Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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.” ______ notes ©2016 by J. Michael Allsen