|
PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth Claude Debussy b. St. Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862 Sarabande and Petite Suite Claude Debussy wanted to be a great concert pianist and entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. After failing to win any of the school’s performance prizes, Debussy entered the composition curriculum in 1880 and won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1884. His advanced piano skills led to his two compositions on our program this evening, which were both orchestrated by other composers. Claude Debussy wrote his Petite suite for piano duet in 1889. Conductor and composer Henri Büsser orchestrated the suite in 1907. The four movements look to older musical models that are re-imagined by the composer. En bateau is a barcarolle of simple beauty. Büsser gave the thematic material to the flute and the harp, conforming very well to Debussy’s own orchestration practices. Cortège is music of pomp and circumstance. The Menuet is quick and light, with lead voices going to the double reeds. The Ballet that closes the suite is an energetic piece that shifts between duple and triple meter. Edward Lockspeiser receives credit for ascertaining the compositional models for these miniatures. He hears echoes of several French masters in this music, including Gabriel Fauré, Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Léo Delibes. Debussy’s Sarabande was published in the suite Pour le piano in 1901. In this piece, Debussy again looked to the past. The sarabande, a slow and stately dance, gained European popularity in the early 1600s after originating in the Spanish colonies. Debussy’s sarabande is quite dramatic in the version on tonight’s program, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. Listen especially for the way in which Ravel varied the instrumental timbres in order to heighten the expressiveness of the music. Edward Elgar b. Broadheath (near Worcester), June 2, 1857 In the South Edward Elgar was born into the family of a piano tuner and shopkeeper who also served as the organist at St. George’s Roman Catholic Church in Worcester. His only formal musical training was violin lessons. Even though he enjoyed very real success as a working musician, his lack of conservatory training and university education led him to be constantly plagued by the belief that his music would never be accepted in London. His fears of remaining forever on the periphery were, of course, baseless. Elgar ended his career as Master of the King’s Music (an honor received in 1924), and was elevated to the nobility as first Baronet of Broadheath in 1932. At the turn of the twentieth century, Edward Elgar was enjoying international fame. His first Pomp and Circumstance march had captured the hearts of the English. The trio from the march was transformed into the hymn “ Land of Hope and Glory.” A three-day festival of his music was being planned for Covent Garden. Elgar had agreed to write a new symphony for the festival, but found himself exhausted after completing his oratorio The Apostles. To recuperate, the Elgars left for a tour of Italy in November of 1903. Although their trip began under cold and rainy conditions, the clouds eventually parted and Elgar could roam the hills and fields of places like Alassio on the Mediterranean. Writing for the BBC, John Pickard (general editor of the Elgar Complete Edition) alluded to a collection of photographs Elgar made during this trip to Italy. It was of great benefit to music lovers that the composer also translated his memories into music and came home with a concert overture. On the score to his overture from Italy, Edward Elgar wrote these words of Lord Byron: “A land which was the mightiest in its old command and is the loveliest; wherein were cast the men of Rome. Thou art the garden of the world.” Elgar’s evocative score traverses much that enthralled him as he toured the Italian landscape. He wrote to a friend, “I wove this music in the valley of Andora … and it does not attempt to go beyond the impression then received.” He described the cascade at the opening as “the exhilarating out-of-doors feeling arising from the gloriously beautiful surroundings.” This view reportedly featured flower-strewn fields, snow-capped mountains, and the blue sea. In other episodes, Elgar focused on a shepherd playing a reed pipe, and on the indomitable Roman road that cuts through a valley. Elgar also looked inward, drawing a musical portrait of his personal feelings “amongst congenial surroundings and in congenial company.” When the shepherd returns, we hear a solo viola playing a canto popolare over a harp accompaniment. The melody is not an actual folk song, but is Elgar’s own. (It eventually became the song “In the Moonlight,” of which several instrumental transcriptions exist.) Finally, all the memories come together as the music strides and swoops to a grand conclusion. The composer led the Hallé Orchestra in the first performance of In the South at the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden during the last of the three festival concerts of his music presented in March of 1904. Sergei Rachmaninoff b. Semyonovo, April 1, 1873 Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 Sergei Rachmaninoff was the recipient of one of the juiciest criticisms preserved in the wickedly entertaining Lexicon of Musical Invective: If there were a conservatoire in Hell and one of its gifted students were given the task of writing a programme symphony on The Seven Plagues of Egypt and if he were to compose a symphony like Rachmaninoff’s, then he would have succeeded brilliantly and enchanted the inmates of Hell. The quote is Cesar Cui’s reaction to Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony after its premiere in 1897. Unfortunately, Cui’s response was not the only negative one to what was a very poorly-executed first performance. Although he clearly recognized what had happened with his symphony (the fault lay in the performance, not the music itself), Rachmaninoff fell into a deep depression and effectively stopped composing music. Rachmaninoff took a job as Assistant Conductor with the Moscow Private Russian Opera Company. His twelve-hour workdays left little time for brooding. He also enjoyed the robust friendship of the legendary bass Fyodor Chaliapin. Eventually, he completed a couple of piano preludes in 1899. He also wrote some vocal pieces, including a little song parody (quoting the opera Eugene Onegin) on which he wrote, “No! My muse has not died.” Rachmaninoff’s friends and family, however, became very concerned that his muse might be taking an extended vacation. They suggested he meet with the great writer Leo Tolstoy. Unfortunately, Tolstoy offered some platitudes but was otherwise grumpy and negative with little interest in music at all. Next they suggested he try the professional services of the hypnotherapist Nikolai Dahl. Rachmaninoff met with Dr. Dahl every day for four months. The composer credited Dahl’s positive assertions with turning around his self-defeating thought patterns. Chaliapin and Rachmaninoff went to Yalta to benefit from the climate of the Crimea and hobnob with other artists. Following a recital, Anton Chekhof told him, “Mr. Rachmaninoff, nobody knows you yet but you will be a great man one day.” When Chaliapin was invited to appear at La Scala in Milan, Rachmaninoff again tagged along. His brief sojourn in Italy restored his spirits. As he wrote to a friend, “I leave here enthusiastically and with the firm intention of working a lot when I reach home.” As the summer of 1900 drew to a close, Rachmaninoff was back in Russia and had soon completed the final two movements of what would be his second piano concerto. He was confident enough of the music to schedule a performance and also felt he was getting more musical ideas than he needed to finish the piece. Having not appeared in an orchestral concert for eight years, Rachmaninoff performed the two finished movements to great acclaim. He premiered the complete Concerto No. 2 with the Moscow Philharmonic Society in the fall of 1901. The concerto was published with a dedication to Dr. Nikolai Dahl. Audiences have been under the spell of this entrancing concerto for a little over a century now. The first movement shows a brilliant interplay between soloist and ensemble, both carefully guarding thematic materials that are only shared for dramatic effect. Following the bravura conclusion of the Allegro, Rachmaninoff mutes the strings and gives the soloist a triplet accompaniment figure while the woodwinds play the beautiful Adagio melody. The music builds dramatically to a climactic segment of cadenzas and a contrasting scherzo, but the original melody and accompaniment return and close elegantly. The finale, Allegro Scherzando, opens with a march that quickly swirls into a shifting dance rhythm. Rachmaninoff packs his modified rondo form with plenty of excitement, and the soloist and orchestra vie for the spotlight all the way through to the sparkling conclusion. © 2008 Klayton Woodworth and Karen M. Woodworth |