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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY
A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT
December 5, 6 and 7, 2014
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Overture to May Night
ARAM KHACHATURIAN
Violin Concerto
Allegro con fermezza
Andante sostenuto
Allegro vivace
Philippe Quint, violin
INTERMISSION
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
Mass in C Major, Hob. XXII:9: Paukenmesse
Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Heidi Grant Murphy, soprano
Nancy Maultsby, mezzo-soprano
Benjamin Butterfield, tenor
Charles Robert Austin, bass
San Diego Master Chorale
PROGRAM NOTES
Overture to May Night
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Born March 18, 1844, Tikhvin
Died June 21, 1908, Lyubensk
Approximate performance time, eight minutes
Rimsky-Korsakov loved Russian folktales and music, and as part of this attraction to primitive
Russia he was drawn to Gogol’s tales of ancient Russian peasant life. After much encouragement from his
wife, the young composer decided to compose an opera based on Gogol’s story “Evenings on a Farm near
Dikanka.” Written in 1831, Gogol’s story blends comedy, mystery and magic, a combination dear to
Rimsky’s heart. He wrote his own libretto and composed the opera in the years 1878-79, writing directly
into full score. The three-act opera called May Night was first produced in St. Petersburg on January 21,
1880. On that occasion the part of the village head was sung by the Russian bass Fyodor Stravinsky,
whose famous son Igor would not be born until two years later.
The story of the opera may be summarized briefly: in a Ukrainian village, Levko – the son of the
village head – loves Hanna, but his father disapproves of their plans to marry and forbids it. Levko turns to
Pannochka, queen of the water-nymphs, for help; he helps her discover her evil stepmother (disguised as a
water-nymph), and the other nymphs drag her underwater. In gratitude, Pannochka writes a letter that
seems to come from the district governor, commanding the village head to allow his son to marry Hanna,
and at the end the lovers are united. Such a summary misses most of the fun of the opera, which is full of
disguises, tricks, curses, magic figures like devils and witches, mistaken identity and comic scenes, all part
of Gogol’s colorful evocation of ancient peasant life. Rimsky helps recreate this atmosphere by
incorporating a number of authentic Ukrainian folktunes into the music of May Night.
Rimsky composed the overture after he had completed the opera, so that he would be able to base
it on themes from the opera. From its first instant, when the sound of the horn fades into the sound of the
solo cello, this overture is a marvel of orchestral color, full of bright sounds that ring through the hall. The
slow introduction is a depiction of a May sunset: the bright day gives way to a dark blue evening sky as
birds (tremolo flutes and violins) sing from the darkening trees. Gradually the music accelerates into the
main section, marked Allegro spiritoso. The overture is sectional in structure rather than being in sonata
form, and the music flows easily between themes announced by solo brass instruments or sung by the
violin sections. This is exciting and energetic music, and at the end Rimsky rushes to the close on a coda
marked Allegro molto. In the final seconds he increases this to Presto, and the music races to the ringing E
Major chords that bring up the curtain on the magic-comic adventures that will follow.
Violin Concerto
ARAM KHACHATURIAN
Born June 6, 1903, Tbilisi
Died May 1, 1978, Moscow
Approximate performance time, 35 minutes
At its best, Khachaturian’s music grows directly out of his Armenian heritage; his works have a
fiercely energetic, almost barbaric quality that has made them a favorite of audiences around the world.
Yet Khachaturian left Armenia fairly early in his life: he moved to Moscow when he was 18, studied there
for many years and eventually made his career in that city. His Armenian past always remained a part of
his art, however, and like Bartók he absorbed the musical idiom of his native land so thoroughly that he
did not need to quote folktunes; instead he created a musical language that fuses the colorful Armenian
(some would say “trans-Caucasian”) idiom with classical forms.
Not surprisingly, Khachaturian had particular success with music for the stage – his ballet
Spartacus has been a specialty of the Bolshoi Ballet for the last half-century, and the “Sabre Dance” from
his ballet Gayaneh is a classical “hit” – but he also wrote two distinguished concertos: the Piano Concerto
of 1936 and the Violin Concerto of 1940. Khachaturian wrote the Violin Concerto specifically for David
Oistrakh. The two young men (both still in their 30s) consulted during the course of its composition, and
Oistrakh edited the violin part and wrote the cadenza in the first movement. Oistrakh gave the first
performance in Moscow on November 16, 1940, and the Violin Concerto was awarded the Stalin Prize the
following year. It has remained one of the most popular violin concertos composed in the twentieth
century.
Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto has a very classical shape (sonata-form first movement,
variation-form slow movement and a rondo-like finale), but its impact is wild and exciting. The concerto
has an opulent atmosphere – this is music full of blazing colors, primal rhythms, “exotic” melodies and
great blocks of sound. It is also terrific violin music, and we may feel the hand of Oistrakh here: the solo
writing is both difficult and brilliant, but it sits sensibly under the hand and plays to the strengths of the
violin, wedding virtuosity with lyricism.
The concerto gets off to a fiery beginning. Khachaturian marks the first movement Allegro con
fermezza (with firmness), and the soloist enters quickly with the propulsive, thrusting main theme. A quiet
second subject brings some repose, and Khachaturian builds the long opening movement out of these two
quite different ideas. The striking cadenza comes somewhat early in the movement (just before the
recapitulation), and finally an exciting coda hurls the music to its close.
The orchestra has a long introduction to the Andante sostenuto, with the music growing out of the
dark lower registers of the strings. Eventually the soloist picks up this melody, now marked cantabile
espressivo, and embellishes it. The music rises to a great climax, then falls away to the quiet close. The
orchestra also introduces the Allegro vivace finale, hammering the fundamental 3/8 meter into our
consciousness before the solo violin makes its entrance on the springing (and infectious) main theme. This
movement is full of fire and extroverted brilliance, and that makes some subtle touches along the way all
the more surprising (and pleasing). Into the rush of this finale, Khachaturian brings back the lyric second
theme of the first movement, and as the movement proceeds he combines this theme with the main theme
of the finale. The opening movement of the concerto may have been set in D minor, but this finale is in
sunlit D Major, and at the end the music hammers its way home on pounding octave Ds.
Mass in C Major, HOB. XXII:9: Paukenmesse
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
Born March 31, 1732, Rohrau
Died May 31, 1809, Vienna
Approximate performance time, 45 minutes
Haydn’s final years were devoted almost exclusively to vocal music and there were several reasons
for this. During his extended visits to England, he had heard Handel’s oratorios and had been amazed by
them. He returned to Vienna in 1795, anxious to write oratorios of his own, and the splendid result was
The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). There was a further reason to write vocal music in these
years. When Prince Anton reconstituted the Esterházy Orchestra and asked Haydn to resume his duties as
kapellmeister, he established only one requirement for his court composer, now in his 60s: that he write a
mass every year for the name-day celebration of his wife, Princess Maria Hermenegild. This was a duty
Haydn willingly embraced, for he and the Princess were good friends – between the years 1796 and 1802
he wrote six masses in her honor.
One more influence, this one much darker, intruded on some of this music. These were the years of
the Napoleonic wars, and the Hapsburg Empire found itself threatened as Napoleon mounted successful
campaigns that drove north through Italy and into southern Austria. A few years later, Beethoven planned
to dedicate his Third Symphony to Napoleon, but in the final decade of the eighteenth century Vienna
regarded him as a danger. That military threat made itself felt in two of the masses Haydn wrote for the
princess, and the composer himself gave them names that reflect the gravity of the times: the Missa in
tempore Belli (Mass in the Time of War) composed in the fall of 1796 and the Missa in angustiis (Mass in
Straitened Times) composed in 1798; the latter is better known as the Lord Nelson Mass in honor of one
of those who helped defeat Napoleon.
And so the Mass in C Major, originally the Missa in tempore Belli but these days more commonly
known as the Paukenmesse, is at once a celebration piece and a reflection of something darker. Haydn
underlines this through the shifting tonality of the mass: it is nominally in C Major, a good key for the
festive sound of trumpets and timpani, but much of this mass slips into dark C minor, and we are
frequently aware of the threat that lies just over the horizon. The Mass in the Time of War is sharply mixed
music – light and dark, festive and troubled – and that duality is the source of its considerable expressive
power. Haydn scores the mass for four vocal soloists, four-part chorus and a large orchestra. Its first
performance is believed to have taken place in Vienna on December 26, 1796. Sometime after that first
performance, Haydn expanded the orchestration, adding a part for flute and elaborating some of the other
wind parts.
Haydn divides this particular setting of the Mass into six movements: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo,
Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. His setting of the text is quite clear and may be easily followed,
though a brief overview of the movements may be useful. The Kyrie begins quietly and slowly, but the
Largo section leaps ahead at the Allegro moderato. Some have compared this to Haydn’s symphonic first
movements, in which a slow introduction gives way to fast main body of the movement, though that may
reading too far as this movement is not in sonata form. The ringing trumpet outbursts that punctuate the
Kyrie will return in various forms throughout the entire mass. Both the Gloria and Credo take a
fast-slow-fast structure: a fast opening chorus gives way to a slow central episode featuring the soloists;
the movement is rounded off by the return of the chorus and a fast tempo. Some points of interest: the
central section of the Gloria is introduced by a long cello solo whose “popular” character has often been
noted; Haydn was quite ready to use such music, even in a setting of the mass. The harmonic progression
of the Credo is noteworthy: it begins in bright C Major, but at the “Et incarnatus” Haydn slips into C
minor. This makes the explosive return to C Major at “Et resurrexit” all the more brilliant, and Haydn
rounds the movement off with a busy fugue on “Et vitam venturi.” The Sanctus opens slowly with a long
and lyric violin melody, then leaps ahead exultantly at the “Pleni sunt,” which Haydn marks Allegro con
spirito. The Benedictus undulates slowly along its 6/8 meter and gradually moves from the opening to C
minor to conclude in C Major. The Agnus Dei begins with a subdued Adagio that is punctuated by
insistent timpani interjections. (Their prominence has given this mass its nickname Paukenmesse, which
translates to “Timpani Mass.”) The middle of the movement, once again in C minor, is full of strident
fanfares and the sound of timpani and trumpets; the tension of this movement is Haydn’s clearest
statement of wartime sentiments. But the Allegro con spirito leaps into resplendent C Major on the words
“Dona nobis pacem” (Grant Us Peace), and Haydn swiftly propels the Mass in the Time of War to its
optimistic (and no doubt hopeful) conclusion.
-Program notes by Eric Bromberger
WHY THIS PROGRAM?
Jahja Ling noted that, “The overture and the concerto in today's concert are totally different:
romantic vs. dynamic. Phillipe Quint wanted to play the Khachaturian Violin Concerto, and I found that
the contrast with the Haydn Mass played after the intermission is remarkable. The Haydn is transparent
and brilliant, and especially so for the soprano soloist. This is one of the more popular and frequently
played of the 14 Haydn masses. It has been given the nickname Paukenmesse because there is a fairly
prominent timpani part, but the actual name of the piece is Missa in Tempora Belli (Mass in the Time of
War).
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's colorful and melodic overture to his opera, May Night, has been played
only once previously by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, during the 2004-05 season, under the
direction of Jahja Ling. The Aram Khatchaturian Violin Concerto was introduced to our audiences during
the season of 1981-82, with Joel Levi guest-conducting. Mark Peskanov was the soloist. It has been
repeated only once, during the 1994-95 season, under Jean Casadesus's guest direction, when Qong Liau
was the soloist. The current concerts mark the first time that the Franz Joseph Haydn Paukenmesse has
been presented here. Go to – here
-by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist