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San Juan Symphony
October 8-9, 2016
Program Notes
by Michael Allsen
Our 31st season begins with “Fresh Faces and Firebird,” and a youthful spirit is the thread that
runs through all four works on the program. Mozart was only 30 when he composed his
masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro, and the vivacious overture brings a spark of life to any
concert program. We continue with a young piece of music that plays on old themes—Spires,
written just three years ago by the American composer Clint Needham. Antonín Dvořák was on
the cusp of international fame when he completed the lyrical Romance for Violin and Orchestra
in his late 30s, and the commission to compose the ballet score for Firebird was a career-making
moment for the 27-year-old Igor Stravinsky. Drawn from four different centuries of music, each
work brings out the full potential of the San Juan Symphony and its new conductor.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, K.492
Mozart completed his opera Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) in 1786, shortly
before its premiere on May 1, 1786, in Vienna’s Burgtheatre. Duration 4:00.
Mozart’s three collaborations with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte—Le nozze di Figaro, Don
Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte—are generally thought to be his finest theatrical creations. The first
of these, Figaro, was controversial for its time, adapting a 1784 French stage play by
Beaumarchais that had been partially responsible for getting its playwright tossed in jail! The
play, La folle journée, ou Le mariage de Figáro, pushed the limits of aristocratic tolerance with
its outrageously lecherous and gullible central character, the Count. While Mozart and da Ponte
toned down the more extreme aspects of the play, they achieved a remarkably realistic and truly
funny opera, centering on the wily Figaro and his fiancée Susannah as they outwit the Count. It
was among the greatest successes of Mozart’s life. There were so many calls for pieces to be
repeated—sometimes doubling the opera’s length—that eventually the Emperor Joseph stepped
in, expressly forbidding repetition of anything but arias. The opera was an even wilder success in
Prague half a year later—Mozart’s visit to Prague in January 1787 is still celebrated by annual
performances of Figaro there.
The Overture to Figaro—probably written just days before the premiere—establishes a
delightful and playful mood for the opera’s opening scenes. The music begins with a hushed and
hurried theme from the strings and bassoons (featuring one of the great “bassoon licks” in the
orchestral repertoire!) He answers the main theme with a series of jovial outbursts and enlivens
the music’s progress with ingenious contrapuntal textures. The secondary and closing themes are
gentler and sweet, adding to the mood of good humor. Using “sonata form” in textbook fashion,
Mozart shapes the Overture perfectly, offering up short development and recapitulation sections
before ending with a whimsical coda that launches us into the ensuing comedy.
Clint Needham (b. 1981)
Spires
Spires was composed in 2013. It was premiered on October 12, 2013 by the Idaho Falls
Symphony, Maestro Heuser conducting. Duration 8:00.
The music of award-winning composer Clint Needham has been described as “wildly
entertaining” and “stunning... brilliantly orchestrated” by the New York Times, as well as “wellcrafted and arresting… riveting” by the Herald Times. Born in Texarkana, Needham studied at
the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio, and Indiana University. In 2012—
only eight years after graduating with an undergraduate degree from Baldwin Wallace—he
accepted a position there as Composer-in-Residence and Assistant Professor of Music. His
orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Omaha Symphony, American Composers Orchestra,
and many others.
The 2013 work Spires was commissioned by the Idaho Falls Symphony and the Hartwell
Corporation to honor the retirement of Ralph and Mary Lynn Hartwell, both members of the IFS
board and longtime supporters of the arts. Needham draws inspiration from a wide range of
sources, and in this work, the inspiration was twofold: the spires that top great cathedrals, and a
sacred work by one of the great Renaissance masters, Giovanni da Palestrina. Needham writes:
“Spires are powerful symbols, reaching toward the skies, distinguishing the spaces
underneath as sanctuaries amongst the fast-paced routine of everyday life. With spires as
my inspiration, I began listening to music created for large cathedrals. Through my
listening, I became enamored with Giovanni da Palestrina’s Missa Aeterna Christi
munera, and I chose the Kyrie melody as a thread to run throughout the piece. While I
never quote the melody exactly, it is prominently displayed during the first and last
climax points of the piece. The overall character of Spires is rhapsodic, with a number of
emotional shifts along the way, and I hope the music conveys a sense of grandeur,
reverence, and strength.”
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Romance in F minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op.11
Dvořák initially composed this music in 1873 as part of a string quartet. It was revised for
solo violin and orchestra in 1877, and premiered in Prague on December 9, 1877, with Josef
Markus as a soloist. It was published in 1879. Duration 12:00.
The Romance comes from a period when Dvořák was beginning to enjoy success outside of his
native Bohemia—particularly in Vienna, the cosmopolitan capital of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. In 1874, he won the Austrian State Stipendium, a substantial grant to artists that he
would eventually win four years in a row, along with the respect and admiration of one very
important judge: Vienna’s leading composer, Johannes Brahms. Only eight years older than
Dvořák, Brahms would become a close friend, mentor, and a champion of Dvořák’s music in
Vienna and beyond. One of the benefits of this friendship was that Brahms prevailed on his
publisher Simrock to begin printing Dvořák’s works in 1877. Dvořák looked through some of his
earlier scores for likely candidates for publication. In 1873 he had completed a string quartet in F
minor that he had rejected, but both he and Simrock felt that the quartet’s slow movement was
worth revising, and in 1877 it was recast it into the warm, lyrical solo violin work heard here.
In titling the new piece Romance, Dvořák was following a well-established Viennese tradition;
the term appears frequently from the late 18th century onwards to describe instrumental
movements with simple form and songlike melodies. Mozart wrote several Romances as
serenade movements, but the form was particularly popular in solo works for cello or violin.
Beethoven for example wrote two expressive Romances for solo violin and orchestra during his
early years in Vienna. Dvořák’s Romance begins with a contrapuntal orchestral passage before
the violin introduces a rich, Bohemian-style main theme. This alternates with two contrasting
ideas: a major-key melody tinged with hints of melancholy, and a more turbulent middle section.
The violin writing in the Romance focuses on the soloist’s melodic lyricism over flashy
virtuosity; even the brief cadenza near the end requires subtlety, finesse, and tenderness.
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Suite from The Firebird (1919 version)
Stravinsky composed his ballet score The Firebird (L’Oiseau de Feu) in 1909-1910, and it
was first performed in Paris on June 25, 1910. The Suite on this program is the second of
three concert suites Stravinsky extracted from the ballet score. Duration 23:00.
In the summer of 1909, the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev telegraphed Stravinsky in St.
Petersburg with a commission for an original ballet score, based upon a scenario by
choreographer Michael Fokine. Stravinsky had already had some moderate success in Russia
with works that were nationalistic in character. However, the commission for Firebird
represented a “big break” for the young composer—a chance to work with some of Europe’s
premier creative artists. Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, based in Paris, was probably the finest ballet
company in the world at that time, bringing together dancers, musicians, and choreographers of
the highest quality. Reminiscing about this commission some fifty years later, Stravinsky
recalled how unsure he was about his ability to fulfill it. However, as he remembered:
“...Diaghilev the diplomat arranged all. He came to see me one day, with Fokine, Nijinsky [the
company’s lead dancer], Bakst, and Benois [the set designers], and when the five of them
proclaimed their belief in my talent, I began to believe too and accepted…”
Their faith was well rewarded. When it was first performed in Paris on June 25, 1910, the ballet
Firebird was an enormous success, and it launched Stravinsky on an international career.
Perhaps the most important outcome of his move to Paris—then the musical capital of Europe—
and new-found fame was the opportunity to meet the most adventurous musicians of the day. His
most important influence up to that point had been his teacher Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, but, as
Stravinsky recalled: “My stay in Paris enabled me to become acquainted with several
personalities of the musical world, such as Debussy, Ravel, Florent Schmitt, and Manuel de
Falla, who were in Paris at the time. I remember that on the evening of [Firebird’s] premiere,
Debussy came to find me and complimented me on my score. It was the beginning of our
friendship, which remained cordial until the end of our days.” These new influences and
Diaghilev’s continuing support were instrumental in Stravinsky’s forging of a new and original
style, culminating just a few years later in his revolutionary ballet Rite of Sping.
The Firebird remained one of Stravinsky’s favorite pieces throughout his life, and he frequently
programmed it in his appearances as a conductor—in a 1961 interview, he noted that he had
conducted Firebird over a thousand times! His affection for the work is also shown by his
willingness to tinker with it over the years. After completing the ballet score in 1910, he created
three different reworkings of Firebird’s music as a concert suite, in 1911, 1919, and 1945. The
1919 version heard here is perhaps the best-known incarnation of Firebird.
The scenario for Firebird, as adapted by Fokine, follows an old Russian folk tale. The
Tsarevitch, Prince Ivan, is hunting the elusive Firebird, and during the night he wanders into a
magical garden (Introduction). As he walks through the garden he sees the Firebird, a beautiful
bird with dazzling plumage (The Firebird and her Dance and Firebird Variations). Ivan captures
the Firebird, but agrees to let her go free after taking one of her feathers as a trophy. At sunrise,
Ivan meets thirteen princesses, who have come into the garden to dance and play with golden
apples from the garden’s orchard. Ivan learns that the garden belongs to the evil magician-king
Kaschei, who has enchanted the princesses, and who has the ability to turn his enemies into
stone. In a playful scene, Ivan Tsarevich falls in love with one of the princesses, as the others
swirl about him. All of the princesses dance a decidedly sexy round dance, the khorovod
(Rondo). The prince vows to enter Kaschei’s castle and free his beloved. As soon as he opens the
castle gate, however, Kaschei and his crew of demons appear and capture Ivan in a furious battle
(Infernal Dance of King Kaschei). The Firebird suddenly appears and distracts Kaschei’s
monsters by dancing wildly among them. The Firebird reveals to Ivan the secret of Kaschei’s
immortality: an egg that contains Kaschei’s soul. Ivan smashes the egg, and Kaschei
immediately dies; and with him all of his enchantments. The Firebird dances a lovely Berceuse,
gradually bringing to life all of the knights that Katschei had frozen. The ballet closes with a
triumphant Final Hymn, and rejoicing by the prince and his princess.
The human characters in the ballet—Prince Ivan and the princesses—are often represented by
tonal, diatonic melodies. In some cases, these are Russian folk tunes adapted by Stravinsky from
a collection published by Rimsky-Korsakov. For example, the main theme of the Rondo is a
Russian tune called In the Garden. For the supernatural characters—the Firebird, and Kaschei
and his gang—Stravinsky created melodies based on odd, dissonant intervals (notably the tritone,
or augmented fourth). While Stravinsky’s music for Firebird contains much that he learned from
his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov, its focus on driving rhythms, its use of unusual and contrived
scales, and its sometimes crashing dissonances herald a newer, much more radical style. In
discussing Stravinsky’s early ballets Firebird, Petrushka, and Rite of Spring—the works that
established Stravinsky as one of the foremost innovators of 20th-century music—the late
conductor and composer Pierre Boulez has written: “If the Rite is the most prodigious leap of the
three, it is no less true that, for a trial shot, Firebird is a veritable masterpiece. The influence of
Rimsky-Korsakov may be apparent; it does not prevent the work from affirming an originality
that is all the more striking in perspective. It is impossible now not to recognize in it the
youthfulness of a musical genius; I believe that its youthfulness is the most fascinating aspect of
the score.”
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notes ©2016 by J. Michael Allsen