The 10th Boston Turkish Festival

presents

An Evening with Mesut Ozgen: Folk Inspired Classical Guitar 

 

PROGRAM

 

Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo1                                                               Christopher Pratorius
I.        Introducción y Danza                                                                                                   
II.     Canto
III.   Estudio
 
La Catedral                                                                                        Agustín Barrios Mangoré
I.        Preludio “Saudade”
II.     Andante Religioso
III.   Allegro Solemne                                                                                                          
Prelude (from Suite After Bach)1, 2                                                    David Cope with E.M.I.3
 
Fugue BWV 1000                                                                                 Johann Sebastian Bach
 
Taquito Militar                                                                                                  Mariano Mores
 
Misionera                                                                                                Fernando Bustamante
                                                                                                                       arr. Jorge Morel
 
Intermission
                                                                                                                                              
Anatolian Fantasy                                                                                                 Mesut Özgen
Tango Cruz
 
Sortija1                                                                                                         Pablo Victor Ortiz
 
Shenandoah                                                                                                        Robert Beaser
                                                                                                                                               
Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song                                                            Carlo Domeniconi
      Uzun ince bir yoldayım by Asık Veysel                                                                            

  1Written for Mesut Özgen

2World Premiere

3Experiments in Musical Intelligence

 

ABOUT THE MUSIC

Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo by Christopher Pratorius
 
“Sonata: Ondas do Mar de Vigo” is my first large guitar piece. It is based on a Spanish song by the medieval troubadour Martin Codax, from Portugal. The song is classified as a Cantiga de Amigo or “friendship song.” The genre is characterized by the longing of a young woman for a lover who has gone. Typically, the "friend" is supposed to meet her by the sea and never arrives. The title of the song used as the basis for this piece is “Waves of the Sea of Vigo.” I began with an in depth analysis of both the poetry and the melody. It is a strophic song, with four verses. I decided to mirror that structure with four movements. In one movement, the structure of the whole poem, with its subtle repetitions and variations, was the basis. In another, the structure of the melody was used. The other movements were freely composed, but still work within the context of the larger form. My idea was to do a set of structural variations that takes into account every aspect of the original, not to reproduce similar but slightly different copies, but to project the structure of the original song in a way that would be quite unexpected. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mesut, not only for encouraging me to write this piece, but also for being a genuine partner. He tackled a difficult piece, analyzed it for hours so he could understand my musical logic, brought passion and artistry to it, and also contributed many original ideas to the project. The most obvious contribution is an arpeggiation pattern that he suggested for the last movement, which has added a great deal of excitement to the only hearing of the original melody. Thank you, Mesut! (C.P.)
   
La Catedral by Agustín Barrios Mangoré
 
Three essential categories revealed in Barrios' compositions are folkloric, imitative, and religious. Barrios honored the music and the people of his native land and composed pieces modeled after folk songs of various countries of South America. Imitating composition and techniques form the Baroque and Romantic periods was another side to his craftsmanship. La Catedral may be viewed upon as Barrios' imitation of Bach counterpoint. This work is also one of his finest, exploring deep emotion and virtuosic technique. It is believed that La Catedral was inspired by what may have been a religious experience for Barrios. (Johnna Jeong)
 
 
Prelude by David Cope with E.M.I.
 
Suite After Bach has been composed by a computer program: Experiments in Musical Intelligence. I began Experiments in Musical Intelligence in 1981 as an attempt to create new instances of music in my style. With a lack of quantifiable definitions of style, I concentrated on the commonalties in the works of certain composers, commonalties I call signatures. By 1987 Experiments in Musical Intelligence had produced works (arguably) in the styles of Bach and Mozart, among others. Further experimentation with pattern matching, certain natural language processes, and object orientation allowed for more extensive output both in terms of work length and complexity as well as stylistic diversity. Experiments in Musical Intelligence subsequently produced new works in the styles of composers as contrasting as Stravinsky, Palestrina and Joplin. These works have been discussed and, in part, reproduced in my books Computers and Musical Style (1991), Experiments in Musical Intelligence (1996), and The Algorithmic Composer (2000) published by A-R Editions, Madison, Wisconsin. The irregular minuett followed by gavotte in this suite is not a mistake but rather a choice made in order to observe the program in two different forms. Also, the keys chosen here reflect the database keys rather than a single key. Again, this choice results from intention rather than accident. (D.C.)
 
 
Fugue BWV 1000 by Johann Sebastian Bach
 
The Fugue in G minor for lute is drawn from the second movement of Bach’s Sonata no.1 for solo violin, BWV 1001 (1720). It is generally assumed that Bach’s friend Johann Christian Weyrauch is responsible for the transcription.  It is idiomatic for the lute, but also features a little recomposition: the opening exposition is expanded, and notes are changed later on. These revisions are, in fact, the main reason why some assume that Bach supervised, or at least participated in, the transcription. (Kevin Bazzana)
 
For this performance, I paired David Cope’s Prelude in E minor with the guitar arrangement of the Fugue BWV 1000 in A minor by Frank Koonce, and also revised it to bring the lute version more closely into line with the original solo-violin version. (M.Ö.)
 
 
Taquito Militar by Mariano Mores and Misionera by Fernando Bustamante
 
These pieces are typical examples of música popular in South America, which refers traditionally to music of the people, including folk and traditional music as well as urban music. Misionera is in the style of polca Litoraleña (Paraguaya), while Taquito Militar is in the style of milonga, which is an Argentinean instrumental tango form with a strong rhythmic character. These arrangements by Argentine guitarist and composer Jorge Morel reflect his idiomatic writing for guitar. (M.Ö.)
 
Misionera refers to a female from the district of Misiones (where Augustin Barrios was born) in southern Paraguay/northern Argentina. It is a standard work for Paraguayan harpists. Jorge Morel's arrangement in a minor is based on an earlier arrangement by his teacher, Pablo Escobar, a Paraguayan classical guitarist who lived in Buenos Aires and founded a music conservatory. (Rico Stover)
 
 
Anatolian Fantasy and Tango Cruz by Mesut Özgen
 
Anatolian Fantasy, written for guitarist Mark Hilliard Wilson,  is my first composition which doesn't include any traditional folk tunes, though I tried to add some folk-like melodies. Irregular rhythms, harmonics, and ostinato melodic patterns are used throughout the first section. The middle section, andante sostenuto, is in 9/8 meter with 5+4 grouping. The melody is comprised of long sustained notes at the top and a counter melody is in the bass. The arpeggiated inner voices contribute to the harmony with occasional major and minor second intervals. In the last section, I included some rhythmical patterns that imitate a performance technique used in playing saz, a plucked Turkish folk instrument, and integrated them into idiomatic guitar techniques. Some of the thematic material from the first section is also included in the last section.
 
I wrote Tango Cruz for the birthday of my Argentinean friend Cristina. Turkish style melodies and ornaments are blended into tango rhythm with a hint of traditional birthday tune in the middle section. The whole piece came out quickly in several hours rather like an improvisation than a longer compositional process, which was the case with Anatolian Fantasy. (M. Ö.)
 
 
Sortija by Pablo Victor Ortiz
 
Sortija is a large ring used in Argentinean merry-go-rounds. The kids try to grab the Sortija out from a pear-like wooden container. The person holding this container alternatively prevents or facilitates the children's grabbing efforts. Whoever gets the Sortija is eligible for a free ride. The piece was written for Mesut Özgen, who kindly helped me sort out some of the mysteries of his fascinating instrument. (P.V.O.)
 
When I first heard Pablo’s music, I was immediately attracted to the energy and original harmonic language of his music; particularly his solo cello works sounded very guitaristic to me. Our collaboration process on Sortija took about nine months, during which Pablo allowed me to create all the voices in multiple layers and make necessary changes appropriate to idiomatic guitar writing. I feel honored and lucky to collaborate with such a talented and open-minded composer. (M.Ö)
 
 
Shenandoah by Robert Beaser
 
The original tune “Shenandoah” was probably originated on the rivers and was very popular on American sailing vessels. Later the regular cavalry carried the song west. Shenandoah is the name of an Indian chief who lived along the Missouri River. The singer is a man who has fallen in love with the chief 's daughter. It is thought that the song originated with the loggers or rivermen who taught it to sailors in port. The sailors took the song to sea and used it as a shanty or work song while they loaded cargo.
 
Beaser’s work is not a set of variations, but is comprised of various sections in an arch-like form: beginning quietly, building up the tension gradually, and ending softly. This arch-like structure of emotional process is the composer’s main request from the performer when interpreting the piece, obviously reflecting the musical equivalent of the song’s story from his view. The original tune can be heard sometimes partly, sometimes complete in arpeggio, chord, and tremolo sections on the trebles or bass, and sometimes disguised in a contrapuntal texture. When I worked with Beaser in preparation of the premiere performance, he played all transitions from section to section on the piano for me in order to demonstrate the overall structure. He also gave me a lot of room not only to discover the most effective fingering, timber, and idiomatic positions, but also to explore various textures in especially chordal sections by providing as many as ten notes and allowing me to choose the ones that I felt are more appropriate in that particular context. During the several months of work, Eliott Fisk provided many valuable fingering suggestions and utilized beautiful harmonics in the lyrical sections. (M.Ö.)
 
 
Variations on an Anatolian Folk Song by Carlo Domeniconi
 
This is one of Carlo Domeniconi’s most successful works based on Turkish folk music. The theme employed, Uzun ince bir yoldayım, is a famous folk song written by Asık Veysel (1894-1973), an influential Turkish folk musician. Domeniconi’s variations reflect the quasi-improvisatory character of this kind of music very well, especially in the final section of the piece. Asık Veysel is one of the most renowned representatives of the “asık” tradition in the 20th century, which dates back to the 15th century in Anatolia. The Asık (a kind of troubadour), singing poetry (mostly their own) and playing the saz, has become the voice of common people, expressing their relationship with their land; their loves, inner conflicts, and expectations--generally depicting all aspects of rural life. Veysel's poetry is metrical, using predominantly 8- and 11-syllable meters. His melodic patterns, trills, and particular emphases result in a unique musical character. The video created for this piece by Gustavo Vazquez includes two pictures of Asık Veysel: a photograph by Yücel Yönal (provided by Asık Veysel Cultural Association, Ankara) and a color painting by Rahmi Pehlivanlı, which is owned by the Ankara State Painting and Sculpture Museum. (M.Ö.)
 
 
Uzun ince bir yoldayım                       I am on a long and narrow road by Asık Veysel
 
Uzun ince bir yoldayım                         On a long and narrow road
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                        Walking day and night
Bilmiyorum ne haldeyim                        Unaware of the condition I am in
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                        Walking day and night
 
Dünyaya geldigim anda                        From the moment I was born
Yürüdüm aynı zamanda                         I started walking right away
Îki kapılı bir handa                                  In an inn with two gates
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                        Walking day and night
 
Uykuda dahi yürüyom                           Walking even in my sleep
Kalmaya sebeb arıyom                           Seeking a reason for staying
Gidenleri hep görüyom                           Eyeing those who are leaving
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                         Walking day and night
 
Kırkdokuz yıl bu yollarda                       Forty-nine years on these roads
Ovada dagda çöllerde                             On the plains, mountains, and deserts
Düsmüsüm gurbet ellerde                      Stuck in these foreign lands
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                         Walking day and night
 
Düsünülürse derince                              In the depths of one’s mind
Irak görünür görünce                             The distance seems so far
Yol bir dakika miktarınca                        Yet it only takes a moment
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                         Walking day and night
 
Sasar Veysel is bu hale                           Veysel is bewildered to this situation
Gah aglayan gahi güle                             It makes him cry some, smile some
Yetismek için menzile                               Trying to reach a destination
Gidiyorum gündüz gece                           Walking day and night
(translated by Tolga Güngör and Mesut Özgen)

CD Reviews:
 
Guitar Review (New York)
"a shining example of this guitarist's great talent."
 
Acoustic Guitar (California)
“Özgen’s playing is stunningly versatile and expressive throughout.”
 
Acoustic Player Magazine (Texas)
"an exceptional talent who breathes freshness into every piece he plays."
 
Soundboard (Guitar Foundation of America)
"Özgen delivers performances that are forceful and convincing even when the music is dauntingly difficult."
 
Classical Guitar (England)
"a highly accomplished and exciting player; he gets the most out of the music he performs... The phrasing is immaculate and his technical capabilities are considerable."
 
 
 
ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
 
Christopher Pratorius (b. 1974) is a prolific young composer who has lived in Santa Cruz, California for over twelve years and a Lecturer in Music at UCSC. He received all of his formal education in the Monterey Bay area, first at Cabrillo College and then at UCSC where he was awarded a BA in Music with Highest Honors in 1999 and then an MA in Music in 2001. Sonata was his first major guitar work, written for and premiered by Mesut Özgen at UCSC in 2002. His other compositional output includes works for piano, violin and piano, voice and piano, voice and string quartet, chorus, and orchestra, as well as an opera.
 
Agustín Barrios Mangoré was born in southern Paraguay in 1885, and died in 1944, in San Salvador, El Salvador. As a young man, Barrios never studied in a formal music conservatory, and completed only two years of high school. Through the folk music of his native country, young Barrios received his first introduction to music; with songs such as the polca paraguaya, vals , and the zamba. Also, analyzing the classics and transcribing for the guitar the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Schumann, exerted a very strong influence upon his compositions. He made his living from performing, and had no other professional skills in any other pursuit except playing the guitar and composing music.
 
To many, Barrios was the greatest of all guitarist/composers. In view of this, it is curious that his music lay undiscovered and unappreciated for over three decades after his death. In the mid-1970s comprehensive editions of his music appeared, making it possible for guitarists of a younger generation to study his music, augmenting and complementing more traditional repertoire. The revival began in 1977 with a release by John Williams of an entire recording of music by Barrios, bringing long overdue recognition to this forgotten Latin American guitarist. Today Barrios’ music is frequently performed by major concert artists and is appreciated by audiences worldwide.
   
David Cope (b. 1941) is “unquestionably one of this generation's most ambitious, prolific and multifarious composers” (American Record Guide). Following early study on piano (including an extensive performance career) and violoncello, a San Francisco native Cope completed degrees in composition at Arizona State University and the University of Southern California studying with George Perle, Halsey Stevens, Ingolf Dahl and Grant Fletcher. His over seventy published compositions have received thousands of performances throughout the U.S. and abroad, including those by the Vermont, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Cabrillo Festival, and Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestras, as well as numerous university orchestras and wind ensembles. Twenty-one of Cope's works appear on recordings including Variations (piano and wind orchestra; Cornell University), Re-Birth (concert band), Concert (piano and orchestra, Mary Jane Cope, soloist) and Threshold and Visions (orchestra). Complete albums of his music have appeared on Folkways, Opus One and Discant Records and include a wide diversity of works from large ensembles to soloists with electronic and computer-generated tape.
 
Cope has received numerous awards including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, fifteen ASCAP standard Panel Awards, Composers' Forum (New York City) recital award, Houston Composers Symposium Award and numerous university grants. He has been guest composer/lecturer at over thirty universities. His New Directions in Music now appears in its seventh edition with positive reviews so numerous they have become prohibitive to reprint. Techniques of the Contemporary Composer, containing over 300 original musical examples composed specifically for the book, and New Music Notation, continue to be used as standard reference tools. His books Computers and Musical Style, Experiments in Musical Intelligence, The Algorithmic Composer, and Virtual Music. describe the computer program Experiments in Musical Intelligence which he created in 1981. The program functions by inheriting a composer's style and then composing new music in that style.
 
Mariano Mores was born in Buenos Aires in 1922 and began his career as a pianist with Francisco Canara, one of the fathers of the tango orchestra. At the end of the 1940s he formed his own tango orchestra, introducing new instruments, including the organ and the electric guitar. He has written many film scores and is among the most successful composers in Argentinian popular music.
   
Pablo Ortiz (b. 1956) is a Guggenheim Fellow, Charles Ives Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and recipient of Fromm Foundation and Koussevitzky Foundation Commissions. was first trained in his native Buenos Aires, where he received a degree from the Universidad Catolica Argentina. At 27, he moved to New York to study at Columbia University. He studied composition with Mario Davidovsky, Chou Wen Chung, Jack Beeson, Jacques Louis Monod, Fred Lerdahl, Gerardo Gandini, and Roberto Caamano. At present, he is Professor of Composition at the University of California, Davis. He taught composition and was co-director of the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994. Among those who have performed his compositions are the Buenos Aires Philarmonic, the Arditti String Quartet, Speculum Musicae, the Ensemble Contrechamps of Geneva, Music Mobile, Continuum, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Theatre of Voices. His music has been heard at international festivals in Salzburg (Aspekte), Geneva (Extasis), Strasbourg (Musica), Havana, Frankfurt, Zurich, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. His works include chamber and solo music, vocal, orchestral, and electronic compositions, and music for plays and films.
   
Robert Beaser (b. 1954) is often cited as an important figure among the "New Tonalists"--composers who are adopting new tonal grammar to their own uses--and through a wide range of media has established his own language as a synthesis of European tradition and American Vernacular. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1954, Beaser studied literature, political philosophy, and music at Yale College and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music. His composition teachers have included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Toru Takemitsu, Arnold Franchetti, Yehudi Wyner and Goffredo Petrassi. Currently, he is Professor and Chairman of the Composition Department at the Juilliard School in New York.
 
Beaser's compositions have earned him numerous awards and honors; among them are the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and lifetime achievement award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Beaser's music has been performed and commissioned with regularity both in America and abroad. He has received major commissions from the New York Philharmonic (150th anniversary commission), the Chicago Symphony (Centennial commission), the Saint Louis Symphony, The American Composers Orchestra, The Baltimore Symphony and Dawn Upshaw, The American Brass Quintet, Chanticleer, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass, and WNET /Great Performances. Shenandoah for solo guitar was commissioned by Rodrigo Riera International Guitar Composition Contest held in Caracas, Venezuela in August 1995. It was premiered by Mesut Özgen at Yale Guitar Extravaganza in 1995.
   
Carlo Domeniconi (b. 1947) was born in Cesena, Italy, in 1947 and studied guitar with Carmen Lenzi Mozzani. He gained his first music diploma from the Conservatory of Pesaro and the second one from the Music Academy of Berlin. He also went on to study composition and as well held a lecturing post at the College of Arts (Hochschule der Künste, Berlin) from 1969 to 1992. Between 1977 and 1980, he taught guitar at the Istanbul Conservatory, where he regularly worked with Turkish folk musicians and played with various Turkish folk ensembles. Domeniconi has written numerous pieces for solo instruments, chamber groups, and orchestra. His compositional output includes 13 concertos for one or two guitars and orchestra as well as works for solo guitar and various ensembles with guitar. His compositions are shaped by the Turkish, Indian, and South American musical forms, rhythmical and tonal systems, reflecting his search for the synthesis of East and West.