Download Program Notes - Roanoke Symphony Orchestra

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- �