Download Delius, First Cuckoo - The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra

November 17 & 18, 2016
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in the Spring
Frederick Delius
1862-1934
Born in England to parents of German origin, Delius left his country of birth at the age of 22,
never to return except for short visits. He settled first in the United States and in 1886 went to
Leipzig to study music. In 1888 he moved to Paris and in 1897 to Grez-sur-Loing, which
became his permanent home.
Delius considered himself a Frenchman – with a Frenchman’s innate dislike for England.
Nevertheless, the public’s close association of his music with Britain is the doing of Sir
Thomas Beecham, who was the interpretative champion of Delius’s works and included them
frequently in his programs. Beecham also organized a six-concert Delius Festival in London
in 1929. But in spite of these efforts, much of the music never really caught fire.
The reason was probably Delius’s contemplative style. There is rarely an argument or
excitement in his music. While he was strongly influenced by Grieg and Wagner, adopting
the love of folk music of the former and the principle of continuous melodic lines and large
orchestras of the latter, he is best remembered for the serene, introspective tone poems,
mostly on themes from nature.
Delius’s early works were mostly long and specified large orchestral forces, including
expanded woodwind and percussion sections that made performances difficult to mount. In
the hope of getting his music performed, he wrote a series of symphonic sketches for a more
modest orchestra, Summer Night on the River (1911) and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in the
Spring the following year.
In On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring Delius pays tribute one of his closest friends and
early mentors Edvard Grieg who died in 1907. It borrows a melody from Grieg’s Norwegian
Folk Tunes, Op. 66, named “In Ola Valley, in Ola Lake.”
Pavane, Op. 50
Gabriel Fauré
1845-1924
The bulk of Gabriel Fauré’s music – whether piano, chamber, vocal or orchestral – conveys
the impression of a personal and private statement, an intimate conversation between the
composer and his muse. Throughout his life Fauré’s ideal was to create chamber music; the
grander forms, opera, symphony or concerto, were not for him. Although he tried several
times to write symphonies, he abandoned or rejected them; the same fate awaited his attempt
at a violin concerto. His music is admirably suited for performance in private homes or small
halls. But the elegance and ease of much of his work belies the painstaking effort that went
into the composition. Fauré was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Fauré was a student of Camille Saint-Saëns, the quintessential French neo-classicist of the
late nineteenth century who considered form as an essential component of “good” music.
Fauré respected Saint-Saëns greatly, and while the structure of his works usually adheres to
classical models, he often experimented and surprised audiences with unexpected phrasing
and harmonies. His Requiem, for example, represents a quiet, comforting revolution in the
Catholic approach to death (it lacks the Dies irae, describing the panic of damned souls
awaiting judgment). Although a secret agnostic and freethinker, he worked for many years as
organist and choirmaster at La Madeleine, one of the largest churches in Paris.
Fauré composed Pavane in 1887 for a small orchestra with an optional chorus part that is
frequently omitted since it adds little to the delicate and nostalgic mood of the piece. The
modest orchestration is in line with Fauré’s dislike of vivid colors and effects, which he
considered a form of self-indulgence and a cover-up for a shortage of ideas.
Pavane became quite popular, and Fauré made a piano arrangement in 1889.
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, “The Classical”
Sergey Prokofiev
1891-1953
Prokofiev was a composer caught between two cultures. Born into an affluent musical family,
he left the Soviet Union in the summer of 1918, shortly after the 1917 Revolution. For the
next 17 years he lived in Paris and toured the United States, returning to his native country in
the mid-1930s never to leave again.
The year 1917 was a traumatic one for Russia. The February Revolution had deposed the
Tsar, and the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power. Meanwhile, on the
international front, Russia was losing disastrously in its war against Germany and Austria. In
the spring and summer of that year Prokofiev retired to a village not far from Petrograd (now
and formerly St. Petersburg) and, as if oblivious to the earth-shattering turmoil around him,
composed at a furious pace. Among the creations of that period was his sunny Symphony No.
1, which he subtitled “The Classical.”
The Symphony was an experiment. An accomplished pianist, Prokofiev routinely composed
at the piano, although he noticed: “…thematic material composed without the piano was
often better in quality…I was intrigued with the idea of writing an entire symphonic piece
without the piano…So this was how the project of writing a symphony in the style of Haydn
came about…it seemed it would be easier to dive into the deep waters of writing without the
piano if I worked in a familiar setting.” This delicate, nostalgic Symphony premiered in
Petrograd in April 1918 with the composer on the podium, amidst civil war and social
upheaval.
The overall Classical style of the Symphony makes it easy to forget that it is a twentiethcentury creation. The opening Allegro conforms to the standard first movement sonata allegro
form, with occasional twentieth-century harmonies. The second theme is a caricature of the
eighteenth-century Rococo style, played on the tips of the violin bows “con eleganza” like a
mincing dancing master – but with a less than elegant surprise sforzando at the cadence. The
graceful Larghetto theme in the second movement, introduced first by the violins then joined
by a flute, shows what a little musical creativity can do with a simple descending scale.
The short Gavotte replaces a traditional minuet/trio movement. Prokofiev’s is a clumsy
dance, whose melody contains awkward octave leaps and strange grace notes in the bassoon.
The Trio is accompanied by a bagpipe-like drone. Prokofiev loved this movement, recycling
and expanding it some 20 years later in the Capulets’ Ball for his ballet Romeo and Juliet.
The Molto vivace finale is a sonata form, rather than the usual rondo, but has the persistent
dynamic drive of a Haydn finale. In composing it, Prokofiev played a game with himself, in
which he attempted to eliminate all minor chords.
Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944
Franz Schubert
1797-1828
In the half century after Franz Schubert’s death, his reputation rested almost entirely on his
wonderful Lieder, while the rest of his music was mostly neglected. None of his orchestral
music was published during his lifetime, and many of the major works did not resurface from
private hands for decades after his death. The first six symphonies were not published until
1884-85 in the Gesamtausgabe, the complete edition of his works. The manuscript of
Symphony No.8, the “Unfinished,” resurfaced only in 1865 when its owner, Schubert’s friend
Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a minor composer, used it as bait to get one of his own compositions
performed. The Ninth, the “Great” C Major, was first performed – albeit severely cut – in
1839 at the instigation of Robert Schumann and under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn.
The C major Symphony is actually Schubert’s seventh and final completed symphony (For a
long time, it was believed that there was a seventh “lost” symphony.) Besides the fragment
that is the Eighth, Schubert made at least four other aborted attempts at symphonic writing.
He composed the Symphony in 1825-26, during a period of relatively good health and rising
hopes, when the syphilis, from which he had been suffering since 1822, was quiescent. For
years there was confusion about the date because Schubert wrote “March 1828” on the
manuscript – perhaps to fool a publisher, unsuccessfully, that the work was new.
In October 1826 Schubert presented the score to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Austria’s
Music Society. Its orchestra played through the work in Schubert’s presence but found it too
difficult and too long for a public performance. The Finale was performed in Vienna in 1836.
Schumann retrieved the manuscript from Schubert’s brother Ferdinand – commenting on its
“Heavenly length” – setting the stage for the 1839 premiere.
The Symphony is characterized throughout by a steadiness of pacing and tempo. Although it
opens with a substantial introduction, the composer did not indicate a tempo increase at the
beginning for the main part of the movement that begins the formal sonata structure. Many
conductors speed up this section, following the convention of slow introductions, but there is
a structural reason for not picking up the tempo: in the development section, Schubert reintroduces an important motive from the introduction, working it into the fabric of the
development of the second theme.
In most symphonies and concertos, the so-called slow movement is designed to create a
contrast in tempo and mood with the other, more animated movements. In this Symphony,
however, the second movement march proceeds at a relatively speedy Andante con moto.
While conductors frequently take cuts in this Symphony, the restatements of the themes in
this movement represent new developments of the structural and harmonic ideas, rather than
mere padding.
In the broadest sense, the Scherzo adheres to the conventional form of two repeated strains,
followed by a trio in the same form. But Schubert expands this simplest of musical structures
into the most complex movement in the entire Symphony. The Scherzo section is a hybrid
sonata-allegro form, in which the main theme, pounded out in the unison strings, is followed
by a contrasting middle section, a lilting waltz. There follows a true development and
recapitulation before beginning the Trio.
The Trio, a waltz for the upper winds, turns suddenly melancholy with the composer’s
penchant for drifting between the major and minor modes. The return to the Scherzo also
includes a coda based on the second Scherzo theme with continual modulations, as if it were
another development section.
The Finale, with its relentless driving perpetual motion of triplets in the upper strings, is
reminiscent of the final movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. Beginning with the opening
fanfare, each theme is independently explored within the exposition. The development opens
with a musical allusion to, and further expansion of, the “Ode to Joy.” It is Schubert’s ode to
Beethoven.
Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
[email protected]
www.wordprosmusic.com