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About the Music
April 5, 2011
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Overture: Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27
Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809 and
died in Leipzig in 1847. He composed this concert
overture in 1828 and revised it in 1832; it received its
first performance in Berlin in 1832 under the direction
of the composer. The overture is scored for 3 flutes,
piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 3 trumpets, “serpente” (today usually
performed on the tuba), timpani, and strings.
Felix Mendelssohn met the great poet Goethe
when he was still a young prodigy of twelve and the
German man of letters was 72. Goethe was impressed
by the young man, and Mendelssohn, a voracious
reader, embarked on a lifelong appreciation of Goethe’s
works. The two would remain friends and frequent
correspondents until Goethe’s death in 1832.
In anticipation of a family vacation (and
Mendelssohn’s first sea voyage) the young composer
read two of Goethe’s short poems, Calm Sea and
Prosperous Voyage, which had previously inspired a
choral work from Beethoven in 1815. The two poems
lent themselves perfectly to a two-part musical
construction.
In the age of sail, a “calm sea” was something to
dread; it meant there was no wind to power the sails and
sailors might face days adrift on the open ocean:
And with worried look the seaman
sees but smoothest waves around.
Not a breath from any angle!
Deathly silence, horrible!
Mendelssohn’s music in the first part of the
overture is luxuriant in its harmonies, but it portrays an
ominous calm. When the allegro begins, so does the
wind, and we embark on the prosperous voyage:
Winds now blow gently,
The skipper gets busy,
Make haste, make haste!
The waves now are parted,
the distance comes nearer;
Now I behold land!
The sound of a bird tells us land is near, and
the journey begins with a typically tight and energetic
sonata form from Mendelssohn. After this we hear a
coda that begins with the joyous celebrations of arrival,
but ends with the quiet appreciation of a safe voyage.
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons in Buenos Aires)
Arranged by Leonid Desyatnikov
Astor Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina
in 1921 and died in Buenos Aires in 1992. He
composed the four movements of this work at different
times, though he often performed them together.
Verano Porteño (Buenos Aires Summer) was composed
in 1964; Otoño Porteño (Buenos Aires Autumn) in
1969; Invierno Porteño (Buenos Aires Winter) in 1970;
and Primavera Porteño (Buenos Aires Spring) in 1970.
The music was originally scored for a quintet
consisting of violin, piano, guitar, doublebass, and
bandoneon. Desyatnikov’s arrangement is for solo
violin and string orchestra.
Astor Piazzolla’s name will forever be
associated with the tango. For many years he was
Argentina’s best-known musical emissary, bringing his
unusual take on the dance form to listeners around the
world. He was a hugely original composer and an
accomplished performer: his instrument was the
bandoneon, a very large button accordion that he played
from the age of nine. Through most of his career he led
a quintet that took the tango so far from its origins in
Buenos Aires that a new word had to be coined for it:
nuevo tango.
Piazzolla was a sophisticated musician. He had
extensive classical training, studying piano with
such teachers as Béla Wilda and Raul Spivak and
composition with Nadia Boulanger and Alberto
Ginastera. He studied composers from Bach to Bartók
and heard jazz in New York as a youngster. Though he
would leave it from time to time, he always returned
to the tango as his primary mode of expression; his
experimental excursions sometimes got him in trouble
with tango purists, but his eclectic approach to the form
brought it from the dance floor to widespread
appreciation in the concert hall.
The four movements of Four Seasons in Buenos
Aires were composed separately over a long period of
time; only later were they combined into the present
work. Whether this was Piazzolla’s plan all along is
unknown but, as we shall see, he clearly had another
composer’s “Four Seasons” in mind while he was
composing them.
The first movement, Buenos Aires Summer,
begins with suave rhythmic music and a soloist wildly
sliding his double-stops. As this music seems to reach
an end, we suddenly hear the solo violin playing music
from the last movement of Vivaldi’s “Winter” from his
“Four Seasons.” (Remember that the northern
hemisphere and southern hemisphere have their seasons
opposite to the other: our winter is their summer.) Yes,
it sounds wildly out of place, but it gives us a signpost
that announces the arrival of a wistful slow movement
embedded within the movement as a whole. When
the music takes off again we realize that the
correspondence to Vivaldi’s work is no accident:
Piazzolla’s movement is in three sections, just as
each of Vivaldi’s “seasons” consisted of three short
movements. When we hear another quote from
“Winter”—and Piazzolla’s hilarious departure from
it—the deal is sealed.
Buenos Aires Autumn begins as a march with
an amusing accompaniment. Before long this is
interrupted by an extensive cello cadenza, rich in the
cello’s low register. The cello then leads the strings in
a sultry, impassioned melody. The next faster section
winds down into a virtuosic violin cadenza that evolves
into a pensive tune over a throbbing accompaniment; a
final fast section brings the movement to a close.
The divided-strings opening of Buenos Aires
Winter is broad and luscious, but once again there is
no time given to savor it; before we know it we have a
violin cadenza that slides into a variation of the
opening theme. After a wild—almost crazy—fast
section we return again, as if the slow theme had always
been there all along. After another Vivaldi quote (from
“Summer,” naturally) we come to realize that we are
hearing the modern equivalent of a rondo form at work.
Another extravagant quotation—not from Vivaldi this
time, but you’ll know who it is—brings the end.
The solo violin begins Buenos Aires Spring,
other instruments join, and we enter into a restless,
rhythmic passage. When the music slows again we hear
a sly continuation of the previous movement’s final
quotation combined with lyrical music of great beauty.
The rhythmic music then returns with even more
intensity, devolving at the end into a single, long
unison note.
For most of us this is a work of discovery;
Piazzolla is not a household name even among
knowledgeable music lovers. It is a work full of
surprise, humor, vertigo-inducing changes of
direction—and sheer beauty. Getting to hear music
such as this for the first time is as if someone opened
the windows of the concert hall and let in the fresh air;
we may have come for the Debussy, but all the way
home we’ll be talking about the Piazzolla.
CHRISTOPHER BRUBECK
Interplay for Three Violins & Orchestra
Christopher Brubeck was born in Los Angeles,
California in 1952. He composed this work in 2002 on
a commission from the Boston Pops Orchestra, and it
was first performed the same year by Eileen Ivers,
Regina Carter, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violins,
with the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of
Keith Lockhart. The score calls for 3 solo violins,
2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet,
2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba,
timpani, percussion, drum set, piano, guitar, combo
bass, and strings.
Chris Brubeck, son of jazz icon Dave Brubeck,
has made a name for himself as a bassist, trombonist,
and composer both in the world of jazz and classical
music. After years of performing with his father,
he went on to form and perform with the Brubeck
Brothers Quartet, Time for Three, and the acoustic jazz/
blues/folk trio Triple Play. In addition to an extensive
touring schedule he has contributed a large number of
classical works in various idioms which have been
performed by major orchestras all over the world.
Mr. Brubeck writes the following about
Interplay:
“In early 2002, Keith Lockhart and the Boston
Pops approached me with the very intriguing notion
of writing a piece for a trio of very distinguished
violinists from three very different musical worlds.
I had seen Eileen Ivers electrify the audience in
England several years ago as the featured musical
soloist in the then little-known show Riverdance.
Regina Carter is one of the biggest young jazz stars
today, and I had heard her recordings plus caught the
powerful buzz about her remarkable abilities from other
jazz musicians. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg has a
reputation for incredible music making with her
amazing intensity and technique. She also had been
doing some extremely interesting music projects with
musicians outside of the classical mainstream. These
are the kind of eclectic and talented musicians I like
to collaborate with!
“A huge factor for me was to get a sense of
the personalities of the musicians. We talked in very
general terms about what we hoped to achieve with the
new work, and how I wanted to feature them all in their
home field of natural strength, but also challenge them
into stepping into the other violinists’ musical territory.
I knew that the project was going to work out just fine
when they all seemed eager to venture into slightly
unfamiliar surroundings. The biggest single emotion
I left the meeting with was that these ladies were very
playful in their interactions. That was my ‘hook,’ and
I decided on an opening theme that was indeed a bit
quirky, humorous, high-energy, and loaded with musical
phrases being traded around like a fun game of catch.
“I wanted to incorporate many of the violin
styles one hears in various cultures, and to explore the
interrelationship between folk music and how it might
relate to classical traditions. Soon it became clear to me
in my sketches that some of the traditional folk
music melodies I was using thematically were easily
integrating with classical harmonic progressions. These
Bach-like chord progressions tied into the same chord
changes that jazz standards use; jazz musicians still
cut their teeth on improvising over the same kinds of
changes that Bach and fellow organists created and
improvised over many hundreds of years ago. I
discovered that all three violinists delved into a Gypsy/
Flamenco realm as well, and this was the perfect
common ground for exciting musical trading,
improvising, displays of technical prowess, and
playful interaction. I hope you have as much fun
listening to this piece as I did writing it.”
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
La mer (Three Symphonic Sketches)
Claude Achille Debussy was born in St. Germain-enLaye, France in 1862 and died in Paris in 1918. He
composed this work between 1903 and 1905, and it
was first performed in Paris in 1905 under the
direction of Camille Chevillard. The score calls for
3 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets,
4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 5 trumpets,
3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps,
and strings.
Debussy had a lifelong fascination with the sea.
From the time he spent at Cannes as a small boy to the
deeper appreciation of his maturity, the sea drew the
profoundest emotions from him—so much so that he
felt he had to be out of its sight to compose this piece.
He wrote to a friend, “You may not know that I was
destined for a sailor’s life and that it was only quite by
chance that fate led me in another direction. But I have
always retained a passionate love for the sea. You
will say that the ocean does not exactly wash the
Burgundian hillside, and my seascapes might be studio
landscapes; but I have an endless store of memories,
and to my mind they are worth more than the reality,
whose beauty often deadens thought.”
Though Debussy didn’t care for it much, the
term “impressionism” is invariably linked with his
music. Painters such as Monet and Degas deliberately
avoided sharp outlines, preferring to let fog, mist or
haze soften the world’s edges; objects or people were
made up of bits of color that seemed to be always in
motion, never static. Despite Debussy’s protestations,
the metaphor is apt. The outlines of his music are
frequently soft, the phrases irregular, and the
harmonies slide into one another without regard
for harmonic “progressions.” This may sound like
imprecision, but in fact Debussy composed very
carefully and concerned himself with the finest details.
From Dawn Until Noon on the Sea begins with
low rumblings, and we hear the power that lies beneath
the surface. While there is much that is melodic, there
is little that you might call a melody, here or elsewhere
in La mer. The wave-like tune that arises in the cellos
midway through the movement is lyrical, yet it is gone
almost as soon as you notice it. It is the interplay of this
and other melodic fragments that propels the music. A
remarkable brass chorale as broad and deep as its
subject is the climax of the movement.
The sea awakens in The Play of the Waves. The
water is now more brilliantly lit and churning with
ever-changing fragments. The music seems ready to
build to a climax, but it never really occurs—Debussy
is saving the big wave for later.
You can hear the storm coming in the Dialogue
of the Wind and the Sea, so unsettled is the music. But
a calmer middle section comes first, and from here the
latent power of what went before comes inexorably to
the surface. The music builds to a huge brass chorale,
awesome in its majesty, and washes over us in a
fantastic wave of sound.
—Mark Rohr is the bass trombonist for the PSO.
Questions or comments? [email protected]
Visit Online Insights at PortlandSymphony.org to
learn more from Robert Moody about this concert.