Season 7 (2010-2011)

PROGRAM
Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op. 62, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 61, Symphony No.3 in E flat, Op. 55, Eroica

CONDUCTOR

James Gaffigan

SOLOISTS
Chee Yun

VENUES
Fairmount Presbyterian Church, Stambaugh Auditorium, St. Noel Church, St. Colman Church, Our lady of Lourdes Parish, St. Mary’s Church

PROGRAM NOTES

BEETHOVEN HEROES

Beethoven lived in an age that celebrated the individual, innovation and sublime expression. This, together with his astonishing musical vision and the tragic affliction of his deafness, conspired to make him the supreme Romantic hero. And in music such as the Eroica Symphony, Beethoven gave us ambitious works that were shaped by powerful dramatic forces – music that echoes the fundamentals of heroism: conflict and strength.

Today, nearly 200 years after his death, Beethoven remains one of the most popular and important of all composers. In a tormented and troubled world he gives us music that springs from conflict, in which disorder resolves into order. Beethoven wrestles with Fate and triumphs; he believes in Freedom. ‘Beethoven is, above all things, the poet of heroism.’

THE TRAGIC HERO

Coriolan Overture

Beethoven strides onto the stage with an imperious but hollow-sounding octave – all the strings are playing the same note: C. It’s a gesture that demands a response. Three times the demand is made, each time with a different answering chord, each time the tension thickens. The very next thing we hear is a kind of stuttering theme. Barely a minute has elapsed and Beethoven has revealed the deeply conflicted personality – the ‘tragic dithering’ – of his hero, the Roman general Coriolan.

The first proper melody in the overture represents Coriolan’s mother, Volumnia, and its transformations show the dilemma the hero faces. This is one of the earliest of Beethoven’s heroic works, completed in 1807, but unlike the Fifth Symphony or the Eroica, the Coriolan story means the music can’t possibly finish in triumph. Instead Beethoven takes the stuttering theme and slows it down until it’s hardly recognizable. Then there are three more octave Cs, but very different from the opening. It’s as if the music shares the fate of its hero and expires rather than closes.

There are two more things worth knowing about this overture. First, Beethoven took his inspiration not from Shakespeare’s Coriolanus but from a play by Heinrich von Collin. Collin’s Coriolan is more reflective and poetic, less violent, and in the end the hero commits suicide rather than taking the deadly action that leads to his assassination in Shakespeare. Second, although Beethoven was inspired by a play, this overture was never really intended for the theatre. Beethoven wrote it as a overture for his concerts and as such it becomes more than an exercise in mood-setting – this is music that intrinsically embodies the story of a tragic hero.

THE VIRTUOSO HERO

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto

Beethoven’s violin concerto stands quite alone. Completed in 1806, it was the only major concerto for the instrument between those Mozart wrote in 1775 and Mendelssohn’s of 1844.

Beethoven had never written a violin concerto before when Franz Clement, the popular leader of the orchestra at the Theater an der Wien, approached him with a commission for a benefit concert he was giving. After the event, the critics praised its originality and many beauties, but they were puzzled too. They were used to the brilliantly virtuosic concertos of composer-violinists such as Viotti and Spohr; Beethoven’s elegant concerto prefers to sing rather than indulge in empty technical display, and it highlights the inherent drama of its themes rather than the expected confrontation between virtuoso and orchestra. With its stature and mighty proportions – the first movement alone is 25 minutes – it gives the impression of a symphony in which the solo violin happens to take a principal part.

The concerto begins with five taps from the timpani. This turns out to be more than an announcement: the rhythm of the five repeated notes discreetly dominates the whole of the first movement (‘fast, but not too much’). The orchestra presents the main themes in a long and lyrical exposition, beginning with a radiant theme in the woodwinds, before the solo violin enters with a poised flourish and its serene interpretation of the same material.

Clement himself had written a violin concerto, which had been premiered in a concert on April 7, 1805, sharing the program with the new Eroica Symphony. This may have been a technical model for Beethoven, whose only real preparation had been the Triple Concerto. And tradition has it that Clement supplied the leaping refrain for the hunting rondo that concludes Beethoven’s concerto. This theme is played first on just the G string, a reminder of Clement’s fondness for party tricks – between the first and second movements of the concerto Clement played a piece of his own, on one string, holding the violin upside down.

Fortunately the second and third movements are linked by a cadenza-like transition, not only making it immune to such gimmicks, but emphasizing the contrast in mood between the beautiful and moving variations of the Larghetto (‘broadly’) and the dazzling finale.

THE ULTIMATE HERO

Sinfonia Eroica

On the surface, Beethoven was an unlikely hero – unattractive, quarrelsome and uncompromising – but his patrons among the Viennese aristocracy recognised his musical genius. They encouraged him to disregard conservative criticism and to write music that was bold and audacious – music like the Eroica Symphony.

The Eroica was revolutionary. When it was premiered in 1805, the Eroica Symphony polarised listeners: on the one hand those who judged the symphony a masterpiece, on the other hand those who heard only a wilful and unnecessary departure from the style they’d enjoyed in Beethoven’s first two symphonies. It was twice as long as any symphony by Mozart, monumental in scope and rich in ideas. It was also the first of Beethoven’s symphonies to carry a title, ‘Sinfonia eroica’.

The inspiration was Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, and at first Beethoven saw in the First Consul of the Republic an apostle of new ideas and perhaps a little of his own uncompromising will. But when Beethoven heard that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor, the dedication was scratched out and replaced by ‘Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.’

With this gesture the conflicts of the symphony became idealised; the Funeral March, supposedly prompted by the rumour of Nelson’s death in the Battle of Aboukir, grew in significance, ‘too big to lead to the tomb of a single man.’ The hero is not Napoleon – he had shown himself to be ‘nothing but an ordinary man’ – or any other individual.

In one sense the Eroica’s battles are entirely musical and music is the hero. When asked what the Eroica meant, Beethoven went to the piano and played the first eight notes of the symphony’s main theme. This simple but powerful idea – outlining the main chord of the symphony – is developed into a vast but detailed opening movement (‘fast with life’). The second movement, a funeral march (‘very slow’), draws on the rhetoric of revolutionary music and spoke powerfully to the first audiences.

Following this expression of intense grief, the third movement (‘fast and lively’) is blessedly playful and humorous, a Scherzo by name as well as by nature.

The Finale (‘very fast’) is based on a theme from Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus (1801) and the connection with another hero cannot be accidental. The theme as you hear it in that ballet version is simple and impulsive, but in the symphony Beethoven transforms it into a hymn to the generous sentiments of the Revolution: freedom and equality.

It’s risky to read too much of the personal life of a composer into the character of his music. Even so, the ‘heroic’ works from Beethoven’s middle period contain more than a little of Beethoven-the-man, or at least our conception of Beethoven-as-hero. And from that perspective, who can the unnamed hero of the Eroica be but the composer himself?

Yvonne Frindle © 2010

PROGRAM
Christos Hatzis Telluride Dances, Credo

Medley George Dalaras

CONDUCTOR

Alexandros Myrat

SOLOISTS
George Dalaras

Suzanne Lemieux, oboe

VENUES
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

PROGRAM NOTES

THE FOUR SEASONS

Some know Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as superior elevator music. Some know it as a brilliant exemplar of the baroque violin concerto genre, part of a collection from 1725 called The Contest of Harmony and Invention. The Four Seasons might be one of the most famous musical works ever written, but not everyone knows that Vivaldi was doing something daring and unusual when he wrote it. The violinist Gil Shaham, for example, tells of playing the concertos as a young musician and only much later discovering the descriptive sonnets Vivaldi had written into the score.

It’s generally assumed that Vivaldi wrote these sonnets himself, and within the framework of a conventional baroque concerto format – two fast movements framing a slow movement – the music underscores the events and images of each poem in astonishing detail. It’s like a soundtrack that follows the pastoral experience of the year: birds in spring, storms in summer, the harvest and the hunt, the icy winter.

This makes the concertos far more than showpieces for Vivaldi-the-virtuoso, they are effectively an early form of program music. In other words, Vivaldi-the-innovator was using pure music – music without singing, music without words – to tell stories and paint pictures. For these notes we’re reproducing the sonnets with some of the corresponding musical gestures.

Spring (La primavera)

I. Allegro (Fast)

Spring has come and the cheerful birds

Welcome it with happy song

And the brooks, caressed by soft winds

Flow with a sweet murmur.

The sky is covered with a dark mantle,

Thunder and lightning announce a storm

But when all is quiet, the birds

Return to fill the air with harmonious songs.

II. Largo (Broadly)

And in the flowery meadow

To the sweet murmuring of plants and leaves

The goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

III. Allegro

To the festive sound of the rustic bagpipe

Nymphs and shepherds dance, in love,

Their faces glowing with Springtime’s brilliance.

Summer (L’estate)

I. Allegro non molto – Allegro (Not too fast then fast)

Under the merciless sun

Man languishes, his herd wilts, the pine tree burns.

The cuckoo finds its voice, and at once

The turtledove and goldfinch join in song.

The sweet Zephyr blows, but once provoked,

The North-wind joins battle with its neighbor,

And the shepherd weeps because he fears

The fierce storm and his destiny.

II. Adagio e piano – Presto e forte

(Slow and soft then As fast as possible and loud)

His tired limbs are robbed of their rest

By his fear of lightning and wild thunder,

And a furious swarm of gnats and flies surrounds him.

III. Presto (As fast as possible)

Alas, his fears prove all too true.

Thunder and lightning split the heavens, and hail

Cuts down the lofty ears of corn.

Autumn (L’Autumno)

I. Allegro

The peasant celebrates with dance and song

The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.

And many, ablaze from Bacchus’ liquor

Finish their merriment in sleep.

II. Adagio molto (Very slow)

Now the mild and pleasant air

Makes everyone give up dancing and singing:

The season invites one and all

To savor a sweet slumber.

III. Allegro

At dawn the hunters are off to the hunt,

With horns and guns and dogs they sally forth,

The wild beast flees and they follow its trail.

Already terrified and weary from the din

Of guns and dogs, and wounded it tries

Feebly to escape, but exhausted dies.

Winter (L’inverno)

I. Allegro non molto (Not too fast)

Frozen and trembling in the icy snow

Amid the biting breath of the horrid wind,

We run, stamping our feet at every step,

Our teeth chattering in the hard frost.

II. Largo To pass quiet, serene days before the fire

While the rain outside pours down in sheets.

III. Allegro

To walk on the ice with slow steps,

Moving with care for fear of falling.

To turn sharply, slip, fall to the ground,

Then go out again on the ice and dash about

Until the ice cracks and opens.

To hear the Sirocco, Boreas, and all the winds

Break through iron-clad doors and clash in war:

This is winter, but what a joy it brings.

SERENADE FOR STRINGS

Tchaikovsky wrote his Serenade for strings “from an inward impulse,” seized by a creative fervor and composing rapidly. The result is an expansive, good-humored work, which both the composer and his friends agreed was his “best thing.” And Tchaikovsky was more than proud of the Serenade – before the premiere he told his publisher: “I am violently in love with this work and can’t wait for it to be played.”

Tchaikovsky’s love of Mozart emerges in the first movement, a graceful “Piece in the form of a little sonata.” It begins with a rhetorical gesture: a descending scale of notes which is presented emphatically at first, paired against a rising scale, and will then appear in different guises through the course of the work, tying the four movements together. Tchaikovsky’s love of dancing is the impetus behind the second movement, one of the loveliest waltzes outside the ballet theatre. This is followed by the heartbreaking sadness of the Elegy – its tears giving way to impassioned melody. The fourth movement shows Tchaikovsky in Russian mood. As in the first movement, there is a slow introduction, this one based on a Volga boat song but interpreted with great delicacy. The main part of the movement makes for a thrilling finale: sometimes vigorous, sometimes songlike and soaring, but never once losing momentum.

MESSIAH

When the composer Joseph Haydn heard the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah he declared, “He is the master of us all.” But it’s not only the great, climactic chorus which makes this oratorio a masterpiece. In Charles Jennens’ text, compiled from the Old and New Testaments, and in Handel’s powerful writing for voice, Messiah offers musical perfection in the solo moments as well as the thrilling choruses.

Messiah is the most famous of Handel’s English oratorios; ironically, it’s also the least typical. Its subject matter prevented Handel from adopting his usual approach to dramatizing biblical stories. Presenting Jesus as a singing character on the stage was taboo and so his story had to be told via prophecy and report. As a result there is almost no narrative action, other than the brief account of the nativity, taken from Luke.

Although the nativity is only a small part of the overall arc of Messiah, the practice of performing this Lenten oratorio at Christmas emerged in North America during the 19th century and remains an unshakeable tradition. The two arias in this concert both come from the end of Part I. There are two versions of “Rejoice greatly” – both share a spirit of rejoicing at the coming of savior and shepherd. And there’s a pastoral mood in the gentle rocking rhythms of the soprano aria “He shall feed his flock.”

Yvonne Frindle © 2010

PROGRAM

Antonio Vivaldi Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for strings, Op. 48

George Frideric Handel Excerpts from the Messiah

CONDUCTOR

Joel Smirnoff

SOLOISTS
Kyung Sun Lee, violin

Chabrelle Williams, soprano

VENUES

Shrine of St. Stanislaus, Fairmount Presbyterian Church, St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, United Methodist Church, Elyria High School

PROGRAM NOTES

WHAT WOULD TCHAIKOVSKY DO?

Imagine if Tchaikovsky were in charge of programming CityMusic concerts. This is exactly the kind of program he might have assembled for his own delight – and ours. Tchaikovsky’s greatest influence as a developing composer was French music. He sought out composers such as Fauré, admired the ballets of Delibes, was friendly with Saint-Saëns. But his greatest admiration was for Bizet, and especially the opera Carmen. No doubt he was attracted by the melodic gifts of these composers, but in the case of Bizet, it was the sincerity of expression that also caught his attention. So it’s easy to imagine Tchaikovsky, who always wears his heart on his sleeve, framing his own violin concerto with the tender tragedy of Fauré’s music for Pelléas et Mélisande and the brilliant exuberance of Bizet’s youthful symphony.

FORBIDDEN LOVE

Faure’s Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas and Mélisande aren’t quite household names like Romeo and Juliet, but these ill-fated medieval lovers have inspired their share of music. The source is the influential symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck, written in 1892 and prompting four different composers to interpret the story of forbidden love in the decade that followed: Debussy, Schoenberg, Sibelius and Fauré, who was the first.

Maeterlinck’s play was performed once in Paris – it found more support in London, where it was played in French and then, in 1898, in English. It was for this 1898 production that Fauré was invited to compose the music. The complete incidental music included a song for Mélisande, which was omitted when Fauré assembled a suite for concert performances

The slow Prélude introduces the dreamlike world of the play. The music suggests both intimacy and impassioned longing as well as the inexorable force of destiny. The curtain rises on a horn call: Golaud, the king’s grandson, is hunting and he is about to meet the mysterious Mélisande beside a stream.

The Spinning Girl draws on a scene from Act III. The first violins are muted – their rushing figuration with the plucking of the other strings suggests the spinning wheel. Suspended above this is the oboe’s gentle melody: Mélisande in conversation.

The Sicilienne was added to the suite after it had achieved popularity in its own right, especially in arrangements for flute and harp. The liquid, lilting sound of this old-style dance was used in Act II for the meeting of Mélisande and Pélleas in the park – a brief moment of happiness, but also the beginning of tragedy when Mélisande loses her wedding ring in the fountain.

The Death of Mélisande, brings the suite to a slow and somber conclusion. The music begins with a fragile march from flutes and clarinets above the discreet tread of the cellos and double basses – a funeral cortége for a fairytale.

Although Fauré had engaged his student Charles Koechlin to help prepare the orchestrations for the theatrical premiere, for the suite he enlarged the orchestra and revised details of coloration, enhancing the music’s evocative and ‘hazy’ atmosphere. Pelléas et Mélisande is thought to contain Fauré’s finest music for orchestra, and it stands as an example of evocative and delicate orchestral colour, perfectly suited to the poignant love story.

MUSIC RUN MAD

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto didn’t start out as one of the best-loved violin concertos in the repertoire. At first a number of violinists refused to play it, including the young man for whom it was written and the virtuoso to whom it was dedicated. And when it was premiered in Vienna in 1881, the critics had a field day. The most famous review comes from Eduard Hanslick: “The violin is no longer played: it is yanked about, it is torn asunder, it is beaten black and blue… Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto brings to us for the first time the horrid idea that there may be music that ‘stinks to the ear’.” Even in America the critics sneered: “It is a very uneven work. The Finale is nothing less than music run mad, a frenzy of notes of incomprehensible savagery.

Not a note has changed since 1881, but this concerto is now received as beautiful, expressive and a gratifying challenge for the virtuoso. There are two reasons for this. First, Tchaikovsky always wrote “from an inward and irresistible impulse”. His music is full of strong emotions. Second, his music always dances. There’s a rhythmic impulse combined with supreme elegance – as if a ballerina were waiting in the wings.

One of these moments is the second theme in the first movement (‘moderately fast’). Heard about three minutes into the concerto, this theme is remarkably similar to the tender violin solo in Swan Lake, when Prince Siegfried implores Odette not to reject his love. Since Tchaikovsky was writing his concerto for the young violinist Joseph Kotek, the object of his affections, it’s tempting to read into the music a similar plea.

Tchaikovsky was not a violinist and he worked closely with Kotek, who provided all-important technical advice. It was Kotek who suggested that the original slow movement was too sentimental (it became the Méditation from Souvenir d’un lieu cher). In its place Tchaikovsky offered a beautifully hushed Canzonetta, replacing sentiment with simplicity and the sincerity he aspired to.

Like the best of Tchaikovsky’s creations, the Canzonetta speaks from the heart. It then transforms itself, without pause, into the exhilarating finale (‘fast, very lively’) where the inspiration of folk dance makes its presence felt. If this is ‘music run mad’, then every concert could do with more madness!

YOUTHFUL DISCOVERY

Bizet’s Symphony in C

Bizet entered the Paris Conservatoire as a piano and composition student when he was only nine years old. When he was 18 he came second in the Prix de Rome and the next year he won the coveted composition prize itself. But before he won either of those awards Bizet had written his first symphony, his first major work. He was barely 17.

Bizet himself never heard the symphony performed. Perhaps he simply forgot about his student effort; maybe he hid it away because he thought it was too similar to Gounod’s first symphony, which he’d taken as his model. After his death, the score of the Symphony in C came into the possession of the composer and conductor Reynaldo Hahn, who eventually deposited it in the Paris Conservatoire library in 1933. Almost immediately the music was examined by Bizet’s first English biographer, who showed it to Felix Weingartner. Excited by the find, Weingartner conducted the premiere in Basle in 1935.

And what a welcome discovery it would have been. The Symphony in C is spirited and unpretentious and it makes an appealing combination of youthful verve and real technical accomplishment.

The young Bizet’s influences are clear: early Beethoven (in the first main theme), Mozart (especially in the oboe theme from the first movement), Mendelssohn, Rossini (in the second movement’s evocative and languorous oboe melody with its plucked viola accompaniment), Haydn (in the brio of the finale) and – although we may not recognise it today – Gounod (in the overall plan of the symphony, not to mention some of its details). But what is impressive in a composer so young is the deftness with which he assimilates the charm, the colours, the mastery of structure and the lyrical gifts of his models.

Perhaps it’s fortunate that Gounod’s First Symphony is rarely performed nowadays: there’s little risk of Bizet’s Symphony in C being held up for comparison with the impeccable elegance of another composer. It was an excellent thing when this symphony disappeared for 80 years: now we can appreciate it on its own merits.

Yvonne Frindle © 2011

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE OVERTURE

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 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 Magie. (Carl Stalling was the genius composer and arranger behind most of these cartoons).

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 40 operas during his career, but only 26 overtures, which means that he often reused an overture from a previous opera. True to form he borrowed some of the themes from two earlier operas he wrote, Aureliano in Palmira and Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. 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 morning’s entertainment, and with its lively themes, the The Barber of Seville overture certainly does that.

Yvonne Frindle © 2011

DANIEL AND SNAKEMAN

Margaret Brouwer’s music has earned her singular praise for its lyricism, musical imagery, and emotional power. It has been said: “that she is one of America’s contemporary composers who has an incredible inventive imagination and creates dramatic moments that keeps the attention riveted”. She lives in Cleveland and New York and this is her second commission with CityMusic Cleveland.

Daniel and Snakeman is a musical tale in which the orchestra tells the story, helped along with a narrator. Ms Brouwer wrote Daniel and Snakeman at the invitation of CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, to celebrate Cleveland’s many ethnic groups, and to remind people that it is possible to live in peace with each other no matter where we come from, which language we speak or customs we bring with us. There is a moral to the story, and it is about the value of different cultures, faiths and generations playing, working, and making music together. The story is set in a future time. The villain in the story, Snakeman, is a hold-over from an earlier time and imprisons people in his fortress who do not keep to their “own kind.” Still people have fun making music together with others whose music is very different from their own, and work on finding a way to escape.

Each character in Ms. Brouwer’s musical fairytale is represented by a different instrument of the orchestra: Daniel (the boy every boy wants to be who saves people by his strength and intelligence) is represented by the trumpets and horns playing a heroic melody. Wiggy (a talking and somewhat comical bat) is represented by the clarinet with high and low runs and occasional jazz licks. Snakeman (a somewhat ponderous creature with bulky shoulders and human head but with a very long, coiling body and tail of a snake) is represented by the trombone with many slippery glissandi and a ponderous melody. Snakeman has a cocky, know-it-all attitude and is a bully and a bigot – and is sneaky and strong. He is a hold-over from an earlier time when people of different cultures and faiths could not get along. Malik the Drummer (a boy from a Middle-Eastern Provincehood) is represented by Tabla, Daf, Tombak – or whatever percussion instruments the player chooses to use. Elizabeth and Fadumo, a dancing team (two young girls, one with long blond hair and fair skin from a Northern provincehood, and the other with long black hair and brown skin from a Southern provincehood) are represented by the oboe and violin. These girls cannot speak each other’s language, but communicate with music and dancing. Pod 333 and Jane (an unusual pair: a lopsided and crazily clanking robot and an oldish, tall, stately woman who sometimes has a sad and serious look, and sometimes a mischievous smile) are represented by the lower strings and percussion for Pod 333, the robot, and by the bassoon for Jane.

Margaret Brouwer © 2011

PROGRAM
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35

Georges Bizet Symphony in C

CONDUCTOR

Joel Smirnoff

SOLOISTS

Dylana Jenson

VENUES
Shrine of St. Stanislaus, Elyria First United Methodist Church, Fairmount Presbyterian Church, St. Ignatius of Antioch Church

PROGRAM

Anton Arensky String Quartet No.2 in A minor

Johannes Brahms Op. 35, String Sextet in B flat Major

Ludwig van Beethoven Op. 18, Septet in E-flat major, Op. 20

VENUES
St. Mary Church, Shrine of St. Stanislaus, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Noel Church, Mary Queen of Peace Church, Fairmount Presbyterian Church