Barri-cades Mistèrieuses (Mysterious Barricades) features unusual musical transitions that are passed over effortlessly. Tours de Passe-Passe (Sleight-of-hand) refers to the nimble finger work needed to realize the playful, lively music.

Air Varié, Opus 21

GIULIO REGONDI (1822–1872)

Giulio Regondi, who was born in France in 1822 and died in London in 1872, began his career as a child prodigy. From his sev-enth year he was shown in European capi-tals as a musical phenomenon, meeting with enthusiastic reception everywhere. That there was more to the child than an ability to please a sensation-seeking public is shown by the fact that the ever-critical Fernando Sor dedicated his Opus 46, Souvenir d’amitié, in 1831 to the nine-year-old Giulio. Regondi lived most of his life in London as a celebrated virtuoso on both the guitar and the concertina, tour-ing both in England and throughout Eu-rope. Because of the period of decline that set in for the guitar in the latter half of the 19th century, Regondi’s works, among the most demanding in the romantic guitar literature, came to be considered unplay-able and were consequently forgotten. The present flourishing of the guitar and re-newed interest in lesser known Romantic masters is bringing the music of Regondi back into concert halls. The Air Varié, Opus 21 is a work of exceptional virtuosity and poetry redolent of candelabra lit Victorian parlors. It blends unashamed sentiment with deep sincerity.

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Chorale Prelude BWV 645 “Wachet auf, ruft us die Stimme” Chorale Prelude BWV 147 “Jesu bleibet meine Freude”JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH(1685–1750)

As a devout Lutheran, Bach took very seri-ously Martin Luther’s call for a music avail-able to all members of the congregation. In the effort to reach the common man and make religion more immediate and mean-ingful, the music of the Lutheran service was built on the simple hymn-tunes of Germany which could be sung by all the members of a congregation. This evening David Russell plays two of the best-known of Bach’s cho-rale preludes. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, the Voice Is Sounding) is based on a tune composed by Jakob Praetorius about 1604, which Bach used twice: as an organ prelude and as the fourth movement of his Cantata No. 140. Jesu bleibet meine Freude (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring) is based on a tune composed in 1661 by Johann Schop and is one of Bach’s most loved compositions.

Phyllis’ Portrait

SERGIO ASSAD(B. 1952)

Sergio Assad has provided a program note:Phyllis Bolton was a generous woman

is followed by an exciting hornpipe (blue grass). As Phyllis was Jewish it was normal to bring the Yiddish song style to repre-sent her Y letter. The Lament that follows is based on the traditional American Blues; the Lullaby is the piece that Phyllis would have enjoyed the most since she was a fan of nicely built melodies. The two last seg-ments are the Impromptu based on Ameri-can folk rhythms and the energetic Soul music based on the very strong African American grooving style.

To write this piece I dived into the huge North American past of great artists who helped to give to the world one of the biggest contributions to popular art. My thanks to Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Vassar Clements, Bryan Sutton, Béla Fleck, Mike Marshall, Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers among others.

Caazapá Un Sueño en la Floresta AUGUSTÍN BARRIOS (1885–1944)

The Paraguayan guitar virtuoso Agustín Barrios saw himself as a brother of the me-dieval troubadours; undergoing an artistic journey through life, suffering a roman-tic madness, but inspired by destiny. His hauntingly beautiful Caazapá, based on a traditional melody, is full of tender emo-tion and the joy of life. Barrios’ romance and fantasy were as evocative in words as in music. In his Dedication to the Guitar he wrote:

“Tupa, the Supreme spirit and protector of my race, found me one day in the middle of a verdant glade wrapped in admiration while admiring nature. He said to me: ‘Take this mystery box and unmask its se-crets.’ And locking up in it all the singing birds, left it in my hands. Obeying the or-ders of Tupa I took the box and placing it close to my chest, I embraced it and spent many moons at the side of a spring. One night Jacy, painted in liquid crystal, feel-ing the sadness of my Indian soul, gave me six silver rays of light so that with them I could unmask the secrets of the box. And the miracle occurred: from the depths of the mysterious box there emerged a mar-velous symphony of all the virgin voices of our America.”

Un Sueño en la Floresta is perhaps Bar-rios’s dream in the glade.

Program notes by Scott Cmiel

who, side by side with her beloved hus-band Sandy, helped to shape and polish the outstanding classical guitar community in Tucson, Arizona. Besides her passion for music and the classical guitar she in-fluenced the lives of many people, sharing her spiritual beliefs which were influenced by the teachings of Gurdjieff. I never met Phyllis but knew of her from her husband Sandy for whom I created one piece of mu-sic for solo guitar named Sandy’s Portrait.

My collection of Portraits started in the 90’s and I used in the first Portrait a tech-nique of matching the musical notes to the regular alphabet. So, the name of the per-son to be portrayed dictates the set of notes to be used as a theme. As I progressed over the years writing several Portraits, I tried however to use different treatments to the thematic material collected from one piece to another. Regarding specifically the case of Phyllis I knew that she was a great admirer of the Americana style and I decided to focus on this aspect of her life to create the various segments that make part of her Portrait. So, the first thing was to recreate her name musically by match-ing the name Phyllis to the matching mu-sical notes BACEEBE. This theme serves then as the unifying element of the whole composition. To create the set of segments linked to American styles of music, I also used her name like an acrostic: Preambulo Hornpipe Yiddish Song Lament Lullaby Impromptu Soul music

The Preambulo works like a Preludio just introducing the thematic material. This

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