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About the Music November 18, 2012 CARL MARIA von WEBER Euryanthe Overture Carl Maria von Weber was born in Oldenburg, Germany in 1786 and died in London in 1826. He completed his opera Euryanthe in 1823 it was first performed in Vienna the same year. The Overture is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. Carl Maria von Weber was the quintessential romantic artist: he was a virtuoso pianist, the most important conductor of his day (and the first to insist on complete control of every aspect of an opera production), a music critic, novelist, and artist . As a composer his effect on the music world was wide and deep. After Beethoven, Weber was the name cited by composers such as Mendelssohn, Berlioz, and Liszt as their greatest influence. The only wonder of it all is why his music is so rarely performed today. Euryanthe was Weber’s follow-up to his highly successful opera Der Freischütz, but his new work, while not exactly a flop, failed to match his previous opera’s enduring popularity. It was not for lack of trying. German opera was traditionally a series of set-pieces with spoken dialog between them, but Euryanthe was through-composed, with masterful transitions between scenes. Weber gave his villains densely chromatic music, and deployed recurring themes for the characters—something we call leitmotiv when talking about Wagner. He even juiced up the libretto with additional supernatural elements. It was primarily the libretto that failed him. The story by Helmina von Chezy was already implausible, even for opera. (Mahler once described von Chezy as a “poetess with a full heart and an empty head.”) And Weber’s ghostly additions didn’t help. The libretto—coupled with the opera’s imposing length—caused the opera to close after a mere twenty performances, and revivals are rare. Weber’s Overture, however, gives us a taste of the opera’s wonderful music without regard to its dramatic failures. The two themes of its sonata form give us both the heroic and gentle sides of the opera’s protagonist, while the onset of the development is a short but delicious feast of badguy chromaticism in soft, divided violins and violas. CLAUDE DEBUSSY Printemps Claude Achille Debussy was born in St. Germain-enLaye, France in 1862 and died in Paris in 1918. He composed this work in 1887. The original orchestral score, which included a wordless chorus, was lost. The work was re-orchestrated in 1912, without chorus, by Henri Büsser under the composer’s supervision. This was first performed at the Société Nationale de Musique de Paris in 1913. The score calls for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, piano four-hands, and strings. The word we use most often to describe Debussy’s music—impressionism—was one he loathed: “A term used with absolute inaccuracy by imbeciles.” He had good reasons to dislike that word, and many of them have to do with his very early work, Printemps (Spring). Debussy won the coveted Prix de Rome while still a student in his early twenties. The prize included a scholarship to the Académie des Beaux-Arts and a four-year residency at the French Academy in Rome. Debussy periodically was required to submit works composed in Rome to the Académie des Beaux-Arts for evaluation. One of the works he submitted was Printemps, and the academics at the Académie took special care in instructing the young composer: Certainly, M. Debussy does not transgress through dullness or triteness. On the contrary, he shows a rather overpronounced taste for the unusual. His feeling for musical color is so strong that he is apt to forget the importance of clarity of design and form. He should beware of this vague impressionism, which is one of the most dangerous enemies of truth in any work of art. This was the first time the word impressionism was used to describe Debussy’s work, and it was not a compliment. For his part, Debussy decided to leave Rome a year early and submitted nothing more to the Académie; he burned his bridges behind him. Debussy himself described Printemps as a work having “a very special color, which will give rise to as many sensations as possible. It is entitled Printemps—not Spring in its descriptive sense, but seen from a human angle. I would like to express the slow and painful genesis of objects and living creatures in nature, their gradual blossoming, and finally the overwhelming joy of being born again into a new life.” All this is easily perceived. The first movement of Printemps is the “painful genesis,” the second the “overwhelming joy.” And Debussy would tell you that impressionism had nothing to do with it. RICHARD STRAUSS Concerto for Horn & Orchestra No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11 Richard Strauss was born in Munich in 1864 and died in Garmisch, Germany in 1949. He completed this concerto in 1883 and it was first performed by Gustav Leinhos, horn, with the Meiningen Orchestra under the direction of Hans von Bülow, in 1885. The score calls for solo horn, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Much becomes clear when it transpires that the composer of Ein Heldenleben and Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks was the son of a virtuoso horn player. Richard Strauss’ works show both a love for the instrument and a canny awareness of its capabilities. But what to make of his horn concertos? They were composed 59 years apart, but they resemble each other more than they resemble his other works. Of course, a concerto is a concerto and Also Sprach Zarathustra is—well, you know what it is. One doesn’t expect to become a Superman (or merely climb the Alps) in a concerto, even a romantic one. Still, Strauss’ horn concertos aren’t nearly as romantic as we’d expect—they’re largely classical in form and style. They are polished, elegant—even Mozartean. Franz Joseph Strauss, Richard’s father, was principal hornist of the Munich Court Orchestra for an astonishing 49 years. He not only had the power and stamina to perform the heroic horn parts of the day, but was considered by all to be a musician of consummate artistry and taste. He was also a bit of a terror: Richard described him as “vehement, irascible, tyrannical,” and more than a few conductors of the day would readily agree. At the same time, the elder Strauss held his son to the highest musical standards, for which Richard was grateful to his dying day. Richard Strauss composed his First Horn Concerto at age nineteen. By that time he had years of experience accompanying his father as they read through horn music of all kinds. The incomparable concertos by Mozart were in their repertory, and doubtless made their impression on Strauss the younger. Richard was not yet the fullblooded romantic he was to become, and while no one would mistake this concerto for one of Mozart’s, one can recognize the shape of Mozart’s molds. The Concerto’s first movement begins with a huge chord from the orchestra and the immediate entrance of the soloist with a bravura fanfare. The orchestral tutti is short, whereupon the horn returns with the graceful and lyrical second theme. From here things proceed in a suitably heroic fashion. An artful transition brings on the second movement without pause. This music is somber and lyrical, with an accompaniment that reveals Strauss as a master of the orchestra at an impressively young age. The Finale brings on the hunt with a rollicking 6/8, thoroughly spiced with sweet lyrical passages to set off the fanfares. There is no cadenza as such, but rather a place where the horn reiterates the movement’s themes with spaced chords from the orchestra. From there it’s a quick, cheerful gallop to the end. IGOR STRAVINSKY The Firebird: Suite (1945) Igor Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia in 1882 and died in New York City in 1971. He completed his ballet The Firebird in 1910, and it was first performed the same year in Paris, conducted by Gabriel Pierné. Stravinsky created a Suite in 1911 and then again, for a smaller orchestra, in 1919. In 1945 Stravinsky created a third suite with substantially the same instrumentation as the 1919 version but with five added numbers from the ballet. The score of the 1945 Suite calls for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings. He was not a composer, or even a musician, but no one had more influence on the music of the early twentieth century than Serge Diaghilev. Diaghilev was the impresario who organized the Ballet Russes in Paris. Over a twenty-year span he collaborated with a formidable roster of composers, including Stravinsky, Falla, Debussy, Prokofiev, Ravel, Milhaud and Poulenc, as well as artists such as Picasso and dancers such as Nijinsky. With the Ballet Russes, the very best of 20th century art came together under one roof. Diaghilev hired Stravinsky to compose music for the Firebird when another composer failed to get the job done. Time was short— Stravinsky sent each section of the piece to the choreographer as it was composed, then joined the company for rehearsals. The premiere of The Firebird was the coming-out party of the most important composer of the twentieth century and the beginning of a famed collaboration that would last until Diaghilev’s death. The story of The Firebird is a pastiche of tales from Russian folklore. The young prince Ivan Tsarevich wanders into an enchanted garden in pursuit of the magical Firebird. Ivan captures the Firebird but she pleads to be released, telling him she will come to his aid if ever needed; Ivan releases her. Ivan sees thirteen young princesses dancing and playing a game; he falls in love with one of them and follows them into the palace of the ogre Kashchei. When Kashchei captures Ivan the Firebird comes to his rescue. First the Firebird sends Kashchei and his retinue of monsters into a frenzied, exhausting dance, then lulls them to sleep with a beautiful Berceuse. She shows Ivan a casket with an egg containing Kashchei’s soul. When Ivan smashes the egg Kashchei dies, his castle and retinue disappear, and his victims return to life. In the rejoicing portrayed in the Finale, Ivan receives the hand of his favored princess. The celebratory closing pages are some of the most thrilling music ever written. The Firebird became the most popular of Stravinsky’s works, much to the composer’s chagrin. He came to resent the attention it took from his current (and very different) work, dismissing it as an “audience-pleasing lollipop.” No matter—Diaghilev knew better. On the day before the premiere, as he stood with his prima ballerina, he pointed to Stravinsky and said, “Mark him well. He is a man on the eve of celebrity.” And the world was on the eve of a new way of thinking about music, thanks to Serge Diaghilev. —Mark Rohr is the bass trombonist for the PSO. Questions or comments? [email protected] Visit Online Insights at PortlandSymphony.org to learn more about this concert.