Amanda Blaikie performs Nielsen Flute Concerto | Brahms, A German Requiem
Artists
Performers
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Macomb Symphony Orchestra -
Andrew NeerConductorAmerican conductor, Andrew Neer, was born in Tucker, Georgia and currently resides in Grosse Pointe, Michigan with his wife, Mary Lynn. He is quickly becoming known for his dynamic and expressive conducting style. His focus has been to educate and expand appreciation of music. He believes that at the heart of everything, music is the soul of America and provides transformative experiences for those performing and participating in the audience.
Living in Michigan for most of his life, he is thrilled to join the Macomb Symphony Orchestra family. He attended Central Michigan University (CMU) studying Composition, Trumpet and Music Theatre Performance. Following his time at CMU, he obtained two Master of Music degrees in Composition and Conducting, respectively, from Wayne State University, Detroit MI. His composition experience ranges from that of the art song to film scores.
In the summer 2013, he was invited to conduct Verdi’s La Traviata for Michigan Opera Theatre’s community programs, receiving high acclaim. In early 2016, he embarked on an international conducting career, appearing with orchestras in Romania and Bulgaria. He is honored to study privately with orchestral conductor & mentor Kenneth Kiesler. In 2023, Andrew completed Doctoral Studies in Orchestral Conducting at the world-renown University of Michigan. In addition to working with orchestras, Mr. Neer has been honored to lead choruses and conduct operas in and around Metropolitan Detroit.
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Amanda BlaikieFlute SoloistAmanda Blaikie was appointed 2nd Flute of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2016 by Leonard Slatkin, and was Acting Assistant Principal Flute under Jader Bignamini for a large portion of the 2023-2024 season. Amanda previously held the position of Principal Flute with the Detroit Opera, Sarasota Opera, Miami City Ballet, and the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra. Amanda is currently a core musician with Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings, and performs with ensembles including New Music Detroit, Detroit Chamber Players, and the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival.
Performance highlights include solo concerto performances with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra, Allegro Chamber Orchestra, and the Detroit Symphony Symphony Youth Orchestra, and solo performances at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall (2010) and the 2017 and 2018 National Flute Association Conventions.
Amanda has also performed extensively as a substitute with the New York Philharmonic, including a Live from Lincoln Center television broadcast, Carnegie Hall performance, and the 2010 European Tour. Amanda has also performed with orchestras including the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Ann Arbor Symphony, the Orlando Philharmonic, and Opera Tampa, among others.
Passionate about teaching and educating, Amanda has presented masterclasses at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Eastern Michigan University, the University of Akron, and Purdue University Fort Wayne, among other institutions. Amanda was previously a Flute Instructor at Oakland University (MI) for eight years and the University of Miami (FL) for two years. She also taught as a Flute Faculty member at the Pacific Music Institute in Hawaii (2019) and the National Orchestral Institute (2023). Currently, Amanda maintains a private flute studio and is active with the DSO’s Community and Educational Outreach Programs.
Amanda earned a Professional Studies Degree at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Robert Langevin. She also received a MM in Flute Performance from the University of Miami where she studied with Christine Nield-Capote and Jenny Robinson, and a BA in Music from Principia College where she studied with flutist and pianist Dr. Marie Jureit-Beamish.
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Jennifer CresswellSopranoA riveting and expressive artist, Jennifer Cresswell is a sought-after singer, teacher, and public speaker. A veteran performer with Detroit Opera, she has been seen in Europera 3 by John Cage, as the Social Worker in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, Mrs. Ford in Frida, and as Cherubino in Ragnar Kjartansson’s12-hour marathon work, Bliss. Her passion for American Opera has allowed her to embody such characters as Magda Sorel in The Consul, Anna Maurrant in Street Scene, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, The Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Charlotte in Before Breakfast, and Hannah After in As One. In 2021 she premiered the role of Olivia in INTERSTATE, a chamber opera by Kamala Sankaram, which was released as a film by Minnesota Opera and has appeared at numerous film festivals. Favorite roles from the traditional operatic canon include Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, and Liù in Turandot.
In addition to the operatic stage, Jennifer is an avid concert performer, including soprano soloist for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Handel’s Messiah, Poulenc’s Gloria, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and David Lang’s Simple Song #3, as well as themed recitals including NOIR: Celebrating the Femme Fatales of Old Hollywood, That’s Chicago, and The Murder Ballad Recital. A champion of new music, she has given the world premieres of works by Kamala Sankaram, Felix Jarrar, Mikhail Johnson, Susan J. Feingold, Kristi Fullerton, and Jason K. Nitsch.
An accomplished writer, she has served as librettist for multiple new works, published articles in Classical Singer, Middle Class Artist, and An Injustice! magazines, and had her poetry read as part of the WHY Collective’s performances in Time Square.
Dr. Cresswell is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she was named a Presidential Fellow by the Rackham Graduate School and a recognized Scholar by the Center for the Education of Women. Her work with INTERSTATE earned her the Social Impact Award from the School of Music, Theatre and Dance EXCEL Lab, and her dissertation, Murder, She Sang: A Progression on Sopranos and Death, has been called “groundbreaking” and an “outstanding contribution to the field.” She is the creator of the GoPractice App for singing technique and maintains an active presence on TikTok with a following over 25,000. -
Rolfe DauzBaritoneFilipino-American baritone Rolfe Dauz is quickly becoming recognized for his beautiful voice, sensitive artistry and compelling stage presence and has garnered international acclaim for his “focused baritone, perfect diction and dramatic acting” (Calgary Herald) and “warm, flexible singing made for rewarding listening” (Classical Voice North America).
For the 2024-25 season, Dauz will be seen as Loudspeaker in Viktor Ullmann’s The Kaiser of Atlantis with New World Symphony, Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen at both Virginia Opera and Florentine Opera, Baritone Trio Member in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti with Annapolis Opera and, Curio in Händel’s Giulio Cesare at the Hudson Valley Opera House. In 2023-24, Dauz’s roles with Detroit Opera House included his company debut as Prince Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Jan (Cover) in Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking The Waves and Europas: 3 & 4 by John Cage.
Recent highlights include concerts and recitals curated by internationally acclaimed soprano Dawn Upshaw at the renowned Tanglewood Music Center as a Vocal Fellow, after which, he became a member of Detroit Opera’s 2023-24 Resident Artist Program under the leadership of Christine Goerke and Nathalie Doucet. In 2022, Dauz joined the Chautauqua Opera Company as a Festival Artist, performing roles in Virgil Thomson The Mother Of Us All and a contemporary opera by Kamala Sankaram entitled Thumbprint.
A native of San Francisco, Dauz is a graduate of the Dutch National Opera Academy, which he attended as a recipient of the Holland Scholarship and the AHK Talent Grant. He received his master’s degree from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College-Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Sanford Sylvan and Dawn Upshaw.
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Macomb Chamber ChoirChorus
Todd Moses, Conductor
Info & Repertoire
Join the Macomb Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andrew Neer for a spectacular treat with Detroit Symphony flutist Amanda Blaikie – followed by Brahms, A German Requiem, featuring Jennifer Cresswell & Rolfe Dauz.
Program
Nielsen: Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (25 Minutes)
Flute Soloist: Amanda Blaikie
intermission
Brahms: A German Requiem (70 minutes)
Soprano | Jennifer Cresswell
Baritone | Rolfe Dauz
Chorus | Oakland Choral Society & Macomb Chamber Choir
Details & Information
We are excited to welcome Oakland Choral Society, Macomb Chamber Choir, and our guest vocal soloist to before this uplifting orchestral work. Brahms composed this work to be a Requiem for the living. Read more in the program notes, below!
Tickets: $25
Senior: $20
Groups (15 or more): $18/ticket
Veterans: $15
Students: $12
Children: 12th Grade & under: FREE
About the Music
By Dr. Eldonna L. May
Nielsen, Carl, Concerto for Flute & Orchestra
Carl Neilsen (1865-1931)
Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (1926)
Length: 23 minutes
Program Notes:
PREMIERE: Paris, October 21, 1926’ Salle Gaveau; Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; Emil Telmányi, conductor; Holger Gilbert-Jespersen, soloist Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra Premiere: October 22, 1987; Heinz Hall; Lorin Maazel, conductor; James Galway, soloist
In 1925, when Nielsen was at the height of his fame, his 60th birthday was an occasion for national celebration. At the time he remarked to a newspaper interviewer that he had never been able to make a secure living for himself as a composer. This apparently uncharacteristic comment caused widespread consternation and led to a break with his publishers, who had been under severe economic pressure since World War I. In the long term, it likely contributed to an improvement in conditions for later generations of Danish composers.
Nielsen’s life-long interest in composing for wind instruments was piqued in 1921 when he heard a rehearsal of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat (K. 297b) by the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. The following year he produced a Wind Quintet (Op. 43) and also decided to write a concerto for each of the members of the Copenhagen ensemble that would be tailored to the technique and personality of the individual musicians. He was able to finish only the concertos for flute and clarinet, but these pieces are among the most important for their instruments written during the 20th century. Due to his work on the Sixth Symphony, Nielsen was unable to dedicate himself to composing the Flute Concerto until 1926, by which time the Copenhagen Quintet’s original flutist, Paul Hagemann, had been replaced by Holger Gilbert-Jespersen. He wrote the Concerto during a visit to Florence, completing the first movement there on September 6th and the second on October 1st. Gilbert-Jespersen introduced the work at the Salle Gaveau in Paris on October 21st; the orchestra was directed by the composer’s son-in-law, the violinist and conductor Emil Telmányi. Despite its good reception (Arthur Honegger described it as “piquant, fluent and with no dearth of humor”), Nielsen was dissatisfied with the tonal structure of the Concerto’s ending, and he revised the score before conducting it for the first time, in Oslo on November 9th. British author and composer Robert Simpson wrote that the Flute Concerto “has a ripe sense of fun with a deeply poetic insight into human character; in many ways it is the richest and most original concerto ever written for the flute.” One of Nielsen’s favorite compositional techniques was to pit two instruments against each other as virtual combatants. In this Concerto it is used for fun — specifically in the squaring off between the flute and the bass trombone, which Kaikhosru Sorabji described as the soloist’s persona ingratissima. “This coarse individual spreads himself all over the score with a grotesque and aimless blether,” noted Simpson, “as if looking for something he has never even remembered to forget, while the aristocratic flute expresses its outraged sensibilities.” The object of the Concerto’s search is not discovered until late in the second movement, when the trombone plays a march tune in 6/8 meter. “This is plainly what everybody has been looking for,” continued Simpson, “and the discomfiture of the flute at having been forestalled by a mere uncouth yokel is clear in the exquisitely graceful and pained phrases he emits. As for the trombone, his chortles of joy take the form of distinctly uncultured glissandi, and the Concerto ends on this delightful note.” In 1929, Nielsen wrote his own description of the Flute Concerto’s progress:
First Movement: Even though the Concerto begins with a dissonance, it might still come under the designation, ‘gentler zone.’ The beginning is, if anything, kept in a free, improvisatory style, and the solo instrument moves about as if seeking something, until it takes hold of a little, more decisive motive, which is later taken up by the orchestra and subsequently comes to play a certain part in a fairly developed transition to the movement’s second theme (a ‘song-subject’). This is first stated by the orchestra, after which the solo flute plays the same thing a fourth higher and then goes on into a little conversation with the solo clarinet and a bassoon. A vigorous crescendo-measure after that drives the solo instrument on to some more impassioned expressions, but this is not very severely intended, and we return to a peaceful state of affairs. But then the solo flute seizes upon a fugal theme, which is suddenly interrupted by the timpani, forcing the solo trombone out of its inertia. The solo flute line becomes agitated, and the music grows more lively. Gradually, the orchestral writing also becomes fuller and more agitated for a short while, then returning to a more pastoral musical character, permitting the soloist a pair of free cadenzas and a duet with the solo clarinet. The movement ends not as it began, but in the opposite direction; it subsides to rest in G-flat major, where it began dissonantly and without a key.
Second Movement: In order to move away from the gentle G-flat major tonality that ended the first movement, the orchestra asserts a few notes at the beginning of the movement, but this quickly becomes gentler in character, and when the solo flute enters it is quite simple and innocent. Through a number of fiery episodes, the solo flute plays a mournful adagio melody, which is also developed and echoed in the orchestra. Afterward, the principal motive returns and is treated anew, but it passes once more into some slow measures from the Adagio. Then a march motive is heard, and the movement ends in a lighter, cheerful atmosphere.”
A brilliant stroke at the ending is the flute’s continuing forte, while the orchestra fades to a whisper. Apparently this detail was penciled in by Nielsen only during final rehearsals.
Brahms, Johannes: Ein Deutsches Requeim (A German Requiem)
Johannes Brahms
Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Op 45. (1857-1868)
70 minutes
WORLD PREMIERE: The final, seven-movement version of A German Requiem was premiered in Leipzig on February 18, 1869 with Carl Reinecke conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chorus, and soloists Emilie Bellingrath-Wagner and Franz Krückl.
U.S. PREMIERE: Oratorio Society of New York, March 1877.
The breadth of Opus 45 embraces all of us, and the universality of this requiem moves far beyond nationality or a specific religion. The title German Requiem referred specifically to the language. In no part does Brahms use the words Jesus or Christ in the original translation. This requiem, as contrasted to the Catholic mass for the dead, presents no doctrine; instead it offers hope and solace without suggest judgment or terror. Brahms used selections from both the Old and New Testaments of the Lutheran Bible and Apocrypha. His message remains theistic, but not specifically Christian. He never went to church, although was obviously well acquainted with the Lutheran Bible. When criticized for this behavior, the composer responded, “Nonetheless, I do have my faith.”
Movements 1–3 address the mourning process and experience.
- Selig sind, die da Leid tragen (“Blessed are those who mourn”) – Ziemlich langsam und mit Ausdruck (Rather slow and with expression)
- Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras (“For all flesh is as grass”) – Langsam, marschmäßig (Slow, like a march)
- Herr, lehre doch mich (“Lord, teach me that there must be an end to me”) – Andante moderato (Moderately slow)
- Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen (“How lovely is thy dwelling place, Lord”) – Mäßig bewegt (Moderately lively)
- Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (“You now have sorrow, but I will see you again”) – Langsam (Slow)
- Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt (“For we have no permanent place here”) – Andante (Rather slow)
- Selig sind die Toten (“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord”) – Feierlich (Solemn)
Large-scale works for chorus and orchestra occupy a significant niche in Brahms’s output. At the head of this group – for many it stands at the center of Brahms’s entire output – is the German Requiem op.45, composed mainly between 1865 and 1867, with the fifth movement added in 1868.
In 1853, Robert Schumann wrote a laudatory article about a 20-year-old composer from Hamburg named Johannes Brahms, whom, Schumann declared, was the heir to Beethoven’s musical legacy. Schumann wrote, “If [Brahms] directs his magic wand where the massed power in chorus and orchestra might lend him their strength, we can look forward to even more wondrous glimpses into the secret world of the spirits.”
The German Requiem was the first work in which Brahms fulfilled Schumann’s mandate (made in the article ‘Neue Bahnen’). Schumann’s own contributions to the choral-orchestral tradition, composed within the last decade of his life and including such works as Szenen aus Goethes Faust, served as inspirations for Brahms, who likewise turned for his texts to high-quality German poetry and to the scriptures.
Although it falls into the tradition of the sacred oratorio, the Requiem, which employs baritone and soprano soloists, belongs to no established genre. It is not a conventional requiem mass, since it avoids the liturgical Latin text. Brahms assembled his texts for the seven movements from 15 passages in Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible. The focus is less on death than on consolation for the living. The texts are striking for avoiding altogether the notion of redemption through Christ, who is not mentioned at all. The religious sentiment is thus more universal – Brahms said it could be called a ‘human’ requiem – than denominational.
The choral writing in the Requiem displays great diversity and historical awareness. At one textural extreme is the stark, sombre homophony at the opening of the second movement (‘Denn alles Fleisch’); at the other, the elaborate neo-Handelian fugues that close the third and sixth movements (at ‘Herr, du bist würdig’ and ‘Der Gerechten Seelen’, respectively). The first part of the fourth movement (‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’) evokes the lilt of a Viennese waltz. In the sixth movement, at ‘und der Zeit der letzten Posaune’ and ‘Tod, wo ist dein Stachel?’, Brahms composed passages as explosively declamatory as anything in the 19th century.
A work that reshaped Brahms’ career and made his reputation as a composer, it also aroused musical antipathy in its wake. A radiant, joy-filled work about death, its beautifully balanced structure – musically rounded and dialectically fulfilled – grew in haphazard fits. The principal external markers, at least, are clear on the road to A German Requiem: Robert Schumann’s death in 1856, and the death of Brahms’ mother in 1865. Greatly burdened by Schumann’s early acclamation and equally conflicted by love for Schumann’s wife Clara, Brahms found himself with an urgent need to respond to the older composer’s death. He began to plan a musical memorial, not the Latin mass for the dead, but rather a staunchly vernacular German requiem. (Brahms found the title itself among Schumann’s papers, although Brahms also said before the premiere that he might have called it A Human Requiem.)
The gradual burgeoning of his career as pianist and composer occupied the ensuing years, marked most notably by shifting his center of activity to Vienna in the fall of 1862. With most of his Schumann demons of gratitude and guilt now exorcised, Brahms felt little urgency about the dormant memorial requiem. The death of his mother was another matter altogether. “Time changes everything for better or worse,” Brahms wrote to Clara a few weeks after his mother’s death. “It does not so much change as it builds up and develops, and thus when once this sad year is over I shall begin to miss my dear good mother ever more and more.”
Well-tutored from youth in Scripture, Brahms retained a love for Biblical language, if nothing else, throughout his life. He began to piece together a text celebrating the seasons of life, fusing Old and New Testament verses into a unique “Protestant reflection on death, an affirmation of personal faith and courage and of consolation for the living,” as Lionel Salter describes it. Brahms dedicated the Requiem to his mother.
The slow movement he had been sketching for a symphony provided the basis for the funeral march (“Behold, all flesh is as the grass”) that opens the second movement of the Requiem. He planned five other movements, and worked at it for another year, while completing other projects.
Then he set aside the Requiem to allow himself time for objectivity with this incipient masterpiece, much the largest thing he had completed to this point. A stay in Switzerland, concert tours with his violinist friend Joseph Joachim, and a holiday with his suddenly remarried father gave him plenty to do until the end of 1867, when the conductor Johann Herbeck offered to try out the first three movements of the Requiem on one of the Philharmonic Society concerts in Vienna. This ill-prepared partial performance – Schubert’s incidental Rosamunde music completed the program – was hardly a success, but Brahms remained blithe. Clara Schumann had heartily endorsed the piano score of the Requiem and he had the official premiere of the full work – to be conducted by himself – already scheduled. That took place in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday (April 10), 1868, and was an overwhelming success, requiring an encore performance later that month. Nonetheless, Brahms immediately decided further revision was needed, and he added another movement – and a soprano soloist – to the work. This would be the fifth movement of the work, with its central text from Isaiah, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.”
This final version had its premiere on February 18 the following year at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. This was the great triumph so long expected of Brahms. From this point his reputation grew ever exponentially, in Austria, Germany, and abroad. But in art, as surely as in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. George Bernard Shaw, that most perfect of Wagnerites, found himself suffering “the intolerable tedium” of Brahms’ Requiem on several occasions. “Mind, I do not deny that the Requiem is a solid piece of musical manufacture. You feel at once that it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker,” he wrote in 1890.
The problem, which recently deceased critic John Steane addressed with other Shavian quotations about the Requiem, is that notion of infinite solemnity. Infinite exaltation it should rather be – lyrical, to be sure, and deeply serious, but also fiercely dramatic and fully energized. Much of the solution, as Steane saw it, lies in tempo. Brahms’ imagery is full of life and movement throughout, never static. The words ‘death’ and ‘dead’ do not even appear until the sixth movement, and then only to be triumphantly reversed: the dead shall be raised and death swallowed up in victory. This requires music-making of equal vividness and life.
Tempo is also crucial to the experience of Brahms’ architecture. Music exists in time, and a slow pace across Brahms’ long spans allows the connections to fade into temporal distance. The macro form is an intricate arch, and the opening beatitude (“Blessed are they that mourn”) cannot be a dim memory when the closing beatitude (“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord”) is finally reached. This is true at the micro level as well. The great fugues, for example, are temporal expressions of eternity but also of the completion of creation and experience. To Steane’s law of tempo should be added a corollary of color. Brahms takes care of much of that, of course. The opening movement, for example, is scored without violins and emerges from depths – contrast with the following movement can hardly be missed.
The play between light and dark is crucial for much of Brahms’ dramatic and dialectical development. Throughout the Requiem Brahms contrasts the transience of human existence with the eternity of God, and he is not shy about underlining the difference. In the second movement, for example, after the steady opening funeral march (which has its parallel on the other side of the arch in the pilgrim’s chorus opening the sixth movement) and the patience of the farmer waiting for rain, Brahms strikes us with “But the word of the Lord endures for ever.” “This surely is one of the most decisive ‘buts’ in all music,” as Paul Minear writes. With this everything changes in the music, reflecting the qualitative level of the contrast. Properly projected, this sort of confident bravura of expression is the antithesis of Shaw’s intolerable tedium.
Eine Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Opus 45 was Brahms’ largest work in any medium. Steven Ledbetter concluded, “Here for the first time, Brahms not only established himself as a mature composer in the eyes of his contemporaries, but also wrote one of those special choral works that singers return to with as much delight as audiences, a unique masterpiece of technique and affect expressing the universal longings of mankind.”
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