Bard Music Festival: Program Ten - Berlioz’s Transformation of the World of Sound

Berlioz’s innovative instrumental soundscapes had an extraordinary and liberating impact on the composers who followed. Program Ten pairs his Chant sacré, in a reconstruction of the lost version for saxophones, with a sampling of the unorthodox sonorities he helped inspire. These include pieces respectively showcasing the cornet, by virtuoso cornetist Baptiste Arban; bassoon, by Edward Elgar; and French horn, by Richard Strauss, who edited and updated the Treatise on Instrumentation. Such works helped open the door for some of the 20th century’s most adventurous sounds, by Berlioz’s compatriots Edgard Varèse and Olivier Messiaen, who shared his focus on timbre; Italian experimentalist Luciano Berio, whose trombone showpiece calls for extended techniques and theatricality; and American minimalist Steve Reich, whose Clapping Music eschews traditional instrumentation altogether. The program concludes with Six Bagatelles for wind quintet by Hungarian modernist György Ligeti, for whom timbre and texture were both vital structural elements.

Program:
11 am • Preconcert Talk with Richard Wilson
11:30 am • Performance: Anna Polonsky, piano; New Hudson Saxophone Quartet; Bard Festival Wind Ensemble; and others

Hector Berlioz (1803–69)

Chant sacré (arr. 1844)

Jean-Baptiste Arban (1825–89)

Fantaisie and Variations on The Carnival of Venice (1861)

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Andante, op. posth. (1888)

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)

Romance, Op. 62 (1910)

Eugène Bozza (1905–91)

Andante et Scherzo (1938)

Edgard Varése (1883–1965)

Density 21.5 (1936, rev. 1946)

Olivier Messiaen (1908–92)

Le merle noir (1952)

Steve Reich (b. 1936)

Clapping Music (1972)

Luciano Berio (1925–2003)

Sequenza V (1966)

György Ligeti (1923–2006)

Six Bagatelles (1953)

Location: Olin Hall

Ticketing:
Tickets start at $25
$5 tickets for Bard students are made possible by the Passloff Pass.

Click here to buy tickets.