Music: Sun Jan 9

 

The theme of Renewal finds diverse expression in this morning's musical selections.

 

The CUUC Choir reprises its performance of "You Will Be Found " from the musical Dear Evan Hansen, a song which offers hope even in an era of dissimulation and deceit in the social media.

 

"January" is the first in a cycle of monthly pieces composed by Tchaikovsky in 1876 on commission from the St. Petersburg musical journal Nouveliste. Subtitled "Fireside Fantasy", the work holds forth the promise of renewing the annual cycle. Alexander Pushkin's verses prefaced "January" in the first printed edition:

 

A little corner of peaceful bliss,

the night dressed in twilight;

the little fire is dying in the fireplace,

and the candle has burned out.

 

Federico Mompou's fifth Canción y danza (Song and Dance) seems to embody renewal in its progression from a somber, mournful opening to tentative pastoral musings, ultimately giving way to unbridled joyous dancing.

 

As a musical form, the "rondo" suggests a structure in which a musical theme is endlessly renewed, as it alternates with contrasting material. Mozart's festive "Rondo alla Turca", the concluding movement of his Sonata in A Major, K. 331, evokes the raucous strains of Turkish Janissary music popular in the Vienna of Mozart's day.

Read on for programming details, and stay tuned for spoken introductions.

Opening Music: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas

"You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hansen

            Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, arr. Mac Huff

 

Musical Meditation: Adam Kent, piano

January (Fireside Fantasy), Op. 37, No. 1

                                    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

 

Interlude:

Canción y danza No. 5

                                    Federico Mompou

 

Postlude:
Rondo alla Turca

                                    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart