Joaquín Turina (1882-1949): Danzas fantásticas (1919)
John Weinzweig (1913-2006): Divertimento No. 1 for Flute and Orchestra
Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960): Concertino No. 1

GaryGalvan

Gary Galván, curator of the Fleisher Collection

On this month’s Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection we meet the new curator, Gary Galván. He’s worked at the Collection since 2005 on research and special projects, but this year took over the reins as the seventh curator of the world’s largest lending library of orchestral performance material.

Galván will discuss the composers on the program and give us an idea of some of his plans for the future of the Collection. Emphasizing the international representation of the works on the Fleisher shelves, he’s brought music from Spain, Canada (for the first time, we believe, on Discoveries), and the United States.

Even though Joaquín Turina’s orchestration of his own Danzas fantásticas was performed before the solo piano version, it started out as a piano work. But Danzas fantásticas is Turina’s best-known orchestral work, and it’s easy to hear why. It’s brilliant music. The Exaltación is an Aragonese dance, the 
Ensueño is from the Basque region, and the finale, Orgía, is inspired by the aroma of flowers and wine.

John Weinzweig would be a leading composer in Canada on his own merits, but his legacy also includes his work on behalf of his country’s music as a founder of the Canadian League of Composers. After studies in the U.S. at Eastman, from 1939 to 1960 he taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and from 1952 until 1978 at the University of Toronto. His music exhibits an individual use of 12-tone materials developed along tonal lines. He’s also made use of Iroquois and French-Canadian fiddle music in his works.

Edward Burlingame Hill is in the generation following the turn-of-the-last-century composers such as George Chadwick, and before the great flowering of American music in the time of Copland. In fact, many of the later American composers studied with Hill at Harvard: Leonard Bernstein, Roger Sessions, Elliott Carter, Virgil Thomson, and others all were taught by Edward Burlingame Hill. His Concertino No. 1 is an excellent example of the liveliness and polish of his music.

Gary Galván visits Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection this Saturday at 5 Eastern on WRTI; the program streams live on wrti.org.