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It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Last week, we heard from American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk; this week's composer is Gottschalk's student Teresa Carreño (1853-1917). Carreño was somewhat of a link between two eras of American music: she was both a student of Gottschalk, the leading American composer of the mid-19th century, and a mentor to Edward MacDowell, arguably the leading American composer of the late 19th century.
Carreño was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to New York City with her family when she was eight years old. Her paternal grandfather José Cayetano Carreño had been one of South America's leading composers of the early 19th century; her father was a piano virtuoso turned diplomat and was responsible for her early musical training. Shortly after arriving in New York, she began lessons with Gottschalk, who promoted her as a pianist and encouraged her to compose. By the age of 20, she had over thirty published opuses, mostly collections of short pieces for solo piano. Her composing output slowed considerably in the 1870s and 1880s, as from the mid-1870s onward, she tried to juggle family responsibilities as a mother of four, a demanding concert schedule, and a largely unsuccessful business venture as an opera impresario. After the collapse of the opera company she founded in Venezuela, she moved to Berlin in 1889 in order to re-establish herself as a pianist and composer; her few large-scale compositions all date from her eight years in Germany. From 1897 onward, she was again based in New York City, but composed little as she maintained an almost constant worldwide concert schedule as a pianist until just months before her death. Today, she is still recognized in Venezuela as the nation's most prominent composer; the second-largest concert hall in South America bears her name.
Carreño's Serenade for Strings is one of the large-scale works from her German period. It was composed in 1895, along with her String Quartet, during a summer stay in the village of Pertisau in the Austrian Tyrol. While the quartet was performed in Leipzig the following year, the Serenade was never performed during her lifetime, and was in fact never prepared for publication. Upon Carreño's death, a manuscript with numerous margin notes, corrections, and insertions was donated to the Vassar College library with the rest of her papers; it was finally published and performed for the first time in 2017. This Serenade follows in the tradition of string serenades by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, but is notable for its late Romantic chromaticism. It begins with a slow movement that serves mostly as an introduction, followed by a scherzo, and then an almost operatic Andantino-Agitato molto third movement that serves as a dramatic focus for the work. The Tempo di marcia finale is especially striking in its use of tonal contrast: written in sonata allegro form, it modulates between two main keys a tritone apart!
Movements:
I. Andante
II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace (5:02)
III. Andantino - Agitato molto (8:10)
IV. Tempo di marcia (16:12)
Last week, we heard from American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk; this week's composer is Gottschalk's student Teresa Carreño (1853-1917). Carreño was somewhat of a link between two eras of American music: she was both a student of Gottschalk, the leading American composer of the mid-19th century, and a mentor to Edward MacDowell, arguably the leading American composer of the late 19th century.
Carreño was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to New York City with her family when she was eight years old. Her paternal grandfather José Cayetano Carreño had been one of South America's leading composers of the early 19th century; her father was a piano virtuoso turned diplomat and was responsible for her early musical training. Shortly after arriving in New York, she began lessons with Gottschalk, who promoted her as a pianist and encouraged her to compose. By the age of 20, she had over thirty published opuses, mostly collections of short pieces for solo piano. Her composing output slowed considerably in the 1870s and 1880s, as from the mid-1870s onward, she tried to juggle family responsibilities as a mother of four, a demanding concert schedule, and a largely unsuccessful business venture as an opera impresario. After the collapse of the opera company she founded in Venezuela, she moved to Berlin in 1889 in order to re-establish herself as a pianist and composer; her few large-scale compositions all date from her eight years in Germany. From 1897 onward, she was again based in New York City, but composed little as she maintained an almost constant worldwide concert schedule as a pianist until just months before her death. Today, she is still recognized in Venezuela as the nation's most prominent composer; the second-largest concert hall in South America bears her name.
Carreño's Serenade for Strings is one of the large-scale works from her German period. It was composed in 1895, along with her String Quartet, during a summer stay in the village of Pertisau in the Austrian Tyrol. While the quartet was performed in Leipzig the following year, the Serenade was never performed during her lifetime, and was in fact never prepared for publication. Upon Carreño's death, a manuscript with numerous margin notes, corrections, and insertions was donated to the Vassar College library with the rest of her papers; it was finally published and performed for the first time in 2017. This Serenade follows in the tradition of string serenades by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, but is notable for its late Romantic chromaticism. It begins with a slow movement that serves mostly as an introduction, followed by a scherzo, and then an almost operatic Andantino-Agitato molto third movement that serves as a dramatic focus for the work. The Tempo di marcia finale is especially striking in its use of tonal contrast: written in sonata allegro form, it modulates between two main keys a tritone apart!
Movements:
I. Andante
II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace (5:02)
III. Andantino - Agitato molto (8:10)
IV. Tempo di marcia (16:12)