Merciless
Beauty and other songs
7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 29, Fourth Presbyterian
Church
11:45am, Sunday, June 3, International House at
University of Chicago
Michelle Areyzaga, soprano • Stephen Boe, violin •
Mathias Tacke, violin • Andrew Snow, cello • Gerald
Rizzer, piano
Alessandro Scarlatti Cantata: Già
lusingato appieno, for soprano,
two violins, cello and piano (15")
Sergio Prokofiev Sonata, Op.
56 (1932), for two violins
Henri Duparc & Selected
Songs, for soprano and piano(12")
Ernest Chausson
R. Vaughan Williams Merciless
Beauty, for soprano, two violins
and cello (7')
Dan
Tucker Selected
Spanish Songs, for soprano and
piano (10')
Alberto Ginastera
Pampeano No. 2, Op. 21 (1950), for cello
and piano (9')
BUY
TICKETS
$25 general, $10 students
Ticket includes free reception beginning 30 minutes
before each concert.
Join The Chicago Ensemble for the final
program of our landmark 35th season! Soprano Michelle
Areyzaga, whose singing was praised as "most alluring"
by The New York Times, will be our vocalist
for a program of vocal and instrumental works.
The exquisite love songs of Merciless
Beauty, composed by Ralph Vaughn Williams, is
among the four vocal works to be performed. Set to
Chaucer poems, these lovely songs display the composer's
interest in the modalism of the Renaissance period.
Vaughan Williams is the most famous of the English
composers of the early 20th century, most of whom turned
to English folk song.
A local highlight will be Selected Spanish
Songs by Dan Tucker (1925-2010), who, in addition to
being a noteworthy composer, was an editorial writer for
The Chicago Tribune
for many years. The other two works featuring soprano
will be a Baroque cantata by Alessandro Scarlatti and
selected works by the late Romantic masters of song
Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson.
Instrumental works in the program will be
Sergei Prokofiev's Sonata, op. 56 (1932) for two
violins, with its wide-ranging moods from lyrical and
playful to fantastic and dramatic; and the complex,
driving gaucho rhythms of Alberto Ginastero's
folk-inspired Pampeana
No.
2. Composed in 1932 for a Paris chamber group,
this Prokofiev sonata precedes both of his violin and
piano sonatas.