Even here, however, the music is full of tenderness and, in sublime contradiction of the text, a kind of warm contentedness. The opening gesture of the second stanza differs somewhat in tone from the first, as the singer mulls her impending death from heartache in some broad triplets. The lush, rising opening tune spans a full octave and a half in a matter of just seven notes, with the largest leap occurring at just the moment when the text speaks of the "distant sky." Its even more impassioned restatement rises a whole tone higher, and it is this melodic material that burns so long and so bright in the memory of all who hear the song. Ponce sets the two stanzas of the song's text in a parallel fashion: the last three lines of both stanzas form a tender refrain in which the singer asks the little star to come down to earth to tell her whether or not her love might be requited, and Ponce sets them more or less identically, using a modified version of the melodic strain that begins the whole affair. The female singer tells Estrellita, the little star, of the anguish of her burning love. But this delightful "Little Star" is entirely Ponce's own.Įstrellita, originally for voice and piano, but later arranged by various people for voice and orchestra as well as any number of solo instruments, is the second song of Ponce's Dos Canciones Mexicanas, first published in 1914 and composed in the few years immediately preceding. The great Mexican composer Manuel Ponce's wonderful Estrellita was so much a part of Latin American popular culture during the first few decades of the twentieth century that even just a few years after its first appearance in print (1914) it had come to seem part of the folk tradition. In 2007 the ensemble was preparing a new CD release.Sometimes a song can become so popular and be so frequently sung (and sung in such diverse musical environments) that eventually people start to take the song for folk music, and its author disappears into the shadow his or her work has created. It also performs programs of the music of Astor Piazzolla with Ballet BC, and it won Emmy and Gemini awards for the 1998 CBC television program Dancing in the Moment. Viveza tours throughout Canada and the United States, giving recitals and appearing at chamber music festivals. It was faced with another challenge of changing personnel when Koenig passed away in late 2006. By 1996, Duckles and Thomas had left and Robert Holliston had become its pianist. Percussionist Salvador Ferreras joined the group for several of its recordings. ![]() Viveza was founded in 1988 by five Vancouver musicians: Gwen Thompson, violin Mark Koenig, violin and melodion Lee Duckles, cello, Wilmer Fawcett, double bass, and Linda Lee Thomas, piano. The group's programs also include operetta arias and "light" music by composers such as Brahms, Dvorák, and Ravel who share stylistic elements with those other works. Viveza likes to point out that this music originated around the turn of the twentieth century in hazy establishments that provided refreshments to a less-than-completely polite segment of society, so that it frequently consists of sensual dances like the tango, early Dixieland jazz, Gypsy airs, and other equally exotic fare. This type of music is commonly referred to as "salon" or "palm court" music. Canadian ensemble Viveza appreciates a particular type of music that many other musicians only perform as encores or when they want to be temporarily less serious than usual.
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