Dvorak : Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”

Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, “From the New World” (1893) Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Fairly soon after the establishment of the republic, important European musical figures began to find their way to the United States. Some were inspired by the prospects of a land where the streets were supposedly paved with gold, some intending to make new careers in America, some very celebrated persons invited as honoured guests. By the mid-19^th century there was an increasing stream of European performers, including such stars as the legendary Swedish singer, Jennie Lind, whose tour was sponsored by P. T. Barnum, of all people. Later great Russian piano virtuoso, Anton Rubinstein came over to dazzle American audiences. In 1891 Tchaikovsky showed up to conduct on the concert inaugurating Andrew Carnegie’s splendid concert hall. Early in the 20^th century saw visits from Richard Strauss, and, of course, the arrival of Gustav Mahler to become the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. But such exciting figures failed to leave the lasting influence upon American musical life which followed the time spent in America by Antonin Dvorak. Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, a wealthy figure in New York society and champion of American artists, was determined to use her social position (and her husband’s money) to establish a first-rate institution in New York City for the training of musicians. Things had come a long way in the 19^th century, with the New York Philharmonic founded in 1842, the Metropolitan Opera in 1883, while Harvard led the way in academic music study with the first music professorship in 1875. In New England impressive symphonic works were being composed by composers such as John Knowles Paine, George W. Chadwick, and soon even a remarkable woman composer, Amy Beach. But a truly professional institution for the training of musicians, comparable to the conservatories in Paris and Leipzig was sorely lacking. Mrs. Thurber got busy, and the National Conservatory of Music became a reality. Realising that she needed a V. I. P. to attract respectful attention to her enterprise, she considered a number of noted musicians (every one of them a European), and decided to offer the directorship of her conservatory to Antonin Dvorak, then at the height of his powers and celebrity. While Dvorak was already teaching in Prague, and busy with commissions, money was short, he had six children to feed---and Mrs. Thurber proposed a three-year contract, with a salary of $15,000, which was comparable to that of the president of the United States! It did not take long for Dvorak to agree to the terms, which included some modest teaching and administrative tasks, with long summer vacations, and a splendid opportunity to participate in the cultural life of America’s premiere city. (It also allowed time for some sight-seeing, with Niagara Falls high on the list.)

One would have imagined that a Big Name like Dvorak would be content to fulfill his duties without undue exertion, collect his salary, and sail home quite pleased with himself. But Dvorak was a unique personality in every way. Son of a butcher, he never forgot his humble origins, and clearly felt an affinity for a very confident, expanding America, then at the height of the flood of immigrants pouring through Ellis Island---many of them from backgrounds similar to his own. As well, Dvorak felt deeply about the matter of nationhood, for his own country (then referred to as “Bohemia”) was merely a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and would not gain independence until 1918. In many of his most popular compositions Dvorak expressed strong nationalist sentiments, drawing upon the folk music and traditional culture of his people to create a vivid, individual musical style. Not surprisingly, Dvorak had a keen understanding of the desire of his young students to find their own distinctive American musical identities. And, surprisingly, among the students were a number of African-Americans, recruited and funded by Mrs. Thurber, who held passionate beliefs about racial equality and opportunity. In an America just emerging from the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, this was a remarkable situation. While it might be expected that these young Black students would gain a sound training in the European Classical traditions, what was especially noteworthy was Dvorak’s desire to learn everything about their own culture and traditions---something extremely uncommon among most Americans in the late 19^th century. Dvorak spotlighted the talents of these students, writing articles and giving interviews in which he stressed the rich potential for American music in drawing upon the artistic riches to be found among ethnic minorities, most of all Black and Native Americans. These ideas were given particular emphasis in a famous article published in Harpers Monthly Magazine (February, 1895), which was virtually a blueprint for America’s musical future, one in which African-Americans might make very significant contributions. Although Dvorak died too soon to hear Ragtime, the music of Scott Joplin, or the early stages of Jazz, he left his mark on American music through his students, who went on to become prominent teachers and composers in their own right. His Black students would soon be the first professors of music at the historically Black colleges, while others would become teachers of such musicians as Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.

As a composer Dvorak left his mark in a series of works which were destined to be his finest and most popular, especially the F Major String Quartet (“American”) composed in Iowa during a summer vacation spent in a community founded by Czech immigrants---and above all his Ninth Symphony.

The symphony’s subtitle has always been misunderstood. Dvorak himself stressed that it was not an “American” symphony, rather one composed IN America, looking across the Atlantic toward home. He also stated that he believed that only through spending time in America could he have written such a work. While there remains some controversy regarding the ethnic influences which can be heard in the symphony, it is generally conceded that African-American and Native Americal musical elements are to be heard, especially in the middle two movements.

The symphony opens with a stern and darkly-textured slow introduction, leading to a restless and dramatic ALLEGRO MOLTO, with an assertive first subject, with heavy rhythmic stresses balanced by dance-like dotted rhythms, which will be given much attention in the course of the movement. A transitional melody (in G Minor), of a lilting Czech character leads to a winsome second subject of a rather Schubertian lyrical cast. Only when this is swells into a full orchestral statement do we realise that it leads off with the same “heavy rhythm” heard in the primary subject. The development focuses upon this secondary theme, pressing onward to a grand climax, and a recapitulation which veers into unexpected tonalities before returning to the home key in a “climax of tragic fury” (as Donald Francis Tovey puts it), before bringing the movement to a close.

The slow movement (marked LARGO) is ushered in by a solemn succession of richly-coloured chords, drawing the music into the rather uncommon tonality of D-flat major. There follows the entry of the English Horn (an instrument rarely encountered in the symphonic tradition), intoning the extraordinary principal melody which, as Tovey says, “has become a glory of Western art.” Although believed by many to have been borrowed from a Negro spiritual, and even fitted with words by a Dvorak pupil and sung under the title “Goin’ Home,” Dvorak’s sketches reveal that this wonderful melody was indeed his own. Nevertheless, the inflections of the melody, and its pentatonic (“five-tone”) makeup, so characteristic of spirituals, can lead to reasonable speculation that this music was indeed strongly influenced by the African-American music which Dvorak absorbed directly from his students. The opening statement, with hushed muted strings contrasted with the brooding loneliness of the English horn, is followed by an episode of restless agitation, and in turn by a brief, ghostly SCHERZANDO passage which unexpectedly swells into a menacing outburst for full orchestra. The quiet which follows creates an even more poignant setting for the English Horn melody, the movement fading away on a PIANISSIMO chord in four string basses.

If the slow movement suggests an African-American element, the bright colours and pounding rhythms of the SCHERZO inevitably bring to mind some echoes of the music of Native Americans. The main theme, first heard in the oboe, is built around a rhythmic figure which permeates the movement, with swirling string figures adding excitement, and the piling up of the insistent rhythm paradoxically bringing to mind the unbridled energy of two quite distinct folk cultures: the American Indian dancing– and the FURIANT, a Czech dance notable for its driving rhythms, which can be heard in the SCHERZO movements of several Dvorak’s earlier symphonies. Moving from E Minor to the sunny warmth of E Major, a contrasting theme provides a moment of relaxation before returning to the relentless activity of the opening section. The Trio section shifts to an amiable, folk-like C Major tune, reminiscent of the music of Smetana, and of Dvorak’s own popular “Slavonic” Dances. The SCHERZO then is reprised, with a coda which becomes ever quieter, only to end with a bang.

The finale, marked ALLEGRO CON FUOCO, returns to the home key of E Minor, and for all the elements of excitement and orchestra brilliance, remains true to the spirit of the symphony’s opening movement in its commanding energy and forcefulness. The first theme is declaimed by the horns, taken up by the full orchestra, surging onward in a whirl of triplets, arriving at a second subject of reflective and lyrical character, first heard in the clarinet. But soon this gentle mood pushes on into a subsidiary melody, out of which emerges a pattern of three-descending notes (often described as akin to “Three Blind Mice” !)

That pattern proceeds to permeate the development section, which drives forward to suddenly bring back the primary theme of the FIRST movement, blared out in a thundering climax. The basic elements return as before, although taking on different coloration and emphasis. Suddenly, as Tovey describes it, the coda bursts forth in a mood of “tragic catastrophe, almost grotesque in its violence,” with the solemn chords which had introduced the slow movement now striding forward in a furious climax. This subsides, and the symphony seems about to end in a whisper, when the movement’s main theme is once again declaimed by the horns, bringing the work to a dramatic and uncompromising conclusion.

GPYO concert

Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16

Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16 (1868) Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Norway’s best-known composer, Edvard Grieg grew up in a Scandinavian world quite unlike that of today, in which Norway and Sweden still formed a single nation, and Grieg himself raised in a family setting heavily influenced by Danish traditions. It was only in his twenties that he became deeply involved with the folk music of his own country, with profound consequences for the development of his musical personality. While music played an important role in his background, Grief was a relative late-comer, enrolling at the Leipzig Conservatory at age fifteen. While he found the conservative atmosphere of that institution stifling, the training under teachers who had been members of the Mendelssohn/Schumann faction in German musical life was to have a lasting influence upon Grieg. Indeed, that influence lingered on in his many songs and piano pieces. Grieg has been disparaged as a miniaturist, although in 1864 he actually composed a Symphony in C Minor, destined to be his largest composition. But on hearing the First Symphony of his compatriot, Johan Svendsen, the insecure Grieg suppressed his symphony, which was only heard for the first time in 1980. Although indeed a master of small, lyrical musical forms, Grieg showed a confident handling of larger structures, as can be heard in such compositions as the E Minor Piano Sonata, the G Minor String Quartet, and, most of all, the A Minor Piano Concerto.

The concerto is an example of a fine work which has survived its popularity. In a nice touch of irony, detractors have enjoyed unflattering comparisons with another A Minor Concerto by a “miniaturist” composer, Robert Schumann. For all that, it has been admired by composers as fastidious as Benjamin Britten, and performed by the likes of Michelangeli and Dinu Lipatti.

The work was set on its way through the encouragement of Franz Liszt, whose open-hearted of young composers should earn him the eternal gratitude of all musicians. Grieg met Liszt in Rome, where the master sat down and delivered a masterful performance of the concerto at sight from the manuscript full score---complete with running commentary of observations and praise! Grieg left a delicious account of Liszt’s reaction to a highly original harmonic turn at the end of the work:

“Towards the end of the finale…where the first note of the first triplet of the theme---G sharp---is changed to G natural in the orchestra, while the piano in a tremendous scale passage traverses the entire keyboard, Liszt suddenly stopped, rose to his full height, left the piano, and with mighty theatrical steps and raised arms strode through the great monastery hall, literally roaring out the theme. When he got to the above-mentioned G, he gestured imperiously with his arm and cried, ‘G, G, not G-sharp!! Wonderful!! That is the genuine article!!’ He then went back to the piano, repeated the whole phrase and concluded the work.”

The A Minor Concerto was the product of a young man of 25, recently married, now a father, and in the

full flood of inspired composition. While indebted to the Schumann concerto in its ardour and lyrical invention, as well as richly endowed with Lisztian pyrotechnics, the work is the first full expression of Grieg’s originality. The Norwegian element is most pronounced in the finale, with its opening tune which recalls the typical Hardanger fiddle music, and the Norwegian dance, the HALLING. (At the end of the movement the same music returns in triple metre, converted to the character of another dance, the SPRINGAR.) In broad outline the work is quite traditional: a sonataform opening movement, tripartite slow movement, and lively sonata-rondo finale. Most memorable are the lyrical moments: the plaintive flute melody in the finale (which returns in grandiose form at the end, the moment which so delighted Liszt), and the slow movement, sometimes described as a nocturne…”not a Mediterranean nocturne, but the gentle shimmering light of a Scandinavian midsummer night.”

GPYO concert

Rossini: Sonata No. 5 in E Flat Major for Strings

Sonata No. 5 in E Flat Major for Strings (1804)

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Gioachino Rossini was born in Pesaro, a small city on the Adriatic coat of Italy, on 29^th February, 1792. Son of musical parents, at the age of 14 he became a student at the famed Accademia Filarmonico in Bologna. Already he had shown remarkable precocity in composition, having composed six sonatas for strings at the age of 12, and had gained valuable first-hand experience in the world of the opera house. Always precocious, Rossini’s first work for the stage dates from 1810 (when, technically he was only three years of age - !) He gained wide notice with his opera, L’Inganno felice (1812), and was off and running with a quite astonishing string of 35 stage works, both serious and comic, with at least one new work every single year (but one) until his last opera, William Tell was performed in 1829. Then, at the advanced age of 37 (counting the years, not the birthdays!), Rossini abruptly withdrew from the world of opera, and, indeed, wrote only a handful of compositions for public performance during the final 39 years of his life. (There were, however, many small works for piano and voice which were written for private use, and only published after the composer’s death.) Wealthy, celebrated, and quite comfy in his splendid residence in Paris, Rossini gave his attention to elegant soirees, dinner parties, conversation and luxurious laziness on a grand scale. He received an endless stream of eminent visitors until the day he died (including a quite amusing afternoon entertaining a rather nervous young Richard Wagner), and enjoyed life to the fullest.

The six sonatas for strings of 1804 were composed for a curious string quartet ensemble comprising two violins, cello and string bass – no part for the viola. They are peprhaps more effectively heard, as in today’s concert, played by a larger string ensemble. (Another oddity is the use of the word “sonata,” where a more appropriate choice of title might have been the term “sinfonia.”) The Fifth Sonata in E Flat, is quite characteristic of the set, exhibiting extremes of suave lyricism and crowd-pleasing flights of orchestral virtuosity in which the mettle of the players is put to a severe test.

The opening allegro vivace is laid out as a relaxed sonataform, with a quiet, songful opening theme of sustained lyricism, followed by a rhythmically pointed secondary theme over a springy figure in the bass. Soon triplets bound into view, followed by waves of sixteenth-note figuration in the violins, rounding out the exposition with mischievous energy. The development is brief, recalling the primary theme, then, after a pause, recapitulating the opening material much as before. This time chief difference is that the violins are catapulted into their upper reaches, and pushed to their technical limits before bringing the movement to an emphatic conclusion.

The brief andantino is a quiet intelude, with gently arching melodic lines (rather operatic in character) over a pulsing grazioso background. Midway the music moves into unexpectedly chromatic territory, with sharp accents and dark harmonic textures, soon relaxing into a quiet ending.

The finale (allegretto) is certainly the most distinctly “Rossinian” part of the work, with its bouncing dotted rhythms and strolling gait, which is bound to recall many an animated episode in one or another of the composer’s popular opera overtures. A second theme is, if anything, even more brilliant and challenging for the players than any of the similar pyrotechnical moments of the first movement – in fact, the free-wheeling violin writing almost suggests the Rossini of the exciting concert works for clarinet and orchestra. There is no development, the music quickly swinging back to the initial material, nimbly romping onward to an exhilarating finish.

For an NCO concert

Gade: Novelletter for String Orchestra in F Major, Op. 53 (1874)

Novelletter for String Orchestra in F Major, Op. 53 (1874)

Niels Wilhelm Gade
(1817-1890)

Until quite recently the name of Niels Gade would be most familiar to those whose early piano lessons included learning of some of the little pieces comprising Robert Schumann’s “Album for the Young” – one of which uses the musical letters G – A – D – E (spelled out in the title) to form its thematic material. Long little known outside his native Denmark, recently Gade’s work has begun to be be heard in a series of fine recordings of his symphonies and orchestra pieces, some of which have frequently been heard on FM stations in this country.

As a young man Gade became a close friend of Schumann and Mendelssohn, the latter launching the young Danish composer on his way with performances of his works by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1843. He was soon appointed assistant conductor of the Leipzig orchestra, and became a teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory, which had recently been established by Mendelssohn. Following Mendelssohn’s death in 1847 Gade was appointed chief conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. But he held the position only for a year, deciding to return home when war broke out between Prussia and Denmark in 1848. Settling in Copenhagen, Gade became the focus of a remarkable development of the musical culture in his native country, composing a wide range of stage works, orchestral music (eight symphonies), choral works, chamber music, songs and piano music. He was the most prominent composer to emerge in Denmark before the appearance of Carl Nielsen in the early 20^th century.

Gade composed two works for string orchestra bearing the Schumannesque title Novelletter

(“Novellettes”) in the form suites of contrasting movements exhibiting a lyrical grace and elegant detail which inevitably brings to mind the works of his beloved colleagues, Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Opening with a short, dreamy introduction, the first movement is animated allegro, with a lively, syncopated scherzando principal theme, followed by a secondary theme of sweet lyricism which seems to look ahead to the music of Gade’s fellow Scandinavian composer, Grieg. There is some easy-going development, followed by a recapitulation of the opening elements. The Scherzo is an atmospheric, “things that go bump in the night” movement in D minor, featuring springy tiptoe melodic figures on tiptoe, contrasted by bustling string writing of great brilliance and imagination. The intermezzo-like andantino con moto is a brief interlude of gentle songfulness, rather in the manner of one of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words.” The finale (allegro vivace) is a toccata-like movement, with spirited virtuosic fugal string writing reminiscent not only of Mendelssohn’s characteristic dashing finales (as in the famous Octet), but even the famous fugal finale to Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 59, No. 3. Like those two famous examples of whirlwind string music, Gade whips his players onward to an exciting conclusion.

For an NCO concert

Hovhaness: Psalm and Fugue for String Orchestra, Op. 40a (1941)

Psalm and Fugue for String Orchestra, Op. 40a (1941)

Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)

Alan Hovhaness, who died this past summer at the age of 89, was one of a number of interesting
American musical mavericks, whose style owed much to the influence of music from other cultures, as well as being a composer who strove to achieve a directness of expression and accessibility to today’s audiences. Born in Somerville, Massachustts, of Scottish and Armenian ancestry, Hovhaness was trained at the New England Conservatory. There he studied with Frederick Converse, one of that generation of pioneering late-19^th century New England composers who helped to bring about the “coming of age” of American concert music. But, not at all interested in following his teacher in looking to the German symphonic tradition for inspiration, Hovhaness showed an early interest in Eastern music, particularly Indian music, as well as studying the techniques of Renaissance music. Following a summer spent studying at Tanglewood in 1943, where his work met with severe criticism from Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss, Hovhaness gave serious consideration to the direction in which his work had been moving, which led to the suppression (and destruction) of much of his earlier output. At the relatively late age of 32 he began to give more attention to the music of his Armenian forebears, as well as seeking to establish a clarity of harmonic style, and primary focus on the melodic element in his work, which gave his compositions their distinctive simplicity of expression.

By the 1950s Hovhaness’ compositions began to reach a wider public, especially through the great success enjoyed by his Second Symphony (“Mysterious Mountain”), which was marked by a meditative and mystical character which would be associated with the composer to the end of his career. He was perhaps unique among American composers for the “open-hearted spirituality” of his work, as Allan Kozinn pointed out in his obituary of Hovhaness in the New York Times. Hovhaness was an incredibly prolific composer, composing more than seventy symphonies, and a huge range of music for the stage,orchestra, chamber music, chorus and piano. One of his most popular works was an orchestral tone-poem, “And God Created Great Whales” (1970), which included a part for taped whale song.

The Psalm and Fugue, (composed in 1941, although only published in 1958), is one of those early compositions which survived Hovhaness’ ruthless winnowing out of his catalogue of works. In its melodic and harmonic simplicity it shows the influence of his preoccupation with Renaissance music. The Psalm is a plaintive, chant-like introductory movement, utterly diatonic (as if meant to be played on the "white keys"”of the piano). There are five short segments, the first for conventional string orchestra (the basses playing pizzicato), quite and reflective, followed by a section in which the violas play a rhythmically embellished theme above sustained lower strings. A variant of the opening forms the central third episode, the strings divided (except violas and basses), creating a richer sonority which swells to crest in a full fortissimo. The fourth segment is an echo of the second, the violas again carrying the melodic line---now for the first time with touches of chromaticism, moving away from the “white key” character of the earlier sections. A short, full-throated fifth segment, again written for divided strings, concludes the movement with the massive sonority.

The fugue sets forth with a “subject” (principal thematic element) heard in the second violins – a sort of “five-finger” melody akin to that which opened the composition. In quick succession the subject is heard in entries by the first violins, cellos and violas. (Curiously, the basses are silent until the very last phrase in the movement---which might suggest that this fugue might well have begun life as a composition for string quartet, in this version expanded to be performed by the multiple strings of the orchestra.) The consistently quiet tone of the opening section (or “exposition”) soon rises in intensity as all the instruments move into their upper registers. The music becomes chromatic in texture, moving into tonalities quite removed from the modal G Major which has dominated the composition from the beginning, with striking touches of dissonance. An increasing rhythmic momentum creates a mood of excitement, with chains of rapid notes in the lower strings. Marked “noble and majestic,” the opening music of the Psalm movement returns (with the basses rejoining the orchestra), to stride on to a powerful conclusion.

For an Newtown Chamber Orchestra concert

Strauss: Metamorphosen

Metamorphosen for String Orchestra (1945) Richard Strauss
(1864-1949)

In a long professional life which stretched for the world of Wagner and Brahms to the modern age of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, Richard Strauss lived through a dizzying succession of emperors, kings and prime ministers. The teen-ager who began his career during the fairy-tale age of Ludwig II of Bavaria, won world-wide fame during the jingoistic reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the turbulent “Weimar Republic” in the 1920s---and as a Grand Old Man briefly occupied an honoured position as a cultural figurehead in Nazi Germany. His confident view that all politicians (whether emperors or Reich Chancellors) were fundamentally the same---corrupt, stupid and contemptible---was shattered when the authorities intercepted his letters, bringing his private views to the attention of Joseph Goebbels and Hitler himself. Later, Strauss was called in for a tongue-lashing by Dr. Goebbels himself, who warned that despite his fame as Germany’s most celebrated musician, he too could be disposed of, if necessary. Strauss was in his late seventies, and not even asked to take a seat for this confrontation. Shaking with fright and ashen-faced the old man retreated to his home in the Bavarian Alps, where he lived out the war years in terror of the possible threat to him and his family---Strauss’ daughter-in-law was Jewish. No harm came. As the war wound down Richard Strauss was forced to confront the complete transformation and destruction of the world he had known. War devastation was one thing, the perversion and damage to the great traditions of German culture were another. Strauss may never have fully grasped the degradation into which his nation had been plunged, and to which he had contributed, however naively. To this day there are many who cannot forgive the fact that he remained in Germany, and seemed to “play along” with the regime. The truth is that he was an elderly man, brought up in an earlier age, and, like many Germans, unwilling to face reality until it was too late.

Not long after his final opera, Capriccio was performed, not long before his 80^th birthday, Strauss learned of the terrible destruction of Dresden (where most of his operas had received their premieres), then the bombing of Munich and Vienna---in which the great opera houses of both cities were destroyed. Heartbroken, Strauss tinkered with a plan for a septet for strings, which at first bore the title “Mourning for Munich.” When Paul Sacher, the conductor of a chamber orchestral in Basel, Switzerland, commissioned a new work from Strauss, the septet became a Metamorphosen [Metamorphoses], “Study for 23 Solo Strings,” which was composed March-April, 1945 at the composer’s home in Garmisch, in the Bavarian Alps, during the terrible final weeks of the war. Sacher, an outstanding champion and patron of the work of many important 20^th century composers (including Stravinsky, Bartok, Britten and many others), conducted the premiere of Metamorphosen on 25^th January, 1946.

The title is commonly taken to refer to the continual process of development in is such a striking aspect of the work’s musical structure. In fact, the “metamorphosis” heakens back to two poetic works written by Goethe in his old age---to quiet his deep anxiety in the final stages of the war, Strauss had re-read the complete writings of Goethe, seeking to find consolation in the greatest of all German poets.

For today’s performance Russell Hoffmann has chosen to use a septet version of Metamorphosen, in which the elements of the 23-instrument version are preserved, re-distributed between seven instrumental voices, permiting performance by a smaller string orchestra. This version was reconstituted by Rudolf Leopold from the original sketches which were re-discovered in Switzerland in 1990.

Metamorphosen is laid out as a continually unfolding, seamless contrapuntal tapestry. The textures shift smoothly from lower to higher instrumental colours, from transparent simplicity to some of the richest string sonorities ever conceived, in a style which is best described as “late Romanticism,” despite the date of composition—some might prefer the term “post-Romantic.” There are four distinct major thematic elements introduced straightaway: 1.) a solemn “preludial” opening with dark, arresting harmonies in the lower strings (initially in E Minor, although the home key soon is established as C Minor); 2.) perhaps the most important melodic element: four repeated notes linked with to a descending dotted pattern, introduced by the violas, destined to take on profound meaning as the composition progresses.

3.) a warmer, gently swelling lyrical theme led in by the violins, soon taking on a more anxious tone.

4.) a new theme, also ushered in with four repeated notes, first in the cellos, then taken up by the violins.

p. 2

Throughout the ongoing flow of musical ideas the “preludial” first theme recurs, the other themes endlessly extended and interwoven. The work had opens in E Minor, which immediately shifted into C Minor, which becomes the central tonality. Now, with a change to G Major, a new, more relaxed 5^th theme is added, notable for its more supple, embellished character. The music rises in intensity, then sinks back to return to the darker character of the first section, with the four-note figure becoming more prominent. Then a refreshing change as the music glides into the warm key of E Major. But once again it becomes more agitated, restlessly pressing onward, reaching the anxious key of C-sharp minor, and an extended form of the third theme. Soon we find ourselves back in the home key of C Minor, with the four-note figure taking on even a more urgent role, the tempo quickening, the atmosphere becoming ever more emotionally heated. The fourth theme comes to the fore, joined by the “warmer” third theme in turn, while the music takes on an ever more insistent momentum, rising to a dramatic climax. This crests in a reappearance of the “new” 5^th theme, now in C Major. This forges ahead ato a huge climax, with almost frantic repetitions of the four-note figure. This crashes down to a return of the preludial theme, fortissimo, now in C Minor. Calming down, the second theme, with the figure of four notes linked to the descending dotted pattern now claims our attention. The third theme re-appears, and after another dramatic pause, the preludial music swings around to the four note figure, now piled up in canonic entries, hammering one on top of another, pushing the music ahead in grinding, dissonant single-mindedness. The dotted descending theme now is heard by itself (without the 4 repeated notes), and all of the thematic elements are combined in a mood of almost desperate sorrow and resignation. The preludial theme leads in the final moments of the work, the melodic strands winding downward to find a ultimate anchor in C Minor. The four-note figure is heard a last time, while the cellos and basses intone the dotted-rhythm theme in its final transfiguration: a direct quotation of the Funeral March theme from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Under those final bars the heartbroken composer wrote the words IN MEMORIAM!

With Metamorphosen Strauss may well have composed a requiem for a great civilisation, and for an unbroken music tradition extending from Beethoven (and the world of Napoleon) to his own last works (and the world of Hitler.) For many listeners, this work may also be heard as a great composer’s grieving expression of his own moral failure, and search for spiritual resolution.

For a Newtown Chamber Orchestra Concert 24 X 2000

Musorgsky:

Pictures at an Exhibition

Modest Musorgsky (1839-1881)

Born little more than a generation before Sergei Rachmaninov, Modest Musorgsky made his way as a musician during a period in which Russian musical culture was still taking shape, when many of the most gifted composers were actually amateurs, writing music in their free time. It is hard to imagine that Alexander Borodin was employed as a professor of chemistry, and Rimsky-Korsakov began a career as a naval officer, only later becoming a professional composer and teacher. Even Tchaikovsky put in a few years as a government employee before being freed to compose full-time, in great part due to the generosity of his patron, Mme. Von Meck.

Musorgsky’s career followed a similar course. Born in a well-to-do land-owning family, he was educated at a military academy (with casual musical instruction from his mother and private teachers), and became a civil servant---the future composer of BORIS GODUNOV soon employed as “Assistant Head Clerk in the Third Section of the Forestry Department of the Ministry of State Property”! (Please note that this was fifty years before the Soviet era!) It was not quite as Kafkaesque as one might imagine. When time permitted music was composed, and Musorgsky was fortunate in having superiors who recognized his gifts and gave him considerable leeway in pursuing his creative activities. He was quite successful as a government functionary, dapper in appearance, cultivated and possessing a lively intellect. He also was subject to mental instability, fits of depression, and an increasing alcoholism which would eventually bring his short life to an end. The history books tend to overlook the more positive aspects of Musorgsky’s life, usually stressing his “unstable, disorderly temperament,” and sadly the composer is forever associated in the minds of most people with the heart-breaking portrait by I. E. Repin, painted only a few weeks before his early death. By fits and starts Musorgsky had won recognition as a gifted, if rather “eccentric” composer, closely associated with others of his generation (especially the “Mighty Five,” which included Rimsky, Borodin, Cesar Cui and Balakirev.) In the early 1870s came performances of his masterpiece, BORIS GODUNOV, soon followed by work on KHOVANSHCHINA (left incomplete at his death), a host of remarkable songs, and a number of larger compositions, many of them unfinished. The criticism of Musorgsky’s “eccentricity” usually referred to aspects of his harmonic and melodic style, as well as his idiosyncratic approach to instrumentation. Rimsky-Korsakov’s affectionate, if misguided, “revisions” and “corrections” in BORIS GUDONOV and other works left unpublished at the time of Musorgsky’s death are a clear indication of the general attitude of the composer’s contemporaries to what nowadays is considered to be remarkable originality and boldness of musical vision.

That Maurice Ravel should come to prepare an orchestration of the epic piano suite, “Pictures at an Exhibition” is an interesting aspect of the curious history of Musorgsky’s work and its emergence into the general repertoire in the 20^th century. The Russians had a traditional affinity for French culture, and not surprisingly some of the first western European musicians to take an interest in Musorgsky were French. Camille Saint-Saens, of all people, was one of the first to encounter the work of Musorgsky, followed by Debussy (who as a young man had spent time in Russia as a music instructor to the children of Tchaikovsky’s patron, Mme. Von Meck.) By the time Ravel was making his name as a composer Igor Stravinsky had burst on the scene, soon taking up residence in France. Himself a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky’s presence in Paris further strengthened the long-standing cultural bond between Russian and French culture. A further flood of Russian artists and intellectuals following the 1917 revolution added to this, with figures such as Serge Koussevitsky and Prokofiev becoming prominent in the musical life of Paris.

Ravel’s first serious involvement with the music of Musorgsky came in 1913, when he joined Stravinsky in preparing a new orchestration of the incomplete KHOVANSHCHINA, a project which was never completed. In 1922 he was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky to transform Musorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” into a full-scale orchestral composition. This imposing fourteen-movement suite for piano was written in 1874, inspired by a memorial exhibition of works by the composer’s friend Victor Hartmann, an artist who had died the previous year. Seldom performed, often dismissed as awkwardly conceived for the piano, even today this composition is infrequently heard, and is often tinkered with by pianists, as was notably the case with Vladimir Horowitz, a lifelong champion of the work. Many musicians had suspected that “Pictures” would be better served by an orchestral transcription, and Ravel, with his feeling for orchestral color and love of Russian music, was certainly the ideal man for the job, although Ravel’s orchestral textures were closer to those of Rimsky-Korsakov than to Musorgsky’s own orchestral colours, with their bold, spare “earth tones.” First performed in Paris by Koussevitsky on 19 October, 1922, Ravel’s “Tableaux d’une Exposition” was a sensational success, and ironically has all but eclipsed Musorgsky’s rude and bluntly Russian original.

Pictures at an Exhibition is a musical depiction of paintings and drawings on display in a gallery, with the casual strolling of onlookers from one artwork to the next suggested by four short movements, each bearing the title “Promenade.”

The opening PROMENADE, marked “nel modo russico,” forms an introduction to the suite.

This is very “Russian” indeed, opening with a solo trumpet, taking on a sturdy peasant character.

The paintings are as follows:

1. GNOMUS. A design for a toy nutcracker prepared as a Christmas tree ornament. The “nutcracker” element is vividly illustrated by the use of a rattle, together with whip, side drum, cymbals and xylophone.

PROMENADE – now heard as a quiet contemplation of the paintings.

2. THE OLD CASTLE. Based upon a watercolor done by the artist on a visit to Italy in which a troubadour sings a melancholy song outside a medieval castle (here in the voice of an alto saxophone.)

PROMENADE. Now returning with fuller orchestration, fading away to prepare for the next picture.

3. TUILERIES. A painting depicting lively children’s games in the gardens in central Paris. An apt example of Ravel’s ability to bring together the distinctive Russian essence of the music, together with a Gallic elegance most appropriate for the subject of the painting.

4. BYDLO. In a foreshadowing of Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” Musorgsky depicts a Polish cart with enormous wheels, drawn by oxen, with heavy grinding rhythms and the dark colors of the Russian countryside.

PROMENADE. This ambling musical element is now heard in a lighter, more transparent texture.

5. BALLET OF THE CHICKS IN THEIR SHELLS. This is based on costumes which Hartman designed for a Bolshoi Ballet production in 1871.

6. SAMUEL GOLDENBERG AND SCHMUYLE. This musical dialogue, was inspired by a pair of portraits of two Jews: one rich, wearing a fur hat (depicted by solid, rather prideful music for strings and winds in unison), the other a poor Sandomir Jew (heard in pleading music played by muted trumpet.)

7. LIMOGES, THE MARKET PLACE. A scene of animated gossip among market women vividly mirrored in a flurry of instrumental activity, plowing head-on into the following movement.

8. CATACOMBS. Set out in two sections, the first subtitled “Sepulchrum Romanum” [“Roman Sepulchre], a stark, nearly immobile impression of the eternity of death, the second , “Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua” [“With the Dead in a Dead Language”] in which the Promenade theme reappears in an eerie atmosphere of muted tremolo strings.

9. THE HUT ON FOWL’S LEGS. This painting represents the famous home of Baba Yaga, a witch well known in Russian folklore, who flew through the skies in a pestle and mortar.

Here Ravel came closest to the spirit of Musorgsky with orchestral colors which create a memorable and evocation of this haunted fairy-tale world. Returning to the thumping energy of the opening section, the music hurtles on to plunge directly into the final movement.

10. THE GREAT GATE OF KIEV. Hartman’s drawing was a design for a massive memorial gate, with columns supporting an arch crowned by a huge carved war helmet. Here Ravel, seems to outstrip even such Russian masters of orchestration as Rimsky in creating an outpouring of incomparable majesty. The powerful, choral-like main theme recurs several times, contrasted by a quiet, chant-like episode rooted in the world of Russian Orthodox choral music, and a bell-like episode built upon tritone figures, with powerful echoes of the Coronation Scene from BORIS GODUNOV. The work concludes with the orchestra playing at maximum capacity, in an unparalleled display of rich sonority.

Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini , Op. 43

Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini , Op. 43

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

Like Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninov lived a life which stretched from an imperial late 19^th century world to the momentous cultural and political upheaval of the first half of the 20^th century. It was a life which moved from the world of Tchaikovsky and Mother Russia to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Riverside Drive, and Beverly Hills.

In another parallel with Strauss, Rachmaninov’s works have always been well-loved by the wider musical public, despite the strictures of critics and academics. Unlike Strauss, who attempted to ignore political storms, Rachmaninov suffered the wrenching impact of a loss of his cultural roots in leaving Russia behind after the Bolshevik Revolution. Although, like Strauss, a celebrated conductor, and one of the great virtuoso pianists of the age, Rachmaninov’s 25 years of exile severely limited his output as a composer, with but a scant half-dozen large-scale compositions written after 1918. While these include several splendid works, including the Fourth Piano Concerto, Third Symphony, and Symphonic Dances, only the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934) would gain popularity comparable with the early concertos and orchestral works.

Written in his summer home in Switzerland, the Rhapsody, which could well be regarded as a virtual “Fifth Concerto,” represents Rachmaninov at the height of his powers, still faithful to his late19t^h century Russian roots, yet venturing into a more tautly-constructed musical idiom, occasionally revealing some links with a more “contemporary” musical language that had been heard previously.. The basis for the work is the well-known 24^th Caprice for solo violin of Nicolo Paganini (itself actually a set of variations), which had been inspired sets of variations by a host of noted composers, among them Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and in the 20^th century Boris Blacher and Witold Lutoslawski.

The rhapsody comprises twenty-four variations, some following the theme quite strictly, others with relative freedom. And, in another time-honoured Romantic tradition, Rachmaninov makes occasional references to the medieval Gregorian Chant sequence, DIES IRAE, following in the footsteps of Berlioz and Liszt. (He had already made use of that melody in his First Symphony and the tone poem, ISLE OF THE DEAD, and it would reappear in his last work, the Symphonic Dances.)

There is a brief introduction built upon a distinctive five-note figure which runs through the Paganini theme, four sixteenth-notes linked to an eighth-note), but where one would expect to hear Paganini’s melody, Rachmaninov, in an eccentric departure from tradition, writes a skeletal “First Variation” BEFORE the theme is introduced. The Paganini’s original melody is heard in the violins in the tonality of A Minor.

Variations 2-6 form an unbroken group, performed without change of tempo, all in the home key. The five-note figure is much in evidence, only in Variation 5 moving away from a literal repetition of the theme’s melodic contours. A more reflective mood is heard in Var. 6, with greater rhythmic freedom and decorative filigree in the solo piano. The music’s momentum is slowed somewhat in Var. 7, the five-note figure now heard in an augmented form in the bassoon, the piano playing simple block chords as harmonic background. Following the toccata-like Variations 8-10, Var. 11 serves as a reflective, rhapsodic interlude, richly decorated with decorative writing in the piano against a sustained orchestral background.

Shifting to D Minor, now in triple metre, Var. 12 is marked “tempo di menuetto.” Hints of the DIES IRASE theme are heard in the piano, with elegant rhythmic figuration heard against swooning melodic figures in the orchestra. Still in D minor, the mood in Var. 13 now becomes heavy and assertive, with the piano slamming out chords, while the strings play a stripped-down version of the theme, with embellishment in the winds.

In a renewal of energy Var. 14 is set in the related key of F Major, the orchestra stepping off with a fanfare-like variant of the theme, soon joined by the piano, hammering out heavy chordal patterns.

In Var. 15 the piano sails off by itself, with richly-textured passagework which at first suggests a cadenza, joined by the orchestra to come to a quiet conclusion. Shifting to the remote, dark key of B-flat minor, the orchestra now takes the lead, with the piano heard as ornamentation over stretches of the theme heard in solo oboe, later solo violin and horn. Remaining in B-flat minor, Var. 17 forms a bridge to its successor, the piano confined to murmuring arpeggio figuration heard against the barest suggestion of the theme in the winds, with hushed tremolo in the strings.

Until now most of the variations have been tightly woven, and fairly removed from the characteristic gestures of Rachmaninov’s earlier style. But in Var. 18, at last the listener is rewarded with the celebrated D-flat major variation, revealing Rachmaninov in his most lushly Romantic guise, as through reverting to the seductive warmth of his earlier compositions. And, in a delightful instance of musical craftsmanship, this glamorous new melody turns out to be the result not of inspiration, but calculation: Rachmaninov INVERTS the Paganini theme (literally tipping the melody upside-down), a time-honored musical gimmick, with Paganini’s rather “classical” tune now taking on the distinctive lusciousness of old Russian Romanticism. First heard in the piano alone, in a easy flowing ANDANTE, the orchestra enters in full flood, producing the sort of textures which have been imitated in Hollywood soundtracks for the last seventy years. (Anyone suspicious of such “heart-on-sleeve” sentiments would do well to listen to the composer’s own recorded performance, which is both warmly tender and utterly free of sentimentality.)

In a renewal of energy, Variations 19-22 return to the home key of A Minor, each succeeding variation quickening in tempo. The soloist moves from springy triplets to buzzing sixteenth-notes (bringing back the five-note figure), followed by even more furious triplet passagework. In the march-like Var. 22 the rhythm of the five-note figure presses forward, the piano hammering out crisp chords with increasing power. Sustained lines in the strings form a background to racing patterns in the piano, the five-note figure takes the lead, building to a massive climax. A short cadenza in thundering octaves leads to Var. 23, in which the theme returns very much in its original form, with another short cadenza forming a link with the 24^th, final variation. Here the Dies Irae theme comes very much to the fore, as the music pushes on to a conclusion which, at the very last moment, suddenly pulls back to end quietly, with a final snap of the five-note figure.

Strauss: Suite from Der Rosenkavalier

Suite from DER ROSENKAVALIER Richard Strauss

(1864-1949)

For many music lovers Richard Strauss represents the very essence of 19^th century Romanticism, with his sumptuous orchestral tone poems, lavish operatic works and expressive lieder. But while his most popular works appeared before the First World War, Strauss would live the greater part of his life in the 20^th century---the precocious teenager who began his career in the age of Wagner’s PARSIFAL and the Brahms symphonies, would live to be a contemporary of such figures as Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter! But then the career of Richard Strauss is filled with paradox. By the time he reached the age of thirty he had become the most celebrated living composer, acclaimed by many as the hoped-for successor to Richard Wagner, while many musical conservatives considered him to be a dangerous “revolutionary.” It is interesting that Johannes Brahms himself dismissed such talk, singling out Gustav Mahler as the REAL “revolutionary,” although the true importance of Mahler’s works would only be recognized fifty years after his death, as he himself had prophesied.

For all his precocious brilliance, Richard Strauss was nearly thirty years of age when he composed his first stage work, GUNTRAM (1894) , a galumphing Wagnerian epic which sank like a stone, followed in 1901 by a rather sour comic opera, FEUERSNOT, which was only a modest success. Could it be that the composer of “Don Juan” and “Zarathustra” was ill-suited for the musical stage? But the sensational premiere of SALOME in 1905 turned everything around, transforming the career of Strauss overnight. With ELEKTRA (1909), an exploration of human depravity almost exceeding the grisly power of SALOME, Strauss was at the height of his powers, hailed as the most significant figure in German opera since Wagner, as well as joining such figures as Schoenberg, Scriabin and Debussy in leading the way in new world of early 20^th century “modernism.” Strauss seemed to have made a daring leap forward not only in the striking psychological elements in these new operas, but also with regard to his basic musical language, particularly with regard to tonality and harmony. From this point forward Strauss would make opera his primary focus, ELEKTRA being the first of a half-dozen works with texts by the great Austrian poet and librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, in a remarkable partnership which lasted until the poet’s death in 1929.

Strauss’ had won international notoriety as a composer of operatic horror---even New York audiences were so stunned by SALOME in 1907 that the Met waited until the 1930s to mount another production! Thus it was not surprising that news of yet another Strauss/Hoffmansthal collaboration caused sensitive souls to quake at the thought of even greater operatic shocks in store. But when DER ROSENKAVALIER was first heard in 1911 it “shocked” only by its unexpected sweetness and tuneful expressiveness. (True, there was some moralist murmuring about the opera’s first scene, which finds a married woman in bed with a strapping young eighteen year-old, but that seemed to be a problem only in London---Sir Thomas Beecham has described a “typically English compromise” with the censors, which allowed the scene to be played if NO bed appeared on the stage, leaving the text unchanged, with several references to a bed!) On the threshold of the European catastrophe of the First World War, ROSENKAVALIER was a wistful look back to the 18^th century Vienna of Mozart’s MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, complete with a poignant central female figure, and a pair of young people falling in love at first sight. Now it was the turn of musical “moralists” to take offense, attacking (as some still do to this day) Strauss’ “cowardly” turning back from the bold “modernism” of SALOME and ELEKTRA, taking “refuge” in cozy musical nostalgia. Opera lovers, on the other hand were only too happy to hear in the new work echoes of FIGARO. ROSENKAVALIER’s Marschallin seemed to be a counterpart to Mozart’s Countess, and the decision to cast the young Oktavian as a “trouser role” for mezzo-soprano was surely a glance back to Cherubino, with links with Susanna as well. And forming a nostalgic (if anachronistic) link with “Old Vienna” was Strauss’ daring decision to thread a series of luscious waltzes through the course of the work, which has helped to make ROSENKAVALIER Strauss’ most popular opera It was such an overnight success in 1911 that special trains were run to take opera-lovers to Dresden to attend the first performances.

First published in 1945, the orchestral suite from DER ROSENKAVALIER seems not to be the work of Strauss himself, but may have been prepared by the conductor Artur Rodzinski. It comprises four extended sections heard without pause, laying out key scenes spanning the entire opera, with each of the principal characters represented in turn. Chief among these is a beautiful married woman on the verge of middle age, the Marschallin (Field-Marshal’s wife), whose clandestine affair with Oktavian, a boy still in his teens, soon comes to an abrupt end over the course of the action. The Marschallin’s cousin, the boorish, impoverished Baron Ochs is the comic focus of the work, with his hopes for an arranged marriage with Sophie, an innocent young woman from a wealthy family, coming to grief when the girl falls in love at first sight with Oktavian.

The introduction to Act I of DER ROSENKAVALIER forms the opening of the suite, with a swaggering figure in the solo horn setting in motion a swirl of orchestral activity which is intended to depict a night of tempestuous love-making. When the music gives way to a mood of tenderness, the curtain rises to reveal the Marschallin and Oktavian awakening in the first light of morning. This

richly-textured tonal picture glides on to the second section, the “Presentation of the Rose” music which opens Act Two, one of the most best-loved scenes in all of opera. Here the innocent young Sophie is excitedly awaiting the arrival of the “Rose Cavalier” (who turns out to be Oktavian), who is to present her with a silver rose, the symbol of Baron Ochs’ proposal of marriage. The horncall from the first section recurs, and with ever-mounting waves of excitement the music shifts into the ripe key of F-sharp major. In a dramatic harmonic gesture Oktavian’s entrance is portrayed with music capturing the glitter of the silver rose itself, with a magical combination of high shifting harmonies for 3 flutes, 3 violins, celeste and two harps. The first tentative phrases sung by Oktavian and Sophie, here heard in instrumental guise, become a rapturous duet. Rounded out by a return of the sounds of the silver rose, the third section follows, with the boisterous and mischievous introduction to Act III, which quickly gives way to an offstage waltz-tune which in the opera forms the background to an uproarious scene in which Baron Ochs makes a bungling attempt to seduce one of the Marschallin’s “maidservants,” Mariandel---actually Oktavian, dressed in woman’s clothing! In the course of this episode is heard music famously sung by a weepy, tipsy “Mariandel” to the memorable words, “Nein, nein, ich trink’ kein Wein”…. After a second waltz the orchestra swells into a majestically expansive version of the first,which is perhaps the finest waltz not composed by Johann Strauss! (For those with a musical sweet tooth this is probably the closest musical approximation of those unforgettable Viennese pastries heaped high with “Schlagobers” [whipped cream], which ten years later would be Strauss’ title for a ballet set in Vienna!) This wonderful waltz is associated with the clownish Baron Ochs (a role written for a deep bass voice), and in a delightful instrumental touch, the Baron’s low E with which he which concludes an earlier scene, is here given to a solo tuba. The fourth and final section encapsulates the most memorable music in ROSENKAVALIER: the concluding trio sung by Oktavian, Sophie and the Marschallin, in which the older woman regretfully (if without tears) “lets go” of her young lover, giving her blessing to the union of Sophie and Oktavian. This is followed by an artless little duet sung by the young lovers when they are at last alone together. Unlike the hushed final moment of the opera, which tiptoes away in a moment of witty pantomime, the suite concludes with a noisy waltz from earlier in Act III, which had been heard over the din of Ochs being chased from the scene by creditors and small children screaming “Papa! Papa!”

A Personal Recollection of Benjamin Britten

A Personal Recollection of Benjamin Britten.

The writer of these notes made an excited discovery of 20^th century English music when a teenager, and promptly wrote letters to Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten seeking advice and offering observations about their work. Back came warm and down-to-earth replies from both men, full of practical suggestions and kindly comments.

In the summer of 1957 Benjamin Britten spent a week at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival (in Ontario, not far from my home in Michigan), preparing for the first North American performances of his new opera, THE TURN OF THE SCREW. I had already obtained the recording of the opera (the first complete recording of a Britten stage work), and eagerly hopped on a bus to make the journey to Stratford. Britten, who knew I was coming, could not have been more friendly and welcoming. I, an eager-beaver teenager, was permitted to attend all the rehearsals, providing a glorious opportunity to see a great composer at work---and a wonderful conductor, as well, as I discovered. I was encouraged to get to know the cast members, every one of whom inscribed my precious LP recording album, and even was invited to sit in on a private rehearsal for a song recital given by Britten and Peter Pears. A page turner was needed from time to time, and I made myself useful, learning at close range what Gerald Moore meant when he pronounced Britten as the “finest accompanist in the world.” He struck me from the beginning as a figure of Mozartian versatility, spontaneity and sheer genius.

The next summer, cycling through England for the first time, I attended several concerts at Britten’s own Aldeburgh Festival, which took place each June in the village where George Crabbe had lived---an eerily beautiful place whch looked to be a living stage setting for PETER GRIMES. That was to be an introduction to an intensely “local,” “neighborly” artistic world which Britten made very much his own. He once said that in order to be universal an artist must first be able to focus upon his own friends and community. Britten’s life and career seemed to represent something quite simple, yet profound about the meaning of being a musician and citizen. Seven years later, having made the acquaintance of Imogen Holst (the delightful if slightly dotty daughter of the composer of “The Planets”), who was Britten’s tireless assistant at the Aldeburgh Festival, I found myself invited to be an assistant (and general Dog’s-Body) during the two weeks of the June Aldeburgh Festival. It was an amazing whirl of activity. Britten’s first “church parable,” CURLEW RIVER, was to be premiered; Britten conducted a performance of Haydn’s “Creation” which nearly caused the listeners to get up and dance in the isles. He brought Rostropovich over from Russia to play the Bach Cello Suites, one each evening at 11 p. m. in the parish church….he played SECONDO to Sviatoslav Richter’s PRIMO in a Schubert recital…he joined Peter Pears to perform WINTERREISE…Someone had the brilliant thought to persuade Richter and Rostropovich to appear TOGETHER in another 11 p. m. recital in the parish church---Britten turned pages.

Later, as a violinist in one of the London orchestras, I had the dizzying good fortune to participate in a performance of the “War Requiem,” conducted by Britten, as well as some orchestral concerts at Aldeburgh and London. There was a heart-stopping performance of Bach’s “St. John Passion,” as well.

I willingly skipped a four-star Verdi Requiem performance in London to go to Aldeburgh in mid-winter to help correct proof-sheets for a new Britten work about to be published. As I sat studying the manuscript I could see on the glass-top of the desk the reflection of seagulls circling over the sea before me---and in my mind I heard the “Dawn” Sea interlude from PETER GRIMES. We early-risers had seen Britten playing tennis at 6 a. m. during the Aldeburgh Festival---we were certain that he would still be doing that at the age of 85. A heart condition required a heart-valve operation, today as commonplace a procedure as an appendectomy. It was unsuccessful, leaving Britten partially paralysed. He slipped away at the cruelly early age of 63. No one who knew him can go through a single day without missing him.

Part: Symphony No. 2

Symphony No. 2 (1966)

Arvo Part (1935- )

In the last twenty years Arvo Part has become a widely recognised name in contemporary music, with a succession of works, many of them written for voices with Latin texts, which have won him a dedicated following. This was particular the case with music lovers who thirsted for new music without what was often felt to be a prevailing severe intellectualism and constricted emotional expression in much of the music composed since the 1950s. In America this desire for a simpler, more direct musical communication drew an entirely new audience to follow the work of such figures as Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, composers commonly labeled “minimalists,” whose work was marked by a sometimes deceptive simplicity, with great emphasis upon repetitive rhythmic patterns, the use of triadic sonorities quite divorced from traditional notions of “tonality,” and meditative, even spiritual connotations in creating moods, trance-like states of mind, with chanting, drumming and other evocations of non-western musical cultures.

Not long ago the work of Arvo Part would hardly figure in a discussion of 20^th century music---even as late as 1980 the article on Part in the New Grove Dictionary of Music consisted of a mere 25 lines. It was in 1982 that Arvo Part’s PASSIO brought wide attention to a newly evolving stage in his creative development, one which has become well known in a series of works with titles such as Litany, Miserere, Stabat Mater, Te Deum. While it is always enlightening to consider the earlier stages of a composer’s work, one might question the need to look back upon a composition dating from an early stage in his development (1966), moreover, one employing musical devices which have not remained part of his more mature style. And it is true that anyone familiar with the intensely quiet, “timeless” qualities of Part’s more recent work will be rather amazed by the Second Symphony of 1966. And yet the uniquely meditative and spiritual compositions written by Arvo Part in the last two decades might not have come into being without the composer having passed through the testing stages of his earlier, often deeply disturbing works such as the Second Symphony.

Arvo Part was born in Paide, a small town fifty miles from Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Long a part of thre Russian Empire, Estonia became an independent Republic in 1920, only to be absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1940, finally regaining its independence in 1994. As a child he trained as a pianist, also playing the oboe and playing percussion in a dance band. In his late teens he turned to composition, studying composition in Tallinn under Heino Eller, the leading composer of the day. By then the arts in Estonia were firmly in the grip of Soviet “socialist realism” orthodoxy, harshly rejecting western influences, particularly those of serialism and the post-Webernian work of composers such as Boulez, Nono and Stockhausen. But it was also a period during which young Polish composers (most memorably Krzysztof Penderecki) were asserting their artistic independence by their own quite individual `response to some of those very western influences found to be so pernicious by the authorities in Moscow. Although a Prokofiev-like neo-classicism can be found in some of Part’s very first compositions, as early as 1960 he began to toy with the serial technique in his first major work, the cantata NEKROLOG, which immediately was attacked in official circles for its “espousal of western formalism.” While western serial composers were officially “tolerated” after 1958, an unofficial ban remained in effect, and many younger, more adventurous composers were severely criticised for their “experimental tendencies.” As late as 1968 Part’s CREDO for piano, chorus and orchestra was savagely attacked, bringing about a crisis both artistic and spiritual on the composer’s part, plunging him into a long period of silence. In the 1970s Part’s life went through some profound changes, including a conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith, and in 1980 a decision to move to Vienna, and eventually to Berlin.

Part’s growth as a composer moved directly into an intense preoccupation with serial techniques in his earlier works of the 1960s, in many respects spurred on by the vivid example of his Polish contemporaries. An element of musical “collage” and musical quotation also enters his work, as well as a fascination with traditional contrapuntal techniques often employed in serial composition, such as canonic writing. Soon Part began to explore European music of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, including such composers as Perotin, Ockeghem and Josquin des Pres. And a highly individual response to a concept of bell-sounds referred to as “tintinnabuli music” is at the core of most of the later works, which set religious texts and focus upon spiritual concepts.

Thus it is fascinating to discover the basic elements which underlie the Second Symphony, a work of unusual expressive mystery and emotional power. Written for a full symphony orchestra, with a duration of about 15 minutes, the work carries no tempo markings, instead giving bald metronome markings for its three movements: quarter-note = 104-120 (fairly quick), half-note = 112 (quite lively), quarter-note = 48-60 (quite slowly). A somewhat bizarre novelty in terms of sound resources is the use of children’s toys to produce background noise---Mark Laycock recalls a performance in Boston in which three percussionists employed rubber duckies! There is a degree of “aleatoric” writing (in which precise rhythmic notation is abandoned to chance), as well as an underlying tonal structure which is serial in basic design, although of little direct concern to the listener.

Although often described as “non-narrative” in character, the opening movement of the symphony follows a clearly defined structure. It opens with an aleatoric (random) chattering of pizzicato notes in the strings, employing the twelve chromatic tones squeezed into the space of an octave, joined by background noise of children’s toys. The first of a series of sustained, lyrical lines (gradually taking on a nearly traditional “melodic” character) is heard in the solo horn, followed by random chattering now given to the flutes. The random element returns in pizzicato strings, now joined by the eerie rustle of cellophane being crushed, soon leading to another lyrical line, now in the clarinet, arching upward quite expressively, followed (as before) by the random chattering, now in the lower winds, creating a more agitated mood. Now bowed (and louder) the random strings figure returns, with background noise made by applying wood blocks to the piano strings. The next sustained line is heard in the bassoon, becoming more intense, now followed by random chattering in the brass. The next entry of the sustained line is given to the brass, circling from low to high registers, joined by ominous rolls on the tam-tam. Suddenly, with a dramatic glissando in the harp, we are swept into the higher reachs of winds and strings for a series of triads heaped one upon the other---“Pelion piled upon Ossa,” with distinct key centers of B, D, E, F, E-flat, etc. pressed into a sort of multi-tonal fortissimo wail, soon melting away into highly colored, dissonant clusters in the brass, joined by shrieking trills high in the winds. This rises in intensity, then settles back into a soft D Major chord, which then swells into a fullest fortissimo to end suddenly.

While Wilfred Mellers describes the second movement as “scherzoid,” Charles Ives would probably add that “this scherzo is not a joke!” Chugging into life with bouncy, rather carefree pairs of repeated notes (to be played with aleatoric rhythmic freedom), this three-minute interlude rapidly takes on a truly nightmarish character---what seemed “carefree” at first becomes mindless and brutal. The jabbering repeated notes, passed among brass and winds is punctuated by isolated sustained tones in the strings, each time swelling from soft to loud, moving from high to low registers. At midpoint the music flies into splinters, and faintly echoing Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima,” with shards of sound sailing in all directions, a jagged pointillism is underway, with long sustained tones in the lower brass against a background of smacks and thuds in percussion and piano (using the flat of the hands directly on the strings). The sustained pitches rise, becoming yet more threatening, moving into the higher brass, joined by the winds to form a screaming, sinister wall of sound, to conclude by suddenly breaking off.

Moving immediately into the final movement we are confronted by a massive fortissimo string chord built up of superimposed fourths, stretching from highest to lowest pitches against which a thundering timpani drumbeat is heard: a rhythmically precise E-flat octave which is hammered out with mechanical deadliness, first a phrase of twelve notes, then eleven, ten, nine – and so on down to a single note. Each phrase is punctuated by a rapid scurrying figure in the strings, at first in an imperceptible DIMINUENDO, then rising again in volume, while the string pattern becomes progressively more hectic. This suddenly gives way to a section with the dry rattle of COL LEGNO strings (rapping the strings with the wood of the bow) against a tapestry of murmuring winds and brass. Brass figures begin to stand out, the winds begin to create a frenzied jabber, the entire orchestra rising in a huge CRESCENDO, out of which steals a tonal melodic fragment in the clarinet. In a startling, almost cinematic shift of orchestral mood and color, we suddenly find ourselves transported into a cloudless C Major, with a naïve little tune heard with traditional harmony and orchestration of blushing modesty. The melody is a passage from Tchaikovsky’s “Sweet Day-Dream” from an 1878 collection of children’s piano pieces. Three last dissonant crashes are turned aside by the cool sounds of open-string fifths, the children’s music continues, and drifts into silence.

What can this possible MEAN, many of us would ask. But then, we raise the same question with many of the works of Beethoven, of Mahler, of Debussy – and we are forced to supply our own private, unverifiable responses. Can this be another of those “Unanswered Questions?” Can it be related to the composer’s own personal struggle for creative integrity working under Soviet repression? A vision of the artist seeking some sort of personal salvation in a nihilistic world? Arvo Part himself might not be able to answer our questions – he might choose not to, or perhaps might not know the answer himself.

In his fine little 1997 book on the composer, Arvo Part’s most devoted interpreter, Paul Hillier, has this to say about the Second Symphony: “[There is] the feeling of savage, bitter scorn unleashed, barely relieved even by the dulcet conclusion. At the outset we are knocked off balance by the unexpected sound of children’s squeaky toys, the alienating effect of which lingers in the memory and permeates the whole piece; indeed, the beginning and end of this work may be said to inhabit childhood, the purity of which is invoked as something that might eventually overcome all the evil in the world.”