Download joseph haydn (1732-1809) julius conus (1869-1942)

JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)
Symphony No. 83 in G minor ‘La Poule’ 24’00
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Allegro spiritoso
Andante
Menuetto e Trio: Allegretto
Finale: Allegro
Haydn: composer of over one hundred symphonies, no two alike!
One of a set of six symphonies written for a famous concert series in Paris.
One of Haydn’s many symphonies to bear a name, affixed by the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries’ love for assigning titles to pieces – a practice that composers often
had nothing to do with!
One of Haydn’s few symphonies listed in a minor key.
Although Haydn was pretty much confined to the palace at Eszterháza (in present-day Hungary)
during the years 1766-1790, his fame had spread all over Europe, and nowhere more so than to
France. Paris at the time was one of the most stimulating musical cities in Europe. Publishers,
musicians, concert organizations, royalty and a host of amateur music lovers all partook of the
thriving music scene there. It was only natural, then, that one of these concert societies, the
Concerts de la Loge Olympique (formerly the Concerts Spirituels) commissioned Haydn to write
something for them. The idea came directly from the Count d’Ogny, Claude-François-Marie
Rigoley, who asked for a set of six symphonies in return for a handsome fee. These symphonies
are today catalogued as Nos. 82-87, though this was not their order of composition. We are now
certain that Nos. 83 and 87 were written in 1785; Nos. 82, 84 and 86 the following year; and No.
85 probably in late 1785.
The powerful and dramatic G-minor opening of No. 83 reminds one more of a Sturm und Drang
symphony from around 1770 than of the mature Haydn of the mid-1780s. In fact, this was the
last symphony in a minor key Haydn was to write, save for No. 95 (in C minor). Furthermore,
only the first movement is in G minor, and even that ends in G major. The symphony takes its
title from the first movement’s second subject, where violins suggest the clucking of hens and
the oboe suggests strutting or pecking. (The appellation came not from Haydn, but from the
French.) The development section is one of Haydn’s most expansive, and incorporates virtually
all the elements from the exposition into a contrapuntal tour de force.
Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon describes the Andante movement as “deadly serious,
beautifully sculptured”. But amidst the seriousness Haydn is not averse to injecting some high
jinks. Sweeping scales and even, repeated notes are both features of this movement. After a
series of scales, up and down, Haydn lulls the ear into repose with a series of twenty-two quietly
repeated notes for the second violins and violas alone, followed by... well, just listen!
The Minuetto is as bright and cheery as any Haydn ever wrote, a peasant dance with true
bucolic spirit. For the Trio Haydn tints the entire violin line with a flute an octave higher.
The exuberant Finale is often referred to as a hunting piece, which in truth it is; one only
wonders why Haydn did not exploit his horns here with a fanfare or two.
JULIUS CONUS (1869-1942)
Violin Concerto in E minor 18’00
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A Russian composer highly regarded in his day, but now nearly forgotten.
Served as Co-Concertmaster of the New York Symphony Orchestra.
His rarely-performed Violin Concerto is known to violinists but to hardly anyone else.
Represents an extremely rare, possibly unique, case of a full-length concerto published
as Op. 1.
Julius Conus (also variously spelled Konus or Konyus or Konius) was a Russian whose ancestors
emigrated from France in the early nineteenth century. Although pretty much forgotten today,
in his time he moved in the highest musical circles. He was a friend of Tchaikovsky, who
consulted him on the string writing in the Pathétique Symphony, and of Rachmaninov (Conus’
son married Rachmaninov’s daughter in 1932); he was a distinguished student of the renowned
violin pedagogue Jean Hrimaly; he taught at the Moscow Conservatory; and later in life became
Co-Concertmaster of the New York Symphony Orchestra.
Conus’ Violin Concerto is known to violinists but to almost no one else. It is rarely performed or
recorded, and, aside from Jascha Heifetz in a former age and Itzhak Perlman today, it is difficult
to think of a major violinist who has championed it. Yet this is a work in the true tradition of
romantic violin concertos, combining ardent lyricism with high-flying acrobatics. It was written
in 1896-97 and first performed in 1898 in Moscow with the composer as soloist. The concerto
was dedicated to Jean Hrimaly.
Like Mendelssohn’s concerto in the same key (E minor), the Conus concerto absorbs the
traditional three movements of a work in this genre into a single span. But Conus does it
differently. Following a dramatic orchestral introduction, the soloist enters with a meditative,
recitative-like passage before launching into the main theme as presented initially by the
orchestra. Later the soloist presents a second theme, a sweetly lyrical idea in G major. All this
material returns later like the recapitulation of a traditional sonata-form movement, after a
development section and what amounts to an entire Adagio movement in B major. Then follows
an enormous, 65-measure cadenza and a brief pyrotechnical display with orchestra for a grand
finale.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 ‘Pastoral’ 39’00
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Awakening of happy feelings upon arriving in the country: Allegro ma non troppo
By the brook: Andante molto mosso
Merry gathering of country folk: Allegro
Thunderstorm: Allegro
Shepherd’s song – Happy and thankful feelings after the storm: Allegretto
A prime example of depicting nature in tone.
“Pastoral” Symphonies by other composers: Vaughan Williams (No. 3), Wilfred Josephs
(No. 5), Gretchaninov (No. 2), Glazunov (No. 7), Milhaud (No. 2), Colin McPhee (No. 2)
and Brett Dean.
Includes one of the great storm scenes in music.
Short motivic fragments, not long lyrical themes, are what hold this music together.
The dividing line between program music and absolute music is a thin one, but Beethoven
proved himself a master of both in his Sixth Symphony. Although the work has been produced
with scenery, with characters who move about on stage, and as part of the cinema classic
Fantasia, Beethoven took care to advise that the symphony is “more an expression of feeling
than painting”. Each listener should let his imagination work its own spell. After all, wrote
Beethoven, “composing is thinking in sounds”. Hence, he continues, the Pastoral Symphony is
“no picture, but something in which the emotions aroused by the pleasures of the country are
expressed, or something in which some feelings of country life are set forth”.
Beethoven’s own love for the pleasures of the country are well-known. In a life of almost
constant turmoil, anxiety and stormy relationships, the periods he spent in the woods outside
Vienna offered his tortured soul precious solace and peace of mind. To quote the composer
again: “How glad I am to be able to roam in wood and thicket, among the trees and flowers and
rocks. No one can love the country as I do… My bad hearing does not trouble me here. … In the
woods there is enchantment which expresses all things.”
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony received its first performance in Vienna as part of that
incredible marathon concert of December 22, 1808 at the Theater an der Wien, an all-Beethoven
concert that also included the Fifth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto, Choral Fantasy and some
vocal and choral music. It is dedicated to two of Beethoven’s most ardent patrons, Prince
Lobkowitz and Count Razumovsky.
The symphony’s opening places us immediately in relaxed, beatific surroundings. The day is
sunny, warm and abounding in nature’s fragrances and gentle breezes. But aside from conjuring
nature imagery, the music is remarkable for its motivic writing – virtually the entire movement
is built from tiny musical cells found in the first two bars. Phrases and sentences are often
formed from these motivic ideas repeated again and again. “Fragments keep repeating
themselves in a sort of naive joy at their own beauty and charm, with subtle variations of
tonality and instrumental color, like the play of light and shade in nature itself,” writes Edward
Downes.
The second movement invites contemplation. To Sir Donald Francis Tovey, this is “a slow
movement in full sonata form which at every point asserts its deliberate intention to be lazy and
to say whatever occurs to it twice in succession, and which in doing so never loses flow or falls
out of proportion. The brook goes on forever; the importance of that fact lies in its effect upon
the poetic mind of the listener basking in the sun on its banks.” Near the end of the movement
we hear instrumental effects simulating the calls of the nightingale (flute), quail (oboe) and
cuckoo (clarinet).
The Sixth is the only symphony in which Beethoven departed from the traditional fourmovement format. The remaining three movements are played without interruption. Rough,
peasant merry-making and dancing are portrayed, but the boisterous festivities suddenly stop
when intimations of an approaching storm are heard. There is not much time to take cover; a
few isolated raindrops fall, and then the heavens burst open. Storms have appeared frequently
in musical compositions (in Verdi’s Otello and Rigoletto, Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, Strauss’
Alpine Symphony, Berlioz’s “Royal Hunt and Storm” from The Trojans, etc.), but few have
surpassed Beethoven’s in power and fury. Timpani, piccolo and trombones, all hitherto silent in
the symphony, now make their entrances.
With the tempest over, a shepherd’s pipe is heard in a song of thanksgiving for the renewed
freshness and beauty of nature. Timpani and piccolo withdraw, but the trombones, whose
sonority was traditionally associated with sacred music until well after Beethoven’s era, are
retained. The joyous hymn is taken up by the full orchestra as if, to quote Edward Downes again,
“in thanks to some pantheistic god, to Nature, to the sun, to whatever beneficent power one can
perceive in a universe that seemed as dark and terrifyingly irrational in Beethoven’s day as it
can in ours. That a man of sorrows and self-centred miseries like Beethoven could glimpse such
glory and, by the incomparable alchemy of his art, lift us to share his vision – even if only for a
few moments – is a miracle that remains as fresh as tomorrow’s sunrise.”
Programme notes by Robert Markow