Download Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra Classics #9 - 1

Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Classics #9 - 1-3 March 2012
By Laurie Shulman ©2011
First North American Serial Rights Only
Nineteenth-century Germans called England Das Land ohne Musik [the land without
music] – because England had no home grown composers of international stature. The most
gifted British music students went to Leipzig and other German cities for conservatory training,
to learn how to compose and perform in the Viennese symphonic tradition. Lacking first tier
native composers, England welcomed German musicians such as Mendelssohn and Bruch. They
enjoyed great success in Britain.
Everything changed at the turn of the 20th century. Beginning with Edward Elgar,
England
produced a bumper crop of splendid musicians, reasserting herself a musical
powerhouse with a distinctive national voice for the first time since the Elizabethan era. The first
half of this program samples the initial flowering of this English musical renaissance, which has
continued into the 21st century.
Ms. Falletta opens with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Overture to The Wasps, a concert
overture inspired by ancient Greek theater. Vaughan Williams composed incidental music for
Aristophanes’s comedy The Wasps in 1907 for a production at Cambridge University. He
eventually extracted a five-movement suite from the score. The overture has secured a sturdy
niche in the repertoire. At the beginning we hear the unmistakable buzz of the stinging insects,
but soon Vaughan Williams turns to the memorable, folk-like themes that are his trademark.
Sometimes whole-tone, elsewhere modal, these tunes give the overture a specifically English
character. The Wasps is a wonderfully upbeat opener.
VSO principal cello Michael Daniels is the soloist in
Sir Edward Elgar’s Cello
Concerto in E minor. This work figured prominently in the soundtrack to Anand Tucker’s 1998
film Hilary and Jackie, a biopic about the legendary English cellist Jacqueline DuPré and her
fraught relationship with her sister. Daniels never saw the film, but he had long been an admirer
of the piece, listening to recordings from forty years ago by DuPré herself..
“This concerto is a 20th-century masterpiece,” he declares without hesitation. “There are
other cello concertos by Kabalevsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, but none of them is as
magnificent as the Elgar. The Elgar and Dvořák are now considered the two greatest concertos
ever written for the instrument.”
Elgar’s breakthrough work was the Enigma Variations (1899), which catapulted him to
international fame. Virtually overnight, he found himself at the forefront of British composition.
Nearly two decades later, the England he loved was mired in a desperate war. Elgar’s world was
disintegrating politically, personally, and professionally. His state of mind comes through in this
eloquent, nostalgic, passionate, and deeply felt concerto.
“I definitely hear this work as valedictory,” says Daniels. “The effects of the Great War
transferred to his musical style, which was different from his previous compositions. His wife
had been having serious health problems; in fact, she died shortly after the concerto’s premiere in
autumn 1919. Elgar’s own health was declining. He was in his sixties, and I believe he felt that
life as he knew it was over. This concerto was his last major composition. Even though Edward
Elgar lived another fifteen years, he did not write another large-scale piece.”
William Alwyn represents the next generation of English composers after Elgar and Vaughan
Williams. His contemporaries were Walton, Arnold, Britten, and Tippett, and he has been overshadowed
by them. There’s a good chance, however, that you’ve heard at least part of Lyra Angelica, Alwyn’s 1954
concerto for harp and string orchestra. Figure skater Michelle Kwan used excerpts from it for her long
program at the 1998 US National Championships and the Nagano Olympics.
VSO principal harp Barbara Chapman has wanted to play Lyra Angelica for years, and was
delighted when JoAnn Falletta immediately agreed that it was a good fit with this program. Alwyn was a
poet as well as a composer. His inspiration for Lyra Angelica was “Christ’s Victorie and Triumph”
(1610), an epic poem by Giles Fletcher that was the model for Milton’s Paradise Lost.
“Alwyn was obviously a spiritual man,” says Ms. Chapman. “The first movement is
Christ among us. The third movement is the Passion; it has its own fabulous theme, with three
dissonant chords at the beginning. I hear it as the road to Golgotha, the march to the cross. The
last movement is resurrection and ascension. Alwyn brings back the first movement theme, now
in E major. The skies open, the sun shines, and there is jubilation everywhere.
“The beauty of it is that you don’t need to know any of this in order to appreciate
Alwyn’s writing. I’m so drawn to his melodies. The themes are just gorgeous!”
In addition to complementing the English works on the first half, Lyra Angelica’s Christian
subtext provides a transition to Mozart’s Mass in C major, K.317, known as the “Coronation” Mass.
“This entire concert is a celebration of our rich VSO talent,” says Ms. Falletta. “We are so fortunate to
have great principal players like Mike [Daniels] and Barbara [Chapman]. And I am immensely proud of
our splendid Virginia Symphony Chorus. This Mozart Mass shows off how truly excellent they have
become under the direction of Robert Shoup.”
The source for the nickname “Coronation” is disputed. Some scholars believe it derives from the
ceremonial crowning an image of the Virgin in a church near Salzburg; others believe this mass was
performed when the Austrian Emperor Leopold II was crowned King of Bohemia in 1791. Mozart’s
setting, from 1779, is a missa brevis [short mass]. Both its arias and choruses hint at the operatic wonders
Mozart would compose over the next decade.
More extended notes by Laurie Shulman about each of the works on this program are available
on the VSO web site, www.virginiasymphony.org.
Overture to The Wasps
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Born 12 October, 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, England
Died 26 August, 1958 in London
Approximate duration 9 minutes
If you think you hear the buzzing of wasps at the beginning of this overture, you’re right,
but don’t let that ominous sound deter you from enjoying one of Vaughan Williams’s most
engaging and upbeat pieces. The title comes from a comedy by the ancient Greek dramatist
Aristophanes, who also wrote plays entitled The Birds, The Frogs, The Clouds, and The
Acharnians. The plot of The Wasps concerns the Athenian legal system, which allowed for
jurors to be paid for their service on the bench. During times of war, when most of the young
men were off at battle, old men managed the jury. The two principal characters in The Wasps are
Philocleon, one such old man, and his son Bdelycleon. They struggle with the ethical issues of a
populace eager to pursue litigation because they are compensated for sitting in judgment.
At the request of the Greek Play Committee at Cambridge University, Vaughan Williams
composed an entire set of incidental music for the play in 1907. Both Cambridge and Oxford
had long-standing traditions of presenting fully-staged performances of Greek drama in the
original language, with music. In fulfilling the commission, Vaughan Williams joined a
distinguished group of British composers, including Hubert Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford,
who had written similar scores. The premiere took place in Cambridge on 26 November, 1907.
Vaughan Williams’s original score comprised 18 numbers, from which he extracted a 25-minute
orchestral suite in 1914 consisting of five movements. The overture, which opened the suite as
well as the original production, has never lost its popularity and enjoys a healthy life as an
orchestral concert opener.
Following the angry opening drone of the wasps, the overture takes its principal material
from themes associated with the play’s main characters. The music is completely different in
style and idea from the Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis or the Fantasia on Greensleeves,
two of Vaughan Williams’s better known orchestral pieces. The wasp drone is whole-tone
based, reflecting the impressionist influence of Vaughan Williams’s teacher Maurice Ravel. The
balance of the overture, however, has an Edwardian flavor, with original themes that bear the
staunch, upright imprint of English folk music. Philocleon has two themes: a jaunty woodwind
melody in dotted rhythm and a broad, lyrical string theme that sounds as British as ‘Danny Boy’
is Irish. Eventually, Vaughan Williams superimposes the two together. His orchestration is vivid
throughout, enhanced by sparkling use of cymbals, triangle, bass drum and harp.
The full score comprises two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets,
two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op.85
Sir Edward Elgar
Born 2 June, 1857 in Broadheath, near Worcester, England
Died 23 February, 1934 in Worcester
Approximate duration 30 minutes
The Great War (1914-18) marked the end of Britain’s golden age, when her international
hegemony had been virtually unassailable. For Edward Elgar, the end of this era was
particularly poignant. Before the war, he had close ties and many friends in Germany.
Afterward, both his career and his health were faltering, and he found himself beset with the
simple financial worry of making ends meet.
In this troubled state, Elgar commenced work on his Cello Concerto in spring 1918. His
attention was deflected that summer by an intense focus on chamber music. The results, a Violin
Sonata, a String Quartet, and a Piano Quintet, were Elgar’s first chamber works since his student
years.
Felix Salmond was the cellist of the quartet that performed both larger chamber pieces.
Salmond worked closely with Elgar as the concerto moved up on his priority list. Because Elgar
had considered a career as a concert violinist, he understood string playing. Thus he was both
responsive to and appreciative of Salmond's many suggestions to fine-tune the concerto. Elgar
conducted Salmond at the premiere, which was unsuccessful largely because of insufficient
rehearsal time. The concerto rapidly achieved its place in the repertoire, however, and is now
acclaimed as being on a par with Dvorák's magnificent Cello Concerto. Certainly it is the
greatest masterpiece of Elgar's maturity.
The Concerto is scored for woodwinds in pairs plus optional piccolo, four horns, two
trumpets, three trombones (optional tuba doubling bass trombone), timpani, solo cello and
strings.
MUSICIANS’ CORNER
The Elgar Cello Concerto is unusual in form. The first two and last two movements are
paired, with formal breaks occurring only between the second (a symphonic scherzo) and third
(Adagio) movements. The soloist opens the concerto with a bold recitative that is as much in
chords as it is in melody. That recitative returns to form a unifying link, first as a bridge to the
second movement (thinly disguised as pizzicato), then again in the finale. Elgar awards the main
theme, a lilting, questioning melody in 9/8 time, to the violas. The entire first movement is filled
with elusive, understated gestures. This is no showpiece for the simple sake of virtuosity, but
rather a profound and thought-provoking musical statement.
Elgar’s mercurial scherzo places extreme technical demands on the soloist. A perpetual
motion movement, it is just a little lopsided, with emphasis slightly off the beat. Elgar often
sends the cellist scurrying about quite high in its tessitura.
The Adagio is emotionally central to the Concerto and the only movement in which the
opening recitative does not figure prominently. Strings dominate the orchestral support. “The
third movement is a vocal lament, definitely a commentary on life for him and others at that
point in time,” says Michael Daniels. “Even though it is paired with the fourth movement, it
stands out in the piece. It is a unique elegy, in the very distant key of B-flat major. I am certain it
will be emotionally draining in performance, making it especially daunting to launch directly
into the last movement, which is the most challenging technically.”
Larger scale than its predecessors, the finale takes as much time in performance as the
three previous movements combined. It recalls the bursting self-confidence of Elgar’s 1899
masterpiece, the Enigma Variations. His apparently lighthearted gambol incorporates heartfelt
reminders of the Adagio and a final quotation from the opening recitative. They make a
powerful statement, undoing the happy-go-lucky atmosphere established so effectively earlier
on. The final impression we have is, as Michael Kennedy has so aptly noted:
. . . overpoweringly the music of wood smoke and autumn bonfires, of the
evening of life; sadness and disillusion are dominant.
– L.S. ©2011
Lyra Angelica for harp and strings
William Alwyn
Born 7 November 1905 in Northampton, England
Died 11 September 1985 in Southwold, England
Approximate duration 23 minutes
William who? If you know a 20th-century English composer with this first name, it is
William Walton, of Crown Imperial, Belshazzar’s Feast, and Henry V fame. William Alwyn has
been overshadowed by Walton and other British composers of his generation such as Malcolm
Arnold, Benjamin Britten, and Michael Tippett. Yet Alwyn had his own substantial career, and
his music is a wonderful discovery. His orchestral music includes five symphonies, but his bread
and butter was composing for film, radio, and TV. Beginning in the 1930s, he wrote more than
100 cinema scores, including music for such classics as The Devil is a Woman (1935), Desert
Victory (1943), Odd Man Out (1947), The Master of Ballantrae (1953), Bedevilled (1955), The
Swiss Family Robinson (1960), and The Running Man (1963).
Alwyn was a renaissance man; he painted and wrote poetry as well as music. His
principal instrument was flute, and he played in the London Symphony Orchestra from 1927,
after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music. He also joined the Royal Academy’s
faculty, becoming an advocate for young composers. After 1955, he left teaching in order to
focus on film composition, which he regarded as a venue for experimentation. He believed that
writing film music polished his technique and broadened his dramatic range. Late in life, he
turned to opera.
Alwyn’s music is neoclassic, with an emphasis on counterpoint. Although his middle
symphonies combine diatonic and twelve-tone elements, his other works favor postimpressionism. They share the modal/folk song inflections of other English composers such as
Vaughan Williams and Delius. All these influences are present in Lyra Angelica, his 1954
concerto for harp and strings. Its rhapsodic, sumptuous music proved irresistible to the American
figure skater Michelle Kwan, who used excerpts from Lyra Angelica for her long program at the
1998 US Championships and at the Olympic Games in Nagano.
Lyra Angelica’s first performance took place at the opening night of the 1954 Promenade
Concerts (popularly known as ‘the Proms’), in London. The harpist was Sidonie Goossens, sister
of the conductor and composer Eugene Goossens and the oboist Leon Goossens. For the
premiere, Alwyn wrote a brief composer’s note.
Lyra Angelica [Angel’s Songs] was inspired by my intense love of the 17th-century metaphysical
poets: George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, John Donne, and Thomas Traherne,
of whom Giles Fletcher is probably the least known today, although his masterpiece, the epic
poem “Christ’s Victorie and Triumph” (1610) was the direct inspiration for Milton’s Paradise
Lost. My concerto for harp and strings is a cycle of four elegiac movements, each illustrating a
quotation from Fletcher’s text:
I. Adagio - “I looke for angels’ songs, and hear Him crie.’
II. Adagio, ma non troppo - “Ah! Who was He such pretious perills found?”
III. Moderato - ‘And yet, how can I let Thee singing goe,
When men incens’d with hate Thy death foreset?”
IV. Allgero giubiloso - “How can such joy as this want words to speake?”
In my interpretation of these lines I have tried to capture in musical terms the sensuous imagery
and mystical fervour of the poem as a whole. The concerto is of symphonic proportions, but it is
free and rhapsodic in style. I have tried to sustain this rapt mood by interweaving the solo harp
and strings into a continuous web of luminous sound.
,
According to the composer’s widow, William Alwyn considered the harp concerto to be
his most beautiful composition. Mary Alwyn chose its first movement to be played at her
husband’s funeral. In 1987, Lyra Angelica was the major work anchoring a concert honoring
Alwyn’s life and work at the 15th-century Church of the Holy Trinity in Blythburgh, Suffolk.
Alwyn scored Lyra Angelica for harp and strings.
IN THE SOLOIST’S WORDS: Barbara Chapman on Lyra Angelica
Although this weekend is the first time VSO Principal Harp Barbara Chapman has
performed Lyra Angelica, this piece has been on her radar screen for a long time. She describes it
as on her ‘life list,’ a composition she definitely wanted to learn. “I first played Alwyn’s Naiades
for flute and harp 30 years ago and found it manageable, playable, delightful to play,” she
recalls. “Then I became aware that he had composed extensively for harp, including this concerto
for harp and strings, but I had never heard it played live. When I suggested Lyra Angelica, JoAnn
[Falletta] was thrilled. It fits very well with the English theme of this program, and the music is
so beautiful.”
The project was easier planned than executed. “It was an adventure locating the score,”
Ms. Chapman explains. “Alwyn’s publisher is Alfred Lengnick, a minor English publishing
house now handled by Ricordi London. I discovered that Lyra Angelica had never been
engraved. All that was available was a photostat of the manuscript in fair copy. And no piano
reduction existed – just the full score.”
Nevertheless, she was committed to the project. “This work has potential to become
central to the harp literature,” she says. “Alwyn is emerging from the shadows in England.
There’s been a William Alwyn Conference in the past couple of years, and he is getting some
recognition. Lyra Angelica is stunning repertoire: so well written, and it fits the hands well. In
the entire score, I cannot find a place that is unplayable – it’s just a yummy, yummy piece!”
Chapman points out that Alwyn loved poetry; he knew languages and loved allegories.
“He did so much more than write and play music. He was also a painter and read extensively in
English and French poetry. Giles Fletcher’s poetry is a springboard for the imagination. Lyra
Angelica is especially appropriate as we move toward the Lenten season, especially followed on
this program by the Mozart Mass.”
– L.S. ©2011
Mass in C major, K.317 “Krönungsmesse” [“Coronation” Mass]
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born 27 January, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died 5 December, 1791 in Vienna
Approximate duration 24 minutes
Most listeners don’t know much sacred music by Mozart apart from the Requiem and the
Exsultate jubilate. Quite a bit more exists, most of it from his Salzburg years. When Mozart
returned in January 1779 from his ill-fated trip to Mannheim and Paris, Salzburg’s Archbishop
Colloredo appointed him court and cathedral organist. In this capacity he was expected to
compose as well as perform a considerable amount of music for church services and other
ceremonial occasions.
The so-called “Coronation” Mass dates from March 1779, and was almost certainly
composed for Easter services a couple of weeks later. The subtitle is a 19th-century label. It
probably arose from this Mass having been performed at the coronation of Emperor Leopold II
as King of Bohemia in late summer 1791; Antonio Salieri is believed to have conducted that
performance.
Some fifteen complete masses survive from Mozart’s Salzburg years, plus a few
miscellaneous mass movements. In a famous letter to the Italian pedagogue Padre Martini in
1776, Mozart described the Salzburg custom. Masses were to last no longer than three-quarters
of an hour. This meant a shorter musical component, with little or no repetition of text. The
truncated approach has come to be known as a Missa brevis or ‘short mass.’
The ‘Coronation’ is something of a hybrid: a bit longer than most of Mozart’s other
masses, calling for a fairly large orchestra, and with some text repetition, but it is still concise at
well under a half hour. The music of the opening Andante maestoso recurs at the end, a unifier
that occurs in Bach’s Magnificat and other sacred pieces.
The most interesting aspect of this Mass, however, is its arias, which clearly foreshadow
the direction Mozart would take in his vocal writing during the operas of the 1780s. Many
writers have noted similarities between the Agnus dei theme and the Countess’ aria, “Dove
sono” in The Marriage of Figaro. Opera buffs who know Così fan tutte will also detect a
thematic relationship between the Mass’ Kyrie theme and Fiordiligi’s Act I aria, “Come
scoglio.” Even those who are not fans of opera will take pleasure in Mozart’s elegant writing for
chorus and orchestra as well as the soloists. It is easy to understand why K.317 is considered to
be his finest mass.
Mozart scored the mass for two oboes, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
timpani; a quartet of vocal soloists; soprano, mixed chorus, organ, and strings. The string
complement consists of first and second violins and basso, which would mean celli and basses –
but no violas; the absence of violas was also in keeping with Salzburg tradition. The Salzburg
orchestra might have reinforced the bass with bassoon.