|
PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth Hector Berlioz Rob Roy Overture Hector Berlioz won the Prix de Rome in 1830 and moved to Italy to absorb the culture the following spring. He loved both the Eternal City and the Italian countryside. His good spirits led to the completion of a number of works including the symphonic Lélio (“The Return to Life”) and the concert overtures “King Lear” and “Rob Roy MacGregor.” The formal title of the “Rob Roy” overture is Intrata di Rob-Roy MacGregor, and it was completed in the summer of 1831. The use of intrata in the title is thought to be a nod to Christoph Gluck, whose opera scores Berlioz deeply admired. Berlioz sent the completed overture back to the Paris Conservatoire as one of his required submissions as a fellow at the French Academy. The overture was performed at the Conservatoire in April of 1833. The audience apparently did not like the work at the premiere and the composer reacted rashly. As he records in his Mémoires, he burned the score upon leaving the theater. Fortunately, he only burned his personal score. The copyist’s score and orchestral parts survived. “Rob Roy” remains one of Berlioz’s least performed works, mostly due to his own condemnations. These must be considered with a grain of salt. Although Berlioz claimed he thought the overture was “long-winded and diffuse,” he never reworked it — perhaps because he already had something else in mind for some of the “Rob Roy” music. Intrata di Rob-Roy MacGregor is written in sonata form, with the recapitulation section interrupted by the beautiful Larghetto music. The theme in the Larghetto, played by English horn and harp, was lifted whole and used as the defining theme in Berlioz’s viola concerto/tone poem Harold in Italy (which he began in January of 1834). Harold in Italy was a major work written on a generous commission from Nicolo Paganini. Still, Berlioz’s romp with Walter Scott’s Highland Robin Hood should not be ignored. The “Rob Roy” Overture is a stirring piece bringing to the forefront Berlioz’s fabulous use of the orchestra. Joseph Jongen Symphonie concertante Belgium is the governmental hub of the European Union and has always been a crossroads for Western Europe. While the country has gained from interactions with its larger neighbors, individual Belgians have also made their mark on European society. The composer, organist, and educator Joseph Jongen was born in Liège and was launched on a career in music early, entering the conservatory in that city at the age of seven. He gained top honors for both his compositions and his organ playing. Jongen was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1897. His early travels led to studies with Richard Strauss and almost to a position as the chorus master at Bayreuth. Returning to Belgium, Jongen married and began teaching at the conservatory. In 1914 he fled World War I with his family. In England he made a life as a performer, alternating between solo engagements on organ or piano and concerts with his newly-formed Belgian Quartet (a piano quartet). He went home after the war and resumed his academic career, eventually becoming Director of the Brussels Conservatory and serving two terms as Director of the Royal Academy of Belgium before his retirement in 1939. While some writers classify Jongen’s music as eclectic, he preferred to think of his style as international. During a grand tour before the turn of the century, he became acquainted with composers in Germany, France, and Rome and absorbed their music. Like many of his organist contemporaries he became interested in the study and revival of plainsong. The musical excitement of his best-known piece, the Symphonie concertante, comes from the mixture of all of these elements. Symphonie concertante was written in 1926. The virtuosity of the solo part shows the direct influence of the French line of great organist/composers such as Vierne, Franck, and Messiæn. In his use of the orchestra, we hear some Debussy and a lot of Richard Strauss combined with some of the modality of the ancient plainsong. While an organ concerto is the one case in music where the soloist could sonically wipe out the orchestra, Jongen does a wonderful job of balancing the two powerful forces at his disposal. His transparent inner movements contain serene, beautiful passages for both orchestra and soloist. There is also plenty of drama, heard in the organ chords ramming against the rhythm of the orchestra in the opening movement. In the finale, Jongen allows the soloist flourishes on all manuals, swooping in with crashing waves of sonority to close the work. Perhaps familiarity with this vibrant masterpiece will lead to further explorations in the extensive catalogue of Joseph Jongen, a composer who certainly took full advantage of his natural affinity for intersections. Darius Milhaud Suite provençale Darius Milhaud grew up in the sunny south of France and entered the Paris Conservatoire as a violin student. He soon decided his future lay in composing. His studies led him to work with Paul Dukas and Charles-Marie Widor, among others, but social ease within artistic circles and a great love of travel would prove to be much more influential in his life’s work. In his music we can trace influences of pre-war Paris and the circle around Jean Cocteau, traditional music from Brazil, and American jazz. Milhaud was from a Jewish family and became an American refugee after the fall of France in 1940. This move led to a faculty position at Mills College in Oakland, California, which he held until 1971. After World War II he also began teaching at the Paris Conservatoire and developed a long-standing relationship with the music school in Aspen, Colorado. Accepted as a citizen of the world, Milhaud’s seventieth and eightieth birthdays were marked by celebrations and concerts across the United States and Europe, as well as in Israel. Ultimately, Milhaud’s career spanned over sixty years and hundreds of catalogued pieces (his last composition was Opus 443). Milhaud’s autobiography is titled My Happy Life, and in the introductory essay, translator Christopher Palmer writes: [Milhaud] sprang from one of the oldest Southern-French Jewish families. It could trace its roots back as far as the tenth century; and the outline of the strong, rugged Provençal hills was engraved on his subconscious from time immemorial. The result is that much, if not all, of his music is shaped and colored by the physical characteristics of Aix and its environs …. Peter Mayle’s delightful AYear in Provence set out to tell us what it’s really like to live in Provence. He needed a whole book: Milhaud requires only a few bars of music. This is, of course, most blatantly true of Milhaud’s best-known work, Suite provençale. These eight brief dance movements call out many musical elements. We hear reed-pipes and street bands evoking ancient and modern processions and fairs in the village center. The dance rhythms mix with the modern orchestration. Milhaud used Suite provençale for concert performances around the world and choreographers adopted the suite for the ballet. Milhaud reportedly considered “Provence” as a figurative place — beginning in Constantinople, passing through Aix and ending up in Rio de Janiero. As such, Suite provençale, was a perfect calling-card for this most happy of composers. Maurice Ravel Bolero When Maurice Ravel showed an interest in music, his parents encouraged his study of piano and supported him through his drawn-out studies at the Paris Conservatoire (he passed the piano entrance exam at the age of fourteen but took classes off and on until he was twenty-eight). After hearing the playing of his classmates, he soon abandoned thoughts of a career as a concert pianist and decided to be a composer. At the Conservatoire his pieces won him little recognition, but he continued to develop as an artist. In the music of Ravel we hear an exacting use of musical materials. He worked and reworked his pieces until he had attained a precision of sound that did not allow for miscommunication. His craftsmanship allows even the casual listener to easily step inside the music. Ravel composed Bolero in 1928 in response to a commission by Ida Rubinstein. Rubinstein had danced as a member of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes 1909–11, then formed her own companies and commissioned music from leading French composers. Ravel completed the music within five months, and the dance was choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, who had also been part of Diaghilev’s troupe and who was the sister of Vaslav Nijinsky, dancer and choreographer for Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. The ballet as conceived by Rubinstein and Nijinska was set in a Spanish tavern, where a gipsy dancing on a table gradually creates a state of ecstasy in her audience. This choreography reflects the hypnotic effect of Ravel’s music. The melody for Bolero came first, followed by the snare drum. Ravel played the melody for a friend one morning at the beginning of his compositional process, commenting, “Don’t you think this has an insistent quality?” He later predicted, “The piece I am working on will be so popular, even fruit peddlers will whistle it in the street.” Bolero is music with a simple structure and sophisticated orchestration. The snare drum is constant throughout, repeating a two-measure phrase that serves as the backbone of the piece. Different instruments take turns presenting the melody first as solos, then in groups. Some of the more unusual instruments Ravel used as soloists include the oboe d’amore; tenor, soprano, and sopranino saxophones; and celesta. (An oboe d’amore, invented around 1720, is pitched between an oboe and an English horn. It shares the characteristic pear-shaped bell of the English horn, which gave it a sweeter sound than the oboes of the early eighteenth century. The celesta was invented in 1886 and resembles a small upright piano, but its hammers strike metal bars instead of strings.) Listen, too, for the instruments that joine in playing the snare drum rhythm. Eventually, the entire orchestra plays together as the piece grows from pianissimo to fortissimo. The music requires a steady, slow tempo throughout and remains in the key of C major until the end, when it suddenly modulates to E major for eight measures before returning just as suddenly to C major and crashing to a climactic close. © 2007 Klayton Woodworth and Karen M. Woodworth
|