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November 14 & 15, 2010 Program Notes Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major Johannes Brahms (b. 1883, Hamburg, Germany; d. 1897, Vienna, Austria) In April 1878, Johannes Brahms decided to treat himself to a vacation in Italy. And, like many travelers before and since, he fell in love with this land of sunshine, good living, and even greater art and would return there eight more times. To his longtime friend, the celebrated pianist Clara Schumann, he penned a “wish-you-were-here” letter: “How often do I not think of you, and wish that your eye and heart might know the delight which the eye and heart experiences here!” This rich visual stimulation inspires a new work, which would eventually become his Second Piano Concerto. In July 1881, he announced the concerto’s birth in a series of teasing letters to several friends. To Dr. Theodor Billroth, the companion of his Italian sightseeing, he sent a copy of the bulky score with a note identifying it as “a couple of little piano pieces.” To his current muse, the lovely and safely married Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, he revealed: “I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a tiny wisp of a scherzo.” However, the composer revealed the true nature of his newest creation to von Herzogenberg when he described it as “the long Terror.” For the Second Piano Concerto is long indeed: with four substantial movements lasting approximately 50 minutes, it is the size of two ordinary concertos put together. And it is monumental in its architecture, emotional scope, and the demands it places on the pianist. Brahms scholar Malcolm MacDonald describes its technical challenges well: “In its massive chording, wide [finger] stretches, vigor, richness and textural variety, the piano writing is the most elaborate result of his lifelong fascination with virtuoso technique. .... Above all, the role of the soloist is fluid ... he or she must ... dominate with the utmost power at certain junctures, but other moments call for extreme delicacy and limpidity of touch, the reticence and self-effacement of the ideal accompanist.” Movement one: The concerto’s chamber-music opening is unique. A solo horn sings out the gently rising principal theme, and the piano echoes each phrase. Suddenly the pianist throws off his reserve and plunges into a titanic monologue, the first of many mini-cadenzas Brahms embeds throughout his structure rather than giving the soloist a single extended opportunity for display. This in turn galvanizes the orchestra into action, transforming the horn’s shy theme into a mighty march. And soon we hear the first suggestion of the movement’s second theme: a supple, swaying melody in D minor in the violins that is quickly broken off. The pianist now expands this thematic material, and when he comes to the swaying second theme, he reveals its character as passionate rather than nostalgic, hardening its curves with stentorian chords. By now, the music has taken a very dramatic and even ominous turn from its tender beginning. It culminates in a fierce declamation of the principal theme by the full orchestra before the horn quietly sounds that theme again and the music merges into the development section Continued i-9 I- � program notes continued November 14 & 15, 2010 proper. (In fact, Brahms has already been busy developing and transforming his themes from the very beginning.) The arrival home at the recapitulation section is one of Brahms’ most magical and moving. He keeps trying to get there by gestures of musical willpower. But finally only gentle acceptance succeeds, as the piano floats in shimmering arpeggios and the horn warmly welcomes it back. The “tiny wisp of a scherzo” in D minor forms the pianist-killer second movement: a fierce Allegro appassionato. Brahms’ friends asked him why he had added this extra component to the customary three-movement concerto formula; he replied — in another fit of ironic understatement! — that he felt it was necessary because the first and third movements were so “harmless.” The pianist hurls out a boldly rhythmic first theme, and the strings contribute a contrasting sighing melody, which the piano elaborates soulfully. This music is repeated, then rolls into a development section. But in this formal hybrid — part scherzo dance, part sonata form — the music suddenly shifts into a radiant tolling-bells episode in D major, which is the trio section. Listen to the piano’s ardently rhapsodic passage here. After two movements of almost unremitting intensity, Brahms at last provides repose with perhaps the most beautiful slow movement he ever composed. The pianist takes a needed rest while the solo cello sings a melody of heartbreaking loveliness; a solo oboe soon joins in, intensifying the poignancy. As in the slow movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, the soloist never sings this eloquent theme, but instead weaves marvelous variants on it. The movement’s most haunting moment occurs midway through when the piano — now stranded in the distant key of F-sharp major and accompanied by two clarinets — seems to float in some timeless, otherworldly realm. The cello’s reappearance with its glorious melody seems no intrusion. While some commentators have criticized the finale, Brahms showed sure instincts when he chose to crown his three imposing movements with a relaxing finale of light-hearted melodiousness. Beginning with the piano’s buoyantly skipping theme, he concocts a succession of melodies in the genial spirit of his Hungarian Dances. Notable among them is the lushly swaying Viennese dance shared by piano and strings. Throughout, the pianist’s virtuoso figurations sparkle like diamonds, especially in Brahms’ vivacious sped-up conclusion. Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Ludwig van Beethoven (b. 1770, Bonn, Germany; d. 1827, Vienna, Austria) One of Shakespeare’s most powerful tragedies is Coriolanus, the story (drawn from Plutarch’s Lives) of a patrician Roman general destroyed by his overweening pride. After a decisive victory over the Volscians, Coriolanus refuses the consulship of Rome because it requires him to humble himself before the plebians or commoners; enraged at his arrogance, the people drive him into i-10 i-10 exile. But the willful general seeks revenge: he defects to his former enemies, the Volscians, and leads them against Rome. He battles his way to the very gates of Rome, where his compatriots send delegation after delegation asking him to spare his own city. When the stiff-necked warrior remains obdurate, his wife, mother, and son go out to plead with him, and he finally relents. Furious at his betrayal, the Volscians put him to death. Although Beethoven considered himself a republican and the foe of tyrants, he must have found many points in common between himself and this haughty Roman. He, too, possessed an iron will and, convinced of his genius, would not bend his neck even to princes. And he had practical reasons for creating an overture on this subject. In 1807, the composer was currying favor with the Viennese poet-playwright Heinrich von Collin, who was influential at Vienna’s Imperial Theatre and who had written his own version of the Coriolanus tragedy five years earlier. Seeking a steady source of income, Beethoven wanted to secure a contract with the Theatre to write an opera annually for production there; he also hoped Collin would collaborate as his librettist. Though neither of these goals was realized, one of Beethoven’s greatest overtures, the tensely dramatic Coriolan, was born. It introduced Collin’s play at a performance on April 24, 1807. A taut sonata form, the Coriolan Overture musically describes the full tragedy in just eight minutes. It is cast in a significant key for Beethoven: C minor, which Michael Steinberg calls his “clenchedfist” key; it also colored other heroic works, notably his Fifth Symphony. Three massive C’s exploding into violent chords open the piece; they are separated by dramatic pauses, which will be an important element throughout. Here is a titanic yet concise portrait of a hero ruled by will and rage. Coriolanus’ restless temperament is further delineated by the fitful, ever-modulating principal theme that follows. In utter contrast is the lovely, flowing second theme, representing the feminine pleas of the warrior’s wife and mother. When the massive C’s return for the third and final time, Beethoven foretells the hero’s fate. Coriolanus’ music suddenly disintegrates into the silence of death, ending with three almost inaudible plucked C’s. "Porgy Bess" Fantasy for Two Pianos George Gershwin (b. 1898, Brooklyn, New York; d. 1937, Beverly Hills, California) Arranged by David Stewart Wiley from the two-piano arrangement of Percy Grainger On an October night in 1926, George Gershwin, wound up from rehearsals of his Broadway-bound musical Oh! Kay, found himself unable to sleep. He turned to a popular new novel, Porgy, about African-American life in the Charleston ghetto written by a white South Carolinian named DuBose Heyward. The composer was enthralled and read until dawn. His savvy theatrical sense told him this was a story crying out for dramatic treatment, and he promptly fired off a letter to Heywood expressing his interest in using it for a future opera. But Gershwin admitted he didn’t have the technical knowledge yet to tackle such an ambitious project. It would be another nine years before Porgy and Bess had its premiere. The scion of an aristocratic but impoverished Charleston family, Heyward had spent time as a cotton checker working among black stevedores on the Charleston wharves. He found himself Continued i-11 I- � program notes continued November 14 & 15, 2010 mesmerized by “the color, the mystery and movement of Negro life” and began studying local African-American folkways, speech patterns, and spirituals. Just down the street from his home was a decaying courtyard of tenements called Cabbage Row, and this became the Catfish Row of his novel and play. The inspiration for the crippled Porgy was a real-life local character Samuel Smalls, known as “Goat Sammy,” who traveled around the streets of Charleston on a tiny goatdriven cart. At last in 1933, Gershwin felt ready to embark on his operatic project. The first major piece he composed was the enchanting “Summertime,” sung at the beginning of the opera. The most intense period of work, however, came during the summer of 1934 when Gershwin rented a cottage near Heywood’s summer home on Folly Island, off Charleston, and immersed himself in local Gullah and black culture. Back in New York, George’s brother Ira joined the creative team to write many of the lyrics. Porgy and Bess opened at Broadway’s Alvin Theater on October 10, 1935. The audience loved the show, but critics were more reserved. Especially they questioned what kind of work Porgy and Bess was: musical, operetta, or opera? Gershwin maintained it was an opera and had followed the operatic conventions of using continuous music with the dialogue largely in sung recitative. Its operatic status was finally confirmed in the 1980s when no less than the Metropolitan Opera gave it a highly successful new production. We will hear a number of Porgy’s most famous songs gathered together in a fantasy for two pianos adapted by David Stewart Wiley from an arrangement by Percy Grainger. Included in the medley are the opening music, “Catfish Row”; the beautiful lullaby “Summertime”; Porgy and Bess’ ecstatic declaration of their love “Bess You is My Woman Now,” “My Man’s Gone Now,” Serena’s lament for her murdered husband; Porgy’s contented “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’”; “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” Sportin Life’s comical dismissal of biblical stories; and “Oh Lawd, I’m on My Way,” Porgy’s song as he leaves to rescue Bess from Sportin Life’s clutches, which is also the opera’s closing number. Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor Francis Poulenc (b. 1899, Paris, France; d. 1963, Paris) Composers are usually complex men, but few could match Francis Poulenc in this respect: part worldly Parisian sophisticate, part sincere, devout Catholic with, as he said, “the faith of a country pastor.” Born into a wealthy French family, Poulenc seems to have inherited these two sides of his personality from his parents. His father, manager of the Rhône-Poulenc textile firm, was a man of deep faith; his mother was a cultured leader of Parisian society, who, like her son, adored music, art, literature, and theater. Since his father wanted him to have a solid classical education, Poulenc did not study at the Paris Conservatoire and after earning his Baccalauréat was actually turned down by that prestigious i-12 bastion of French music. In his late teens, he emerged as one of Les Six a trendy group of young composers who thumbed their noses at the classical establishment and happily borrowed from popular styles. Assimilating musicians as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chabrier, Stravinsky, and Maurice Chevalier into a style uniquely his own, Poulenc rightly described himself as “wildly eclectic.” With his great sensitivity to poetry, he became a superb songwriter and also one of the 20th century’s finest composers of sacred music. However, sacred music was not yet part of Poulenc’s creative world in 1932 when he created his vivaciously insouciant Concerto for Two Pianos. At this time, he was a pet composer of the wealthy French nobility who ran Paris’ most fashionable artistic salons. Chief among them was the Princesse Edmond de Polignac, born Winnaretta Singer, heiress of the American Singer sewing machine fortune; over her philanthropic career, she championed many of Europe’s leading composers, including Fauré, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Richard Strauss. It was she who commissioned Poulenc’s two most successful concertos: the one for two pianos we hear tonight and a later one for organ (1938). Written very rapidly during the summer of 1932, the Double Concerto was designed to be a work of pure entertainment to be played by two pianists who were close friends: Poulenc himself and Jacques Février. The two gave the Concerto’s first performance in Venice on September 5, 1932. Wildly eclectic indeed, this sparkling work merrily combines influences from Ravel (his two contemporaneous piano concertos provided models), Stravinsky, popular music-hall entertainment, and even the exotic sounds of Balinese gamelan music. But strongest of all is the connection to Mozart, who was Poulenc’s favorite composer; the Concerto’s second movement is an enchanting homage to him. With two gunshot chords, the first movement explodes into a series of zany melodies linked together by a slyly conspiratorial four-note rhythmic motive. This craziness suddenly subsides into a much calmer middle section in a slow, entranced tempo; here the two pianos dominate with cool, slightly exotic melodies over the most delicate orchestration. After a return to the zany music comes an abrupt pause. Then with his two pianos Poulenc conjures the magical, bell-like sounds of Balinese gamelan instruments as he remembered hearing them at the 1931 Paris Exposition. Of movement two Poulenc wrote: “In the Larghetto of this Concerto, I allowed myself, for the first theme, to return to Mozart, for I cherish the melodic line and I prefer Mozart to all other musicians. If the movement begins alla Mozart, it quickly veers, at the entrance of the second piano, toward a style that was standard for me at that time.” Poulenc’s exquisite opening melody closely resembles a Mozart slow-movement theme, but it contains odd chromatic (half-step) inflections that would never have been heard in the 18th century. This slippery chromaticism gradually eases the music into Poulenc’s world, and the middle section becomes dreamily romantic in the style of Rachmaninoff. Once again launched by percussive explosions, the finale is the most antic and diverse movement of all. Brilliant toccata-like music for the two pianos runs into a succession of brashly orchestrated slapstick tunes. But there are also passages of lovely, romantic lyricism. Near the close, the gamelan music returns again, now brighter and less mysterious. However, the Concerto’s last notes confirm that this marvelous musical game is not to be taken seriously at all. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, copyright 2010 i-13 I- �