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Academy Festival Orchestra, July 9
PROGRAM NOTES
RICHARD WAGNER
Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Composed 1861-62
Duration ca. 10 minutes
Scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3
trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings
The gestation of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Wagner’s only comic opera and one of his
most popular works, was a protracted affair. The composer had known since his boyhood of the
German “mastersingers,” groups of artisans who formed clubs (or guilds, as they called them)
for the composing and singing of songs on popular and 14th through the 17th centuries and
formed an important part of the social fabric of their communities. Wagner found the idea of
these artisan-musicians an appealing subject, and in 1845 he made a detailed sketch of a
libretto for an opera about them. Having done so, however, he put the work aside and turned
to other projects. Not until 1861 did the composer again take up the idea of his “mastersinger”
opera. His renewed interest in the work coincided with what seems to have been a happy
stroke of inspiration. In November of that year he made a brief trip to Venice. He was returning
by train to Vienna when, as he relates in his autobiographical Mein Leben:
... suddenly I heard music which could be the overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. When I
arrived back in Vienna I quickly worked out the entire plan in unbelievable haste. I felt very happy
that my memory remained crystal clear.
Had his inspiration continued to flow so freely, Wagner might have finished the entire opera in
a relatively short time and with relatively little effort. In fact, six more years were to pass before
Die Meistersinger was finally completed. In light of this, it is remarkable how clearly the
overture encapsulates the entire music drama. The boisterous crowds of villagers in medieval
Nuremberg, the nobility of the old mastersinger Hans Sachs, the love between the young
couple Walther and Eva, and Walther’s dramatic yet humorous triumph over the stuffy
Beckmesser in the singing contest — all these are suggested in a rich tapestry of orchestral
sounds.
The overture opens with a stirring march subject, one of two associated with the mastersingers’
guild of the opera’s title. A brief passage based on the motif of Walther and Eva’s love then
leads to the second “Meistersinger” theme, hardly less impressive than the first. This, in turn, is
followed by a more lyrical idea that combines the love motif and the melody of Walther’s “Prize
Song” in Act III. In the central portion of the overture, the initial “Meistersinger” melody
receives humorous fugal treatment that mocks Beckmesser’s pedantry and alternates with the
ardent motif of Walther and Eva. The final section is a polyphonic tour de force, with several of
the opera’s most important themes played simultaneously in exultant counterpoint.
IGOR STRAVINSKY
Suite from The Firebird (1919 version)
Composed 1909-10
Duration ca. 23 minutes
Scored for piccolo and 2 flutes, 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2
trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings
In the spring of 1909, a troupe of Russian dancers, musicians, and stage designers converged on
Paris for a short season of ballet and opera presentations. Though few guessed it at the time,
the Ballets russes, or “Russian Ballets,” as it was called, would change the history of dance and
music. Thanks largely to the vision of its enterprising leader, Serge Diaghilev, the company
became the spiritual home to some of the most innovative artists of the early modern period.
Picasso, Cocteau, Nijinsky, and others hardly less famous all worked on productions for
Diaghilev’s enterprise. So, too, did a number of outstanding composers, not the least of them
being Igor Stravinsky. Indeed, Stravinsky’s association with the Ballets russes would last two
decades and prove one of the most fruitful artistic collaborations in history. Through Diaghilev,
the composer came into contact with some of the leading creative figures of the early modern
era, and for his company he produced most of the works that secured his fame. The first of
these was music for the ballet The Firebird.
Diaghilev became determined to produce a piece based on a Russian fairy tale following the
success of his first Paris season, and the scenario for The Firebird, fashioned from parts of
several legends, suited his purposes exactly. Originally, the impresario hoped to obtain music
for the production from Anatol Liadov, an established composer. But when Liadov could not
promise timely completion of the work, Diaghilev approached Stravinsky, who had orchestrated
several piano pieces by Grieg and Chopin for the Ballets russes the year before. Young and
practically unknown at the time, Stravinsky was so pleased by this prospective opportunity that
he began composing the music even before Diaghilev confirmed the commission. The work
occupied him throughout the winter of 1909-10, and by mid-April he was able to send the score
from Saint Petersburg, where he was still living, to Paris. The Firebird was presented by the
Ballets russes on June 25, 1910, and its enthusiastic reception effectively launched Stravinsky’s
career.
The ballet relates a fantastic tale. Wandering alone in a deep wood, Prince Ivan, son of the Czar,
comes upon the mythical Firebird. Quickly he captures her, but when she offers a magic feather
as ransom, he frees her. Continuing on his way, the Prince encounters 13 princesses, who are
under the spell of Kastchei, a demon of terrible power. (In his presence women are made
captive and men turned to stone.) When the princesses flee, Ivan follows them into Kastchei’s
castle and soon is himself captured. But he remembers the feather, and its magic renders
Kastchei’s spells harmless. The Firebird appears and shows the Prince an egg containing the
monster’s soul. Ivan smashes it, destroying Kastchei and freeing the princesses.
Although Stravinsky spoke critically of The Firebird in his later years — the story “demanded
descriptive music of a kind I did not want to write,” he asserted in one of his conversations with
the conductor and writer Robert Craft — it has become one of his most popular works. It is best
known through the concert suites the composer extracted from the full ballet score in 1911,
1919, and again in 1945 (the last being engendered largely by the need to renew a
copyright). The second of these, the suite of 1919, has become the “standard” version, and it is
this that we hear tonight.
Approximately half the length of the full ballet score, this Firebird suite unfolds in five
movements. The first three set the scene and introduce the principal characters of the fairy-tale
drama. The initial measures suggest Prince Ivan wandering in the forest. There is an air of
mystery and danger in the music of the low strings that begins the suite, in the menacing horn
figures that punctuate this, and especially in the glissando harmonics (the eerie, sliding
sonorities produced by the strings), an effect whose novelty Stravinsky noted with some
pride. Next comes the dance of the Firebird, which sounds every bit as colorful and fantastic as
the creature itself.
The second movement gives us music of the princesses, their gentle demeanor conveyed in a
song-like melody presented as an oboe solo over harp accompaniment. These dulcet sounds
give way suddenly, however, to “Kastchei’s Infernal Dance.” The demon is suggested in angular
rhythms and harsh outbursts, particularly from the brass. This entire sequence is brilliantly
orchestrated, and we can scarcely imagine today the impact its fierce energy must have made
on audiences in 1910.
Of entirely different character is the “Berceuse,” a haunting lullaby rather oriental in tone. A
brief sequence of falling string tremolos leads to the finale. Its melody, announced by the horn
and gradually taken up by the full orchestra, is repeated in ever more sonorous
instrumentation, building to an imposing climax in the final measures.
The Firebird was Stravinsky’s first truly important composition, and it initiated a series of pieces
based on Russian stories and folk verses that would occupy him for more than a
decade. Moreover, it established the compositional language with which those works would be
fashioned. This last is easily overlooked, since The Firebird most obviously embodies a kind of
Russian impressionism whose debts of influence to Stravinsky’s teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, and
to Debussy are quite evident. (Despite the novel effects of orchestration in the Introduction and
rhythmic irregularities in the dances of Kastchei and the Firebird, its harmonies are more lush
and its melodies more conventionally lyrical than in any of the composer’s subsequent
scores.) But the melodic idiom, the asymmetry of rhythm and phrase length, and the bold use
of the orchestra established here became foundations of Stravinsky’s coming work. He would
extend them in an unprecedented and epoch-making fashion — in short, would modernize
them — with his next major compositions, the ballets Petroushka and The Rite of Spring. The
Firebird marked the end of the initial phase of Stravinsky’s development as a composer, but it
pointed to the future as well.