Download Concerts of Thursday, February 20, 2014, at 8:00p, and Saturday

Concerts of Thursday, February 20, 2014, at 8:00p, and Saturday,
February 22, 2014, at 7:30p
Robert Spano, conductor
David Coucheron, violin
Jessica Rivera, soprano
Brett Polegato, baritone
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Lark Ascending, Romance for Violin and Orchestra (1914)
David Coucheron, Violin
Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1934)
I. Allegro
II. Andante moderato
III. Scherzo. Allegro molto
IV. Finale Con Epilogo Fugato. Allegro molto
Intermission
Dona nobis pacem, A Cantata for Soprano and Baritone Soli, Chorus and
Orchestra (1936)
I. Agnus Dei
II. “Beat! beat! drums!”
III. Reconciliation
IV. Dirge for Two Veterans
V. “The Angel of Death”
VI. “O man greatly beloved”
Jessica Rivera, soprano
Brett Polegato, baritone
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, England, on October 12,
1872, and died in London, England, on August 26, 1958.
The Lark Ascending, Romance for Violin and Orchestra (1914)
The first performance of The Lark Ascending took place in Queen’s Hall in London
on June 14, 1921, with Marie Hall as violin soloist, and Adrian Boult conducting the
British Symphony Orchestra. In addition to the solo violin, The Lark Ascending is
scored for two flutes, oboe, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, triangle, and
strings. Approximate performance time is sixteen minutes.
First ASO Classical Subscription Performances: February 21, 22 and 23, 1991,
Joseph Silverstein, Violin and Conductor.
Vaughan Williams began composition of The Lark Ascending in 1914. With the outbreak
of World War I, Vaughan Williams enlisted in the Army (see, Dona nobis pacem,
below). In 1919, Vaughan Williams resumed work on The Lark Ascending. The
composer originally scored the piece for violin and piano. Vaughan Williams dedicated
The Lark Ascending to violinist Marie Hall who, along with pianist Geoffrey Mendham,
gave the premiere in Shirehampton, Gloucestershire, on December 15, 1920, part of a
concert of the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society.
Vaughan Williams also scored The Lark Ascending in its more familiar version for solo
violin and small orchestra. Marie Hall was once again the soloist, accompanied by
conductor Adrian Boult and the British Symphony Orchestra in the June 14, 1921
premiere at Queen’s Hall in London.
The title of The Lark Ascending is taken from the poem by George Meredith. In a
preface to the score, Vaughan Williams quotes these lines from Meredith’s poem:
THE LARK ASCENDING
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
*
*
*
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes.
*
*
*
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
(George Meredith, 1828-1909)
After a brief orchestral introduction (Andante sostenuto), the solo violin plays a lengthy
cadenza. The majestic, delicate music immediately establishes the soloist’s role as the
embodiment of the lark’s beautiful song and noble flight. In the final measures, the
orchestra is silent as the violinist plays another extended cadenza, capped by the magical
conclusion depicting the lark “lost on his aerial rings in light…”
Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1934)
The first performance of the Symphony No. 4 took place at Queen’s Hall in London
on April 10, 1935, with Adrian Boult conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
The Symphony No. 4 is scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn,
two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets,
three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals,
suspended cymbal, and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-four
minutes.
First ASO Classical Subscription Performances: December 3, 4 and 5, 1970, Robert
Shaw, Conductor.
“I shall value it all my life”
According to Vaughan Williams, his Fourth Symphony “was sketched in the end of 1931
and the beginning of 1932, and was completed in 1934.” In R.V.W. A Biography of
Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1964), the
composer’s second wife, Ursula, related: “His own story of the genesis of his Fourth
Symphony was that he had read an account of one of the ‘Freak Festivals’ in which a
symphony, he couldn’t remember who had written it, was described in some detail…his
breakfast-time reaction was an immediate ‘il faut que je compose cela’.
Vaughan Williams dedicated the Fourth Symphony to his friend and fellow British
composer, Arnold Bax (1883-1953). Vaughan Williams sent the score to Bax as a
Christmas present. Bax wrote back:
My dear Ralph,
Coming back from a few days in Devon to-night I found your ever-to-behonoured present awaiting me. This is the finest tribute of affection and
comradeship that has ever been paid to me and I shall value it all my life.
I need say no more than this.
If Vaughan Williams intended to elicit a reaction similar to the one that first inspired him
to write the Fourth, he succeeded. No work by Ralph Vaughan Williams has generated
as much discussion, analysis and controversy as the Symphony No. 4. By all accounts,
the audience response to the world premiere at Queen’s Hall in London on April 10, 1935
was ecstatic, with the composer repeatedly called to the stage. The critics, however, were
troubled by a Symphony that, while clearly the work of a master composer, seemed to
abandon beauty for music that was austere, harsh, and often violent.
Many suspected that in the Fourth, Vaughan Williams was offering a musical
commentary on the storm clouds gathering in Europe. Ursula Vaughan Williams
suggested a different view:
It has often been said that this work is related to the period in which it was
written, and, though this must be true to some extent of any work by any
composer who does not cut himself off from contemporary life, no one
seems to have observed how far more closely it is related to the character
of the man who wrote it. The towering furies of which he was so capable,
his fire, pride and strength are all revealed and so are his imagination and
lyricism. He was experimenting with purely musical ideas; no sea or city,
no essence of the country was at the heart of this score and what emerged
has something in common with one of Rembrandt’s self portraits in
middle age.
“It’s what I meant”
Vaughan Williams’s friend R. G. Longman confessed he found no beauty in the Fourth
Symphony. By letter of December, 1937, Vaughan Williams responded:
(1) I agree with you that all music must have beauty—the problem being
what is beauty—so when you say you do not think my F mi. symph.
beautiful my answer must be that I do think it beautiful—not that I did
not mean it to be beautiful because it reflects unbeautiful times—
because we know that beauty can come from unbeautiful things (eg.
King Lear, Rembrandt’s School of Anatomy, Wagner’s Nibelungs
etc.)
As a matter of fact
(1) I am not sure that I like it myself now. All I know is that it is what I
wanted to do at the time.
(2) I wrote it not as a definite picture of anything external—e.g. the state
of Europe—but simply because it occurred to me like this—I can’t explain
why—I don’t think that sitting down and thinking about great things ever
produces a great work of art (at least I hope not—because I never do so…)
Vaughan Williams’s admission to Longman, “I am not sure that I like it myself now”,
aligns with a often-quoted statement he made during rehearsals for the premiere of the
Fourth: “I don’t know whether I like it, but it’s what I meant.” And yet, just a few
months before the December, 1937 letter, Vaughan Williams conducted the BBC
Symphony Orchestra in a studio recording of the Fourth. It is the only commercial
recording the composer ever made of any of his Symphonies. And it remains among the
most intensely committed, propulsive and thrilling renditions of this extraordinary work.
Musical Analysis
I. Allegro—The Fourth Symphony opens with a fearsome outburst by the full orchestra.
Vaughan Williams said, tongue in cheek, that he “cribbed” this opening from the finale of
Beethoven’s Ninth. But the omnipresent Beethoven influence throughout the Vaughan
Williams Fourth is the German composer’s Symphony No. 5 (1808). Like the Beethoven
Fifth, the entire Symphony is based upon a four-note motif (actually, two motifs). The
first, reminiscent of the Dies Irae (“This day of wrath”) plainchant, is introduced at the
conclusion of the opening phrase by the winds, trumpets and violins. The trumpets soon
introduce the second, ascending principal four-note motif (throughout his program notes
for the Symphony’s premiere, Vaughan Williams refers to the two motifs as “(A)” and
“(B)”). These motifs serve as the basis for the first theme group. The second theme
group—initiated by an extended cantilena passage for the strings (Meno mosso), and
continued by a melody in D Major—injects striking contrast. The two seminal four-note
motifs dominate the ensuing development section. In his program notes, Vaughan
Williams concludes:
There is no complete recapitulation of the first subjects, but after a few
bars suggestive of the opening, the cantilena passage follows immediately,
this time in the bass, with a counter melody in the treble. This works up to
a fortissimo. The music then dies away, and ends with a soft and slow
repetition of the D major theme, this time in D flat.
II. Andante moderato—The second movement, while set in slow tempo, maintains the
intense, bleak mood of its predecessor. Vaughan Williams offers the following
description:
The second movement has for its introduction a passage suggested by (B).
The principal theme which follows is played by first violins over a
pizzicato bass. Then follow two episodes (annotator’s note: introduced,
respectively, by the solo oboe, and second violins), during the second of
which the introductory passage is also heard.
The first half of the movement concludes with a cadence for solo flute, marked
Tranquillo and cantabile. Vaughan Williams continues: “Then after another episode
there is a shortened recapitulation. The final cadence figure extends itself into a cadenza
for the flute, under which (A) is heard on the muted trombones.”
III. Scherzo. Allegro molto—Scherzo is the Italian word for “joke.” Here, the humor is of
a more sardonic nature. The principal Scherzo theme, introduced at the outset, is based
upon the (A) motif, and capped by (B). The central Trio (Quasi meno mosso) features the
contrapuntal treatment of a pesante theme introduced by the bassoons, contrabassoon and
tuba. A reprise of the Scherzo leads to a mysterious transitional passage that, like its
counterpart in the Beethoven Fifth, segues without pause to the Finale.
IV. Finale Con Epilogo Fugato. Allegro molto—Vaughan Williams notes that the finale
“opens with a more energetic version of the (flute) cadence figure from the second
movement. This has, as a dependent theme, a melody for wind over what is known in
professional circles as an ‘oompah’ bass.” A theme softly introduced by the oboe,
bassoon and first violins develops into a 6/4 melody (scherzando) first played, forte, by
the trumpets and trombones.
Vaughan Williams explains:
Instead of a development there is a long passage founded on the first three
bars of the ‘dependent’ theme. Then a suggestion of the end of the first
movement, and then another long pedal leading back to the recapitulation.
The subject of the fugal epilogue is (A), played first on the trombones and
then heard both in its original form and inverted, combined with the other
subjects of the finale. The work ends with a reference to the opening bars
of the first movement.
Dona nobis pacem, A Cantata for Soprano and Baritone Soli, Chorus and
Orchestra (1936)
The first performance of Dona nobis pacem took place at the Huddersfield Town
Hall in Huddersfield, England, in on October 2, 1936. Albert Coates conducted the
Hallé Orchestra and Huddersfield Choral Society. Dona nobis pacem is scored for
soprano and baritone soloists, mixed chorus, piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones,
bass trombone, tuba, timpani, side drum, triangle, tenor drum, orchestra bells,
cymbals, suspended cymbal, tam-tam, bass drum, tambourine, chimes, harp, organ,
and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-six minutes.
First ASO Classical Subscription Performances: March 10, 11 and 12, 1977, Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Robert Shaw, Conducting.
Most Recent ASO Classical Subscription Performances: November 13, 14 and 15,
1997, Robert Shaw, Conducting.
ASO Recording: Telarc CD-80479, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Robert
Shaw, Conducting.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his cantata, Dona nobis pacem, in 1936. The
Huddersfield Choral Society commissioned the work as part of the celebration of its 100th
anniversary. In R.V.W. A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, England, 1964), the composer’s widow, Ursula Vaughan Williams, noted
that when Vaughan Williams composed Dona nobis pacem:
The picture of Europe was a dark one. The Dictators were declaring their
aims and intentions. Though Mussolini had drained the Pontine marshes
and caused Italian trains to run on time, cleared the slums of Rome and
built splendid stations and blocks of modern flats for the workers, his
threats in other directions were clear enough. More horribly, the Nazis
were dividing the world between Aryans and Jews in hysterical
discrimination against some of their greatest citizens. Musicians, artists,
writers, scientists, doctors, and people in every walk of life were suddenly
dispossessed. The great exodus began, and racial and political refugees
poured into England and America to the enrichment of both, for they
brought the wealth of their talents and the generosity of their belief that
these two nations stood for the freedom of the human spirit.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was a first-hand witness to the horrors of war. Following the
outbreak of World War I, Vaughan Williams, 42 years old, enlisted in the Army.
Vaughan Williams worked in the field ambulance unit, transporting the wounded from
the battlefield in the Neuville St. Vaast region. As Vaughan Williams wrote to his friend,
composer Gustav Holst: “I am a ‘waggon orderly’ and go up the line every night to bring
back wounded and sick in a motor ambulance—all this takes place at night except an
occasional day journey for urgent cases.”
Vaughan Williams was devastated by the news of the deaths of many of his friends in
battle, including the promising young British composer, George Butterworth (18851916). Vaughan Williams confessed to Holst:
I sometimes think now that it is wrong to have made friends with people
much younger than oneself—because there will only be the middle aged
left and I have got out of touch with most of my contemporary friends—
but then there is always you and thank Heaven we have never got out of
touch and I don’t see why we ever should.
Toward the end of his life, Vaughan Williams said of the great American poet, Walt
Whitman (1819-1892): “I’ve never got over him, I’m glad to say.” Two of Vaughan
Williams’s early triumphs, Toward the Unknown Region (1906), and A Sea Symphony
(1909) featured settings of Whitman’s poetry.
Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Vaughan Williams set Whitman’s Civil War poem,
Dirge for Two Veterans, for chorus and orchestra. The Dirge became the centerpiece of
the 1936 cantata, Dona nobis pacem. For the remainder of the cantata’s text, Vaughan
Williams incorporated two more Whitman Civil War poems, a portion of a House of
Commons speech by John Bright given during the Crimean War, and the Old Testament.
In addition, a portion of the Latin Mass serves as a recurring leitmotif, and the source of
the work’s title. Vaughan Williams’s juxtaposition of the Latin text and wartime poetry
anticipates Benjamin Britten’s 1961 War Requiem (ASO Concerts of April 24 and 26,
2014).
The trajectory of the text and music of Dona nobis pacem reflects hope for a brighter
future. That optimism was sorely tested by the events of World War II. Vaughan
Williams conducted Dona nobis pacem several times in England during the War and the
music was, according to Ursula, “full of particular meaning for those days.” Events since
that time have done nothing to diminish the power, beauty and relevance of Vaughan
Williams’s composition, or the haunting eloquence of the soprano’s repeated prayer to
“grant us peace.”
1. Agnus Dei (Soprano and Chorus)
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona nobis pacem.
(Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.)
2. “Beat! beat! drums!” (Chorus)
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through the doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering in his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
[Over the traffic of cities —over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses?
No sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
—Walt Whitman
3. Reconciliation (Baritone and Chorus)
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly, softly,
wash again, and ever again this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
—Walt Whitman
Dona nobis pacem
4. Dirge for Two Veterans (Chorus)
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they are flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father,
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropped together,
And the double grave awaits them.
And nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined,
‘Tis some mother’s large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.
O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
—Walt Whitman
V. “The Angel of Death” (Soprano, Baritone and Chorus)
The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land;
you may almost hear the beating of his wings.
There is no one as of old . . .
to sprinkle with blood the lintel
and the two side-posts of our doors,
that he may spare and pass on.
—John Bright
Dona nobis pacem
We looked for peace, but no good came;
and for a time of health, and behold trouble!
The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan;
the whole land trembled at the sound
of the neighing of his strong ones;
for they are come, and have devoured the land,
and those that dwell therein. . . .
The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved…
Is there no balm in Gilead?; is there no physician there?
Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
—Jeremiah: 8:15-22
VI. “O man greatly beloved” (Baritone, Soprano and Chorus)
O man greatly beloved, fear not,
peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong.
Daniel: 10:19
The glory of this latter house
shall be greater than the former…
and in this place will I give peace.
—Haggai 2:9
Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
And none shall make them afraid, neither shall the sword go through the land.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Open to me the gates of righteousness, I will go into them.
Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled;
and let them hear, and say, it is the truth.
And it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues.
And they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them,
and they shall declare my glory among the nations.
For as the new heavens, and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,
so shall your seed and your name remain for ever.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.
—Adapted from Micah 4:3, Leviticus 26:6, Psalms 85:10 and 188:19, Isaiah 43:9 and 66:
18-22, and Luke 2:14
Dona nobis pacem.