Download The Work at a Glance - New York Philharmonic

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The principal point about music in China … has
been that it conveys ideas and is permeated
by philosophy. There is not the emphasis on
beauty of sound, line, and form found in European music. Whether vertically (time),
horizontally (place) or philosophically (content), Chinese music has held a special and
profoundly traditional style of its own. …
However, whether or not a work has a
Chinese style is not the sole criterion by
which to judge it. The true value of a work of
music lies in the motivation, expressive capacity, sentiments and particular qualities of
its composer.
Ask a violinist his or her impression of Fritz
Kreisler, and you are almost sure to receive a
reverent response. He was among the greatest
of the great ones: a legend in his own time and
a fiddler for the ages. His destiny seemed clear
practically from the outset, when at the age of
seven he became the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory, where Anton
Bruckner taught him music theory and Joseph
Hellmesberger, Jr. (remembered for his Brahms
connections) served as his violin professor.
After graduating with a gold medal, he
moved on to the Paris Conservatoire and was
awarded its premier prix at age 12 — and that
The Work at a Glance
The Butterfly Lovers is based on a Chinese folk tale, dating back to the late Tang Dynasty (ninth or tenth century), involving Liang Shanbo (a boy) and Zhu Yintai (a girl). In fact, the work’s title in Chinese is Liang Shanbo
yu Zhu Yintai, and it is popularly referred to as the Liang Zhu Concerto. (The names are sometimes transliterated as Shanpo and Yingtai.) Zhu ran away from home, disguised herself as a boy, and enrolled in a school,
where she was a classmate of Liang’s for three years. She fell in love with Liang but could not reveal this without compromising her disguise. She eventually left. Liang, missing his companion deeply, traveled to Zhu’s
home, where he discovered not only that his beloved friend was a girl, but that her father had arranged her
marriage to a wealthy neighbor. Liang died of a broken heart, and Zhu, who had tried in vain to defy her father’s decision, visited his grave, which she begged might open to her. At the sound of a thunderclap, the
grave opened and Zhu leapt in. The two lovers then emerged as butterflies and flew away.
The concerto is cast in a single movement made up of three principal sections. The first corresponds to the
idea of romance, with the violin presenting a love theme and then playing a duet with the cello to depict the intertwining emotions of Liang and Zhu, before the friends separate in a spirit of sadness. The second principal section focuses on Zhu’s defying her father over the arranged marriage, with some of the orchestra’s deepest sounds
— bassoon, double bass, gong — creating an ominous atmosphere. Brass instruments proclaim the father’s decree, the violin represents Zhu’s vain arguments,
another duet between violin and cello depicts
the lovers’ farewell, a percussion crash signals
the opening of the grave, and the swelling of the
orchestra suggests Zhu’s jumping into it. In the
third and final section, flute and harp recall some
of the music from the concerto’s opening, after
which the muted violin and the delicate orchestral texture illustrate the lovers’ transformation
into butterflies, in which form they flutter off to a
happy life free from earthly constraints.
The tale of The Butterfly Lovers has been
described as a Chinese Romeo and Juliet story, so
much so that a statue of the pair can be found in
Verona, Italy
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In the Composer’s Words
Frederick Herman Martens, in his book Violin Mastery: Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers (1919),
reported this comment from Kreisler on the inspiration for Tambourin chinois:
I don’t mind telling you that I enjoyed very much
writing my Tambourin chinois. The idea for it came
to me after a visit to the Chinese theatre in San
Francisco — not that the music there suggested
any theme, but it gave me the impulse to write a
free fantasy in the Chinese manner.
To which Mr. Martens adds this footnote:
It is interesting to note that Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor of the San Francisco Philharmonic, returning home from a tour of American and French
army camps in France, some time ago, said: “My
most popular number was Kreisler’s Tambourin
chinois. Invariably I had to repeat that.” A strong indorsement [sic] of the internationalism of Art by
the actual fighter in the trenches.
was the last violin instruction he ever had. He
laid the violin aside for a time, enrolled as a premed student in Vienna and went on to fulfill
military service. Then he decided to return to
music and gained acclaim as a soloist; Edward
Elgar composed his Violin Concerto for Kreisler,
who premiered it in 1910 with the composer conducting. An accident in 1941, after he and his wife
had emigrated to the United States — he was hit
by an egg-delivery truck while stepping off the
curb at 57th Street and Madison Avenue —
robbed Kreisler of some of his sight and hearing,
and by 1950 his career had ended. Yet, through
all this, he performed with a unique combination of ease, grace, charm, technical perfection,
tonal luster, and idiosyncratic personality.
What’s more, he composed quite a few works,
including a string quartet, cadenzas for the
Beethoven and Brahms Violin Concertos, and
numerous light pieces for the violin. Tambourin
chinois, Schön Rosmarin, Liebesleid, Liebesfreud,
and Caprice viennois are among the Kreisler
numbers that remain today in the working repertoire of violinists, who often present them as encores. He gained a certain notoriety for
attributing some of his pieces written “in the antique style” to long-gone composers whose
names were vaguely familiar to music lovers but
whose music was utterly forgotten, claiming he
Tambourin chinois, Op. 3
Fritz Kreisler
Born: February 2, 1875, in Vienna, Austria
Died: January 29, 1962, in New York
Work composed and premiered: composed, probably in
1910; premiere unknown
New York Philharmonic premiere and most recent
performance: premiered January 7, 1916, Walter Damrosch,
conductor, the composer as soloist; most recently played,
December 31, 2013, Alan Gilbert, conductor, Aleksey
Igudesman, soloist
Estimated duration: ca. 4 minutes
Fritz Kreisler in 1916, the year he performed his Tambourin chinois
with the New York Philharmonic
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had the original manuscripts in his possession.
So it is that a number of pieces ostensibly by
Pugnani, Tartini, Dittersdorf, Francoeur, and the
like turned out actually to be practical jokes by
Kreisler, as he revealed in 1935, to the chagrin of
more than a few musicologists and critics who
had applauded his antiquarian interests. He also
co-composed, with Victor Jacobi (1883–1921), the
three-act operetta Apple Blossoms, and in 1933
he followed up with a second operetta, Sissy,
which includes the once-popular song “Stars in
My Eyes.” The music of both is steeped in nostalgia for a Viennese charm that was by that time
becoming more and more a memory.
The compositional history of many of
Kreisler’s works is obscure, and Tambourin
chinois is no exception. It certainly dates from
no later than 1910, since he first recorded it on
May 13 of that year for the Victor label, with the
pianist George Falkenstein. (He submitted the
composition for copyright that September.) It
would remain a favorite among record collectors, such that Kreisler re-recorded it in 1911 for
release on the HMV label, with pianist Haddon
Squire; in 1915 and 1928 for Victor, with Carl
Lamson; in 1936 for Electrola, with Franz Rupp;
and in 1942 for RCA Victor, with Charles O’Connell conducting the Victor Symphony Orchestra.
Born in a village in the Hunan province of central China, Tan Dun grew up surrounded by
the shamanistic traditions of Chinese rural and
small-town life. The inspiration of that time
and place gave rise to Nu Shu: The Secret
Songs of Women, a 40-minute symphonic
piece with film that weaves together stories,
sounds, and images of a musical tradition from
that region. The composer has recalled:
The slow disappearance of the Nu Shu tradition and culture has troubled me for many
years, and each time I return to my home
Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women, Symphony for 13 Microfilms,
Harp, and Orchestra
Tan Dun
Born: August 18, 1957, in Simao, Hunan province, China
Resides: in New York City
Work composed and premiered: composed in
2013, as a co-commission of Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam; video
material was commissioned by Ting Ying Xun Lu Cultural Exchange Co. Ltd.; premiered May 22, 2013, in
Tokyo, Japan, with the composer conducting the NHK
Symphony Orchestra, Risako Hayakawa, soloist
New York Philharmonic premiere: this
performance
Estimated duration: ca. 40 minutes
Female musicians playing traditional instruments, including
the konghou, bottom left corner, a type of harp
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