Program Notes

By Chris Morrison
Aldemaro Romero
b. March 12, 1928, Valencia, Venezuela
d. September 15, 2007, Caracas, Venezuela
The multi-talented Romero was a composer, arranger, conductor, and
pianist who moved easily within a number of musical genres. Starting
his career at age ten as a guitarist and singer on local radio, Romero soon
moved to Caracas, where as a teenager he played piano in dance
orchestras and at nightclubs. In 1948 he was hired by RCA Victor
Records as an arranger and piano accompanist. After a few years in New
York he returned to Venezuela in 1952, where he started a dance band.
His album Dinner in Caracas was a bestseller, leading to a number of further Dinner in
albums (Rio, Buenos Aires, Columbia, Mexico) that combined popular and folk melodies, jazz,
and orchestral arrangements. In 1979 he founded the Caracas Philharmonic, becoming its first
music director. Romero collaborated with the likes of Tito Puente, Stan Kenton, Charlie Byrd,
and Dean Martin, toured widely throughout the Americas and Europe, and is known as the
inventor of onda nueva (new wave), a Venezuelan style influenced by the bossa nova of
Brazil.
Fuga con Pajarillo
Composed: 1990
Duration: 7 minutes
Taken from Romeros Suite No. 1 for string orchestra, the Fuga con Pajarillo is now closely
associated with conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who at age twenty-three won the inaugural Gustav
Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004 in part through his direction of the full-orchestra
version of this composition. You had to bring a piece from your own country", recalled
Dudamel. This one is wonderful: difficult to put together, but beautiful. He later famously
recorded the Fuga con Pajarillo for the Deutsche Grammophon compact disc Fiesta.
The pajarillo is one of Venezuelas most famous traditional dance forms, although it also has
roots in Colombia and Peru. Typically played on the cuatro, a four-stringed Venezuelan
instrument similar to a ukulele, the pajarillo is like a waltz, says Dudamel, but with the accent
on the weak beat Its not a comfortable dance! Romeros work fuses dance rhythms and the
fugue, in which a melody is introduced in imitation over several musical strands, then developed.
The piece is a pajarillo, but in combination with a complex fugue, says Dudamel. The
pajarillo pervading the melody and the rhythm gives a sense of improvisation and contrasts with
the predetermined fugal form. This is what makes this piece so fascinating.

Franz Josef Haydn

b. March 31, 1732, Rohrau-on-the-Leitha, Austria
d. May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria
Along with Mozart and Beethoven, Franz Josef Haydn is one of the
most significant composers of the Classical era (roughly 1750 to 1820).
Sometimes referred to as the Father of the symphony and string
quartet, Haydns remarkable catalog of works over one thousand
works including 104 symphonies is one of the largest produced by
any composer. His musics distinctive combination of elegance and
earthiness, its memorable tunes, skillful construction, and robust humor have all made Haydn
one of the most beloved of composers. His career took off in 1761 when he entered the employ
of the wealthy Esterhzy family. For the next three decades Haydn worked under Princes Paul
Anton and Nikolaus Esterhzy, directing their orchestra and composing remarkable amounts of
music for them. In the early 1780s Haydn befriended Mozart, becoming one of his most
enthusiastic patrons and friends. Haydns growing fame led to further opportunities, including
the two trips to London in 1791-2 and 1794-5 that sealed his reputation and produced works like
the twelve London symphonies and the oratorios The Creation and The Seasons.
Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, H. VIIb:1
Composed: 1762
Duration: 26 minutes
May 1, 1761 was Haydns first day of employment with the wealthy Esterhzy family. Over the
next thirty years, he composed a multitude of operas, orchestral and chamber works for Princes
Paul Anton and Nikolaus Esterhzys small orchestra and theater. While concertos for solo
instrument with orchestra make up just a small percentage of Haydns voluminous output, he did
write a number of them, especially in the 1760s, for the talented members of the Esterhzy
orchestra. One such musician was cellist Joseph Franz Weigl, employed by the family between
1761 and 1769, for whom Haydn composed the Cello Concerto in C major around 1762.
Like a remarkable number of Haydns concertos almost two dozen have been rediscovered
since World War II this Cello Concerto lay forgotten in a private library for 200 years.
Acquired by one Count Kolovrat of Prague, a cello enthusiast who had a collection of nearly
thirty concertos from Haydns time, the score became part of the Kolovrat-Krakovsky library,
one of the enormous family libraries that were confiscated by the Czech government after World
War II and transferred to the Czech National Library. Musicologist Oldrich Pulkert came across
the score there, and the Concerto was given its first modern performance on May 19, 1962 at the
Prague Spring Festival, with cellist Milos Sdlo and the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony
conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.
Lightly scored for string orchestra and pairs of oboes and horns, the Concerto is a virtuoso
display piece for the cellist. The first movement begins with the orchestra presenting a lively,
dancing theme that the cellist soon takes up and which becomes the basis of the rest of the