Download Notes on the Program by DR. RICHARD E. RODDA Helios Overture

Notes on the Program by DR. RICHARD E. RODDA
Helios Overture, Op. 17 ...................................................................................................................................... Carl Nielsen
(1865-1931)
Composed in 1903.
Premiered on October 8, 1903 in Copenhagen, conducted by Johan Svendsen.
On September 1, 1889, three years after graduating from the Copenhagen Conservatory, Nielsen joined the second
violin section of the Royal Chapel Orchestra, a post he held for the next sixteen years while continuing to foster his
reputation as a leading figure in Danish music. He found increasing success as a composer during the ensuing decade, but
he was still financially unable to quit his job with the Chapel Orchestra to devote himself fully to creative work. It was
therefore with considerable excitement that he signed a contract with the prestigious publishing firm of Wilhelm Hansen
early in 1903 that would provide him with a regular income and the chance, two years later, to leave behind his
performing chores. Fortune smiled again that year on the Nielsens, when the composer’s wife, Anne Marie, a gifted
sculptress, was awarded the Ancker Fellowship. The couple celebrated their flourishing careers with a stay in Greece,
where they took rooms overlooking the Aegean Sea. Nielsen’s immersion in ancient Greek culture and the beneficent
climate inspired him to compose a concert overture depicting the sun’s traversal of the heavens. He headed the Helios
Overture with the following legend: “Silence and darkness — then the sun climbs in joyous paean of praise — wanders its
golden path — sinks tranquilly into the sea.”
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 ............................................................................................ Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893)
Composed in 1878.
Premiered on December 4, 1881 in Vienna, conducted by Hans Richter with Adolf Brodsky as soloist.
In the summer of 1877, Tchaikovsky undertook the disastrous marriage that lasted less than three weeks and resulted
in his emotional collapse and attempted suicide. He decided that travel outside Russia would be a balm to his spirit, and he
duly installed himself at Clarens on Lake Geneva in Switzerland soon after the first of the year. In Clarens, he had already
begun work on a piano sonata when he heard the colorful Symphonie Espagnole by the French composer Edouard Lalo.
He was so excited by the possibilities of a work for solo violin and orchestra that he set aside the sonata and immediately
began a concerto of his own.
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto opens quietly with a tentative introductory tune. After a few unaccompanied measures,
the violin presents the lovely main theme. The second theme begins a long buildup leading into the development,
launched with a sweeping presentation of the main theme. A flashing cadenza serves as a link to the recapitulation. The
Andante suggests the music of a Gypsy fiddler. The finale is imbued with the propulsive spirit of a dashing Trepak.
Suite from The Firebird (1919 Version) ......................................................................................................Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
Composed in 1909-1910.
Premiered on June 25, 1910 in Paris, conducted by Gabriel Pierné.
Fireworks. There could not have been a more appropriate title for the work that launched the meteoric career of Igor
Stravinsky. He wrote this glittering orchestral miniature in 1908, while still under the tutelage of Nikolai RimskyKorsakov, and it shows all the dazzling instrumental technique that the student had acquired from his teacher. Though the
reception of Fireworks was cool when it was first performed at the Siloti Concerts in St. Petersburg on February 6, 1909,
there was one member of the audience who listened with heightened interest. Serge Diaghilev was forming his Ballet
Russe company at just that time, and he recognized in Stravinsky a talent to be watched. He approached the 27-year-old
composer and requested orchestral transcriptions of short pieces by Chopin and Grieg that would be used in the first
Parisian season of the Ballet Russe. Stravinsky did his work well and on time.
During that same winter, plans were beginning to stir in the creative wing of the Ballet Russe for a Russian folk ballet
— something filled with legend and magic and fantasy. The composer Nikolai Tcherepnin was associated with the Ballet
Russe at that time, and it was assumed that he would compose the music for a plot derived from several traditional
Russian sources. However, Tcherepnin was given to inexplicable changes of mood, and he was losing interest in ballet at
the time, so he withdrew from the project. Diaghilev then wrote to his old harmony professor, Anatoly Liadov, and asked
him to consider taking on the task, informing him that the date for the premiere of the new work was firmly set for less
than a year away. After too many weeks with no word from the dilatory composer, Diaghilev paid him a visit, and was
greeted with Liadov’s report on his progress: “It won’t be long now,” Diaghilev was told. “It’s well on its way. I have just
today bought the manuscript paper.” Realizing that The Firebird would never get off the ground at such a rate, Diaghilev
inquired whether Stravinsky had any interest in taking over for Liadov. Though involved in another project (he had just
completed the first act of the opera The Nightingale), he was eager to work with Diaghilev’s company again, so he agreed.
The triumphant premiere of The Firebird, given by the Ballet Russe in Paris on June 25, 1910, rocketed Stravinsky to
international fame. With somewhat uncharacteristic understatement, he said, “The Firebird radically altered my life.”
The ballet deals with the glittering Firebird and the evil ogre Kashchei, who captures maidens and turns men to stone
if they enter his domain. Kashchei is immortal as long as his soul, preserved in the form of an egg in a casket, remains
intact. The plot shows how Prince Ivan wanders into Kashchei’s garden in pursuit of the Firebird; he captures it and exacts
a feather before letting it go. Ivan meets a group of Kashchei’s captive maidens and falls in love with one of them. The
princesses return to Kashchei’s palace. Ivan breaks open the gates to follow them inside, but he is captured by the ogre’s
guardian monsters. He waves the magic feather, and the Firebird reappears to help him smash Kashchei’s vital egg; the
ogre immediately expires. All the captives are freed and Ivan and his Tsarevna are wed.
The 1919 suite includes six scenes from the complete score. The first two, Introduction and The Dance of the Firebird,
accompany the appearance of the magical creature. The Round Dance of the Princesses uses the rhythm and style of an
ancient Russian dance called the Khorovod. The Infernal Dance of King Kashchei, the most modern portion of the score,
depicts the madness engendered by the appearance of the Firebird at Kashchei’s court after the revelation to Ivan of the
evil ogre’s vulnerability. The haunting Berceuse is heard when the thirteenth princess, the one of whom Ivan is enamored,
succumbs to a sleep-charm that saves her from the terrible King while Ivan destroys Kashchei’s malevolent power. The
Finale, initiated by the solo horn, confirms the life-force that had been threatened by Kashchei.
©2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda