CBC 111: Tubin Bass Concerto
We’re featuring a different kind of podcast episode this week. Bassist Phillip Serna (who has appeared on several older Contrabass Conversations episodes) performed the Tubin Concerto with the Northwestern University Summer Orchestra a few years ago, and he’s been interested in making this performance available for download on the podcast. Since Tubin is a more contemporary composer than many of the other standard bass concerto composers, Phillip had to work out the podcast distribution rights with Tubin’s publisher Scandinavian Songs AB, so thanks to Phillip’s hard work in getting this taken care of we can offer a 100% legal complete performance of the Tubin Concerto for Double Bass.
CONCERT INFORMATION
Summer Orchestra: Unfinished Symphonies
Tuesday, July 29, 7:30 p.m.
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Dr. Robert G. Hasty, conductor; Phillip Serna, double bass
Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra (1948) Eduard Tubin
Allegro con moto (1905-1982)
Allegro non troppo
Andante sostenuto
Cadenza
Allegro non troppo, poco marciale
Phillip W. Serna, double bass
PERFORMER BIOS
Dr. Phillip W. Serna is instructor of double bass & viola da gamba at Valparaiso University, director of the Music Institute of Chicago Early Music Departments viola da gamba education and outreach program ‘Viols in Our Schools,’ and maintains an active teaching studio in the greater Chicago area. He is an in-demand adjudicator and clinician in the Midwest on double bass and viola da gamba and has appeared as double bass faculty at the Whitewater Winter Bassfest, as viola da gamba faculty at the Music on the Mountain Winter Workshop, Whitewater Early Music Festival and as Ad Hoc Consort Coordinator at the Viola da Gamba Society’s Summer Conclave.
Dr. Serna is an active and enthusiastic performer of early music, as well as the contemporary, solo, orchestral, and chamber repertoires. He earned his Bachelor of Music studying with San Francisco Symphony member Stephen Tramontozzi at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1998. He later completed his Master of Music & Doctor of Music degrees at Northwestern University School of Music in 2001 and 2007, respectively. At Northwestern University, he studied double bass with Chicago Symphony Orchestra member Michael Hovnanian and international soloist DaXun Zhang. Additionally, he studied viola da gamba with Newberry Consort founder Mary Springfels. His doctoral project, ‘Original Crossover? Popular Ballad-Tunes as Art-Music for Viols in Seventeenth-Century England’ focused on solo and ensemble settings of ballad-tunes for viola da gamba as well as lyra viol transcriptions for double bass.
On double bass, Dr. Serna has performed under the baton of conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi and David Robertson as a member of Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He has performed with other orchestras including the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Northbrook Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Symphony Orchestra, New Philharmonic Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and many others. In his role as an Early Music specialist, Dr. Serna regularly performs on violas da gamba (treble viol, tenor viol and bass viol), period double bass/ violone and viellewith period instrument ensembles as the Chicago Early Music Consort, the Newberry Consort, the Spirit of Gambo – a Chicago Consort ofViols, Ars Antigua, the Oriana Singers, the Second City Musick, the Third Coast Viols and many others. Dr. Serna was a recipient of a Viola da Gamba Society of A
merica Grant-in-Aid to Young Artists, and was a featured soloist at the Gamba Gamut, a concert hosted by the Viola da Gamba Society of America at the 2007 Boston Early Music Festival.
In 2007, Dr. Serna’s article ‘Early Strings in the Classroom/ Introducing Students to Renaissance and Baroque String Repertoire on Period Instruments’ on classroom outreach advocacy was published in the American String Teachers Association String Teacher’s Cookbook – Creative Recipes for a Successful Program. He has contributed articles to the Bass World – the Official Magazine of the International Society of Bassists, the American String Teacher, Illinois ASTA’s the Scroll, and is an active contributor to the Arts Addict Blog, the Contrabass Conversations podcast and the online bass resource www.DoubleBassblog.org. In Early Music publications, Dr. Serna is outreach editor for the Viola da Gamba News, where he has edited and written numerous articles, and has contributed to Early Music America magazine. An active podcaster in his own right, he produces the ‘Viols in Our Schools’ video podcast brings high-quality performances of music for viols to the larger internet commun
ity at www.ViolsinOurSchools.org & www.theGambaCast.org.
Dr. Serna is a member of the International Society of Bassists (ISB), the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), Early Music America (EMA), the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (SSCM) and is president of the Viola da Gamba Society Third Coast, the Chicago chapter of the Viola da Gamba Society of America (VdGSA). He lives in Plainfield, IL with his best friend and wife, Magdalena along with their daughter Natalia. For more information on Dr. Serna, please visitwww.PhillipWSerna.com.
Robert G. Hasty, DMus, Northwestern University, Senior Lecturer, Conducting and Ensembles
Associate director of orchestras. Conductor, Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, and Summer Orchestra. Teacher of graduate and undergraduate conducting courses. Teacher, adjudicator, clinician, violinist. Music Director, Merit Symphony Orchestra, Chicago, IL. Conductor, National High School Music Institute Orchestra. Former conductor, La Primavera Orchestra, Irvine Youth Symphony, Metropolis Youth Symphony. Former vice president of string education, Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association. Music researcher investigating critical listening while conducting; presented at the international meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Sciences of Music. Studied conducting with Victor Yampolsky and violin with Alice Schoenfeld.
PROGRAM NOTES
Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra (1948) Eduard Tubin
Eduard Tubin, an Estonian composer and conductor, completed his Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra on the 31st of May 1948, with its orchestral premiere performance in Bogotá on the 8th of March 1957. Tubin studied composition under Eller at the Tartu Academy (1924-1930) and later went on to conduct the Vanemuine Theatre Orchestra (1930-44). With a keen interest in the new music, he conducted Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms in Tallinn in 1936, and two years following met Kodály in Budapest where he became acquainted with Bartók’s work. In 1944 he moved to Sweden, where he composed this concerto. Tubin was naturalized as a Swedish citizen in 1961 and was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1982.
In addition to his concerto for double bass, he composed two concerti for violin, a concerto for balalaika, and a concertino for piano with orchestral accompaniment. In other genres, he composed sonatas for violin, viola, flute, and saxophone. Additionally, Tubin composed choral music, a requiem, songs, solo piano music, ballets, and symphonies. At the time of his death, he was in the process of composing his 11th Symphony.
The Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra is continuous, with no breaks between movements. Several of the movements are separated by a sequence of orchestral interludes. The opening Allegro con moto begins with an energetic theme accompanied by jazz-like rhythms in the accompaniment. The following Allegro non troppo is calmer and more lyrical, in which the soloist presents a theme that will later be developed in the accompaniment. The role of the soloist moves between being the prominent line to accompanying melodic fragments in the winds. This interplay creates a sense of tension culminating in a dramatic climax of brilliant triads. The Andante sostenuto is built upon a broadly developed melody over a rich harmonic cushion in the accompaniment. When this melody appears for a second time, it is accompanied by syncopated figures creating a sense of further motion. Listen for this cantabile melodic material in the closing movement with the soloist accompanying the wind soloists. Becoming ever more agitated, the tension in the slow movement increases in tension with a crescendo towards a dramatic Cadenza, developing a number of harmonic and rhythmic motives from the previous movements. The cadenza bridges the gap between the slow movement and the final Allegro non troppo, poco marciale. The finale begins, tentatively at first, with the soloist taking up the orchestra’s thematic material. As well as presenting material from all of the previous movements, the finale increases in dramatic tension towards a mighty and majestic climax and coda.
- Program Notes by Phillip W. Serna, July 2003
Special thanks to Conductor Robert Hasty & Pick-Staiger Concert Hall Director of Concerts Richard van Kleeck at Northwestern University’s School of Music for their permission of use for Contrabass Conversations and the Double Bass Blog. Also, sincerest thanks to Peo Nylén of Scandinavian Songs AB for their assistance in licensing the work for internet distribution.
For more information on Phillip W. Serna, visit http://www.phillipwserna.com/
For more information on the Northwestern University School of Music and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall at http://www.music.northwestern.edu/ & http://www.pickstaiger.org/
For more information on Eduard Tubin, visit the International Eduard Tubin Society at http://www.tubinsociety.com/. To rent the music for Tubin’s Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in the United States, visit Bossey & Hawkes Music Publishers at http://www.boosey.com/. For licensing information, please visit Scandinavian Songs AB at http://www.scandinavian-songs.se/
CREDITS 2003 – NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRAS
Robert G.Hasty
Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra, Summer Orchestra, University Philharmonia
SUMMER ADMINISTRATOR OF ORCHESTRAS
Phillip W. Serna
SUMMER ORCHESTRA ASSISTANT
Audrey Thompson
ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL
FLUTE
Peggy Stetsko
Shanna Gutierrez
Steven Haschke
OBOE
Allysa Jeris
James Carney
Pavel Murunov
CLARINET
Alex Jones
Karen Kriege
BASSOON
Patricia Milsted
Ann Dufek
Julie Olson
HORN
Lyndsey McKay
Marc Gelfo
Richard Shubart
David Steinhorn
TRUMPET
Audri L. Nelson
Sarah Chumney
Gilbert Galindo
TROMBONE
Rich Chisholm
Alexis Miller
Robert Ruszkowski
TUBA
Tim Willson
HARP
Tahlia Anderson
PERCUSSION
Sarah Hatch
Andrew Barnish
VIOLIN I
Brandon Brown, concertmaster
Eugene Gekhter
Rick Eskin
Kate Segerdell
Debbie Dalgren
Leslie Schwartz
Salina Norman
Kay Black
Steve Cisar
Katie Thome
Skyler Silvertrust
Teng-Leong Chew
Wayne Xia
VIOLIN II
Yun Kim, principal
Lisa Bohnert
Melitta George
Peter Finnegan
Siegfried Moysisch
Lisa Michener
Xavier Kimble
Jon Ong
Audrey Thompson
Merry Marwig
Elise Olson
Sonia Kharkar
Joyce Sato-Reinhold
VIOLA
Clark Carruth, principal
Becca Pascal
Sonya White
Rebecca Susan
Alex Weaver
Mark Liu
Laura Altschuler
Jessica Duncan
Elizabeth Cohen
Ellen McGrew
Katy Dane
Ted Ballou
Jason Haberman
CELLO
Julia Liu, principal
Galen Cohen
Treble Cierpke
Ruth Rozen
Clark Sheldon
Sarah Chelgren
Andrew Hood
Shaina Michael
Jennifer Campbell
DOUBLE BASS
Phillip W. Serna, principal
Mike Watson
Abel Rodriguez
Geoffrey Dommett
Scott Kieffer
Harvey Wigdor
Tim Willson
