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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT
January 9, 10 and 11, 2015
MIKHAIL GLINKA
Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla
ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Moderato nobile
Romance: Andante
Finale: Allegro assai vivace
Alina Pogostkina, violin
INTERMISSION
EDWARD ELGAR
Enigma Variations, Op. 36
Enigma: Andante
I. “C.A.E.” L’istesso tempo
II. “H.D.S.- P.” Allegro
III. “R.B.T.” Allegretto
IV. “W.M.B” Allegro di molto
V. “R.P.A.” Moderato
VI. “Ysobel” Andantino
VII. “Troyte” Presto
VIII. “W.N.” Allegretto
IX. “Nimrod” Moderato
X. “Dorabella - Intermezzo” Allegretto
XI. “G.R.S.” Allegro di molto
XII. “B.G.N.” Andante
XIII. “***- Romanza” Moderato
XIV. “E.D.U. - Finale”
Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla
MIKHAIL GLINKA
Born June 1, 1804, Novospasskoye
Died February 15, 1857, Berlin
This dazzling overture is all that lives on from Glinka’s opera Russlan and Ludmilla, first
produced in St. Petersburg in 1842, when the composer was 38. Russlan and Ludmilla was inspired by
the fairy-tale poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. Intrigued by Glinka’s plan to write an opera
based on his poem, Pushkin had planned to supply the libretto but was killed in a duel before he could,
and Glinka had to turn to others for help. The scenario was supplied by Glinka’s friend Konstantin
Bakhturin “in a quarter of an hour while drunk,” and many others – the composer among them – had a
hand in shaping the libretto. The result was not a unified and focused story but a loosely-connected
sequence of fantastic episodes in which the heroic Russlan must continually rescue the beautiful
Ludmilla, who is constantly being abducted and put under spells. All finally ends well for Russlan and
Ludmilla, but the opera has never enjoyed much success.
Its overture, however, has always been a favorite in concert halls. The exciting opening – with its
virtuoso writing for violins – is drawn from the opera’s festive finale, while the lyrical second subject,
first heard in the lower strings, is based on Russlan’s aria in the second act in which he dreams of
Ludmilla. The compact (five-minute) overture is in sonata form, and in its closing pages Glinka briefly
introduces – in the trombones – music associated with the evil dwarf Chernomor before the overture
ends triumphantly.
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD
Born May 29, 1897, Brno
Died November 29, 1957, Hollywood
Probably no child composer – including Mozart – has been as precocious as Erich Wolfgang
Korngold. The son of a leading music critic in Vienna, the boy demonstrated his incredible gift very
early. Korngold’s cantata Gold, composed when he was ten, amazed Mahler, and those impressed by his
abilities included Richard Strauss and Puccini, who said: “That boy’s talent is so great, he could easily
give us half and still have enough left for himself!” Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt, composed when he
was 20, received simultaneous premieres in Hamburg and Cologne, and in the 1920s Korngold was one
of the most admired young composers in Europe. And then his career took a completely unexpected turn,
one that would redefine him as a composer.
In 1934 Max Reinhardt invited Korngold to Hollywood to arrange Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer
Night’s Dream music for use in a film, and Korngold discovered that his neo-romantic idiom was
perfectly suited to the movies. With the rise of the Nazis in Europe, Korngold moved his family to
Hollywood and over the next decade wrote a succession of brilliant film scores. These included the
music for such swashbuckling epics as The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk, and
Korngold’s success was rewarded with several Oscars®. After the war, Korngold tried to return to
writing “serious” music but found that he could not escape his past as a film composer. Andre Previn,
himself a sometime film composer, has noted the strange dynamic that surrounds those who compose for
movies: “Music critics will forgive a composer for many things. They’ll even forgive you for being an ax
murderer, but they will not forgive you for writing film music.” And so Korngold is forever identified as
a film composer (and he was a terrific film composer), but he continued to write for the concert hall, and
one of his finest compositions – the Violin Concerto – bridges these two worlds.
It was the violinist Bronislaw Huberman who in 1937 first suggested that Korngold write a violin
concerto. But Huberman passed out of the picture, and when Korngold got around to composing that
concerto, his thoughts turned to the violinist who was one of his neighbors in Los Angeles, Jascha
Heifetz. Korngold’s Violin Concerto, completed in the summer of 1945, was written with Heifetz’s silky
tone and breathtaking virtuosity in mind, and it was Heifetz who gave the premiere in St. Louis on June
15, 1947.
A distinguishing feature of this “serious” composition is that it is largely based on music
Korngold had written for movies produced during the late 1930s. A curious problem faced film
composers of that era: they might write a wonderful score, it would be heard while the film was in
distribution, and then – in those days before DVDs or soundtrack recordings – that music would vanish
into studio archives, never to be heard again. Korngold felt that some of his film music (particularly
music he had written for adventure films that starred Errol Flynn) was too good to “lose,” and he used
this material as the basis of his Violin Concerto.
The concerto is in the expected three-movement form, with the solo violin entering in the first
instant on a theme drawn from Another Dawn, an Errol Flynn film released in 1937. This theme arcs
grandly upward and then soars dramatically; it is a theme perfectly suited to show off the violin (and a
good violinist!). The second subject of this movement is taken from Korngold’s music for the film
Juarez (1939). The movement is classical form, complete with development and recapitulation of these
ideas, a cadenza and coda.
Korngold titled the second movement Romance, a title without formal meaning; it suggests
music of an expressive atmosphere. The main theme here comes from the film Anthony Adverse (1936),
for which Korngold won an Oscar®. The finale, a rondo marked Allegro assai vivace, sounds as if it was
written specifically for Heifetz’s talents: after a dizzying beginning, the movement is built on music
from yet another Errol Flynn film, The Prince and the Pauper (1937). In the movie, this theme
accompanied the hunt for the royal seal; here it becomes the basis for a brilliant concluding movement,
full of violinistic fireworks. The ending is guaranteed to send everyone involved – soloist, orchestra and
audience – out the door with their hearts racing.
TWO NOTES: Korngold dedicated this concerto to Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler’s widow, who was
then living in Los Angeles – she and Korngold had remained friends since their days in Vienna. And
those interested in hearing the Korngold Violin Concerto played by the violinist for whom it was written
should know that Jascha Heifetz recorded it with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1953. That
performance, which is every bit as brilliant as one would expect, is available on compact disc.
Enigma Variations, Op. 36
SIR EDWARD ELGAR
Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath
Died February 23, 1934, Worcester
One evening in 1898 Edward Elgar was improvising for his wife at the piano and just for fun
tried varying a theme to suggest the personality of a different friend in each variation. Suddenly a
musical project occurred to him, and what had begun “in a spirit of humour…continued in deep
seriousness.” The result was an orchestral theme and 14 variations, each a portrait of a friend or family
member, headed in the score by their initials or some other clue to their identity. The score attracted the
attention of conductor Hans Richter, who led the first performance in London on June 19, 1899. The
Enigma Variations quickly became Elgar’s most popular work: Gustav Mahler conducted this music
(then only a few years old) during his brief tenure as conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
Elgar dedicated the variations “To my friends pictured within,” and the subject of each musical
portrait was soon identified, but mystery surrounded the theme itself: a six-bar melody full of the rises
and falls that make it an ideal candidate for variation. Elgar himself fed that mystery, naming the theme
“Enigma” and saying, “The ‘Enigma’ I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left
unguessed….further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but it is not
played.” Despite many attempts to identify this “larger” theme (including theories that it is Auld Lang
Syne or God Save the Queen), the “enigma” remains just as mysterious now as it did when the music was
written a century ago.
What is not mysterious is the success of this music, with its promising theme, a wonderful idea
for a set of variations and a series of imaginative musical portraits. Part of the charm of this music is that
– unlike the orchestral variations of Brahms or Schoenberg, which exist outside time and place – the
Enigma Variations are very much in time and space, for they offer a nostalgic vision of a lost age. The
music begins, and suddenly we are in late-Victorian England, with its civilized manners, garden parties,
friends bicycling over for a visit and long steamer trips abroad.
Enigma: Andante Strings alone announce the noble, wistful theme, which Elgar marks molto
espressivo and then extends briefly before the music leads directly into:
I. “C.A.E.” L’istesso tempo This is a gentle portrait of the composer’s wife, Caroline Alice Elgar,
musically similar to the first statement of the theme.
II. “H.D.S.- P.” Allegro Hew David Steuart-Powell, a piano teacher. This variation, marked Allegro,
echoes his practicing staccato runs.
III. “R.B.T.” Allegretto Richard Baxter Townshend, described by Elgar as “an amiable eccentric.”
IV. “W.M.B” Allegro di molto William Meath Baker was a bluff and peremptory country squire; his
variation thunders past in barely 30 seconds.
V. “R.P.A.” Moderato Richard Penrose Arnold was the son of Matthew Arnold; Elgar described him as
a “gentleman of the old school,” and his variation combines a noble violin line with flights of fancy from
the woodwinds.
VI. “Ysobel” Andantino Isabel Fitton, a viola player. This gentle variation depicts an exercise in
string-crossing for violists.
VII. “Troyte” Presto Arthur Troyte Griffith, an argumentative architect. His Presto variation features
brillante runs from the violins and ends with the sound of a slamming door.
VIII. “W.N.” Allegretto Winnifred Norbury, a dignified older acquaintance of the Elgars. This variation
incorporates the sound of her “trilly laugh,” but some believe it actually pictures her family home.
IX. “Nimrod” Moderato August Jaeger, one of Elgar’s closest friends and supporters (Jaeger is
German for hunter; Nimrod was the mighty hunter in Genesis). This noble slow movement is sometimes
performed separately as a memorial. Strings alone announce the theme, which grows to a triumphant
climax and subsides to end quietly.
X. “Dorabella - Intermezzo” Allegretto Dora Penny was a friend whose slight stammer is heard in the
music, where there is a brief hesitation at the start of each woodwind phrase. Elgar renamed her
“Dorabella” for this variation, after the character in Così fan tutte.
XI. “G.R.S.” Allegro di molto George Robertson Sinclair, the organist at the Hereford Cathedral. This
variation features the sound of his bulldog Dan in the growling lower instruments and the tinkling sound
of his bicycle bell in the triangle.
XII. “B.G.N.” Andante Basil Nevinson was a cellist, and noble solos for that instrument open and close
this cantabile variation.
XIII. “*** - Romanza” Moderato Lady Mary Lygon was on a steamship to Australia when Elgar wrote
this music, and he remembered her with a variation in which the sound of the ship’s vibrating engines is
heard as side drum sticks softly roll on the timpani. Over this low rumble, Elgar quotes Mendelssohn’s
Overture to Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, putting quotation marks around the excerpt in his score.
XIV. “E.D.U.” - Finale “Edu” was his wife’s nickname for the composer, and this musical self-portrait
– by turns powerful, striving, and gentle – was “written at a time when friends were dubious and
generally discouraged as to the composer's musical future.” Included along the way is the whistle Elgar
used to announce his arrival at home, and he weaves in a reminiscence of his wife’s variation before the
music drives to its grand conclusion.
-Program notes by Eric Bromberger
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
The very popular overture to Glinka's historic Russian opera, Russlan and Ludmilla, is being
given its thirteenth performance here, always as a favorite concert opener. The San Diego Symphony
Orchestra first played it during the 1959-60 season, the Orchestra's first scheduled indoor (i.e. winter)
season, when it was directed by Earl Bernard Murray. It has not been played here since Yoav Talmi
conducted it in the 1994-95 season. Yoav Talmi also led the first San Diego performance of the
delightful Korngold Violin Concerto during the 1991-92 season, when Gil Shaham was the soloist. The
current performance is the third to be given at these concerts.
The Elgar masterwork, his Enigma Variations, is being given at these concerts for its thirteenth
presentation here, since Earl Bernard Murray initially conducted it with the orchestra during its 1961-62
season. James Paul was the guest conductor who last led the piece here, during the 2003-04 season. How
very fortunate that we have a justifiably acknowledged life-long master of British music, Sir Neville
Marriner, on the podium to direct it at these concerts.
-Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist