Season 6 (2009-2010)
-
PROGRAM
Hatzis Redemption (world premiere)Mozart Serenade in D (Serenata Notturna), K239
Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Suite
CONDUCTOR
David Alan Miller
SOLOISTS
Pacifica QuartetVENUES
Shrine of St. Stanislaus, St. Noel Church, St. Mary, Rocky River Methodist Church, Fairmount Presbyterian Church, Stambaugh AuditoriumPROGRAM NOTES
DREAMS AND REDEMPTION
One of the most striking things about this concert program is that the “soloist” is a string quartet: four musicians. And so this becomes a concert for your eyes as well as your ears – a concert in which the musical interactions that occur at every level in every performance will be visibly dramatized on the stage.
You’ll get to see and hear this in the first two pieces. Mozart’s Serenata notturna is unusual in that it features a serenade quartet (two violins, viola and double bass) supported by the main string orchestra. But the main piece to make use of our guests, the Pacifica Quartet, is an exciting new work, Redemption, by Canadian composer Christos Hatzis.
Hatzis’ music emerges from a profound and powerful inspiration, which has also given him his title. The “dreams” of this program come to us courtesy of Mozart’s whimsical “night music” and Mendelssohn’s magical interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
A LADDER TO GOD
Redemption: Book 1, for string quartet and chamber orchestra
Redemption is a work in progress – five ‘books’ that can be performed independently or as a cycle. Its overarching theme has been inspired by the seer and mystic Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) who meditated on the story of humanity’s spiritual fall and redemption.
In Book 1, a musical thread is provided by a quotation of the opening theme from Richard Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra, made famous (and its cosmic character emphasized) when Stanley Kubrick used it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In particular, the sudden shift of this quotation from C major to the darker key of C minor and then, later in the music, back to a triumphant C major becomes a symbol of fall and redemption. The first movement is predominantly in C major and the blazing climax of the Strauss theme is heard most overtly just towards its end. The second movement culminates in the shift to C minor (fall from innocence), and the third movement, while not “in” C major, returns to that key at the very end.
Hatzis’ original voice embraces familiar musical sounds and references that some might call naïve, but which in fact are a means to draw us deeper into the music. It’s impossible to describe the intricacies of this music or its profoundly conceived philosophy here, but a few signposts can be shared:
At the dawn of time…
The string quartet represents the human element – Adam and Eve – in the archetypal narrative of the music, while the orchestra for the most part represents the draw of consciousness, “the knowledge that makes one be like ‘God.’” In the first movement the quartet introduces a gigue (reminiscent of Nova Scotian fiddling and unlike anything heard up until that point in the music), which is then “corrupted” by its orchestral surrounds.
Fall from innocence…
The second movement follows the allegory of the fall as told in Genesis. Although knowledge may be God-like, it is innocence and purity of heart that gives entry to the Kingdom of Heaven, and this innocence is represented by the string quartet with a passacaglia, a compelling expansion of ideas over an inexorably repeating bass line. The bass line: The beginning of the passacaglia: Against this the orchestra introduces dissention, temptation through “forbidden” harmony, which leads ultimately to collapse and corruption. The music tells a story but, more important, it mirrors a psychological process of seduction and corruption.
Lord of righteousness…
The third movement is based on a single theme, borrowed from Hatzis’ choral symphony Sepulcher of Life (2004), which is also Book 5 of Redemption. Like a fractal, the music replicates itself at various levels of magnification from the motivic to the overall structure. Towards its close, Hatzis evokes the sound world of the Funeral March from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, as the music pivots into a return of the “redemption” theme. The end may seem unexpected and unassertive, but in the context of the cycle it is a mark of the longer journey to come.
NIGHT MUSIC
Mozart’s Serenata notturna
If you’ve seen the movie Amadeus you’ll have seen a Mozart with a wicked sense of humor, and it’s not all fiction. Mozart’s letters, and sometimes Mozart’s music, reveal a composer who refused to take life too seriously. This is the Mozart who wrote the Serenata notturna at the age of 20.
Summer in Salzburg…
Living in Salzburg, Mozart wrote many serenades – the city enjoys balmy summers, perfect for outdoor entertainments. Graduation ceremonies, civic celebrations and garden parties – these all required accompaniment, and the social context shaped the music. Serenades were usually built up from many short movements, and because the musicians were often on the move, composers avoiding using cellos, which couldn’t be played standing up or while marching.
Not your typical serenade…
The Serenata notturna breaks with many of the serenade conventions. It was written in the middle of winter – indoor music! – and it has just three movements. But most unusual is something that you’ll see in the concert: Mozart uses two distinct groups of instruments. It’s possible he even placed the two groups in adjoining rooms at the first performance. The first group is a “serenade quartet”: two violins and viola with the mobile double bass instead of a cello. The other is the accompanying string orchestra, with timpani or kettledrums.
That technique of setting a solo group against an orchestra was more common for earlier composers such as Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, and it gives the music a Baroque texture. The natural contrasts in color and volume contribute to the overall majestic (maestoso) character of the March (Marcia), and the timpani gives a very special effect as an accompaniment to the sound of plucked strings.
Peasant waltzing…
The Menuetto brings a peasant character into the ballroom – it sounds less like a gliding and graceful minuet and more like the oom-pah-pah of a village waltz. In the middle there’s a Trio section where the orchestra drops away, leaving the serenade quartet to play alone. The two violins spin their melodies above an accompaniment from the viola, all supported by the double bass.
With a twinkle in his eye…
The overall mood of the serenade is spirited, exuberant and charming. But in the Rondeau finale Mozart really begins to enjoy himself. Rondo form in Classical music is similar to the verse-and-chorus structure of popular song, allowing for infinite variety within a simple musical scheme. In this rondo, Mozart strings together brilliant ideas, changing tempo, changing rhythmic pulse, making musical ‘in jokes’. The music darts between different styles and characters, from a mock-heroic Adagio (slow section) to vigorous country dance tunes. High art, low art.
Through all this, the rondo theme (the equivalent of the “chorus”) makes frequent appearances. And probably the most striking aspect of this recurring theme is the way it ends each time: alternations between two basic chords, then a dramatic pause, followed by a little throwaway ending.
It’s as if Mozart is inviting the performers to do what any 18th-century musician would do with such a pause, and that is to improvise something witty or virtuosic to fill the gap. (This is not something that can be previewed, but these 15-second moments of fun are impossible to miss.) Mozart may have written this music more the 200 years ago, but he wrote it in such a way that it comes to life with every performance.
MUSICAL MAGIC
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Mendelssohn’s overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins with four gleaming woodwind chords, a magical evocation of Hippolyta’s first lines in Shakespeare’s play:
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven,
shall behold the night of our solemnities.
Then the fairies enter: feathery whisperings from the violins. This is music by a composer who lived and breathed Shakespeare.
Audacity…
Felix Mendelssohn’s family entertained themselves with impromptu presentations of Shakespeare plays, not just in German but in the original English too. And one day, when he was 17, he decided he’d go into the garden and “dream there” music for his “favorite among old Will’s beloved plays.” He knew this was “an enormous audacity,” but the result – a 12-minute overture – was nothing short of a masterpiece, absolutely worthy of the inspiration.
A fairy overture…
It wasn’t all written in an afternoon. Typically for Mendelssohn, he made painstaking revisions, working hard to bring the character of the play to life in music, “to imitate the content of the play in tones.” Where his original draft was simply delightful and charming, the final version is literally dreamlike, full of elfin humor and true musical magic.
To the opening chords and the fairy music Mendelssohn added the lyrical wanderings of the mortal lovers lost in the forest, the horns of the hunting party and the boisterous antics of the rustics. And although he was tempted to leave it out, his friends persuaded him to keep the comical braying of Bottom with his ass’s head. Even though Mendelssohn follows the conventions of musical form in the overture, he also manages to evoke the whimsy and confusion of the plot, and the fairies have the last word (as in the play) with the return of the four woodwind chords from the opening.
Returning to the dream…
All this was the miraculous work of a teenager. Is it possible to return to a dream and recapture its spirit? Mendelssohn proved that you could by working an even greater miracle when he returned to A Midsummer Night’s Dream 17 years later, this time to write incidental music that would accompany a German production of the play.
Where the original overture had been intended for concert performance – a musical “imitation” of the play – the new music needed to function as a the equivalent of a soundtrack, underscoring and supporting the staged drama. It includes many short pieces, designed to be played under particular sections of the spoken text. But there are also four substantial orchestral numbers, which would have functioned as preludes and interludes, covering scene changes and setting the mood. Played in a concert, these make up a kind of symphony on the play.
A midsummer night’s symphony…
The Intermezzo is the fast and impassioned conclusion to Act II. Hermia has awoken in the forest only to find her lover, Lysander, gone, and you can hear her running frantically through the trees in search of him.
Ah me, for pity! – what a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey. –
Lysander! – What, remov’d? – Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
Alack! where are you? speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? – then I well perceive you are not nigh:
Either death, or you, I’ll find immediately!
The Nocturne (night music to rival Mozart’s Notturna) is the complete opposite of the Intermezzo. This is tranquil and serene music that provides the transition between Acts III and IV. It’s while the characters (both mortal and fairy) are asleep that mischief is worked and restoration achieved, and so Mendelssohn’s music evokes the magical slumbers, with the first horn given pride of place.
On the ground, sleep sound:
I’ll apply to your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak’st, thou tak’st
True delight in the sight
Of thy former lady’s eye:
And the country proverb known,
That every man should take his own
In your waking shall be shown:
Jack shall have Jill;
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again,
And all shall be well.
The fleeting, mercurial Scherzo was written for the entry of Puck and the fairies in Act II, “How now, spirit! Whither wander you?”
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere…
Finally, when the night’s misadventures have been sorted out and the mortals restored to their true loves, there is a grand, triple wedding, accompanied by what is probably the most frequently played piece of music Mendelssohn ever wrote, the Wedding March. This music has been the first choice for weddings ever since Queen Victoria’s oldest daughter used it for her marriage to the crown prince of Prussia and brides on both sides of the Atlantic followed suit.
Yvonne Frindle © 2009
-
PROGRAM
Mozart Sinfonia concertante in E flat for violin and viola, K364, Divertimento No. 136, Exsultate jubilate, K165
CONDUCTOR
Joel Smirnoff
SOLOISTS
Jessica Oudin, violaNathan Olson, violin
Chabrelle Williams, soprano
VENUES
Elyria First United Methodist Church, St.Ignatius of Antioch Church, Shrine of St. Stanislaus, Willoughby United Methodist Church, Fairmount Presbyterian ChurchPROGRAM NOTES
MAINLY MOZART
Mozart is, without fail, the most recognized name in classical music. The only composer who might rival him for the top spot would be Beethoven. And in this concert we bring you some of Mozart’s most beautiful and most sparkling music. These are all relatively youthful pieces, but it’s a program that shows his range. There’s the Mozart who composed brilliant concertos and who quite liked to play viola. There’s the composer for orchestra who knew how to please heart and mind, to entertain as well as impress. And there’s the composer who knew better than anyone how to write for the voice – whether he was writing for the opera theatre or the church, Mozart’s vocal music was always sublime.
So it’s December and it’s “mainly Mozart”. Except this program looks like it’s all Mozart – what’s with that? Well, it is December and the holidays, so stay tuned for surprises.
CONCERTO FOR TWO
Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola
The height of fashion…
What’s better than a concerto for one soloist? A concerto for two! At least, that’s what everyone thought in 18th-century Paris, and Paris has always been the centre of fashion. When Mozart visited the French capital in 1778 the craze for the sinfonia concertante was at its height – no one could get enough of these ‘symphony concertos’, concertos for more than one soloist.
Mozart responded to the fad by writing a concerto for flute and harp. Once home in Salzburg – and perhaps further inspired by the fine orchestral musicians he’d heard in Mannheim – he composed a concerto for two pianos, began an ambitious sinfonia concertante for three soloists (violin, viola and cello) and, having abandoned that, created a masterpiece in the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola.
Violin and viola…
This is the greatest of Mozart’s string concertos, and in this music everything comes together: the assurance and brilliance of youth matched by an emerging maturity of style, the novelty of the genre, the influence of Mozart’s visits to Italy and his forays into opera, his unerring instinct in writing for the various instruments of the orchestra, and above all his love for the viola. Mozart may have been a very accomplished violinist, but his favorite string instrument, and the one he preferred to play in chamber music, was the viola, whose rich, dark tones would nestle at the heart of the texture.
Everyone’s a soloist
In the Sinfonia concertante, of course, the viola is brought into the limelight, together with its partner the violin. But if you listen carefully you can hear that Mozart extends the ‘concertante’ principle to the orchestra itself – there are solos for the oboes and the horns as well. At other times the whole ensemble is treated as a ‘soloist’, and Mozart gives the orchestra virtuoso effects such as the famous ‘Mannheim crescendo’, in which the players must build, via subtly controlled gradations, from a perfectly soft beginning to an exhilarating climax.
Conversation…
It is from the first of these climaxes, less than two minutes into the first movement, that the two soloists emerge from the texture, two long, high notes sustained as the orchestra slips into the background. The whole work is full of such magical moments.
The first movement is marked Allegro maestoso, to be played ‘fast and majestically’, but the music is never pompous. Instead there is a sense of congenial conversation, as the two soloists finish each other’s sentences. Later in the movement, Mozart swaps the two solo parts, bringing back the violin’s music in the viola part and vice versa. This wonderful collaboration culminates in the duo cadenza, provided by the composer, in which it’s demonstrated that the true virtuoso doesn’t simply play faster and higher, but more musically and more expressively too.
Eloquence and brilliance…
The second movement carries an innocuous tempo marking (Andante, ‘an easy walking pace’) but the music adopts a darker, heartfelt mood. Charming conversation is abandoned for an impassioned eloquence and the expressive character of the viola comes into its own.
The almost painful intensity of the Andante is then relieved by the third movement, a Presto (‘as fast as possible’). The movement is organised as a rondo, with its exuberant refrain for the full orchestra punctuating the brilliantly showy music for the soloists.
A SALZBURG SYMPHONY
Divertimento in D, K136
Mozart’s Divertimento in D (K136) was one of a set of three composed in Salzburg when he was just 16 years old. Two of these follow the same satisfying pattern – two fast movements framing a slower, more expressive one – making them similar to the early symphonies that came out of Italy and which had their origins in the opera overture, in the world of pure entertainment.
Diversions…
A divertimento is literally a ‘diversion’, an amusement – it should be direct in expression, melodious, lively and perfectly easy on the ear. Like the serenade, a divertimento in Mozart’s day would have been informal in character, and the principal difference between the two forms lay in the manner of performance: a serenade was typically performed with several string players to each part (an orchestra, in other words), while a divertimento was usually performed with one player per part (chamber music).
Chamber music or symphony?
There are various signs in the music that Mozart may have thought of this divertimento and its companions as chamber music: there are fast, intricate passages which are easy for a solo performer but more difficult for a group to coordinate, and the interaction between the different musical lines tends to be more elaborate than in his orchestral pieces from around the same time.
You could say that the three divertimenti were the closest Mozart got to writing a string quartet in Salzburg. But these characteristics certainly don’t prevent the divertimenti being performed by a string orchestra, and their effect is all the more brilliant when they are. It’s not without reason that the three divertimenti came to be known as the ‘Salzburg symphonies’.
Italian spirit…
But it’s an Italian rather than an Austrian spirit that comes to the fore in this music. Like an opera overture, the Divertimento in D catches your attention from the beginning. The two violin parts spend the first movement (marked Allegro, ‘fast’) bouncing ideas off each other in witty dialogue.
The second movement (Andante) is elegantly lyrical – here the music sings and sighs with the ardor of a young girl happily in love.
The third movement (to be played Presto) bears a thematic resemblance to the first movement, but it outdoes it in wit and exuberance. This is Mozart in a comic mood: he delights in such gestures as asking the musicians to play soft, detached phrases, followed immediately by loud outbursts. And since this is a diversion, you’re allowed to smile!
SING FOR JOY!
‘Exsultate, jubilate’ – Motet
Mozart wrote only three motets – religious music for voice and instruments – but two of these can claim to be among his most popular and memorable works. One is ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ with its exhilarating Alleluja; the other is the much-loved ‘Ave, verum corpus’. ‘Ave verum corpus’ dates from the last year of Mozart’s life, but he was barely 17 when he composed ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ – a talented teenager enjoying the kind of celebrity and success in Milan that he could only dream about at home in Salzburg.
A great voice…
It must have given Mozart enormous pleasure to match the Italians at their own game with his opera Lucio Silla, but he seems to have been even more excited by the chance to hear the famous castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who sang his leading role ‘like an angel’. And it was Rauzzini he had in mind for ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ – you only have to listen to the music to imagine the virtuosity, flexibility and astonishing soprano range of the castrato’s voice.
In a word…
To understand what a motet is, think of the related word ‘mot’ (in French) or ‘motto’ (in English) – at the root of all these words is the idea of ‘the word’, and the motet is a musical form where the words are of utmost importance. The motet as Mozart knew it belongs in church, but the words themselves don’t come from the set liturgy, instead a motet will use religious poetry that enhances the theme of the service. (In Anglican or Episcopalian churches this would be the anthem, in the Catholic mass a motet is sung after the Credo.)
A concerto for the voice…
‘Exsultate, jubilate’ motet belongs to this tradition, but since it’s Mozart it goes above and beyond what you might expect of a religious anthem. Perhaps it even goes too far, because this motet can be heard as something else: a concerto – virtuoso music – for the voice.
Setting aside the tiny Recitativo (barely 60 seconds of recitative or ‘sung speech’), the motet falls into three movements, fast—slow—fast, just as a concerto would, and it’s as brilliant and virtuosic as any instrumental concerto. But you couldn’t accuse Mozart of ignoring the meaning of the words in this music, because the whole motet is suffused with the high spirits and sheer elation of the (Latin) text.
Rejoice, shout for joy, sing sweet hymns…
The motet begins in high spirits with a quick (Allegro) aria, or song, calling us to rejoice and shout for joy. The recitative follows – linking music in which the words take precedence: “The friendly day shines forth, both cloud and storms have now fled: an unexpected calm has appeared for the righteous…”
As dark gives way to blessed dawn, so this recitative leads into the gentle aria (Andante) at the centre of the motet, a serene hymn to the virgin Mary: “Thou crown of virgins, grant us peace, comfort the passions which make our hearts sigh.”
The final aria is the most famous as well as the most virtuosic. (And it’s in this movement, at the very end, that sopranos often insert a brilliant high C!) Its text consists of just one word – “Alleluia!” – which shifts our focus from the intellectual meaning of the motet to the simple feeling of exuberance conveyed by the music.
Yvonne Frindle © 2009
-
PROGRAM
Schubert arr. Webern German Dances
Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 107
Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550
CONDUCTOR
Daniel Rachev
SOLOISTS
Matt Haimovitz, celloVENUES
Fairmount Presbyterian Church, St. Joseph, Willoughby United Methodist Church, Shrine of St. Stanislaus, Anatolia Cafe
PROGRAM NOTES
VIENNESE MINIATURES
Six German Dances
Among musicians Anton Webern has a reputation. It’s said, tongue in cheek, that he’s the 12-tone composer who can make a movement of music last ten seconds. There’s some truth in that: his music really is remarkable for its compactness; maximum meaning and effect is compressed into tiny, jewel-like compositions. Here’s just one example, the final movement from Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op.24:
But if anyone can give Webern a run for his money in the brevity stakes it would be Franz Schubert. Although he wrote a great symphony that’s been admired for its “heavenly length,” Schubert was also a master of the miniature, writing perfectly formed songs that are sometimes as short as a minute or two, and little sets of dances for piano that contain the DNA of the Viennese waltz. These were real dances, for the social gatherings of his friends. At the same time they have a nuanced sophistication far beyond the requirements of their function, which is why they can be enjoyed just as much sitting down.
The six German Dances D820 were composed for a young piano student of Schubert’s, Countess Caroline Esterházy. They are delicate pieces – music for private performance. The manuscript remained within the family, unpublished, and was not rediscovered until 1930. At this point Webern was invited by his publisher, Universal Edition, to make an arrangement for small orchestra.
It might seem out of character for a pioneer of atonal techniques to be arranging music from the tonal tradition, but by 1930 he’d already arranged Schubert songs and sonatas, music by Liszt and even a Strauss waltz.
“I confess I had to give [the German Dances] much thought,’ he wrote to Schoenberg, ‘until I believed I had found the right way…In the process, the problem of classical instrumentation confronted me in its entirety. I took pains to remain on the solid ground of classical ideas of instrumentation, yet to place them into the service of our idea, i.e. as a means towards the greatest possible clarification of thought and context.”
And so Webern adopted a Schubertian orchestra: pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns, with strings. He also captured Schubert’s manner of using the instruments, highlighting the charm and delicacy of each dance while bringing out the musical lines with disarming clarity.
After the arrangement was finished, Webern wrote to his fellow student Berg: ‘It looks like a classical score, but still more like one by me: everything is unified and yet dispersed into a really great variety…Now one sees most distinctly how these six dances (seemingly written so hurriedly) were produced in one cast. Lovely, tender, beautiful ideas!’
OBSESSION
Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto
Shostakovich wrote his first cello concerto for the great virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich in 1959, but his idea for it went back nearly ten years. “The original impulse,” he said, “sprang from hearing the Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra by Prokofiev.” This piece fascinated him and made him want to try writing a piece for cello and orchestra himself.
The cello concerto is a tricky form for composers – the relatively low voice of the cello can easily be swamped by an orchestra. Shostakovich’s solution is evident: this cello concerto can be performed by a small orchestra such as CityMusic Cleveland, with pairs of woodwinds, one horn, timpani, celesta and strings. The relatively small ensemble gives the accompaniment intimacy and clarity. Even more important is the way Shostakovich omits all the brass instruments except for the horn. Of all the wind instruments, the horn has the closest affinity to the cello and at times he weaves the two instruments together in a melancholy duet.
If there’s one thing to hold in your ears it’s the very first four notes the soloist plays, the principal motif of the concerto. Just a “simple little theme”, said Shostakovich! But in just four notes it creates a nervous, intense atmosphere, and as it appears again and again it gives the concerto an obsessive quality too. The lower voices in the orchestra bring a dark, ominous mood; the high woodwinds a spiky brilliance. If this concerto were a movie it would be a fast-paced psychological thriller, full of unsettling contradictions.
The second movement (to be played “moderately”) is more Romantic and singing in character, less neurotic. Its highpoint – literally – sends the soloist to the top of the cello’s range with ethereal harmonics, a special effect that’s echoed by the bell-like sound of the celesta. This movement moves immediately into a cadenza for the soloist alone – so long that it’s given status as a movement in its own right. Shostakovich evokes the improvisational character of a traditional cadenza, giving the cello music that ruminates on the various themes while building up to a transition into the finale.
The finale (“fast but not too much”) is relatively short but it’s relentless, even ferocious. It contains a well-hidden parody of Stalin’s favorite song, “Suliko,” and the mood overall is sardonic. The winds are brilliant, the soloist dazzles, the obsessive four-note motif is hammered and shrieked, and the timpanist adds to the frenzy with fierce interjections before thumping out seven notes to bring the music to an emphatic conclusion.
MOZART THE ROMANTIC
Symphony No. 40
Mozart didn’t know that the three great symphonies he composed in 1788 would be his last. And we don’t know for sure whether they were performed in his lifetime. But there’s good reason to think that they were, or at least that Mozart had performances in mind, because he was a practical man, composing either on commission or for a concert that he was planning. In the case of Symphony No.40, the fact that he later revised the orchestral parts (adding a pair of clarinets) suggests that this was the Mozart symphony that was played in concerts on April 16 and 17, 1791 – performances that included his clarinetist friends, Johann and Anton Stadler. (In our concerts in February we perform the original version.)
After Mozart’s death, these symphonies quickly became some of his best-loved works. In particular, Symphony No.40 had a stormy passion that captured the Romantic imagination of the 19th century.
Central to the stormy character of the symphony is its key: G minor. This was unusual – Mozart wrote only two minor-key symphonies (the other is No.25, the “little G minor”, which runs under the opening titles of the movie Amadeus). Then there are the dramatic implications of G minor: when Mozart uses this key in his operas it’s for moments of deep despair. But you’d be wrong to think that the dark intensity of the music somehow mirrored Mozart’s personal situation – Symphony No.40 belongs to an 18th-century tradition in which musical art was intended to give the agreeable pleasure of intense feeling and turbulent passions.
That pleasure emerges right from the beginning of the first movement (“very fast”), as throbbing violas set up an urgent and tempestuous theme in the violins. And soon – after an abrupt pause – a new pleasure arrives with music that’s calmer and more serene. This becomes a source of drama too, as the two contrasting themes create conflict of their own.
Mozart takes the second movement (to be played at an “easy walking pace”) into a major key, which in theory should make for a cheerier mood, but still there is an aching tenderness to the music and the pervasive sense of impassioned feeling at odds with classical elegance.
The third movement is a minuet, normally the most elegant of dances, but in this symphony it’s given a vigor that borders on gruffness. There’s a shift to a gentler character in the central Trio and the winds have a chance to shine, then it’s back to the sturdy minuet and into the finale – fast and furious. This begins with the characteristic upward-reaching gesture that was known as the “Mannheim Rocket.”
In the 18th century, minor-key symphonies usually revealed their true colors by turning at the very end to an optimistic major-key conclusion – something that Mozart’s symphony does not do. Instead, the last movement stays resolutely in G minor to the bitter end, and the traditional exhilaration of a finale is tempered by dark and tragic emotion
Yvonne Frindle © 2010
-
PROGRAM
Sibelius Rakastava, Op. 14Mozart Concerto for flute, No. 1 in G major
Beethoven Symphony Nr. 8, Op. 93, F major
CONDUCTOR
Gregory Vajda
SOLOISTS
Heidi Ruby Kushious, flute
VENUES
Shrine of St. Stanislaus, St. Mary Church, St. Noel Church, Fairmount Presbyterian Church, St. Ignatius of Antioch ChurchPROGRAM NOTES
HEARTSTRINGS
Rakastava (The Lover)
They say no one ever remembers the runners up, only the champions, and that might be true in sport, but in music posterity often takes a different view. Sibelius’s Rakastava was originally composed as a short choral work and entered in a competition organized by the YL Male Voice Choir of Helsinki University in 1894. It came second. Nowadays, and especially in its later form, revised for chamber orchestra, it’s regarded as a minor masterpiece – fresh, unique and lovely.
The text of the original choral version came from a collection of Finnish lyric poems, Kanteletar, and fell into three sections: “Where is my fair one?”, “Here my darling has walked” and an evening song and farewell. The poetry set the mood: yearning optimism, gentle vigor, and a mournful atmosphere to finish. You can hear a performance of the choral version on YouTube. Listen for the tenor solo, which begins around 4:13.
Nearly 20 years later – about the time of his Fourth Symphony – Sibelius dramatically revised the music to create a new, instrumental work. He expanded on the musical themes of the original, but in ways that are wholly determined by the sounds and techniques of a string orchestra. This is no longer music that you could sing, even though it has lost none of its lyrical character.
The first movement (The Lover) has floating ethereal quality, with subtle harmonies. There are fleeting interruptions (delicate “outbursts”) in which the timpani is given long, soft drum rolls to play. The Path of His Beloved has the feeling of perpetual motion, with relentless rhythms – rapid notes in the hushed melody and a plucked accompaniment. Just before the end the triangle is given its only notes to play: six bell-like taps. The third movement (Good Evening!…Farewell!) reveals a trace of the original: what would have been the tenor solo in the choral version emerges as poignant solo for violin. The timpani returns for an ominous, faster-moving section in the middle of this melancholy and mysteriously atmospheric music.
LOVE-ALL
Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G
Never let Mozart kid you into thinking that he didn’t like the flute. His father almost certainly wasn’t fooled, nor should we be. The music itself – the symphonies, the operas, the concertos and the chamber music – tells a different story: Mozart’s flute parts are always imaginative and beautifully written for the instrument.
Mozart’s supposed dislike for the flute emerged just at the time when he was meant to be finishing his first real composing commission but seems to have been, like any normal 22 year old, more interested in his first serious love interest. Mozart was in Munich with his mother, and his father was nagging from afar, writing to ask why he hadn’t finished the commission (for two or three ‘short and easy’ flute concertos, as well as some quartets for flute and string trio) and collected the promised 200 florins (good money) from the wealthy amateur flutist, De Jean. Mozart’s reply packs on the excuses.
In the end he did finish the Flute Concerto in G (he assembled a second one, in D major, from an oboe concerto), and it suits the flute perfectly, asking the instrument to do all the things it’s good at: wide leaps, fast runs, chirpy trills and sustained, singing melodies. The result is sublimely beautiful, right from the flute’s brilliant entry in the first movement (“fast, majestically”).
But Mozart didn’t pay much attention to the requirement that the concerto be short and easy, and the virtuosity of the music must have challenged De Jean’s technique and musicianship – the solo part is elaborately embellished in parts, requires a great deal of breath control, and in the poetic second movement (“slow, but not too much”) an extraordinary emotional range.
The finale returns to a lighter mood with a fashionable rondo in which the recurring theme has the character of an elegantly dancing minuet. The aspirated opening of the theme gives the impression that the finale begins with a sneeze (ha – ha – ha – choo…), and has led one flutist to suggest that the movement is “all about snuff”, that popular means of tobacco consumption in the 18th century. But even in this cheerful movement there’s a shift towards a darker mood in the middle – a hint that Mozart took the commission and his composing very seriously, even as he dallied over it.
LITTLE BUT VAST
Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony
Beethoven wastes no time in his Eighth Symphony: there’s no introduction, no suspenseful meandering of harmony – instead the conductor’s baton comes down on the first notes of the main theme. It’s fast (Allegro), it’s lively (vivace) and Beethoven asks that it be played with vigour (con brio) as well. The symphony as a whole is concentrated, as if Beethoven has taken the power and content of a longer symphony and compressed it to a work of smaller proportions but even greater intensity – “little, but vast” was how Sir George Grove described it.
The result is only slightly longer than his first symphony, completed 12 years before, and it gives the impression that Beethoven had heeded the advice of his more reactionary critics and returned to classical principles of balance, clarity and wit. But even so, this isn’t the kind of symphony that Mozart would have written.
That beginning is a bold stroke, setting off uncharacteristically with a straightforward tune. The mood verges on recklessness, and Beethoven keeps it up with a rich variety of musical ideas all presented within a very short space of time.
There’s more that his audiences wouldn’t have been expecting. The symphony doesn’t have a slow movement, nor does it have a scherzo, the wildly playful movement that Beethoven had made a “standard” element of his symphonies. The place of the slow movement is taken by the Allegretto scherzando (a lively tempo, playfully). This is supposedly a joking tribute to Maelzel, inventor of the metronome – if you want to go along with the story, you can hear the ticking of Maelzel’s timekeeping device in the wind section’s spiky repeated chords, which underpin the beginning of the movement and return whenever the sudden changes in volume and whimsical melodies threaten to lead the music from its main idea.
The scherzo is replaced by something positively old-fashioned: a movement in the tempo of a minuet (Tempo di menuetto), the dance form that Mozart or Haydn would have used at this point in their symphonies. It comes across as conservative and comfortable – and cheerful in every way. In the middle of the movement the horns, clarinet and a busy solo cello are given the spotlight.
The finale returns to the impetuous character of the first movement (once more “fast and lively”). It sets off in a rush, but discreetly, then about 15 seconds into the movement Beethoven throws in a foreign note, a very loud C sharp that definitely doesn’t belong in the symphony’s key of F major. Somehow he manages to continue as if nothing untoward had happened – just as you do when recovering from a stumble – and with good reason: he has plenty of other musical surprises in store, setting up expectations and then misleading his listeners. When the C sharp intrudes again, it’s a cue for the music to drag us off on excursions to remote and unexplored harmonies. This in turn means that it takes longer for Beethoven to bring the music home to F major – the result is a grand, extended coda (‘tail’) to bring this spirited symphony to its jubilant end.
Program notes by Yvonne Frindle © 2010
-
PROGRAM
Prokofiev Peter and the WolfRossini Tancredi Overture
CONDUCTOR
Damon Gupton
NARRATOR
Steve Moretti
VENUES
Fairmount Presbyterian ChurchPROGRAM NOTES
TANCREDI OVERTURE
Every opera that Rossini wrote is introduced by an exciting and lively overture. Tancredi is a dramatic love story set a thousand years ago, with a king, a princess, an exiled prince, a war, and lots of confusion before it reaches one of two endings (in one version Tancredi is made king, in the other he dies). But you don’t need to know any of this to enjoy Rossini’s music, which is designed solely to grab your attention and please your ears.
Rossini is best-known for his sparkling, witty operas, composed in the first part of the 19th century – The Barber of Seville is the one that’s staged most often. But even if you’ve never set foot in an opera theater, you’ve almost certainly heard some of the overtures that he wrote for these operas. Some have become staples in the concert hall, played as “curtain raisers” by orchestras all over the world, but the real source of Rossini’s popular fame in modern times is Bugs Bunny. Thanks to those classic cartoons, some of Rossini’s greatest tunes became known outside the world of classical music: the William Tell overture with its “Lone Ranger” finale, the “Largo al factotem” aria and the overture from The Barber of Seville, and the overture to The Thieving Magpie. (Carl Stalling was the genius composer and arranger behind most of these cartoons.) Watch some of the classics here.
Speaking of thieving magpies, Rossini was something of one himself – or perhaps it would be fairer to describe him as a model recycler. He wrote nearly forty operas during his career, but only 26 overtures, which means that he often reused an overture from a previous opera. The overture to Tancredi, for example, was originally composed for La pietra del paragone in 1812. This means that the music of the overture has nothing to do with the opera that follows – its real purpose is to seize your attention and whet your appetite for the evening’s entertainment, and with its dramatic opening and lively themes, the Tancredi overture certainly does that!
PETER AND THE WOLF
Peter and the Wolf is a musical fairytale. We won’t spoil the story by telling you what happens. But we will tell you who the characters are, and which instruments in the orchestra play their parts:
Peter – the strings
The bird – a flute
The duck – an oboe
The cat – a clarinet
Grandfather – a bassoon
The wolf – three horns
The hunters’ rifles – timpani
Peter and the Wolf isn’t an opera (there’s no singing) and it isn’t a ballet (although it can be performed that way); nor is it a play (there are no actors). Instead it’s a musical tale in which the orchestra tells the story, helped along by a narrator.
Prokofiev wrote Peter and the Wolf at the invitation of Natalia Satz, the director of the Moscow Children’s Theatre, who gave him the idea of composing music that would entertain, but which would also help children get to know the instruments of the orchestra. So this fantastic tale with its charming music has an ulterior motive.
Each character in Prokofiev’s musical fairytale is represented by a different instrument of the orchestra: the bird by a twittering flute, the cat by a mellifluous clarinet, Peter’s grumpy grandfather by a bassoon, the dreaded wolf by three horns, and Peter by all the strings of the orchestra playing a jaunty march tune . The timpani (or “kettledrums”) have their part to play when the hunters turn up, shooting their rifles.
Peter and the Wolf was an immediate success with the toughest critics of all: children. Prokofiev wrote the story himself and, since he had two sons of his own, he knew how to capture the childish imagination by making Peter a bold but rebellious hero: “Peter paid no attention to his grandfather. Boys like him are not afraid of wolves.”