Download Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra Classics #11

Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Classics #11 - A Little Night Music - 2 & 4 May 2013
By Laurie Shulman ©2012
First North American Serial Rights Only
Our season finale takes its title, ‘A Little Night Music,’ not from Stephen Sondheim and
Hugh Wheeler’s 1973 hit musical, but from Mozart’s beloved serenade for strings, whose title
Eine kleine Nachtmusik means ‘a little night music.’ Although we have been on daylight
savings time now for two full months, in May the days seem to lengthen more noticeably,
pushing dusk increasingly later as we move toward the summer solstice. Warmer daytime
temperatures, verdant foliage, and a riot of flowers confirm the arrival of full spring.
In fact, everything about this program heralds the freshness and promise of spring. Guest
conductor Daniel Hege opens with the Mozart, one of the Viennese master’s most familiar and
beloved works. A perfect little jewel, it breathes joy and serenity, unruffled by the shadows that
so often flicker over Mozart’s late works.
Curiously, we have no idea why Mozart composed the Nachtmusik. Generally he wrote
on commission, but no record survives of any formal request for this serenade. Other aspects add
to its mystery. Serenades were generally outdoor music. In the open air, woodwinds and brass
carry better than strings. Why then did Mozart write this serenade for strings? Another curiosity
is a page torn from the original manuscript – a second minuet that has not survived. Did Mozart
remove it, or someone else? What happened to the missing minuet?
Despite these tantalizing questions, the four movements of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
unfold as if they were a perfect symphony in miniature, here showing off the polish of our VSO
strings.
The focus on strings continues with Astor Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas
[The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires] for violin and string orchestra, featuring VSO
concertmaster Vahn Armstrong as soloist. This suite of four tangos was loosely inspired both by
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and by the Argentinian capital.
Nadia Boulanger, the legendary French composition teacher, once told Piazzolla that he
should write tangos, nothing but tangos, for that is where he would find his greatest success. He
later recalled, “Nadia asked where, in all my works, was Piazzolla, for [my music] seemed to
represent all kinds of things -- but not Piazzolla. Once, she heard me play tango on the piano,
and said to me, `There is Piazzolla -- and there is the direction you must take.’” He took her
advice, returned to his cultural roots, and became one of Argentina’s celebrated performers and
composers.
Piazzolla composed his Cuatro Estaciones in the 1960s for his nuevo tango quintet. As
independent pieces, the four pieces soon became some of his most popular works, adapted in
versions for many other ensembles. In the early 1990s, the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer
commissioned the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov to arrange Piazzolla’s pieces in order
to provide a companion work to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on concert programs.
Desyatnikov
cleverly emphasized the Vivaldian references inherent in Piazzolla’s
original, adding in a few neo-Baroque flourishes to enhance the fusion of styles. (Snippets of
Vivaldi are easiest to identify in the ‘Summer’ movement. The sharp-eared will recognize
quotations from Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ – because the seasons are reversed in the southern
hemisphere.) Desyatnikov’s real achievement is emulating instruments specifically identified
with tango, like the bandoneón [a type of button accordion], in his imaginative use of the strings.
Following intermission, Mr. Hege conducts what is perhaps the 19th century’s most
exuberant salute to spring: Robert Schumann’s Symphony No.1 in B-flat major, Op.38,
known as the ‘Spring Symphony.’ Schumann was the quintessential romantic composer, yet he
was determined to master classical forms. He drafted this symphony just months after marrying
the brilliant pianist Clara Wieck. The couple were deliriously happy. His joy comes through in
the tunefulness, resolute high spirits, and vitality of his First Symphony.
Schumann was a bookseller’s son and maintained a lifelong interest in literature. He took
his initial inspiration from a poem about the barren late winter giving way to the rebirth and
freshness of spring. Although he later abjured any associations with the poem, the season’s
optimism and renewal emerge in the music. Surging energy, powerful rhythms, and a feeling of
well-being pervade all four movements, attesting to the enormous happiness that Schumann felt
in the first year of marriage to his beloved Clara.
Subtle musical connections also unite this symphony. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear
clear similarity between the first movement’s introductory fanfare and the subsequent allegro.
Similarly, a trombone chorale near the end of the slow movement is the seed for the scherzo.
And a catchy ‘motto’ theme unites the finale.
Serenade for Strings, K. 525 "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born 27 January, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died 5 December, 1791 in Vienna
Approximate duration 16 minutes
Eine kleine Nachtmusik is a wonderful work with which to introduce people to classical
music. Its graceful melodies and sunny disposition are readily appealing; those who claim no
acquaintance with Mozart are generally surprised how familiar these four movements are.
Listeners with a broad knowledge of classical music find the Nachtmusik a perfect symphony in
miniature, illustrating in a concise manner the four-movement structure that governed the
Viennese classical tradition for so long. One of the Nachtmusik's ironies is that it is not a
symphony at all, but a serenade, and that it wasn't even in four movements in its original version,
but rather in five.
Furthermore, Eine kleine Nachtmusik presents us with a paradox. It is probably Mozart's
best known, best loved and most widely recognized composition, yet we have no idea what
prompted him to compose it! There are few outward clues, and no mention of the work in the
composer's correspondence. The score is dated 10 August, 1787. Why did he interrupt work on
Don Giovanni to compose the Nachtmusik? Probably because of a commission from a
nobleman, but whom?
The title translates to "A little Night Music," or serenata notturna, to use the 18th-century
Italian term that Mozart's contemporaries would have recognized. This one is scored for strings
alone, possibly even solo strings (that is, string quartet plus double bass). Serenades were
generally outdoor entertainment music. The string ensemble does not generally carry well
outdoors, the way more piercing woodwind timbres do. Mozart's choice of strings for a serenade
adds to the work's mystery.
The Nachtmusik's first movement is in sonata form. A delightful Romanze slow
movement follows, then a melodious minuet with trio, and a folk-like finale reminiscent of
Papageno's music in The Magic Flute. But Eine Kleine Nachtmusik cannot have taken its shape
from symphonic form, because the autograph manuscript is missing a page that was torn out,
which we know contained another, second minuet/trio that has not survived.
In fact, the closer we look and listen to the Nachtmusik, the more like dance music it
sounds, and the less like symphonic music. That characteristic is a considerable factor in its
broad appeal. The immediacy of danceable rhythms and the unassuming, unobtrusive grace of
its melodies ensure that the Nachtmusik will have a large and devoted fan club for a long time.
The score calls for strings.
Las cuatro estaciones porteñas [The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires]
Astor Piazzolla
Born 11 March, 1921 in Mar del Plata, Argentina
Died 5 July, 1992 in Buenos Aires
Arranged for Violin and Orchestra by Leonid Desyatnikov
Born 16 October 1955 in Kharkiv, USSR [now Russia]
Approximate duration 29 minutes
Since the 1930s, bandoneón has been central to Argentinian tango’s characteristic sound.
Though sometimes misidentified as an accordion, bandoneón is a closer relative of the
concertina (or button accordion), a bellows-blown free reed instrument with buttons on both
sides. The instrument originated in Germany in the 1840s. In the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, the bandoneón became standard in popular orchestras of Uruguay and Argentina.
Brazilian orchestras favored the accordion. Although tango’s original instruments were guitar,
violin, clarinet, and flute, the bandoneón has developed a strong association with Argentinian
tango. Astor Piazzolla, arguably Argentina’s most celebrated 20th-century composer, was a major
factor in that process.
Piazzolla had an unusually international upbringing and education. His family moved to
New York when he was three. He soon became a virtuoso on the bandoneón, and by his midteens had moved back to Buenos Aires to launch a performing career. By 1944 he had formed his
own orchestra to promote his original music. A 1954 symphony earned him a national
scholarship that enabled him to study composition in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger.
After returning to Buenos Aires in the late 1950s, Piazzolla organized a band, then
founded the Quinteto Nuevo Tango in 1960. He recorded extensively with Quinteto, playing
both piano and bandoneón (a relative of the accordion). Except for an eleven-year stint in Paris
from 1974 to 1985, he spent most of his career in Argentina, performing and composing operas,
theatre pieces, film scores, and chamber music.
Piazzolla’s music soon garnered a wide audience that stretched far beyond the nuevo
tango milongas of Buenos Aires. Between 1949 and 1988 he composed music for more than fifty
films, which did much to add to his international renown. In the 1980s he composed works for
artists as diverse as the pathbreaking Kronos Quartet and superstar cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
Other musicians began to adapt and arrange his compositions for jazz, classical, popular, and
nuevo tango ensembles. The songs he wrote with the poet Horacio Ferrer became particularly
popular. In Argentina he was known as the “king of the tango.”
As its title implies, Las cuatro estaciones porteñas is a suite of four movements.
Because Buenos Aires is a port, its citizens are called porteños, thus these segments are portraits
of Piazzolla’s friends and neighbors, and of his beloved city, in each of the four seasons. Like
much of his music, they combine jazz, classical, and specifically Argentinian elements.
Curiously, these four pieces did not originate as a unified cycle. The first to be written
was Verano porteño [Buenos Aires Summer], composed in 1965 as part of incidental music for a
play by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz.
In 1969 and 1970, Piazzolla added the other three
movements. He did not consider them a unified cycle, and his Quinteto Nuevo Tango rarely
performed them as such, though they did so in 1970 during the ensemble’s 10th anniversary
season.
After Piazzolla’s death in 1992, the Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer
commissioned an arrangement for violin and string orchestra of The Four Seasons of Buenos
Aires. His choice for the project was Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, best known for his
film scores and music for theatre. Kremer’s idea was a companion piece to Vivaldi’s Four
Seasons, whose influence is a subtle presence in Piazzolla’s original. By matching the
instrumentation of the Vivaldi – violin and strings – Desyatnikov had ample opportunity to
emphasize links between the 18th-century Italian and the 20th-century Argentinian. Piazzolla was
no purist about the instrumentation of his music; he recorded many of his own works in multiple
versions for various ensembles. He would surely have been pleased by the broader audience
Desyatnikov’s arrangement has brought to these pieces.
Each movement functions as an independent concert piece, and individual seasons from
Piazzolla’s Four Seasons frequently appear on programs. This weekend we have a rare
opportunity to hear the complete set, featuring VSO concertmaster Vahn Armstrong in the
flashy, stylish solos.
Piazzolla’s original score matched his quintet: bandoneón, piano, guitar, bass, and violin.
Desyatnikov’s orchestral arrangement calls for solo violin and strings.
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat, Op. 38 (“Spring”)
Robert Schumann
Born 8 June, 1810 in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany
Died 29 July, 1856 in Endenich, near Bonn, Germany
Approximate duration 30 minutes
This symphony might well be subtitled “Schumann in Love.” Its seeds were sown at the
time of his honeymoon with Clara Wieck. After several years of vigorous opposition from her
father Friedrich Wieck, the couple married in September 1840. Their wedding launched Robert
on the happiest period he would ever know. In a characteristic fever of activity, he sketched his
B-flat major symphony during an intense four days in January 1841, orchestrating it by 20
February. A performance took place the last day of March, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting
the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Schumann’s initial idea for the symphony grew from a poem by the young German poet
Adolph Böttger, describing winter’s darkness and barrenness yielding to the fresh joy of spring.
The composer wrote to Louis Spohr:
[The symphony] was inspired, if I may say so, by the spirit of spring which seems
to possess us all anew every year, irrespective of age. The music is not intended to
describe or paint anything definite, but I believe the season did much to shape the
particular form it took.
His original plan was to entitle the four movements Spring’s Awakening, Evening, Merry
Playmates, and Full Spring. Although these programmatic headings were abandoned prior to
publication, they still give pause for thought while listening to this symphony, whose themes
seem to burst with the vitality of the new season.
Another factor that encouraged Schumann to attempt a symphony was the first
performance of Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony. Schumann had discovered it in
manuscript and sent it to Mendelssohn, who led the première in Leipzig in 1839, eleven years
after Schubert’s death. To his friend Ernst Adolph Becker, Schumann wrote:
It has made me tingle to be at work on a symphony, too, and I believe something
will come of it, once I am happily married to Clara.
Schumann clearly identified the “Spring” of his subtitle with his own rebirth in life with Clara. In
terms of his personal musical growth, he was intently preoccupied with developing a command
of large forms. During the 1830s he had devoted himself to writing solo piano music, mostly
series of miniatures. In 1840, he concentrated on Lieder [art songs]. His achievements in both
those areas were splendid. Having conquered both piano and the solo song as a composer, he set
out to master the orchestra.
In composing the “Spring” Symphony, Schumann strove for musical unity. That focus is
easy to detect, for there are strong thematic connections that permeate this work. The opening
fanfare motto dominates both slow introduction and allegro in the first movement, and a brief
trombone chorale toward the end of the slow movement provides the material from which
Schumann constructs his scherzo. His keen interest in honing skill with large musical structures
is particularly evident in the scherzo and the finale. The scherzo has two trio sections, a pattern
to which Schumann returned in several works, notably the beloved E-flat major Piano Quintet.
The finale is in sonata form, dominated by another catchy motto that helps to deliver the
“Spring” Symphony’s exuberant and convincing close.
Schumann scored the symphony for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three
trombones, timpani, triangle (first movement only), and strings.