“Generation Next – Mahler’s Musical Heirs”
Friday, May 19, 2023 | 7:30 PM | $5-30
Chamber Music at the Church
Mountain View United Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder

Ernest Bloch

• BLOCH (arr. Gabor Reijto and Adolph Baller) Suite for Cello and Piano
  (transcribed from the Suite for Viola)
• KORNGOLD String Sextet in D Major, Op. 10

Zachary DePue & Caroline Chin – violin
Lauren Spaulding & Aria Cheregosha – viola
Parry Karp & Kenneth Woods – cello
Jennifer Hayghe – piano

Principal Cellist Parry Karp has recorded all of Ernest Bloch’s works for solo cello and, with the Pro Arte Quartet, all of Bloch’s string quartets and piano quintets. Bloch, a Swiss-American composer who corresponded with Mahler, composed music often described as reflecting his Jewish heritage. But of this piece he wrote: “First of all, my Suite does not belong to my so-called ‘Jewish works,’ although perhaps, in spite of myself, one may perceive here and there in a few places a certain Jewish inspiration. It is rather a vision of the Far East that inspired me: Java, Sumatra, Borneo — those wonderful countries I so often dreamed of, though never was fortunate enough to visit in any other way than through my imagination. I first intended to give more explicit — or picturesque — titles to the four movements of the work, as: (1) In the Jungle; (2) Grotesques; (3) Nocturne; (4) The Land of the Sun. But those titles seemed rather incomplete and unsatisfactory to me. Therefore, I prefer to leave the imagination of the hearer completely unfettered, rather than tie it to a definite programme…”

Korngold at about age 15

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of the most astounding musical prodigies who ever lived. His musical genius found a perfect environment in which to develop in turn of the century Vienna, where his father was one of the leading music critics of the day during Mahler’s tenure at the Vienna Opera. Korngold was forced into exile after the Nazi Anschluss and made his way to Hollywood, where he was to found the modern school of film scoring.

Thankfully, the dismissal of Korngold’s concert music due to his successful film career, has given way to wider appreciation of his legacy. The sextet, composed when Korngold was 19 years old, is in the style of Mahler and his contemporaries while also displaying Korngold’s energetic style.

What to Expect

Mountain View United Methodist is a beautiful building located in the Frasier Meadows neighborhood. There is plenty of free parking in the lot on the west side of the building and the surrounding surface streets. The main doors are on the west side of the building just south of the sanctuary (and north of the school wing). You’ll enter there and make your way through a spacious lobby to the sanctuary. The church holds about 250 people with chairs on the main floor and pews in the balcony.

As with all of our concerts, you are free to dress up but it is certainly not required.