Download The Sorcerer*s Apprentice (1897)

Concerts of Thursday, May 2, and Saturday, May 4, at 8:00p, and Sunday, May 5,
2013, at 3:00p.
Hugh Wolff, Conductor
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
Dances from Powder Her Face (1995/2007)
I. Overture
II. Waltz
III. Finale
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Concerto No. 4 in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 58 (1806)
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante con moto
III. Rondo. Vivace
Marc-André Hamelin, Piano
Intermission
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major, Opus 38, “Spring” (1841)
I. Andante un poco maestoso; Allegro molto vivace
II. Larghetto
III. Scherzo. Molto vivace
IV. Allegro animato e grazioso
Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer
Dances from Powder Her Face (1995/2007)
Thomas Adès was born in London, England, on March 1, 1971. The first
performance of Dances from Powder Her Face took place at the Snape Maltings,
Suffolk, England, as part of the Aldeburgh Festival, on June 17, 2007, with the
composer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. Dances from Powder Her Face
are scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, glockenspiel, xylophone, two suspended cymbals, hi-hat cymbal, side drum,
two kit bass drum, ordinary bass drum, roto-tom, three brake drums, tam-tam,
triangle, three temple blocks, vibraslap, guiro, high bongos, washboard,
tambourine, popgun, harp, piano and strings. Approximate performance time is
eleven minutes.
These are the first ASO Classical Subscription Performances.
Powder Her Face, by the contemporary British composer, Thomas Adès, was
commissioned and premiered by the Almedia Opera, an organization devoted to
introducing new works for the lyric theater. The first performance of Powder Her Face
took place at the Everyman Theater in Cheltenham, England on July 1, 1995, part of the
Cheltenham Festival.
Powder Her Face, with a libretto by Philip Hensher, and music by Mr. Adès, is based
upon the life of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993). A British socialite,
Margaret Campbell (born, Ethel Margaret Whigham) married Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th
Duke of Argyll, in 1951.
The marriage culminated in a scandalous divorce case, in which the Duke alleged the
Duchess had relations with 88 different men, including celebrities, royals and members of
government. The presiding Judge, Lord Wheatley, in ruling for the Duke, delivered a
65,000-word opinion, in which he described the Duchess as “a highly sexed woman who
had ceased to be satisfied with normal sexual relations and had started to indulge in
disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite.”
After the divorce in 1963, the Duchess of Argyll continued to be a prominent and visible
member of society. But by 1990, the Duchess, owing £33,000 in rent, was evicted from
her lavish penthouse at the Dorchester Hotel. The Duchess of Argyll died in a nursing
home in 1993.
Mr. Adès and Mr. Hensher envisioned the Duchess of Argyll as “all cladding—powder,
scent, painting, furs—nothing inside.” Powder Her Face opens and concludes in 1990,
with the Duchess’s eviction from her penthouse. Flashbacks present various episodes in
the Duchess’s life, including her first meeting with the Duke, and the subsequent divorce
proceedings.
Powder Her Face was an immediate—and shocking—sensation. Part of the furor was
caused by the opera’s graphic visual and musical portrayal of a sexual act. But Mr.
Adès’s brilliant score, both remarkably original, and a tribute to great operas of the past,
also galvanized audiences.
The Aldeburgh Festival, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra cocommissioned Dances from Powder Her Face. The composer, then Artistic Director of
the Aldeburgh Festival, led the Philharmonia in the June 17, 2007 world premiere at
Snape Maltings, Suffolk. The instrumental ensemble for Powder Her Face consists of
fifteen musicians. For the Dances, Mr. Adès arranged music from the opera for full
orchestra.
I. Overture
II. Waltz (attacca)
III. Finale
Concerto No. 4 in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 58 (1806)
Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, and
died in Vienna, Austria, on March 26, 1827. The first public performance of the
Piano Concerto No. 4 took place in Vienna at the Theater-an-der-Wien on
December 22, 1808, with the composer as soloist. In addition to the solo piano, the
Concerto No. 4 is scored for flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns,
two trumpets, timpani and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-four
minutes.
First ASO Classical Subscription Performance: March 21, 1951, Claudio Arrau,
Piano, Henry Sopkin, Conductor.
Most Recent ASO Classical Subscription Performances: September 30, October 1
and 2, 2010, Emanuel Ax, Piano, Robert Spano, Conductor.
“Too much of a good thing”
Beethoven completed the score of his G-Major Concerto in 1806, and first performed the
work during a March 1807 private concert at the palace of his patron, Prince Joseph
Lobkowitz. The first public performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto took place at the
Vienna Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808. In addition to the Fourth Piano
Concerto, the concert, sponsored by Beethoven, included the world premieres of the
composer’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and Choral Fantasy, as well as four movements
from his Mass in C and the soprano aria, Ah! Perfido. In a single evening, Beethoven
lavished upon the Viennese public several hours of some of his most inspired
compositions.
Still, the benefit concert (known as an “Akademie”) was far from a resounding success.
The meager rehearsal time was insufficient for a program of such length and difficulty.
During the premiere of the Choral Fantasy, the orchestra was forced to stop in the middle
of the work and begin a section over again. Further, the audience endured this taxing
winter program in an unheated theater.
The German musician Johann Reichardt was in attendance:
I accepted with hearty thanks the kind offer of Prince Lobkowitz to let me
sit in his box. There we continued, in the bitterest cold, too, from half past
six to half past ten, and experienced the truth that one can easily have too
much of a good thing—and still more of the loud. Nevertheless, I could
no more leave the box before the end than could the exceedingly goodnatured and delicate Prince, for the box was in the first balcony near the
stage, so that the orchestra with Beethoven in the middle conducting it was
below us and near at hand; thus many a failure in the performance vexed
our patience in the highest degree. Poor Beethoven, who from this, his
own concert, was having the first and only scant profit that he could find
in a whole year, had found in the rehearsals and performance a lot of
opposition and almost no support.
The Fourth Piano Concerto may have fared as well as any piece on the December 22,
1808 program. Beethoven was the soloist, and, according to Reichardt: “He played...with
astounding cleverness and in the fastest possible tempi. The Adagio (i.e., second
movement), a masterly movement of beautifully developed song, he sang on this
instrument with a profound melancholy that moved me.”
“Heights undreamt of in earlier music”
The Fourth Piano Concerto proved to be the last such work Beethoven composed for his
own performance. Increasing deafness finally made public appearances all but
impossible for one of the greatest piano virtuosos of his time.
Beethoven completed his magnificent Fifth Piano Concerto (“Emperor”) in 1809. The
“Emperor,” Beethoven’s final Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, is certainly a fitting
culmination of the composer’s efforts in this genre. Still, there are many advocates for
the G-Major Concerto as the composer’s finest. It is a miraculous blend of haunting
lyricism, expressive virtuosity and formal innovation. As British musicologist Sir
Donald Francis Tovey observed: “Beethoven has now well and truly laid the foundations
of his concerto form and is free to raise the edifice to heights undreamt of in earlier
music.”
Musical Analysis
I. Allegro moderato—In Beethoven’s first three Piano Concertos, the composer follows
traditional concerto sonata form, opening with a purely orchestral exposition. In the GMajor Concerto, it is the pianist who first softly intones the principal theme before it is
repeated by the strings. After a majestic orchestral statement, the first violins introduce a
lyrical but melancholy second theme that is soon transformed into a radiant orchestral
tutti. The soloist returns with his own improvisational restatement of the principal
thematic material. The soloist’s music is notable throughout for its remarkable
combination of technical challenges and lyrical restraint. After the development, the
soloist ushers in the recapitulation with a heroic restatement of his initial entrance. A
lengthy cadenza and brief, dramatic coda round out the opening movement.
II. Andante con moto—The brief slow movement is a dialogue between the strings and
piano. The strings announce a forte, syncopated figure, to which the soloist responds
with a tender phrase, marked molto cantabile. The confrontation proceeds until finally,
the strings yield to the soloist. Franz Liszt compared this brief movement to “Orpheus
taming the wild beasts with his music.” The finale ensues without pause.
III. Rondo. Vivace—The dialogue between the strings and piano briefly continues with a
furtive, pianissimo introduction of the principal Rondo theme. Soon, the orchestra
proclaims a joyous, fortissimo restatement of the theme. Beethoven presents a
remarkable variety of moods and instrumental colors throughout the finale. After a
cadenza and series of trills, a moment of repose precedes the soloist and orchestra’s
Presto dash to the finish.
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major, Opus 38, “Spring” (1841)
Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany, on June 8, 1810, and died in
Endenich, Germany, on July 29, 1856. The first performance of the Symphony No.
1 took place at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, on March 31, 1841, with Felix
Mendelssohn conducting. The Symphony No. 1 is scored for two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani,
triangle and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-one minutes.
First ASO Classical Subscription Performance: January 25, 1948, Henry Sopkin,
Conductor
Most Recent ASO Classical Subscription Performances: February 28, March 1 and
2, 2002, Alan Gilbert, Conductor.
Robert and Clara
The early 1840s were glorious years for Robert Schumann. On September 12, 1840, the
German composer wed his beloved Carla Wieck (1819-1896). The courtship had been a
long and stressful one, as Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck, vehemently opposed any union
between his daughter and Robert. But, the day after the wedding (which was also Clara’s
birthday), Robert was able to write the following in the couple’s joint diary:
My most beloved young wife! Let me greet you with a tender kiss on this
special day, the first of your womanhood, the first of your twenty-first
year. The little book which I open herewith has a very particular, intimate
meaning; it is to record everything that affects us together in our
household and married life, our wishes, our hopes…your fair hopes and
mine—may heaven bless them; your anxieties and mine…in short, all our
hopes and sorrows…
Robert’s union with Clara—a gifted pianist and composer—seemed to inspire the young
composer’s creative powers. In the year of their marriage, Robert Schumann composed
some 150 songs, including the glorious cycles Frauenliebe und -leben (A Woman’s Love
and Life) and Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love).
In 1841, Robert Schumann focused his energies upon orchestral music. In the early
portion of that year, Schumann completed his joyous “Spring” Symphony (No. 1 in B-flat
Major, Opus 38). Schumann then composed his Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Opus 52.
In May, Schumann penned a single-movement Fantasy in A minor for piano and
orchestra (four years later, Schumann added an Intermezzo and Allegro vivace,
transforming the Fantasy into the great Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54). In that
same productive year of 1841, Schumann composed the original version of his
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Opus 120.
“Under the urge of spring”
Clara Schumann was a constant source of comfort and inspiration for her husband. But
another source of inspiration contributed to the Symphony No. 1. On November 23,
1842, Schumann wrote to his friend, composer Ludwig Spohr: “I composed the
symphony, so to speak, under the urge of spring which every year comes over men anew,
even in full maturity.”
On January 25, 1841, Clara wrote in the joint diary: “Today, Monday, Robert has nearly
finished his Symphony. It was composed chiefly at night—for some nights my poor
Robert has not slept on account of it. He calls it ‘Spring Symphony.’ A poem about
Spring…was the first inspiration for this composition.”
The poem in question, written by Adolf Böttger, concludes with the following lines:
“O wende, wende deinen Lauf,
—Im Tale blühet Frühling auf!”
“O turn, turn aside your course,
—Spring is blossoming in the vale!”
Schumann sketched his “Spring” Symphony in the span of just four days, from January
23 to January 26, 1841. According to Schumann, he wrote the Symphony with a steel
pen he found near Beethoven’s Vienna grave. Schumann completed the orchestration on
February 20. Originally, the composer provided titles for each of the Symphony’s four
movements: “(1) Spring’s Awakening,” “(2) Evening,” “(3) Happy Playfellows” and “(4)
Spring’s Farewell.” Schumann later discarded those titles.
The premiere of the “Spring” Symphony took place at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on March
31, 1841. Schumann’s friend, the great composer and conductor, Felix Mendelssohn, led
the performance (Clara also performed on the concert as a pianist). It was a fine success,
with the Symphony receiving a glowing reception from the audience.
The “Spring” Symphony, with music as enticing and life-affirming as its subject, remains
one of Robert Schumann’s most beloved compositions.
Musical Analysis
I. Andante un poco maestoso; Allegro molto vivace—The Symphony opens with a fanfare
for trumpets and horns. Schumann directed: “I should like the very first trumpet call to
sound as though it came up from on high, like a call to wake up.” The eight-note fanfare
is based upon the final line of Böttger’s poem, reproduced below. The added bold type
corresponds to the accents Schumann provides in the musical score:
“Im Ta-le blü-het Früh-ling auf!”
The orchestra repeats the fanfare motif. The slow introduction (Andante un poco
maestoso) gathers momentum, leading to the principal Allegro molto vivace. Its opening
theme is a lively figure, again based upon the fanfare. A more restrained, dolce motif,
introduced by the clarinets and bassoons, serves as the second principal theme. The
spirited development section concludes with a reprise of the opening fanfare. After a
varied recapitulation, there is an extended coda, whose moments of repose are finally
dispelled by a blazing dash to the finish.
II. Larghetto—Divided first violins sing the radiant, central melody of this slow
movement. The melody returns in various guises, alternating with more agitated
episodes. A brief coda, featuring a trombone chorale, serves as the transition to the
ensuing Scherzo, which follows without pause.
III. Scherzo. Molto vivace—The Scherzo is based upon a brusque melody, introduced by
the strings. There are two intervening Trio sections. The first (Molto più vivace) features
a dialogue between strings and winds. The second Trio is a sort of perpetuum mobile in
triple time. After a final reprise of the Scherzo, there is a mysterious coda, leading
directly to the final movement.
IV. Allegro animato e grazioso—The finale opens with a grand ascending unison passage
that recalls the Symphony’s opening fanfare. After a dramatic pause, the violins offer the
Finale’s impish first theme. The broad second theme is based upon an eight-note figure
that, again, bears a kinship to the opening fanfare. The development section concludes
with a sentinel passage for horns, followed by a cheerful cadenza for solo flute, which
also inaugurates the ensuing recapitulation. A stirring coda brings the “Spring”
Symphony to a bracing conclusion.