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October 1, 2016
Selections from Slavonic Dances, Op. 46
Antonín Dvořák
Born 1841 in Mühlhausen, Bohemia
Died 1904 in Prague
Antonín Dvořák composed his Opus 46 set of Eight Slavonic Dances in 1878 and his
Opus 72 set of Eight Slavonic Dances in 1886-1887; all were originally composed for
piano duet, but Dvořák also created orchestral versions of each set within a few weeks
of composition. A selection from Op. 46 was first performed in 1878 in Prague under the
direction of Adolf Čech, while the second set was first heard in Praugue in 1887 under the
direction of the composer. The scores call for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets,
2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Program Notes
Opening Night
Brahms discovered Dvořák when the younger composer applied to the Austrian Commission
for the State Music Prize in 1872. Brahms, one of the commissioners, was delighted with
Dvořák’s submission, and eager to help the young Bohemian. (Dvořák won the prize—and the
sorely-needed stipend—that year and for several years afterward.) Brahms became both a
friend and a mentor to Dvořák for the rest of his life. The most important thing Brahms did
for Dvořák was introduce his works to Fritz Simrock, his own publisher. Simrock knew talent
when he saw it, and asked Dvořák to write something in the manner of Brahms’ Hungarian
Dances, but drawn from his Bohemian folk heritage. That was a stroke of genius.
The music was in Dvořák’s blood, and ideas came to him so quickly he could barely set them
down on paper fast enough. In a few months he had completed his Slavonic Dances Op. 46,
and a few months after that, Dvořák’s name was known the world over. The set of eight
dances made a fortune for Simrock, and the days of struggling in near-poverty were over
for Dvořák.
The First Dance from Opus 46 is a furiant, a rapid-tempo dance in triple meter from
Dvořák’s native Bohemia. A feature of any furiant—and especially Dvořák’s—is the constant
shifting of rhythmic accents between 3/4 time and 6/8 time. (Since they both add up to
six eighth notes, they are interchangeable.) This keeps things delightfully off-balance, and
Dvořák uses his own rhythmic sleight-of-hand to enliven things further.
The Second Dance from Op. 46 is a dumka, a dance that traditionally alternates its tempos
and moods: slow and fast, melancholy and gay. A solo clarinet leads off this one, its
mournful melody carried on by the strings. The fast music is almost circus-like, with a
jolting good cheer, and Dvořák yanks us from one mood to the other in the blink of an eye.
The Dance No. 7 from Opus 46 is a skočná, a fast folk dance in duple meter that is
sometimes called a jumping dance. It comes to us in episodes. The jaunty theme of the
dance is first given very simply (and rather sedately) by a solo oboe, with a counter melody
supplied by the bassoon. As the dance unfolds, Dvořák gradually increases the tempo and
the temperature, expanding the orchestration and counterpoint until the entire orchestra
is jumping together. Towards the end, the music and the tempo wind down, almost to a
stop, whereupon Dvořák tops it off with a furious finish. As with all the dances, it is fairly
dripping with Bohemian color and exquisitely orchestrated.quieter, and Smetana evokes a
“dance of water nymphs.” After the river crashes mightily over the “Rapids of Saint John” it
broadens, flows past the city of Prague, and disappears from view.
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Program Notes
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Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in D minor, Op. 47
Jean Sibelius
Born 1865 in Tavestehus, Finland
Died 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland
Jean Sibelius composed his Violin Concerto between 1902 and 1904, and conducted
the first performance with violinist Victor Nováček and the Helsingfors Philharmonic the
same year. The concerto is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets,
2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
As a youth Jean Sibelius wanted to be a violinist even though he had also shown great
promise as a composer: “My tragedy was that I wanted to be a celebrated violinist at any
price. From the age of 15, I played my violin for ten years, practically from morning to night.
My preference for the violin lasted quite long, and it was a very painful awakening when I
had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of an eminent performer
too late.” It’s not surprising, then, that Sibelius would choose the instrument he knew best
for the only concerto he would compose.
By the turn of the twentieth century, many composers had disavowed the classical
concerto model of a soloist-with-orchestral-accompaniment in favor of a coalescent
approach giving equal weight and musical value to each. Sibelius intended to return to
the earlier practice, with the soloist dominating the proceedings, but he may have gone
overboard: when the Concerto was first performed, neither Sibelius nor the critics were
terribly satisfied. He revised the work in 1905, giving greater prominence (though not
equality) to the orchestra and eliminating some of the busy-work in the solo part.
The opening of the first movement is unusual: not only does the violin enter almost
immediately, but as it intones the first theme of the piece it also has the first discernable
rhythm, played against a static orchestral background. There are three major themes, and
each is developed somewhat before the next one arrives; the cadenza takes the place
of a true development section. Though there are islands of calm in this movement, the
drama and passion of the music are electrifying, and its effect—despite the composer’s
intentions—is very nearly symphonic.
The Adagio di molto has a more traditional shape: its low, melancholy melody spins out, is
developed, and eventually dies away.
Sibelius referred to the high-energy Finale as a Danse Macabre, though it has also been
called a “polonaise for polar bears.” Either way it is high entertainment. The soloist engages
in breathtaking fireworks, but not just for show: everything the soloist plays advances the
musical cause in partnership with the orchestra.
The Violin Concerto reflects how Sibelius’ compositional approach was changing. The
program music, patriotic nationalism and romanticism were giving way to a more austere
and concentrated musical language with a hint of the neoclassical to it. Though his rhetoric
became more objective, Sibelius continued to formulate his music in terms of orchestral
sound. Parts were not assigned after composition; rather, the weight and sonority of the
orchestra were always in mind as he conceived the music.
There doesn’t seem to be any program music in this concerto, nor the kind of landscapepainting you often find in Sibelius’ other works. Still, even his absolute music seems
replete with the sights and sounds of nature. Whether intended or not, listeners hear the
woodlands in the notes, and this suited Sibelius: “I love the mysterious sounds of the fields
and forests, water and mountains. It pleases me greatly to be called an artist of nature, for
nature has truly been the book of books for me.”
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Maurice Ravel originally composed this work for piano in 1905 and orchestrated it in 1918.
The first performance of the orchestral version was in Paris the following year, with the
Pasdeloup Orchestra under the direction of Rhené-Baton. The score calls for
3 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon,
4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, and strings.
Ravel composed his Miroirs (Mirrors) as a suite of five pieces for the piano, each having
a descriptive title: Noctuelles (Night Moths), Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds), Une barque sur
l’océan (A Boat on the Ocean), Alborado del gracioso, and La valée des cloches (The Valley
of the Bells). Alborado del gracioso is a bit tricky to translate; it is usually given as Morning
Song of the Jester, which is fine as far as it goes. In other cultures, a “morning song” implies
the song of the troubadour at dawn, intended to wake illicit lovers in time for them to
depart; in the Spanish tradition, though, it’s more of a celebratory greeting of the morning.
There may actually be a bit of both in this piece. Gracioso literally means a buffoon, clown,
or indeed a jester. But in the Spanish comic theater a gracioso was a character not usually
found in other traditions, with a meaning that is not quite the same. When asked, Ravel
said, “I understand your bafflement over how to translate the title Alborada del gracioso.
That is precisely why I decided not to translate it.”
Program Notes
Alborada del gracioso
Maurice Ravel
Born 1875 in Ciboure, France
Died 1937 in Paris, France
The work opens with the strumming of a guitar—though you may mistake it for harps and
pizzicato strings. As the winds contribute a perky theme, the underlying rhythms suavely
shift between 3/4 and 6/8 time, often both at the same time. Before you know it, though,
the full orchestra enters with a crash, and the morning song becomes larger than life. This
outburst vanishes almost as quickly as it came. In its place comes a lovelorn solo bassoon,
instructed to play “expressively, like a recitative” and introducing the slow middle section.
The fiery music of the opening section returns to lead us to the ending, which is just shy of
being over-the-top.
Ibéria
Claude Debussy
Born 1862 in St. Germain-en-Laye, France
Died 1918 in Paris, France
Claude Achille Debussy completed this work in 1909 as part of his orchestral triptych
Images, and it was first performed in Paris in 1910 by the Concerts Colonne under the
direction of Gabriel Pierné. The score calls for 4 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn,
3 clarinets, 4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba,
timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celeste, and strings.
Debussy famously turned the world of Romantic orchestral music on its head with his
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Nocturnes, and La mer; their fragmentary melodies,
cascades of whole-tone scales, and slippery harmonies reevaluated music’s first
principles and came to some startling conclusions. But how might these techniques
give us a taste of Spain?
Debussy had only traveled to Spain once, and then only for a few hours in the border city
of San Sebastian, where he saw a bullfight. But Debussy knew Spanish literature, art, and
music—if not its topography—and his intention in Ibéria was to give us images of Spain.
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Program Notes
continued from previous page
Debussy had composed two sets of Images for the piano and intended his third set to be
for two pianos. He soon realized, though, that he needed an orchestral palette to bring his
musical ideas to life. His Images for orchestra is a work in three parts: Gigues, Ibéria, and
Rondes de printemps, and Ibéria itself is in three parts.
The first of these is Par les rues et par les chemins (In the streets and by-ways). It begins with a
pervasive rhythm and a jaunty clarinet melody, both of which will lead us through the sunny
streets—streets that are teeming with life. Part way through we come to a shady area, with a
theme that will return in the other movements, but soon enough we burst into the light once
again. As evening falls, the traffic thins out, and the piece doesn’t simply end: it evanesces.
Les parfums de la nuit (The fragrance of the night) comes next, a stanza of sheer musical
poetry. We begin in a quiet and mysterious garden, but as the night deepens so does the
intensity of the music. But before long we return to soft blankets of sound.
When we hear the tolling of the bells we know we have reached Le matin d’un jour de fête
(The morning of a festival day), which follows without pause. This is simply dazzling with
its bright colors and joyous bustle. “There is a watermelon vendor and children whistling,”
wrote the composer. “I see them all clearly!” And so can we.
In a letter to his publisher about Images, Debussy wrote, “I am attempting to write
something different, an effect of reality—what the imbeciles call impressionism.” That
reality was good enough for Manuel de Falla, who said, “Claude Debussy wrote Spanish
music without knowing Spain, that is to say without knowing the land of Spain, which is
a different matter. As far as Ibéria is concerned, he made it clear that he did not intend
to write Spanish music but rather to translate into music the associations that Spain had
aroused in him. This he triumphantly achieved.”
©2016 Mark Rohr | Questions or comments? [email protected]
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