Yale In New York Series Opens Season With 'The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman' 9/26 At Carnegie Hall

Following the success of last year's centenary celebration of Olivier Messiaen's birth, the Yale School of Music (YSM) turns again to a great musician on his 100th birthday. On Saturday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m., YSM opens its third annual Yale in New York series with The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman. The gifted alumni, students, and faculty of YSM present six 20th-century works linked with the legendary clarinetist.

While many people are aware that Benny Goodman made forays into classical music, they may not realize that he was in fact a major player. Goodman is known predominantly as a jazz musician and bandleader who helped usher in the Swing era of the 1930s and '40s, but he was deeply involved in the commissioning, performing, and recording of a sizeable body of classical works-many of which have become standards of the repertoire-by some of the 20th century's greatest composers.

It's fitting that Yale takes the lead in presenting this side of the master: Goodman collaborated with Yale-connected musicians throughout his life and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music in 1982, performing at the school many times in the later years of his career. Most significantly, Goodman chose Yale as the custodian of his extensive archive, and in 1986, his recording masters and arrangements were bequeathed to the Yale University Music Library. Perhaps Goodman's earliest connection to Yale was with the great Mel Powell who, after working with Goodman as a teenager, playing with Glenn Miller during the war and working in Hollywood in the late 1940s, came to Yale to study with Paul Hindemith. Goodman became friends with Keith Wilson, Yale's clarinet professor from 1946-87, and later with the School's Dean, Frank Tirro, a clarinetist and authority on jazz history.

This Carnegie concert is the centerpiece of The Benny Goodman Centenary Celebration, a week-long festival at Yale that illuminates Goodman's close ties to Yale through an exploration of his life and music. The festival comprises four concerts that range from jazz (performed by the Don Byron Quartet) and big band to classical, highlighting the many world-class clarinetists who have taught and studied at Yale. Yale has been fortunate to have many distinguished clarinetists among its faculty and alumni: David Shifrin joined the faculty after Keith Wilson's retirement and figures prominently in the Goodman Celebration. One of the school's most prominent alumni is the clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.

In the words of David Shifrin:
"I am delighted to help celebrate the Benny Goodman Centenary at Yale. Benny Goodman was clearly one of the most important and influential musical figures of the twentieth century. He brought jazz to the concert hall, broadened the repertoire and audience for classical music and did more than anyone to exhibit the range, versatility and virtuosity of the clarinet. I am only one of a great many clarinetists who took up the instrument as a result of his inspirational influence.

Mozart was inspired to write for clarinetist Anton Stadler. In the late nineteenth century Brahms was moved to write for Richard Muhlfield. In the twentieth century Benny Goodman inspired and influenced some of the greatest composers of the era to write masterpieces for the clarinet. With pride and joy I am delighted to perform alongside recent graduates of the Yale School of Music, as well as faculty colleagues and current Yale students in a program of great music that would not have existed without Benny Goodman."

Program Tidbits:
The Zankel program opens with a chamber masterwork that Benny Goodman commissioned: Bartók's Contrasts, the composer's only trio. Goodman originally requested a work consisting of two brief movements that could be recorded, one per side, on 12" 78 RPM phonograph records. Entitled Rhapsody, it was premiered at Carnegie Hall on January 9, 1939 by Josef Szigeti, Goodman and pianist Endre Petri. Bartók then revised the work, adding a substantial third movement, and retitling it Contrasts. This new version was premiered at Carnegie Hall a year later, this time with Bartók himself at the piano.

In 1963, Goodman was to give the premiere of Poulenc's Clarinet Sonata with the composer at the piano at Carnegie Hall, but Poulenc died several months before and the concert became a memorial, with the Sonata played by Goodman and Leonard Bernstein.

In 1946, Benny Goodman asked the Stuyvesant Quartet to join him playing a movement of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet on his weekly radio program. The quartet's cellist, composer Alan Shulman, suggested instead that Goodman commission him to write a short original work for clarinet and string quartet. Goodman agreed, and Shulman composed Rendezvous.

Morton Gould wrote Benny's Gig in 1979 for the occasion of his close friend Benny Goodman's groundbreaking 1962 Russian tour in celebration of his 70th birthday. Gould's Recovery Music for solo clarinet (in 3 short movements) was given to Goodman by Gould as a get well present when the clarinetist was recovering from a heart ailment in the early 1980's.

David Shifrin-the esteemed clarinetist, Yale faculty member, and director of this Yale in New York series-and members of the Yale Philharmonia (including concertmaster Ani Kavafian and other faculty members) perform the final work on the program: the brilliant and unusual Clarinet Concerto by Aaron Copland, commissioned by Goodman in 1947. Goodman later told Copland's biographer, Vivian Perlis, "I made no demands on what Copland should write. He had completely free rein, except that I should have a two-year exclusivity on playing the work. I paid two thousand dollars and that's real money. At the time there were not too many American composers to pick from... We never had much trouble except for a little fracas about the spot before the cadenza where he had written a repetition of some phrase. I was a little sticky about leaving it out- it was where the viola was the echo to give the clarinet a cue. But I think Aaron finally did leave it out... Aaron and I played the concerto quite a few times with him conducting, and we made two recordings." Side-note: later this season, the YSM presents a tribute to Vivian Perlis and her legendary Oral History of American Music (OHAM) project at Yale.

Yale in New York is the acclaimed series in which distinguished faculty-many of them famous soloists-share the limelight with exceptional alumni and students on Carnegie's stages, capturing the intense collaboration found on every level at the Yale School of Music. From September 26 through April 30, four concerts will feature the classical legacy of Benny Goodman, undiscovered Prokofiev, Penderecki conducting Penderecki, and great voices from the famed Oral History of American Music project.

YALE IN NEW YORK presents
THE CLASSICAL LEGACY OF BENNY GOODMAN

Zankel Hall • Saturday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.

Francis Poulenc: Clarinet Sonata
(Premiered by Goodman in 1963 at Carnegie Hall with Leonard Bernstein at the piano)
Chad Burrow '01, professor of clarinet at University of Michigan, and his wife,
Amy I-Lin Cheng, piano, '99AD

Morton Gould: Benny's Gig (1979)
Eight Duos for Clarinet and Double Bass
With alumni clarinetists including Justin O'Dell, professor at Western Michigan University
and Mingzhe Wang, assistant professor at Austin Peay State University

Béla Bartók: Contrasts
(Commissioned by Goodman in 1938)
Atria Ensemble, a group of New York-based alumni:
Romie de Guise Langlois, clarinet
Sun-Mi Chang, violin
Hye-Yeon Park, piano

Morton Gould: Recovery Music (1984)
for solo clarinet
Maureen Hurd, clarinet

Alan Shulman: Rendezvous
(Commissioned by Goodman in 1946)
Paul Cho '09, clarinet, third prize winner in he 2009 Koussevitsky Young Artists Awards
Jasper String Quartet, fellowship quartet in residence at Yale

Aaron Copland: Clarinet Concerto
(Commissioned by Goodman in 1947)
David Shifrin, clarinet (Yale faculty)
Ani Kavafian, concertmaster
Members of the Yale School of Music faculty and the Yale Philharmonia

THE BENNY GOODMAN CENTENARY CELEBRATION AT YALE

Throughout the week there will be items from the Benny Goodman archives on display at the Gilmore Music Library.

Tuesday, September 22
Chamber Music Society at Yale
The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman
(Same program as the September 26 Yale in New York Zankel Hall concert)

Thursday, September 24
Don Byron Quartet
Music associated with Benny Goodman, including the
famous "From Spirituals to Swing" Carnegie Hall concert
Don Byron, clarinet & tenor saxophone
Bryan Carrott, vibraphone
Kenny Davis, bass
Eric Harland, drums

Tuesday, September 29
Yale Jazz Ensemble
A selection of big band arrangements from the Benny Goodman Archives
Thomas C. Duffy, director

UPCOMING YALE IN NEW YORK CONCERTS

Feb. 9: Prokofiev Rediscovered: Rarely-heard music and two world premieres (Zankel Hall)

Apr. 8: Voices of American Music:
A Tribute to the Oral History of American Music Project at Yale (Zankel Hall)

Apr. 30: Penderecki Conducts Penderecki (Stern Auditorium)

For tickets, call 212/247-7800 or visit www.carnegiehall.org

THE YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC
www.yale.edu/music

 

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