The Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round is a chamber work that honors the tango, Argentina’s beloved song and dance form, and serves as an elegy for two of tango’s greatest composers. Golijov is one of the world’s most sought-after new composers. Born and raised in Argentina (now residing in Massachusetts), Golijov grew up under the influence of the “tango of the old guard,” which was lyrical, urbane, and gentlemanly, and which was exemplified by the actor, singer, and composer Carlos Gardel (1890–1935), who especially endeared the world to the beauties of tango with his famous 1930s tango song, Mi Buenos Aires Querido (“My Beloved Buenos Aires”). After Gardel came the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), whose tangos in the 1960s challenged the “old guard” tangos with a new approach that he called the Nuevo tango. As Piazzolla explained, “Nuevo tango = tango + tragedy + comedy + whorehouse.” One of Piazzolla’s most famous, early tangos, La muerte del ángel (“Death of the Angel”), with its highly syncopated rhythms and its complex harmonies, epitomized this Nuevo tango philosophy, and his highly popular approach won him national hero status in Argentina and worldwide acclaim.
At the peak of his fame, Piazzolla unexpectedly suffered a major stroke in 1991 (leading to his death the following year), and this tragic loss led Golijov to sketch a musical elegy for this great tango hero. In 1996, this elegiac sketch would become the second movement, Lentissimo, of a larger work, Last Round. Golijov described its development:
I composed Last Round in 1996, prompted by Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman [two of the founding members of the celebrated St. Louis String Quartet, who]… encouraged me to finish [the Lentissimo] and write another movement to complement it. The title is borrowed from a short story on boxing by Julio Cortázar, the metaphor for an imaginary chance for Piazzolla’s spirit to fight one more time (he used to get into fistfights throughout his life).
Part of Last Round’s charm is Golijov’s unique orchestration, which tips its hat to tango’s dance hall orchestra origins — here, two small string ensembles (two string quartets) face each other on stage, moderated and anchored by a double bass in the middle. Golijov also wanted his string ensemble to mimic a bandoneón — a button accordion — which is one of the tango’s integral instruments, and the one that Piazzolla so often wrote for. Last Round’s premiere in 1996 was hugely successful and the work has remained popular.
The first movement, Movido, Urgente (restless and urgent), has as its subtitle “Macho, Cool, and Dangerous” and suggests the tangos from the rough-and-tumble musicians of Buenos Aires’s underbelly. Wheezing and snapping, Golijov’s “string-bandoneón” creates a jangled, and altogether joyful, roughneck dance. Occasional increases in tempo invite machismo from the competitive tango dancers, while the movement’s jaunty, almost chaotic, rhythms echo the same kind of rhythms that Piazzolla adored and exploited in his 300-plus tangos. The movement dances dangerously to its final, exciting bars, and then, at about six and a half minutes, a long, mournfully descending sigh transitions the music into the next movement without a pause.
The second movement, Lentissimo (very slowly), is a threnody for Argentina’s two great tango composers and is hauntingly lamenting. Its subtitle, Muertes del ángel, does not so much quote Piazzolla’s groundbreaking 1960s tango of that name as riff on his title, using the plural “deaths,” in homage to the two departed composers, Gardel and Piazzolla, who have themselves become “ángels.” Golijov begins by imagining what a bandoneón could do if it never had to change between compression and expansion, how it might sing in one gigantic, long pull. At first, melancholic and atmospheric music pervades, but then, little by little, bits of a tune float up from the musical mist. These tune-wisps finally come together, near the middle of the movement, when Golijov at last quotes outright Gardel’s chorus from his Mi Buenos Aires Querido. And then to its end, the movement rhapsodizes, grapples, and pulses on Gardel’s refrain and Golijov’s “endless pull” bandoneón, with beauty and bittersweetness.
Together, these two movements create a spiritual, earthy, sexy, and ecstatic tango which, as Golijov describes, is a
… sublimated tango dance. … The bows fly in the air as inverted legs in crisscrossed choreography, always attracting and repelling each other, always in danger of clashing, always avoiding it with the immutability that can only be acquired by transforming hot passion into pure pattern.
Johann Sebastian Bach
(Born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 31, 1685; died in Leipzig, Germany, on July 28, 1750)
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043
1. Vivace
2. Largo ma non tanto
3. Allegro
The German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s exceptionally popular Concerto for Two Violins was most likely composed in 1730 in Leipzig, Germany, for performance by the Collegium Musicum. This extraordinary organization had been founded a few decades earlier in 1702 by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) for the purpose of training music students and to provide free public concerts. The collegium concerts were held weekly at Gottfried Zimmermann’s large and posh coffeehouse in a wealthy part of Leipzig with the music played by students, teachers, and professional musicians. The sale of coffee to the patrons during these weekly events was always more than enough to allow Zimmermann to present these concerts for free. The music series was lucrative and extremely popular, and for their programs, new works were typically created by the collegium’s director.
In 1723, Bach was hired as Leipzig’s new Tomaskantor, the music director of both Leipzig’s main music school and the city’s four main churches. Six years later, Bach also became the director of Telemann’s Collegium Musicum, which required a variety of new compositions: overtures; sinfonias; concertos for strings, winds, and keyboards; and duo and trio sonatas—many of which Bach and his children performed along with the collegium’s pupils as soloists. Tonight’s Concerto for Two Violins was very likely one of these new collegium works, as were many of Bach’s most beloved secular works, including his Concerto for Violin in A minor, BWV 1041, and one of his most humorous pieces, the cantata-like work called Be Still, Stop Chattering, BWV 211, also known as his secular Coffee Cantata.
As the title indicates, Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins is cast for two soloists, but although each soloist is treated as a virtuoso in the Baroque fashion, they are also treated as a kind of collective soloist — often playing together in harmony, or in unison, or in duet, or in tumbling imitation, as if they were a single, extended instrument. And as listeners have felt for centuries, there is magic to this concerto that makes it one of Bach’s greatest, with its impressive contrapuntal treatment and unique lyrical beauty, and perhaps above all, with its tapestry-like sophistication. It served Bach so well in his own time, too, that he recast the work in 1737 as a Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C minor, BWV 1062.
The first movement of his Concerto for Two Violins, Vivace (lively), begins with the “second” solo violin (this is a notational designation rather than a hierarchy) presenting the main ritornello theme of the movement — the Baroque ritornello was a structural form that featured a musical section that would continually return after alternating with contrasting musical “episodes.” This second solo violin’s opening ritornello theme is delightfully vivacious and carefree, dancing upward and downward and again upward. The “first” solo violin then plays this passage, too, but transposed up five steps in pitch, and soon after, the string bass enters with yet another iteration of it — everything sizing up to sound as though a great fugue is developing. But instead, inventively, Bach directs all this musical movement into constantly morphing counterpoint between the soloists and the orchestra, like a shifting kaleidoscope. What magically stands out from all this happy busy-ness, however, is how the music boils with virtuosic élan. Soon, the first episode begins with a new theme in which the two soloists dance acrobatically around each other in a duet of agile grace. The ritornello and episodes alternate quickly throughout this movement, and when the ritornello returns for the third and final time, the movement comes to a surprisingly gentle close.
The second movement, Largo ma non tanto (slowly but not too much so), is considered one of Bach’s most beautiful movements — one musicologist called it “the greatest eight minutes in music” — and it deserves its popularity. Beginning with the second solo violin, a lovely descending theme unfurls slowly as the main theme, which is soon joined by the first solo violin. From here, the two soloists play an extended love duet — tender and touchingly vulnerable — above an understated accompaniment from the orchestra. This Largo is also built as a ritornello, but in an unusual treatment of this form, the two soloists dominate the entire movement, with the alternate episodic sections evoking a kind of domestic contentedness as the two violinists dance closely, even finishing each other’s phrases, then returning to the home (ritornello) theme.
The final movement, Allegro (fast), begins with a bright and joyous sparkling of counterpoint from the entire ensemble while the string bass provides a brisk and steadfast “walking bass” beneath it all. This Allegro is also a ritornello, with its main section surprisingly brief. Throughout the movement, Bach employs lots of imitative counterpoint between the soloists (and all the orchestral instruments, too), overlapping it in such a way that even before a musical phrase from one soloist ends, the next soloist imitates it. As such, this movement is near hypnotizing in its constant melody making. Particularly fun to hear, at about one and a half minutes, is the alternating episode in which Bach gives the two soloists a long sequence of four-note chords to play as the rest of the orchestra somersaults in counterpoint beneath them. This movement demands more virtuosity from the two soloists, too, but Bach also infuses a few longer, lyrical lines for the soloists at the least expected times — in the midst of such cavorting counterpoint, these expressive moments truly soar. The movement thrums and captivates until its final bars, ending without fanfare, yet still resonating with dazzling energy.
Antonin Dvořák
(Born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), on September 8, 1841; died in Prague on May 1, 1904)
Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22
1. Moderato
2. Minuet – Allegro con moto
3. Scherzo – Vivace
4. Larghetto
5. Finale – Allegro vivace
Early in his career, the Czech composer Antonin Dvořák struggled to be recognized as a composer outside of Prague, but then in 1875, he received a much-needed boost. He entered a composition competition held in Vienna that was founded to help young artists receive pay, commissions, and attention. On the panel of that Vienna competition’s three famous judges was Johannes Brahms, and each of them recognized Dvořák’s exceptional talents, granting him the top prize, and Brahms himself becoming one of Dvořák’s most important supporters from then on. To top off his musical success, Dvořák had just recently married and welcomed his first son into the world. His life in 1875, after years of professional hardship, was finally looking up and inspiring him into a period of extraordinary music writing.
With acclaim and financial breathing room provided by the competition award, Dvořák seemed to pour that good fortune into one of his next compositions, his 1875 Serenade for Strings, Op. 22. Written in only 12 days, the Serenade is a set of five short instrumental movements for string orchestra beaming with melodious beauty and good cheer, written as though it were created from the pure joy of composing. Hugely popular at its 1876 premiere in Prague, the Serenade further expanded Dvořák’s reputation and has remained one of his most beloved works. The success that Dvořák realized with this work’s neoclassical “serenade” form (a form well associated with Mozart’s famous serenades, like his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) influenced his choice to use this serenade form again for one of the commissions that came from his Viennese competition celebrity, his hugely popular Serenade for Winds of 1879, a work that helped propel Dvořák to international fame.
The first movement of his Serenade for Strings, marked Moderato (moderately paced), begins with a bucolic gentleness that permeates the entire five movements and showcases Dvořák’s great gift for melody. The opening theme is a very singable tune, first sung in the violins, then answered by the cellos, and underpinned by steady, pulsating violas. Although this is a strings-only ensemble, we hear what sounds like a large, rich orchestra of strings, an effect achieved by dividing each of the string sections into multiple parts (a technique called divisi), thereby expanding their harmonies, registers, and harmonics. Dvořák initially keeps the ensemble in the lower registers which creates a soft, autumnal sumptuousness, but soon the softness and registers begin to soar in intensity and into higher, happier realms, ending the movement with a delicate, feathery touch.
The graceful second movement waltz, Minuet – Allegro con moto (fast with motion), begins in a minor key with a sweeping, twirling, yet somewhat melancholy, theme. The phrase lengths vary as the theme branches out, leaving a slight sense of imbalance, creating one of Dvořák’s most beautiful musical moments. The middle section, Trio, is equally gorgeous yet ambiguous, dancing with a lazy kind of skipping rhythm that is inflected with wistful nostalgia and accented with moments of drama. The opening music returns to finish this lovely and evocative movement.
The next movement, Scherzo – Vivace (lively), is exciting and quicksilvered. The opening theme’s imitation is canon-like between the cellos and the upper violins and creates a feeling of unbridled joy before pausing for a gentle contrasting section — a love song with several delicate refrains. The Scherzo’s concluding section is a brief and magical meld of these two musical ideas.
The fourth movement, Larghetto (rather slowly), is the Serenade’s weightiest movement, although it retains the whole work’s overarching pastoral mood. Like Mozart’s late-career slow movements, Dvořák’s Larghetto captures an ineffable heartache wrapped in otherworldly radiance. The main theme is made of a step down followed by a large descent — like a sigh and a falling tear — which then sequences through several iterations. This is a thematic technique that Dvořák would use more often in his works to come, but here, one gets the sense that this step-sigh theme reflects deep bliss rather than sorrow. A brief middle section contrasts this mood with uncertainty, but it is fleeting, as the movement returns to its main theme to close in quiet tranquility.
The Finale movement, Allegro vivace (fast and spirited), begins with a quick-paced call-and-response theme between the upper and lower strings. The theme skips in and out of minor and major modes, filling it with a sense of excitement and urgency, driven along by a motoric pulsing from the rest of the ensemble. As the music courses along, the falling-tear theme from the fourth movement unexpectedly arises (at about two minutes, in the cellos), followed then by the bucolic main theme of the first movement (at about two and a half minutes later, in the second violins), giving this bustling finale a sense of smiling reflection. But then, the final bars bolt toward the Serenade’s bright, bold, and brilliant ending.
By the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the regimental band had become a staple of European martial life.
Distinctly different than fifers and drummers who held military responsibilities, musicians who performed in bands were professionally trained instrumentalists whose first job was to entertain. Bands typically consisted of two to four clarinets or oboes, two French horns, and one or two bassoons. These musicians were also expected to double on string instruments. Their repertoire spanned marches and troops, country dances and minuets, and wind divertimenti and theatrical arrangements.
Despite the dramatic hurdles that stood between the Continental Army and American independence, certain American officers made extraordinary efforts to form bands of their own. Ultimately, four American colonels raised and sustained bands during the war. Today’s program follows the story of Colonel Christian Febiger (1749–1796) and the band of the 2nd VA Regiment.
Febiger was born in the Danish port town of Fåborg in 1749. While we don’t know much about his early childhood, we do know he was raised in a household that valued music and organization. Both his father and eldest brother were church organists and clerks, and, following his formal schooling, Febiger travelled to the Danis
Febiger immigrated to New England in 1772, and three years later took up arms for the American cause when war broke out in April 1775. He fought at Bunker Hill and then, under the command of Benedict Arnold, participated in the disastrous raid on Quebec City. He was held captive for a year, and—following his release—donned his uniform again, distinguishing himself at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.
On July 16, 1779, “Old Denmark” led soldiers into battle for the last time, conducting a midnight raid on the British fortification at Stony Point, NY. The battle was an overwhelming American victory and about 550 British soldiers were captured. Among the British POWs were musicians from the band of the 17th Regiment of Foot. Not only were these poor musicians taken prisoner, but their instruments were also confiscated and sold.
An addendum to the manifest of materials captured reads:
“In addition to the ordnance and military stores I am desired to appraise 2 French Horns, 2 Bassoons, 2 Clarinets… the Light Infantry have been offered one thousand dollars for them by some individuals…”
We unfortunately do not know who bought these instruments, but, in December of the same year, Febiger began raising his own band. Though completely conjecture, it is not unreasonable to imagine that being in proximity to this sale—if not a part of it—sowed a seed.
Following the engagement at Stony Point, Febiger transitioned into a more administrative role. He wasn’t officially relieved of his field command,—he had been Colonel of the 2nd Virginia Regiment for two years already—but his new duties removed him from the camp and planted him in Philadelphia. There he got to work organizing everything from recruitment to the transportation of military stores. It was during these months that he also:
“…reenlisted 7 or eight Young Fellows Natives of our State [Virginia], bought instruments and provided two Masters to teach them and they have made such progress, that without Vanity I can say that they are equal to any Band in this Country…”
These men were all serving officially as fifers in the 2nd VA Regiment. Thomas Sheldon—the regiment’s Fife Major and senior musician—was designated their leader. It is unlikely, however, that any of them actually had formal music training before December 1779. They studied with “Mr Schuetz, a German musician,” and by March the ensemble was fully double handed: four clarinets who could also play violin, two French horns, and two bassoons doubling on “bass viol.”
Febiger left Philadelphia with his band in the Spring of 1780. Over the next year, Febiger’s band “had more Influence on the minds and Motions of [Virginia’s] Militia than would the Oratory of a Cicero,” and their performing was apparently as inspiring “as a well spoken recruiting Sergeant.” Regrettably, more information concerning their specific repertoire has yet to be revealed, but today’s program serves as an homage to their sound world, with a particular nod to the British bands Febiger would have been exposed to earlier in the war and the French bands that marched through Virginia in 1781.
Those French bands—of which there were at least three—accompanied an expeditionary force led by the Comte de Rochambeau. Together, Washington and Rochambeau orchestrated the siege at Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781 that marked the official beginning of the end of the British war effort. As the surrendering British marched out of the bombarded seaside town, a Hessian soldier recalled, “the Americans were on our left… They had bandsmen making beautiful music and who presented a decent appearance.”
The question of who this band belonged to has been left open and widely ignored, but evidence from pension records along with good-old-fashioned process of elimination—three out of four of the American bands were still stationed in the north—strongly suggests that these were the musicians of Febiger’s ensemble. It would be their highest honor, and yet so many of its details are still shrouded in mystery.
The reality was that—despite that victory—the war was not yet over. The trials and tribulations of that reality remained very present in the lives of common soldiers. As tensions—and hunger—in the ranks grew, the band helped deescalate at least one mutiny in 1782. As the war wound down the next year, the band dissolved one by one as its members were discharged. This seems to be the end of these musicians’ musical careers. Most of the bandsmen were issued land warrants and disappeared into history. After the war, Febiger went back to Philadelphia and enjoyed a successful postwar career in business and government until his death in 1796.
https://www.friendswv.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/FOM_2025-26-Season-Concert-Graphics4.jpg13501080Jen Rolstonhttps://www.friendswv.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/FOM_logo_340x156-300x138.jpgJen Rolston2026-04-16 12:36:262026-04-16 12:36:47Music of the Regiment – April 18 & 19, 2026
(Born in Venice, Italy, on March 4, 1678;
died in Vienna, Austria, on July 28, 1741)
Guitar (Lute) Concerto in D major, RV 93
1. Allegro giusto
2. Largo
3. Allegro
The Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote over 500 instrumental concertos, and his invention and imagination for the concerto genre have been celebrated from his lifetime until today. His concertos’ lyricism and overt emotionalism were immensely influential on late Baroque and early Classical composers. But in his day, Vivaldi was also extremely renowned around Europe for his operas (he wrote over 40 of them). In fact, he was beckoned to Prague to stage several operas in 1730 for the Czech royal family. While in Prague, the Bohemian (Czech) count Jan Josef Vrtba commissioned Vivaldi to compose a set of four lute concertos (RV 93) featuring solo lute, two violins, and basso continuo (typically a harpsichord), of which the Lute Concerto in D major, performed tonight, was the first in the set.
These lute concertos are the only concertos that Vivaldi wrote specifically for the lute. Actually, they were written for the archlute, an instrument that was larger than the typical lute but smaller than the theorbo. The reason Vivaldi wrote no other lute concertos is unknown, but one factor may have been the lute’s relative quietness as a solo concerto instrument. This would have been problematic in the bigger halls that were being built in the 1600s and 1700s to accommodate the increasingly popular demand for operas and larger orchestral pieces. In any case, it appears that Count Vrtba loved the archlute, and luckily for us, Vivaldi was keen to oblige his coincidental patron, creating a concerto that is alive with lyricism and infectious energy, and an absolutely gorgeous and soulful middle movement. The brisk, barely 10-minute-long Lute Concerto in D major has grown tremendously in popularity in more recent years, although this work is typically performed (as it is tonight) arranged for a guitar soloist and chamber orchestra, adding a few more strings than just the original two violins.
The opening movement, Allegro giusto (appropriately fast), begins with a vivacious ritornello (“little return”) — a Baroque musical section that returns several times in a movement. Its opening theme is joyfully declamatory and tuneful and is delightfully constructed of several seemingly off-kilter five-bar phrases. In contrast to the first phrase of this opening theme, the next phrase is hued in a minor tonality and is more subdued. These two contrasting phrases give the sense of a conversation of ideas. Some historians think the minor-keyed phrase might have been inspired by Bohemian folk music that Vivaldi heard on the streets of Prague, although there is no direct source of the tune. The solo guitar then takes the lead, playing several variants of the ritornello’s theme as it moves through the movement and shows off some wizardly virtuosity. The ritornello and the guitar-featured sections then alternate throughout this short movement in a lyrical vortex of energy.
The second movement, Largo (slowly, solemn), floats on sheer beauty. The guitar opens the movement by playing an unhurried, ruminative melody over long-held notes in the upper strings and a gentle, pulsing thrum in the bass instruments. This opening section lasts approximately one minute and then repeats. Stylistically, soloists typically embellish their part the second time through, crafting virtuosity to enhance the emotional potential of the music. (In most of Vivaldi’s concertos, the soloist’s part is merely bare bones on paper, demanding a good deal of improvisation.) After the repeat, a section painted with rich harmonies begins, and this also repeats with even more improvisatory embellishments, which will end this mesmerizing movement.
The third and final movement, Allegro, begins with the orchestra twirling with a spritely theme sparkling with perpetual triplets. The energy is infectiously fun and dance-like, and the entire movement lasts only about two minutes. After the orchestra opens with its triplet flurries, the solo guitar jumps to the fore with its own spinning whirlwinds of notes. The orchestra and soloist then trade phrases over a skipping bass line that propels everything along, and this fleet and tune-filled concerto ends with exuberant cheerfulness.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
(Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on March 5, 1887; died in Rio de Janeiro on November 17, 1959)
Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra
1. Allegro preciso – Poco meno
2. Andantino e Andante
3. Cadenza: Quasi allegro – Andante – Quasi allegro – Poco moderato
4. Allegro non troppo
Heitor Villa-Lobos is inarguably Brazil’s most important Classical music composer of the 20th century. He is known for blending native Brazilian folk music into Classical idioms; most memorable are his set of nine Bachianas Brasileiras (1930–1945) — amalgamations of Brazilian folk music reimagined as if Bach had written them. Villa-Lobos was born just as his country overthrew its Portuguese ruling king and began to nationally celebrate its indigenous identity and — most important for this gifted composer — its folk arts and music. Villa-Lobos grew up playing guitar in that rediscovered musical environment, teaching himself to improvise grandly alongside the popular street musicians of his day, even (or so Villa-Lobos reported) trekking into the jungle to explore indigenous tribal music. At the same time, he was captivated by the European culture that flourished in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Already composing in earnest, in 1923 Villa-Lobos was persuaded to visit Paris to attract more European audiences. While there, he met the great Spanish guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia (1893–1987). In 1930, when Villa-Lobos returned from Paris to Brazil, he retained his friendship with Segovia, writing several guitar works for him, including a commission for a guitar concerto in 1951.
Villa-Lobos finished the concerto that year in a three-movement form titled Fantasia concertante. This Fantasia version contained no cadenza, however, and it seems that Segovia was reluctant to premiere it without one (although there are alternate versions to this story). As such, in 1955, Villa-Lobos added a remarkable cadenza into the work and titled this new version Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra. In 1956 in Houston, Segovia performed the premier and Villa-Lobos conducted. The Concerto, hailed at its first performance as “beautiful, exquisite in its graces of theme, treatment and coloration, intensely lyric, rhythmically inventive, and in general a joy to the ear,” has become one of the foundations of the guitar concerto repertoire.
Despite the added cadenza and title change, no other alterations were made to the Concerto, allowing it to retain the loose rhapsodic feel of a Fantasia — an old musical form that emphasizes improvisation and creative expression. One of the many wonders of this unique concerto is its general quietude, in which lyricism and guitar ruminations are celebrated more than grand climaxes or exuberant gestures. In addition, its use of a reduced orchestra allows the voice of the guitar to truly gleam, and throughout, Villa-Lobos weaves the constant suggestion of folk music.
The first movement, Allegro preciso (fast without wavering of tempo), is perhaps the most overtly folk-influenced movement of the Concerto. It begins with the orchestra delivering a set of syncopated rhythms that will return many times in this movement, rippling with quiet energy and sounding like the deliberate stamped-out steps of a folkdance. The guitar quickly joins the orchestra with ebulliently ascending triplets, as if Villa-Lobos is revisiting those delightful years of his youth when he was improvising on his guitar with street musicians. The second section occurs at about three minutes, Poco meno (a little less in tempo), and a very lyrical theme is presented by the guitar over lazy strings, which Villa-Lobos described as celebrating “the melodic atmosphere of rather popular songs from the Northeast of Brazil.” After a return to the introductory dance-like syncopation, the movement races to its end in a delightfully inventive way — the orchestra suddenly stalls on a full chord. The listener has the feeling of being caught off-guard by a magical and unexpected sight, and the first movement simply stops.
The second movement, Andantino (a leisurely pace, not too slow), begins with the winds playing gossamer-like runs over calm strings and horn. The guitar soon enters with the lyrical charm of a love song, folk-like in nature, and providing gentle flourishes between the notes of the melody. This leads to the Andante (rather slow) in about one minute, which features some magical solos for both the winds and the guitar. A particularly beautiful passage begins about two and a half minutes later when the oboe sings slowly and soulfully over the accompaniment of undulating arpeggios in the guitar. The passage then winds itself up before settling down to a hushed and golden-hued end.
After a slight pause, the Cadenza — a dedicated section of a concerto that showcases the soloist’s virtuosity — follows. Villa-Lobos conceived of this as a short, separate movement, even assigning several tempo markings. At three and a half minutes, it is long for a cadenza and functions more like a keystone; this is a place for the guitar soloist to dazzle. The section also bridges the three other movements. The first two tempo markings, Quasi allegro (almost fast) and Andante (leisurely) coalesce themes from the first two movements, and the third tempo, again using the marking Quasi allegro, wanders into new thematic territory, featuring a magical and deceptively difficult series of triplets with harmonics (soaring high pitches played by lightly depressing and playing the guitar string). And the fourth section, Poco moderato (moderately paced), begins with new, jaunty, and syncopated rhythms that foretell the thematic material in the final movement. As the Poco moderato progresses, the music becomes terser until a final, grand chord stops the cadenza in preparation for the last movement.
The final movement, Allegro non troppo (fast but not too much), then dances away with the winds taking up the Cadenza’s syncopated rhythms, punctuated by strongly accented notes in the strings. Within a few measures, the guitar enters with breezy runs filled with joyful verve. In Villa-Lobos’s words, this movement is meant to metamorphosize these opening materials continuously in the pursuit of exploring the guitar’s virtuosic capabilities, with an underlying current of folk dance and song. Indeed, the guitar comes out of its shell. (Segovia himself mentioned the many difficult passages, although the writing never exploits sheer finger work over musical beauty.) A particularly bewitching example of this begins at about three minutes, when the guitar launches into a lyrical but driving passage, which seems to be preparing for pyrotechnical bravura but instead becomes a heart-catching duet with the first violin and then morphs yet again into a rhapsody between guitar and oboe. And like the first movement, this finale’s ending comes almost too abruptly. As both guitar and orchestra are busily rhapsodizing, the momentum suddenly grinds to a stop on a unison chord, only this time the guitar has one, brief, final punctuation to end this enduringly enchanting concerto.
Franz Schubert
(Born in Vienna, Austria, on January 31, 1797; died in Vienna on November 19, 1828)
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
1. Allegro
2. Andante con moto
3. Menuetto – Allegro molto – Trio
4. Allegro vivace
Franz Schubert was only 19 years old in 1816 when he composed his Fifth Symphony. That he had already written four symphonies and almost 500 compositions spanning virtually every genre is extraordinary for such a young composer. From an early age, Schubert’s near-manic, lifelong need to constantly compose seemed to have come from an almost magical wellspring of creativity. Clearly, one of his early inspirations was Mozart, who had died only five years before Schubert’s birth. As he recorded in his diary shortly before he began composing this Fifth:
As from afar the magic notes of Mozart’s music still gently haunt me […] O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, oh how endlessly many such comforting perceptions of a brighter and better life hast thou brought to our souls!
Of these first five symphonies, the Fifth is considered Schubert’s best creation in that genre during this early period of his orchestral writing. The work displays both a mature artifice and a light and extroverted beauty that gleams with charm.
Although Schubert’s Fifth is indebted to Mozart’s influence, it foreshadows many of the distinctive hallmarks of Schubert’s works throughout his lifetime: It is filled with beautifully lyrical, singable themes as well as experiments with harmonic inventions. Both characteristics overflow in this work, and they are traits that Schubert used with increasing mastery in his oeuvre. In fact, as Schubert composed his Fifth during the month of September 1816, he was simultaneously working on 16 other compositions, 13 of which featured voice, including lieder (songs), a cantata, and a Magnificat. It is not surprising, then, that much of the symphony’s lyricism could have worked equally well for voice.
The first movement, Allegro (fast), evokes Mozart’s style. After a brief, four-bar introduction, the initial theme is presented by the first violins playing an ascending tune with a carefree skipping rhythm, which is answered immediately in the string bass line. This thematic gem is one of the most lighthearted, singable tunes of any Schubert work. One minute later, a second theme is introduced by the first violins, a wonderfully lyrical tune that could easily be an aria. Between and around these themes, the flute and oboes add a good-natured breeziness to the work. At about four minutes, the two themes begin to morph in sure Classical symphonic method, but Schubert also introduces some darker, dramatic harmonic regions that bring a sense of quietly stewing conflict. The effervescent two opening themes then return to end the movement in sheer joyfulness.
The second movement, Andante con moto (slowly but with motion), begins with the first violins singing an extremely expressive, slightly wistful tune, as though Schubert is telling a story of long ago, transporting us to a world of beauty. At about two and a half minutes, a very atypical key change (up one step) leads to a dreamy, floating duet between the violins and the winds, underpinned by pulsing lower strings. Throughout the rest of the movement, Schubert continues to stoke a restless but beautiful shifting between major and minor tonal regions. The overall bucolic feel of this Andante prevails throughout until the horn gently heralds the final bar.
The third movement, Menuetto – Allegro molto (very fast) – Trio, cast in a minor key, immediately grabs our attention with its fervency, even aggression. The overt dramaticism of its opening theme — an arpeggiated rise followed by an accentuated descent — can be traced back to a portion of Schubert’s unfinished opera Des Teufels Lustschloss (The Devil’s Pleasure Palace), which he had begun writing two years earlier, in 1814. Musicologists argue, too, that the theme recalls the dance movement (Menuetto) of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, which is likely intentional. Most distinctive is how this movement contrasts with the lightness and the serenity of the prior movements; Schubert will develop this type of mood shift with enormous success through the rest of his writing life. Continuing these contrasts, the Trio section that begins about two minutes later is completely charming and rustic and cast in a major key, with its second full section gorgeously lyrical. The opening dramatic music returns to finish the Menuetto with a certain urgency.
The final movement, Allegro vivace (fast and very spirited), returns to the glorious lightness of the opening movement with some vivacious flair. The themes are airy and cheerful throughout, although Schubert allows the harmonies to sneak into more shadowy realms, with fleeting, dark chordal moments in nearly every phrase. Rather than creating conflict via these contrasts, however, Schubert appears to be evolving his harmonic language into the Romantic Era, where dark and light harmonies combine to create thicker, more multidimensional musical expression. Even with its darker dustings, this movement flits very happily through, with especially rich moments for the woodwinds. The ending returns to the opening section, which closes this delightful symphony with an air of smiling merriment.
Doubles, Anyone? – May 30 & 31, 2026
Program NotesOsvaldo Golijov
(Born in La Plata, Argentina on December 5, 1960)
Last Round
1. Movido, Urgente – “Macho, Cool, and Dangerous”
2. Lentissimo – “Deaths of the Angel”
The Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round is a chamber work that honors the tango, Argentina’s beloved song and dance form, and serves as an elegy for two of tango’s greatest composers. Golijov is one of the world’s most sought-after new composers. Born and raised in Argentina (now residing in Massachusetts), Golijov grew up under the influence of the “tango of the old guard,” which was lyrical, urbane, and gentlemanly, and which was exemplified by the actor, singer, and composer Carlos Gardel (1890–1935), who especially endeared the world to the beauties of tango with his famous 1930s tango song, Mi Buenos Aires Querido (“My Beloved Buenos Aires”). After Gardel came the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), whose tangos in the 1960s challenged the “old guard” tangos with a new approach that he called the Nuevo tango. As Piazzolla explained, “Nuevo tango = tango + tragedy + comedy + whorehouse.” One of Piazzolla’s most famous, early tangos, La muerte del ángel (“Death of the Angel”), with its highly syncopated rhythms and its complex harmonies, epitomized this Nuevo tango philosophy, and his highly popular approach won him national hero status in Argentina and worldwide acclaim.
At the peak of his fame, Piazzolla unexpectedly suffered a major stroke in 1991 (leading to his death the following year), and this tragic loss led Golijov to sketch a musical elegy for this great tango hero. In 1996, this elegiac sketch would become the second movement, Lentissimo, of a larger work, Last Round. Golijov described its development:
I composed Last Round in 1996, prompted by Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman [two of the founding members of the celebrated St. Louis String Quartet, who]… encouraged me to finish [the Lentissimo] and write another movement to complement it. The title is borrowed from a short story on boxing by Julio Cortázar, the metaphor for an imaginary chance for Piazzolla’s spirit to fight one more time (he used to get into fistfights throughout his life).
Part of Last Round’s charm is Golijov’s unique orchestration, which tips its hat to tango’s dance hall orchestra origins — here, two small string ensembles (two string quartets) face each other on stage, moderated and anchored by a double bass in the middle. Golijov also wanted his string ensemble to mimic a bandoneón — a button accordion — which is one of the tango’s integral instruments, and the one that Piazzolla so often wrote for. Last Round’s premiere in 1996 was hugely successful and the work has remained popular.
The first movement, Movido, Urgente (restless and urgent), has as its subtitle “Macho, Cool, and Dangerous” and suggests the tangos from the rough-and-tumble musicians of Buenos Aires’s underbelly. Wheezing and snapping, Golijov’s “string-bandoneón” creates a jangled, and altogether joyful, roughneck dance. Occasional increases in tempo invite machismo from the competitive tango dancers, while the movement’s jaunty, almost chaotic, rhythms echo the same kind of rhythms that Piazzolla adored and exploited in his 300-plus tangos. The movement dances dangerously to its final, exciting bars, and then, at about six and a half minutes, a long, mournfully descending sigh transitions the music into the next movement without a pause.
The second movement, Lentissimo (very slowly), is a threnody for Argentina’s two great tango composers and is hauntingly lamenting. Its subtitle, Muertes del ángel, does not so much quote Piazzolla’s groundbreaking 1960s tango of that name as riff on his title, using the plural “deaths,” in homage to the two departed composers, Gardel and Piazzolla, who have themselves become “ángels.” Golijov begins by imagining what a bandoneón could do if it never had to change between compression and expansion, how it might sing in one gigantic, long pull. At first, melancholic and atmospheric music pervades, but then, little by little, bits of a tune float up from the musical mist. These tune-wisps finally come together, near the middle of the movement, when Golijov at last quotes outright Gardel’s chorus from his Mi Buenos Aires Querido. And then to its end, the movement rhapsodizes, grapples, and pulses on Gardel’s refrain and Golijov’s “endless pull” bandoneón, with beauty and bittersweetness.
Together, these two movements create a spiritual, earthy, sexy, and ecstatic tango which, as Golijov describes, is a
… sublimated tango dance. … The bows fly in the air as inverted legs in crisscrossed choreography, always attracting and repelling each other, always in danger of clashing, always avoiding it with the immutability that can only be acquired by transforming hot passion into pure pattern.
Johann Sebastian Bach
(Born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 31, 1685; died in Leipzig, Germany, on July 28, 1750)
Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043
1. Vivace
2. Largo ma non tanto
3. Allegro
The German composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s exceptionally popular Concerto for Two Violins was most likely composed in 1730 in Leipzig, Germany, for performance by the Collegium Musicum. This extraordinary organization had been founded a few decades earlier in 1702 by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) for the purpose of training music students and to provide free public concerts. The collegium concerts were held weekly at Gottfried Zimmermann’s large and posh coffeehouse in a wealthy part of Leipzig with the music played by students, teachers, and professional musicians. The sale of coffee to the patrons during these weekly events was always more than enough to allow Zimmermann to present these concerts for free. The music series was lucrative and extremely popular, and for their programs, new works were typically created by the collegium’s director.
In 1723, Bach was hired as Leipzig’s new Tomaskantor, the music director of both Leipzig’s main music school and the city’s four main churches. Six years later, Bach also became the director of Telemann’s Collegium Musicum, which required a variety of new compositions: overtures; sinfonias; concertos for strings, winds, and keyboards; and duo and trio sonatas—many of which Bach and his children performed along with the collegium’s pupils as soloists. Tonight’s Concerto for Two Violins was very likely one of these new collegium works, as were many of Bach’s most beloved secular works, including his Concerto for Violin in A minor, BWV 1041, and one of his most humorous pieces, the cantata-like work called Be Still, Stop Chattering, BWV 211, also known as his secular Coffee Cantata.
As the title indicates, Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins is cast for two soloists, but although each soloist is treated as a virtuoso in the Baroque fashion, they are also treated as a kind of collective soloist — often playing together in harmony, or in unison, or in duet, or in tumbling imitation, as if they were a single, extended instrument. And as listeners have felt for centuries, there is magic to this concerto that makes it one of Bach’s greatest, with its impressive contrapuntal treatment and unique lyrical beauty, and perhaps above all, with its tapestry-like sophistication. It served Bach so well in his own time, too, that he recast the work in 1737 as a Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C minor, BWV 1062.
The first movement of his Concerto for Two Violins, Vivace (lively), begins with the “second” solo violin (this is a notational designation rather than a hierarchy) presenting the main ritornello theme of the movement — the Baroque ritornello was a structural form that featured a musical section that would continually return after alternating with contrasting musical “episodes.” This second solo violin’s opening ritornello theme is delightfully vivacious and carefree, dancing upward and downward and again upward. The “first” solo violin then plays this passage, too, but transposed up five steps in pitch, and soon after, the string bass enters with yet another iteration of it — everything sizing up to sound as though a great fugue is developing. But instead, inventively, Bach directs all this musical movement into constantly morphing counterpoint between the soloists and the orchestra, like a shifting kaleidoscope. What magically stands out from all this happy busy-ness, however, is how the music boils with virtuosic élan. Soon, the first episode begins with a new theme in which the two soloists dance acrobatically around each other in a duet of agile grace. The ritornello and episodes alternate quickly throughout this movement, and when the ritornello returns for the third and final time, the movement comes to a surprisingly gentle close.
The second movement, Largo ma non tanto (slowly but not too much so), is considered one of Bach’s most beautiful movements — one musicologist called it “the greatest eight minutes in music” — and it deserves its popularity. Beginning with the second solo violin, a lovely descending theme unfurls slowly as the main theme, which is soon joined by the first solo violin. From here, the two soloists play an extended love duet — tender and touchingly vulnerable — above an understated accompaniment from the orchestra. This Largo is also built as a ritornello, but in an unusual treatment of this form, the two soloists dominate the entire movement, with the alternate episodic sections evoking a kind of domestic contentedness as the two violinists dance closely, even finishing each other’s phrases, then returning to the home (ritornello) theme.
The final movement, Allegro (fast), begins with a bright and joyous sparkling of counterpoint from the entire ensemble while the string bass provides a brisk and steadfast “walking bass” beneath it all. This Allegro is also a ritornello, with its main section surprisingly brief. Throughout the movement, Bach employs lots of imitative counterpoint between the soloists (and all the orchestral instruments, too), overlapping it in such a way that even before a musical phrase from one soloist ends, the next soloist imitates it. As such, this movement is near hypnotizing in its constant melody making. Particularly fun to hear, at about one and a half minutes, is the alternating episode in which Bach gives the two soloists a long sequence of four-note chords to play as the rest of the orchestra somersaults in counterpoint beneath them. This movement demands more virtuosity from the two soloists, too, but Bach also infuses a few longer, lyrical lines for the soloists at the least expected times — in the midst of such cavorting counterpoint, these expressive moments truly soar. The movement thrums and captivates until its final bars, ending without fanfare, yet still resonating with dazzling energy.
Antonin Dvořák
(Born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), on September 8, 1841; died in Prague on May 1, 1904)
Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22
1. Moderato
2. Minuet – Allegro con moto
3. Scherzo – Vivace
4. Larghetto
5. Finale – Allegro vivace
Early in his career, the Czech composer Antonin Dvořák struggled to be recognized as a composer outside of Prague, but then in 1875, he received a much-needed boost. He entered a composition competition held in Vienna that was founded to help young artists receive pay, commissions, and attention. On the panel of that Vienna competition’s three famous judges was Johannes Brahms, and each of them recognized Dvořák’s exceptional talents, granting him the top prize, and Brahms himself becoming one of Dvořák’s most important supporters from then on. To top off his musical success, Dvořák had just recently married and welcomed his first son into the world. His life in 1875, after years of professional hardship, was finally looking up and inspiring him into a period of extraordinary music writing.
With acclaim and financial breathing room provided by the competition award, Dvořák seemed to pour that good fortune into one of his next compositions, his 1875 Serenade for Strings, Op. 22. Written in only 12 days, the Serenade is a set of five short instrumental movements for string orchestra beaming with melodious beauty and good cheer, written as though it were created from the pure joy of composing. Hugely popular at its 1876 premiere in Prague, the Serenade further expanded Dvořák’s reputation and has remained one of his most beloved works. The success that Dvořák realized with this work’s neoclassical “serenade” form (a form well associated with Mozart’s famous serenades, like his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) influenced his choice to use this serenade form again for one of the commissions that came from his Viennese competition celebrity, his hugely popular Serenade for Winds of 1879, a work that helped propel Dvořák to international fame.
The first movement of his Serenade for Strings, marked Moderato (moderately paced), begins with a bucolic gentleness that permeates the entire five movements and showcases Dvořák’s great gift for melody. The opening theme is a very singable tune, first sung in the violins, then answered by the cellos, and underpinned by steady, pulsating violas. Although this is a strings-only ensemble, we hear what sounds like a large, rich orchestra of strings, an effect achieved by dividing each of the string sections into multiple parts (a technique called divisi), thereby expanding their harmonies, registers, and harmonics. Dvořák initially keeps the ensemble in the lower registers which creates a soft, autumnal sumptuousness, but soon the softness and registers begin to soar in intensity and into higher, happier realms, ending the movement with a delicate, feathery touch.
The graceful second movement waltz, Minuet – Allegro con moto (fast with motion), begins in a minor key with a sweeping, twirling, yet somewhat melancholy, theme. The phrase lengths vary as the theme branches out, leaving a slight sense of imbalance, creating one of Dvořák’s most beautiful musical moments. The middle section, Trio, is equally gorgeous yet ambiguous, dancing with a lazy kind of skipping rhythm that is inflected with wistful nostalgia and accented with moments of drama. The opening music returns to finish this lovely and evocative movement.
The next movement, Scherzo – Vivace (lively), is exciting and quicksilvered. The opening theme’s imitation is canon-like between the cellos and the upper violins and creates a feeling of unbridled joy before pausing for a gentle contrasting section — a love song with several delicate refrains. The Scherzo’s concluding section is a brief and magical meld of these two musical ideas.
The fourth movement, Larghetto (rather slowly), is the Serenade’s weightiest movement, although it retains the whole work’s overarching pastoral mood. Like Mozart’s late-career slow movements, Dvořák’s Larghetto captures an ineffable heartache wrapped in otherworldly radiance. The main theme is made of a step down followed by a large descent — like a sigh and a falling tear — which then sequences through several iterations. This is a thematic technique that Dvořák would use more often in his works to come, but here, one gets the sense that this step-sigh theme reflects deep bliss rather than sorrow. A brief middle section contrasts this mood with uncertainty, but it is fleeting, as the movement returns to its main theme to close in quiet tranquility.
The Finale movement, Allegro vivace (fast and spirited), begins with a quick-paced call-and-response theme between the upper and lower strings. The theme skips in and out of minor and major modes, filling it with a sense of excitement and urgency, driven along by a motoric pulsing from the rest of the ensemble. As the music courses along, the falling-tear theme from the fourth movement unexpectedly arises (at about two minutes, in the cellos), followed then by the bucolic main theme of the first movement (at about two and a half minutes later, in the second violins), giving this bustling finale a sense of smiling reflection. But then, the final bars bolt toward the Serenade’s bright, bold, and brilliant ending.
© Max Derrickson
Music of the Regiment – April 18 & 19, 2026
Program NotesBy the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the regimental band had become a staple of European martial life.
Distinctly different than fifers and drummers who held military responsibilities, musicians who performed in bands were professionally trained instrumentalists whose first job was to entertain. Bands typically consisted of two to four clarinets or oboes, two French horns, and one or two bassoons. These musicians were also expected to double on string instruments. Their repertoire spanned marches and troops, country dances and minuets, and wind divertimenti and theatrical arrangements.
Despite the dramatic hurdles that stood between the Continental Army and American independence, certain American officers made extraordinary efforts to form bands of their own. Ultimately, four American colonels raised and sustained bands during the war. Today’s program follows the story of Colonel Christian Febiger (1749–1796) and the band of the 2nd VA Regiment.
Febiger was born in the Danish port town of Fåborg in 1749. While we don’t know much about his early childhood, we do know he was raised in a household that valued music and organization. Both his father and eldest brother were church organists and clerks, and, following his formal schooling, Febiger travelled to the Danis
Febiger immigrated to New England in 1772, and three years later took up arms for the American cause when war broke out in April 1775. He fought at Bunker Hill and then, under the command of Benedict Arnold, participated in the disastrous raid on Quebec City. He was held captive for a year, and—following his release—donned his uniform again, distinguishing himself at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.
On July 16, 1779, “Old Denmark” led soldiers into battle for the last time, conducting a midnight raid on the British fortification at Stony Point, NY. The battle was an overwhelming American victory and about 550 British soldiers were captured. Among the British POWs were musicians from the band of the 17th Regiment of Foot. Not only were these poor musicians taken prisoner, but their instruments were also confiscated and sold.
An addendum to the manifest of materials captured reads:
“In addition to the ordnance and military stores I am desired to appraise 2 French Horns, 2 Bassoons, 2 Clarinets… the Light Infantry have been offered one thousand dollars for them by some individuals…”
We unfortunately do not know who bought these instruments, but, in December of the same year, Febiger began raising his own band. Though completely conjecture, it is not unreasonable to imagine that being in proximity to this sale—if not a part of it—sowed a seed.
Following the engagement at Stony Point, Febiger transitioned into a more administrative role. He wasn’t officially relieved of his field command,—he had been Colonel of the 2nd Virginia Regiment for two years already—but his new duties removed him from the camp and planted him in Philadelphia. There he got to work organizing everything from recruitment to the transportation of military stores. It was during these months that he also:
“…reenlisted 7 or eight Young Fellows Natives of our State [Virginia], bought instruments and provided two Masters to teach them and they have made such progress, that without Vanity I can say that they are equal to any Band in this Country…”
These men were all serving officially as fifers in the 2nd VA Regiment. Thomas Sheldon—the regiment’s Fife Major and senior musician—was designated their leader. It is unlikely, however, that any of them actually had formal music training before December 1779. They studied with “Mr Schuetz, a German musician,” and by March the ensemble was fully double handed: four clarinets who could also play violin, two French horns, and two bassoons doubling on “bass viol.”
Febiger left Philadelphia with his band in the Spring of 1780. Over the next year, Febiger’s band “had more Influence on the minds and Motions of [Virginia’s] Militia than would the Oratory of a Cicero,” and their performing was apparently as inspiring “as a well spoken recruiting Sergeant.” Regrettably, more information concerning their specific repertoire has yet to be revealed, but today’s program serves as an homage to their sound world, with a particular nod to the British bands Febiger would have been exposed to earlier in the war and the French bands that marched through Virginia in 1781.
Those French bands—of which there were at least three—accompanied an expeditionary force led by the Comte de Rochambeau. Together, Washington and Rochambeau orchestrated the siege at Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781 that marked the official beginning of the end of the British war effort. As the surrendering British marched out of the bombarded seaside town, a Hessian soldier recalled, “the Americans were on our left… They had bandsmen making beautiful music and who presented a decent appearance.”
The question of who this band belonged to has been left open and widely ignored, but evidence from pension records along with good-old-fashioned process of elimination—three out of four of the American bands were still stationed in the north—strongly suggests that these were the musicians of Febiger’s ensemble. It would be their highest honor, and yet so many of its details are still shrouded in mystery.
The reality was that—despite that victory—the war was not yet over. The trials and tribulations of that reality remained very present in the lives of common soldiers. As tensions—and hunger—in the ranks grew, the band helped deescalate at least one mutiny in 1782. As the war wound down the next year, the band dissolved one by one as its members were discharged. This seems to be the end of these musicians’ musical careers. Most of the bandsmen were issued land warrants and disappeared into history. After the war, Febiger went back to Philadelphia and enjoyed a successful postwar career in business and government until his death in 1796.
© Music of the Regiment
Guitar Mania – TRCO – March 28 & 29, 2026
Program NotesAntonio Vivaldi
(Born in Venice, Italy, on March 4, 1678;
died in Vienna, Austria, on July 28, 1741)
Guitar (Lute) Concerto in D major, RV 93
1. Allegro giusto
2. Largo
3. Allegro
The Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote over 500 instrumental concertos, and his invention and imagination for the concerto genre have been celebrated from his lifetime until today. His concertos’ lyricism and overt emotionalism were immensely influential on late Baroque and early Classical composers. But in his day, Vivaldi was also extremely renowned around Europe for his operas (he wrote over 40 of them). In fact, he was beckoned to Prague to stage several operas in 1730 for the Czech royal family. While in Prague, the Bohemian (Czech) count Jan Josef Vrtba commissioned Vivaldi to compose a set of four lute concertos (RV 93) featuring solo lute, two violins, and basso continuo (typically a harpsichord), of which the Lute Concerto in D major, performed tonight, was the first in the set.
These lute concertos are the only concertos that Vivaldi wrote specifically for the lute. Actually, they were written for the archlute, an instrument that was larger than the typical lute but smaller than the theorbo. The reason Vivaldi wrote no other lute concertos is unknown, but one factor may have been the lute’s relative quietness as a solo concerto instrument. This would have been problematic in the bigger halls that were being built in the 1600s and 1700s to accommodate the increasingly popular demand for operas and larger orchestral pieces. In any case, it appears that Count Vrtba loved the archlute, and luckily for us, Vivaldi was keen to oblige his coincidental patron, creating a concerto that is alive with lyricism and infectious energy, and an absolutely gorgeous and soulful middle movement. The brisk, barely 10-minute-long Lute Concerto in D major has grown tremendously in popularity in more recent years, although this work is typically performed (as it is tonight) arranged for a guitar soloist and chamber orchestra, adding a few more strings than just the original two violins.
The opening movement, Allegro giusto (appropriately fast), begins with a vivacious ritornello (“little return”) — a Baroque musical section that returns several times in a movement. Its opening theme is joyfully declamatory and tuneful and is delightfully constructed of several seemingly off-kilter five-bar phrases. In contrast to the first phrase of this opening theme, the next phrase is hued in a minor tonality and is more subdued. These two contrasting phrases give the sense of a conversation of ideas. Some historians think the minor-keyed phrase might have been inspired by Bohemian folk music that Vivaldi heard on the streets of Prague, although there is no direct source of the tune. The solo guitar then takes the lead, playing several variants of the ritornello’s theme as it moves through the movement and shows off some wizardly virtuosity. The ritornello and the guitar-featured sections then alternate throughout this short movement in a lyrical vortex of energy.
The second movement, Largo (slowly, solemn), floats on sheer beauty. The guitar opens the movement by playing an unhurried, ruminative melody over long-held notes in the upper strings and a gentle, pulsing thrum in the bass instruments. This opening section lasts approximately one minute and then repeats. Stylistically, soloists typically embellish their part the second time through, crafting virtuosity to enhance the emotional potential of the music. (In most of Vivaldi’s concertos, the soloist’s part is merely bare bones on paper, demanding a good deal of improvisation.) After the repeat, a section painted with rich harmonies begins, and this also repeats with even more improvisatory embellishments, which will end this mesmerizing movement.
The third and final movement, Allegro, begins with the orchestra twirling with a spritely theme sparkling with perpetual triplets. The energy is infectiously fun and dance-like, and the entire movement lasts only about two minutes. After the orchestra opens with its triplet flurries, the solo guitar jumps to the fore with its own spinning whirlwinds of notes. The orchestra and soloist then trade phrases over a skipping bass line that propels everything along, and this fleet and tune-filled concerto ends with exuberant cheerfulness.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
(Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on March 5, 1887; died in Rio de Janeiro on November 17, 1959)
Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra
1. Allegro preciso – Poco meno
2. Andantino e Andante
3. Cadenza: Quasi allegro – Andante – Quasi allegro – Poco moderato
4. Allegro non troppo
Heitor Villa-Lobos is inarguably Brazil’s most important Classical music composer of the 20th century. He is known for blending native Brazilian folk music into Classical idioms; most memorable are his set of nine Bachianas Brasileiras (1930–1945) — amalgamations of Brazilian folk music reimagined as if Bach had written them. Villa-Lobos was born just as his country overthrew its Portuguese ruling king and began to nationally celebrate its indigenous identity and — most important for this gifted composer — its folk arts and music. Villa-Lobos grew up playing guitar in that rediscovered musical environment, teaching himself to improvise grandly alongside the popular street musicians of his day, even (or so Villa-Lobos reported) trekking into the jungle to explore indigenous tribal music. At the same time, he was captivated by the European culture that flourished in his hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Already composing in earnest, in 1923 Villa-Lobos was persuaded to visit Paris to attract more European audiences. While there, he met the great Spanish guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia (1893–1987). In 1930, when Villa-Lobos returned from Paris to Brazil, he retained his friendship with Segovia, writing several guitar works for him, including a commission for a guitar concerto in 1951.
Villa-Lobos finished the concerto that year in a three-movement form titled Fantasia concertante. This Fantasia version contained no cadenza, however, and it seems that Segovia was reluctant to premiere it without one (although there are alternate versions to this story). As such, in 1955, Villa-Lobos added a remarkable cadenza into the work and titled this new version Concerto for Guitar and Small Orchestra. In 1956 in Houston, Segovia performed the premier and Villa-Lobos conducted. The Concerto, hailed at its first performance as “beautiful, exquisite in its graces of theme, treatment and coloration, intensely lyric, rhythmically inventive, and in general a joy to the ear,” has become one of the foundations of the guitar concerto repertoire.
Despite the added cadenza and title change, no other alterations were made to the Concerto, allowing it to retain the loose rhapsodic feel of a Fantasia — an old musical form that emphasizes improvisation and creative expression. One of the many wonders of this unique concerto is its general quietude, in which lyricism and guitar ruminations are celebrated more than grand climaxes or exuberant gestures. In addition, its use of a reduced orchestra allows the voice of the guitar to truly gleam, and throughout, Villa-Lobos weaves the constant suggestion of folk music.
The first movement, Allegro preciso (fast without wavering of tempo), is perhaps the most overtly folk-influenced movement of the Concerto. It begins with the orchestra delivering a set of syncopated rhythms that will return many times in this movement, rippling with quiet energy and sounding like the deliberate stamped-out steps of a folkdance. The guitar quickly joins the orchestra with ebulliently ascending triplets, as if Villa-Lobos is revisiting those delightful years of his youth when he was improvising on his guitar with street musicians. The second section occurs at about three minutes, Poco meno (a little less in tempo), and a very lyrical theme is presented by the guitar over lazy strings, which Villa-Lobos described as celebrating “the melodic atmosphere of rather popular songs from the Northeast of Brazil.” After a return to the introductory dance-like syncopation, the movement races to its end in a delightfully inventive way — the orchestra suddenly stalls on a full chord. The listener has the feeling of being caught off-guard by a magical and unexpected sight, and the first movement simply stops.
The second movement, Andantino (a leisurely pace, not too slow), begins with the winds playing gossamer-like runs over calm strings and horn. The guitar soon enters with the lyrical charm of a love song, folk-like in nature, and providing gentle flourishes between the notes of the melody. This leads to the Andante (rather slow) in about one minute, which features some magical solos for both the winds and the guitar. A particularly beautiful passage begins about two and a half minutes later when the oboe sings slowly and soulfully over the accompaniment of undulating arpeggios in the guitar. The passage then winds itself up before settling down to a hushed and golden-hued end.
After a slight pause, the Cadenza — a dedicated section of a concerto that showcases the soloist’s virtuosity — follows. Villa-Lobos conceived of this as a short, separate movement, even assigning several tempo markings. At three and a half minutes, it is long for a cadenza and functions more like a keystone; this is a place for the guitar soloist to dazzle. The section also bridges the three other movements. The first two tempo markings, Quasi allegro (almost fast) and Andante (leisurely) coalesce themes from the first two movements, and the third tempo, again using the marking Quasi allegro, wanders into new thematic territory, featuring a magical and deceptively difficult series of triplets with harmonics (soaring high pitches played by lightly depressing and playing the guitar string). And the fourth section, Poco moderato (moderately paced), begins with new, jaunty, and syncopated rhythms that foretell the thematic material in the final movement. As the Poco moderato progresses, the music becomes terser until a final, grand chord stops the cadenza in preparation for the last movement.
The final movement, Allegro non troppo (fast but not too much), then dances away with the winds taking up the Cadenza’s syncopated rhythms, punctuated by strongly accented notes in the strings. Within a few measures, the guitar enters with breezy runs filled with joyful verve. In Villa-Lobos’s words, this movement is meant to metamorphosize these opening materials continuously in the pursuit of exploring the guitar’s virtuosic capabilities, with an underlying current of folk dance and song. Indeed, the guitar comes out of its shell. (Segovia himself mentioned the many difficult passages, although the writing never exploits sheer finger work over musical beauty.) A particularly bewitching example of this begins at about three minutes, when the guitar launches into a lyrical but driving passage, which seems to be preparing for pyrotechnical bravura but instead becomes a heart-catching duet with the first violin and then morphs yet again into a rhapsody between guitar and oboe. And like the first movement, this finale’s ending comes almost too abruptly. As both guitar and orchestra are busily rhapsodizing, the momentum suddenly grinds to a stop on a unison chord, only this time the guitar has one, brief, final punctuation to end this enduringly enchanting concerto.
Franz Schubert
(Born in Vienna, Austria, on January 31, 1797; died in Vienna on November 19, 1828)
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
1. Allegro
2. Andante con moto
3. Menuetto – Allegro molto – Trio
4. Allegro vivace
Franz Schubert was only 19 years old in 1816 when he composed his Fifth Symphony. That he had already written four symphonies and almost 500 compositions spanning virtually every genre is extraordinary for such a young composer. From an early age, Schubert’s near-manic, lifelong need to constantly compose seemed to have come from an almost magical wellspring of creativity. Clearly, one of his early inspirations was Mozart, who had died only five years before Schubert’s birth. As he recorded in his diary shortly before he began composing this Fifth:
As from afar the magic notes of Mozart’s music still gently haunt me […] O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, oh how endlessly many such comforting perceptions of a brighter and better life hast thou brought to our souls!
Of these first five symphonies, the Fifth is considered Schubert’s best creation in that genre during this early period of his orchestral writing. The work displays both a mature artifice and a light and extroverted beauty that gleams with charm.
Although Schubert’s Fifth is indebted to Mozart’s influence, it foreshadows many of the distinctive hallmarks of Schubert’s works throughout his lifetime: It is filled with beautifully lyrical, singable themes as well as experiments with harmonic inventions. Both characteristics overflow in this work, and they are traits that Schubert used with increasing mastery in his oeuvre. In fact, as Schubert composed his Fifth during the month of September 1816, he was simultaneously working on 16 other compositions, 13 of which featured voice, including lieder (songs), a cantata, and a Magnificat. It is not surprising, then, that much of the symphony’s lyricism could have worked equally well for voice.
The first movement, Allegro (fast), evokes Mozart’s style. After a brief, four-bar introduction, the initial theme is presented by the first violins playing an ascending tune with a carefree skipping rhythm, which is answered immediately in the string bass line. This thematic gem is one of the most lighthearted, singable tunes of any Schubert work. One minute later, a second theme is introduced by the first violins, a wonderfully lyrical tune that could easily be an aria. Between and around these themes, the flute and oboes add a good-natured breeziness to the work. At about four minutes, the two themes begin to morph in sure Classical symphonic method, but Schubert also introduces some darker, dramatic harmonic regions that bring a sense of quietly stewing conflict. The effervescent two opening themes then return to end the movement in sheer joyfulness.
The second movement, Andante con moto (slowly but with motion), begins with the first violins singing an extremely expressive, slightly wistful tune, as though Schubert is telling a story of long ago, transporting us to a world of beauty. At about two and a half minutes, a very atypical key change (up one step) leads to a dreamy, floating duet between the violins and the winds, underpinned by pulsing lower strings. Throughout the rest of the movement, Schubert continues to stoke a restless but beautiful shifting between major and minor tonal regions. The overall bucolic feel of this Andante prevails throughout until the horn gently heralds the final bar.
The third movement, Menuetto – Allegro molto (very fast) – Trio, cast in a minor key, immediately grabs our attention with its fervency, even aggression. The overt dramaticism of its opening theme — an arpeggiated rise followed by an accentuated descent — can be traced back to a portion of Schubert’s unfinished opera Des Teufels Lustschloss (The Devil’s Pleasure Palace), which he had begun writing two years earlier, in 1814. Musicologists argue, too, that the theme recalls the dance movement (Menuetto) of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, which is likely intentional. Most distinctive is how this movement contrasts with the lightness and the serenity of the prior movements; Schubert will develop this type of mood shift with enormous success through the rest of his writing life. Continuing these contrasts, the Trio section that begins about two minutes later is completely charming and rustic and cast in a major key, with its second full section gorgeously lyrical. The opening dramatic music returns to finish the Menuetto with a certain urgency.
The final movement, Allegro vivace (fast and very spirited), returns to the glorious lightness of the opening movement with some vivacious flair. The themes are airy and cheerful throughout, although Schubert allows the harmonies to sneak into more shadowy realms, with fleeting, dark chordal moments in nearly every phrase. Rather than creating conflict via these contrasts, however, Schubert appears to be evolving his harmonic language into the Romantic Era, where dark and light harmonies combine to create thicker, more multidimensional musical expression. Even with its darker dustings, this movement flits very happily through, with especially rich moments for the woodwinds. The ending returns to the opening section, which closes this delightful symphony with an air of smiling merriment.
© Max Derrickson