Haydn Symphony No. 104 in D Major, “London”

Symphony No. 104 in D Major, “London”

Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809)

Like most musicians of his day, Josef Haydn found employment as a “court composer” in a number of aristocratic households until he reached his sixties. For nearly thirty years his patron was the celebrated Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy, whose elegant palace in the middle of the Hungarian farm country was to be the composer’s home, and scene of his artistic development. In a sense it was also his place of aristic isolation, from which he could escape only for brief visits to Vienna where the prince’s entourage spent an annual period of residence in the imperial capital. Unlike Mozart, who from early childhood was to visit most of the centers of Europe, Haydn never had the freedom to travel, being constantly under pressure to preside over a court orchestra and opera company, as well as to compose everything from dance music to chamber music, orchestral works, stage works and religious music. After nearly thirty years’ service at the palace of Esterhaza, the death of Prince Nicolaus finally made it possible for Haydn to accept offers to travel. An ambitious musician, Johann Peter Salomon (German by birth, now resident in London), learned of the death of Haydn’s patron, and determined to swoop down upon the composer and bring him to London for a series of public concerts. Salomon met Haydn in Vienna, greeting him with the famous words, “I am Salomon of London, and have come to fetch you. Tomorrow we will arrange an accord.” The two men hit it off immediately, and in December, 1790 Haydn set out for London, saying goodbye to Mozart, who feared for the older man’s stamina, warning him against such a dangerous undertaking. (Ironically, Mozart himself would die within a year, the two friends never again seeing each other.) Haydn spent two long periods in England, where he met the cream of society, from royalty to the artistic celebrities of the day. He was awarded an honorary degree at Oxford (responding with his “Oxford” Symphony, No. 92), and the unhappily married composer even had a late-life romance with a German widow living in London, as well. Above all, a dozen symphonies were composed expressly for London, which were to be the summing up of a lifetime of creative endeavour. The last of these was No. 104, nicknamed “London” ever since its premiere on a glittering concert on May 4^th, 1795. Bearing an inscription on the manuscript in English, “the 12^th which I have composed in England, ” this was to be Haydn’s last symphony. The composer himself stated that he could do no better.

The symphony, like many others by Haydn, opens with a slow introduction, a grand, serene gateway to the lively music which follows. The main body of the first movement leads off with a gentle, murmuring melody heard softly in the strings, followed by brilliant ruffles and flourishes with trumpets and drums, the strings in characteristic bustling display. The secondary theme, at first identical with the first, becomes more agitated, adding a closing theme with a graceful, lilting character. The development focuses upon a detail all but overlooked at its initial appearance: a pattern featuring four repeated notes taken from the very first bars of the first subject. Entirely absorbed with this tiny detail, the music seems to “germinate” into a richly textured, tightly argued musical discussion, reaching a climactic point before a pause which ushers in the recapitulation. Among the unexpected twists in rounding out the movement is a sudden passage for winds alone, followed by a grand and emphatic coda to form a solid conclusion.

The slow movement is a spacious three-part structure in G Major, with a meditative opening section wholly given over to the strings, save for a memorable moment when a lone bassoon adds its plaintive tones an octave below the violins. A tiny transitional passage (in the minor) for winds alone leads to a startling chance of mood, shifting to D Minor, with the full orchestra playing fortissimo, as turbulent as the opening had been tranquil. There is a tiny recollection of the opening melody, swept aside by a renewed stormy section. Quieting down, the opening section returns, this time with added colour from the woodwinds, and a further dramatic, rhythmic outburst by full orchestra. An extended passage with triplet figuration reaches an eerie standstill in the remote region of D-flat major. Once again a short woodwind phrase leads the music back to the home key, with an extended energetic coda, relaxing into an atmosphere of quiet benediction.

The minuet movement is perhaps the composer’s finest, with a peasant heartiness (a reminder of his long years living in the Hungarian heartland), with pounding accents and swinging rhythmic twists. The trio steps directly into a quietly refreshing (and unexpected) B-flat major, with a smoothly unwinding melodic line in the violins (assisted by solo oboe and bassoon from time to time) over a soft pizzicato background. As is so often Haydn’s practice in this symphony, the winds take the lead in bringing us back to a robust reprise of the minuet.

The concluding Spiritoso is Haydn’s most thoroughly “worked-out” finale, yet at the same time as engaging and entertaining as any other he had written. Over a a bagpipe-like “drone, ” an opening tune of disarming, low-key character is heard, which has sometimes been likened to an English folktune,

“Hot-crossed buns.” It quickly swells in energy and volume, moving into a second subject which, as in the first movement, is the same as the first, here heard in the winds. But an important “counter melody” is heard in the violins, and the music becomes shot through with detail and touches of instrumental colour, with swirling figures in the strings which to some ears are reminiscent of moments in the finale of another D Major Symphony---the Second Symphony of Brahms. A quiet, unexpected touch is the entry of a subsidiary part of this “second subject, ” in the form of a hushed passage for winds (plus a bassoonXXX), which moves into a short, brusque closing theme to round out the exposition of the movement. The development is one of Haydn’s biggest, and most intricately constructed, with a meshing together of the main melodic and rhythmic motives in a brilliant display of orchestra ingenuity. The hushed “subsidiary” theme reappears, this time extended, and in a delightfully unpredictable manner glides into the recapitulation. The main elements return as before, but lead directly into a full-scale coda, virtually a second “development” (as would later be the practice with Beethoven), bringing the symphony to an exultant conclusion.

NCO Concert

Mendelssohn Excerpts from Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Excerpts from Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Ever since the era of Goethe the Germans have claimed Shakespeare as one of their own. The celebrated Schlegel-Tieck translation of Shakespeare’s plays appeared during Felix Mendelssohn’s childhood---Friedrich Schlegel was his uncle. As youngsters the composer and his sister Fanny read Shakespeare with great relish (in both English and German), and especially loved A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Thus it was only natural that Mendelssohn would express his love of the play in the wonderful overture composed in the summer of 1826, when the composer was barely 17 years of age.

In 1843 Mendelssohn was asked to supply incidental music for a staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Berlin, where he had taken charge of music in the imperial capital at the invitation of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. The result was a sequence of twelve pieces heard during the course of the play, many of them hearkening back to the “fairy music” which was such a memorable element of the overture written seventeen years earlier.

Three of the best-known excerpts from the complete incidental music will be performed this evening: the Intermezzo, Nocturne and Scherzo. The Intermezzo is a brief, agitated musical interlude which depicts the anxiety and confusion experienced by the lovers during their night wandering in the forest, falling prey to the mischievous actions of Puck and Oberon. A more extended piece to be performance between acts (and scenery changes), the Nocturne is a warm evocation of the romantic feelings of the lovers, especially memorable for the tender expressiveness of the horns. The Scherzo is another entr’acte, one perfectly portraying the supernatural world of Titania, Oberon, Puck and their cohort of fairies, filled with flitting, gossamer passages for the winds, buoyed up by a buzzing rhythmic energy.

NCO Concert

Mozart Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro

Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Eighteenth century operas were usually set in motion by introductory orchestra pieces which signaled the start of proceedings and shushed the audience---in an age of candles it was impossible to dim the houselights! In France an ouverture provided a stately formality befitting its regal origins, while the Italians heard a bustling 3-movement sinfonia, which eventually blossomed into what we now call a “symphony.” Mozart borrowed from both traditions, often with confusing results. The term “ouverture” was used in the case of Mozart’s German operas, even though the Abduction from the Seraglio is introduced by a fine example of the sinfonia, while the “ouverture” to The Magic Flute begins with a majestic slow introduction worthy of the French tradition. Still, while Don Giovanni opens with an equally impressive slow introduction, Mozart chose to call it a “sinfonia.”

Today we usually simplify matters by calling all of these pieces “overtures.” In the case of The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart composed a one-movement sinfonia, a compact sonataform structure which omits the development section as it dashes toward the opening curtain. Here, as perhaps never before, the “overture” truly sets out the essence of the dramatic piece to follow. Three minutes of high spirits, mischief and warm sentiment prepare the listener for the world of Cherubino, the Countess and the opera’s rich spectrum of characterisation. As for mischief, one cannot not but applaud Hollywood’s shrewd choice of this work to provide an “overture” to the Eddie Murphy film, Trading Places!

NCO Concert

Weill: Suite from Die Dreigroschenoper [“Threepenny Opera”]

Suite from Die Dreigroschenoper [“Threepenny Opera”]

Kurt Weill
(1900-1950)

That in the year of the centenary of his birth Kurt Weill would be recognised as one of the most gifted composers of the first half of the twentieth century would probably have amazed some of his contemporaries, who often regarded him as a somewhat “disreputable” composer, usually in a backhanded tribute to his remarkable gift for musical theatre in a truly popular musical idiom. Indeed, we are only now beginning to be able to put Weill’s achievement into perspective, even if his true statue is clouded by the lack of familiar with many important stages in his short career.

And what a career! The son of the chief Kantor at the synagogue in Dessau, Weill was a precocious musical talent, studying as a teenager with Humperdinck, going on to become a well-loved pupil of Feruccio Busoni in Berlin. He taught for a while as an apprentice to Busoni, numbering among his students Claudio Arrau, Nikolaos Skalkottas and Maurice Abravanel, and composed a couple of symphonies, a string quartet, cello sonata, choral music and many songs before his mid-twenties. He became associated with the expressionist playwright Georg Kaiser, which led to the production of an opera, Der Protagonist) (1926) which was recognised as the first genuine operatic success by one of the new younger German composers of the day.

It was a heady time to pursue a composing career in Berlin in the turbulent atmosphere of the Weimar Republic. The defeat of Germany in the Great War, and the political upheaval which followed was mirrored in the arts in a unique and vivid manner. The old guard (notably Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner and company) went on their familiar course, quite uncomprehending of the changes in the artistic world, while the generation of Hindemith, Franz Schreker, Ernst Krenek and Weill moved forward into quite new and challenging intellectual territory. These younger musicians were much influenced by the appearance of American Jazz in European life, and for the first time (at least in the German-speaking world) the culture of the New World began to have an impact upon the old. This was especially the case with Weill. After further collaboration with Kaiser, Weill began a partnership with Bertolt Brecht, whose name is indelibly linked with his. Ironically, this relationship was actually of short duration, resulting in only five stage works (out of Weill’s lifetime total of 29), beginning with the sensational success of of Die Dreigroschenoper [Threepenny Opera] (1928), concluding with the Seven Deadly Sins (1933). Despite the fact that both men would find their way to America, their artistic partnership was never revived.

The year 1933 marks a dramatic change in Weill’s life and work. Within two weeks of the Reichstag fire and the total takeover of the government by the Nazis, Weill fled to Paris. The politically inflammatory nature of his Brecht collaborations (especially the Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny) made Weill a marked man, with his left-wing sympathies and Jewish origins. Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya found their way to America in 1935, where almost at once he eagerly began to collaborate with such leading theatrical figures such as Maxwell Anderson, S. J. Perlman , Langston Hughes and Allen J. Lerner. Taken by Ira Gershwin to the dress rehearsals of Porgy and Bess, Weill was profoundly moved, telling Gershwin, “It’s a great country where music like that can be written and played.” After the death of George Gershwin, Weill would collaborate with his brother, Ira.

The stage works written for Broadway include great successes such as Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene (an opera) and Lost in the Stars---a musical inspired by Alan Paton’s novel about pre-apartheidt South Africa. Until recently it has been fashionable to dismiss Weill’s American works as catering to sentimental Broadway sensibilities, especially when compared with the edgy, politically-charged works from his partnership with Brecht. That view is beginning to give way to a broader picture of Weill as an artist of sensitivity and integrity, whose lifetime achievement forms an impressive whole.

To speak of Die Dreigroschenoper as a “sensational success” is to put it mildly. This abrasive 20^th century retelling of John Gay’s 18^th century Beggar’s Opera opened in August, 1928, and within five years had racked up more than 10,000 performances in every major European city! At one point it was staged in no fewer than a DOZEN Germany cities simultaneously! In 1954 Marc Blitzstein’s version of the work in English opened on Broadway, running for a total of 2,611 performances!

As in the 18^th century original, the Threepenny Opera is a savage satire on established authority, corrupt judges, police, a colourful array of murders, thieves, whores and all manner of low-life. Weimar Germany loved it – the Nazis foamed with rage at such “Degenerate Art.”

In 1929 the eminent conductor, Otto Klemperer commissioned Kurt Weill to produce an orchestral suite from Die Dreigroschenoper for performance at a concert at Klemperer’s Kroll Opera in Berlin. The result was an eight-movement suite entitled Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (“Little Threepenny Music”), scored for a characteristically sharply-etched Weill instrumental combination of winds, brass, percussion, plus saxophones, piano, accordion, banjo and guitar. [56 lines.

IF THE ORIGINAL 1929 “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE SHOULD CONCLUDE THE PARAGRAPH ABOVE.

BUT IF THE FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION IS TO BE PERFORMED, THIS SENTENCE SHOULD BE DELETED:

This instrumentation, without strings, with the distictive timbres of saxophones, piano, accordion, guitar and banjo, creates a unique sonority and coloration that is utterly original with Kurt Weill, vividly expressing the character of the theatre piece, as well as evoking for listeners 70 years later the very essence of 1920s Berlin and the edgy, jangling feel of the Weimar Republic era.

HERE FOLLOWS DESCRIPTION WHICH PERTAINS TO THE FULL-ORCHESTRA SUITE:

IF THE ORIGINAL 1929 “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK’ IS TO BE PERFORMED, THIS PARAGRAPH SHOULD BE DELETED, AS WELL AS DESCRIPTIVE COMMENTS SPECIFIC TO THIS VERSION---THESE ARE INDICATED BELOW.

The “Suite from the Threepenny Opera” to be heard today is full orchestra version which includes five of the eight movements in Weill’s original composition, plus an orchestral version of a vocal number not included by Weill in the 1929 composition. This version, scored for a full conventional orchestra (full winds, brass, strings, percussion, plus harp and piano), came into being in circumstances which even the experienced scholars at the Kurt Weill Foundation in New York City cannot quite explain. It was produced by a certain Max Schoenherr, probably at the time of the copyright date, 1956---six years after Weill’s death. There is some suggestion that it might have been instigated by Lotte Lenya, Weill’s widow. In a telephone conversation to Zurich, Otto Klemperer’s daughter gave a hearty laugh and said, “well, Lotte was always short of money!” The writer of these notes would conjectures that the huge success of the Threepenny Opera in New York (where Lenya then made her home) might have led her to commission a serviceable full orchestra version to take advantage of the acclaim the work was winning.

The Suite comprises the following movements, all of them close instrumental paraphrases of vocal numbers from the Threepenny Opera:

IF THE 1929 VERSION, “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH WILL BE DELETED, AND THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE WILL TAKE ITS PLACE:

The Kleine Dreigroschenmusik comprises the following movements, all of them close instrumental

Paraphrases of vocal numbers from The Threepenny Opera:

HERE FOLLOWS BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENTS.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT 3^RD MOVEMENT, ACCORDING TO WHICH VERSION IS PERFORMED. AND ALTHOUGH THE “KANONEN-SONG” IS USED IN BOTH VERSIONS, IT IS No. 6 IN THE FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION, BUT NO. 7 IN THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” VERSION.

THUS IF THE FULL ORCHESTRA SUITE IS USED, PLEASE DELETE THE COMMENT REGARDING THE 3^rd MOVEMENT IN THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” (“Anstatt-dass Song”), AS WELL AS THE FINAL THREE MOVEMENTS ( “Tango-Ballade,” “Kanonen-Song,” and “Dreigroschen-Finale.”)

SIMILARLY, IF THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, DELETE THE COMMENT REGARDING THE “Liebeslied” (No. 3), AND DELETE No. 6, the “Kanonen-Song”

---which in the KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK VERSION APPEARS AS NO. 7.

1. Overture. A heavy-footed fanfare with striding, accented chordal accompaniment, the opera’s atmosphere of deadly seriousness and mockery is set out in this challenging introduction.

2. “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer,” is always known in English as “Mack the Knife,” and is certainly the most familiar tune in the entire Threepenny Opera. Setting the mood of the work, it is sung by a ballad singer in a prologue. In this version the song is heard in a straight-forward orchestral setting, concluding without any final flourishes in the spirit of who-gives-a-damn?!

KLEINE DEIGROSCHENMUSIK:

3. “Anstatt-dass Song” (“The Instead-of Song”) A strutting, mocking little number in which Polly’s father warns her that Mack the Knife is a notorious gang leader.

FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION:

3. Liebeslied (“Love Song”). This is a love duet sung by the main characters, Polly Peachum and Mack the Knife on their wedding night.

4. “Die Ballade vom angenehmen Leben” (“The Ballad of the Easy Life) exemplifies the jaunty cynical tone so characteristic of the opera, with lively, jazz-inflected rhythmic patterns, glittering interjections in the piano and crooning melodic lines in the winds and solo trombone.

5. Polly’s Lied. Opening with long sustained notes against a pattering rhythmic background,

the movement is nothing more than a plaintive, artless little melody heard without embellishment.

FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION:

6. “Kanonen-Song” (“Cannon Song”). Marked “Charlston Tempo,” this forms a bouncy

conclusion to the suite, with its jerky, almost “industrial” rhythmic character. It trundles irrepressibly forward, coming to a halt with a sudden slam on the brakes.

THESE 3 MOVEMENTS (nos. 6, 7, 8) ONLY PLAYED AS PART OF THE KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK:

6. Tango-Ballade (“Tango Ballad”) Perhaps the movement closest in character to actual American

popular music of the ‘20s, with keening melodic lines in the saxophone against a vigorous tango beat.

7. “Kanonen-Song” (“Cannon Song”). Marked “Charlston Tempo,” this forms a bouncy

conclusion to the suite, with its jerky, almost “industrial” rhythmic character. It trundles irrepressibly

foreward, coming to a halt with a sudden slam on the brakes.

8. Dreigroschen-Finale A rather muted movement, gradually rising in intensity to conclude with

a chorale-like theme intoned with forceful determination over a rhythmic background.

Schoenberg: Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4

Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4

Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951)

For many music-lovers Arnold Schoenberg remains the “bogeyman” of 20^th century music. A century after the appearance of his Verklaerte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”) there are still those who bewail the fact that the composer of such a voluptuous outpouring of romantic feeling seemed to throw everything overboard to pursue an arbitrary and disagreeable “modernism.” Schoenberg was painfully aware of this perception, as is shown in a characteristically ironic comment from 1927: “I usually answer the question why I no longer write as I did at the period of Verklaerte Nacht by saying: ‘I DO, but I can’t help it if people don’t yet recognise the fact.” Ten years later, insisting that his early and later music was really of a piece, he claimed that he was “composing in the same style and in the same way as at the beginning. The difference is only that I do it better now than before; it is more concentrated, more mature.’”

Of course the most direct answer to the question Schoenberg refers to above is simply to declare that any artist remaining true to his creative integrity must move forward into new regions---we forget that in the 1820s many of Beethoven’s contemporaries lamented the fact that he had turned away from his affable early manner (as in the Septet, Op. 20) to “perversely” compose “difficult” works such as the late piano sonatas and string quartets! And, as well, it must be remembered that at first there was fierce opposition to Verklaerte Nacht. Schoenberg never forgot that a concert society rejected the work outright “because of the revolutionary use of one---that is one single uncatalogued dissonant chord!” After the premiere, one critic likened the composition to “the sort of six-legged calf one might see in a side-show!” (Schoenberg, of course, replied that a string sextet would make for a “twelve-legged calf!”)

Arnold Schoenberg was born in Vienna, and in most respects was a self-taught musician. He grew up in a city where one could regularly catch a glimpse of Johannes Brahms taking his morning stroll, and where Gustav Mahler took up his appointment as director of the Vienna Opera in 1897. Brahms was an early influence upon Schoenberg, who became his lifelong champion – Mahler (who, significantly, met Schoenberg for the first time at the premiere of Verklaerte Nacht) would eventually become a close friend and champion of Schoenberg himself. The Vienna of Schoenberg’s youth was still a battleground between the passionate adherents of the work of Wagner and Liszt (Hugo Wolf being a particularly prominent example), and the equally outspoken supporters of the music of Brahms. Significantly, from the beginning Schoenberg’s work showed signs of influences from both rival musical camps.

Composed in September, 1899 (at a time when Schoenberg was employed in a bank!), Verklaerte Nacht marks a striking advancement in the composer’s stylistic development----nothing in the earlier compositions could have prepared listeners for a thirty-minute “tone poem,” composed for a string sextet, inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem, with its echoes of the “Tristan und Isolde” story!

The 1890s were the heyday of the orchestral “tone poems” of Richard Strauss, then at the height of his fame. In his String Sextet Schoenberg seemed to bring together the contradictory elements of chamber music (a clear link with Brahms, and his own splendid string sextets) and the world of Lisztian/Straussian orchestral “program music.” Indeed, the stylistic and technical elements of this new work drew upon a classical (i. e., “Brahmsian”) tradition, wedded to a harmonic language (and emotional atmosphere) powerfully influenced by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This “atmosphere” is especially pronounced in the version for full string orchestra heard on today’s concert, published by the composer in 1917.) The remarkable merging of apparently clashing aesthetic elements was to have consequences throughout Schoenberg’s creative life, as well as for the eventual development of his atonal musical style and the twelve-tone method of composition. Thus it can be argued that, far from being a mere last gasp of late Romantic emotionalism, Verklaerte Nacht, written at the very threshold of the new century, occupies a “Janus-like” position, revealing strong roots in 19^th century musical traditions, while at the same time showing signs of a newly-emerging approach to composition which would have tremendous impact upon composers throughout the 20^th century.

This is quite wonderfully illustrated by a detailed program note on Verklaerte Nacht written (in English) by Arnold Schoenberg in August, 1950, in the last year of his life. After many years in California where he taught, and composed great works using the 12-tone technique, Schoenberg looked back half a century to guide the listener through this early work without a trace of embarrassment or awkwardness in describing its programmatic features and the expressive meaning of the musical elements---taking pleasure in a youthful “ultra-Romantic” style which was often thought to have been disavowed by the composer’s later atonal and 12-tone music. The dear old man clearly was proud of the 25 year-old’s achievement, and he meant what he had said in 1927 and 1937!

In the belief that there is no finer discussion of Verklaerte Nacht, here follows that 1950 article.

(Readers will note the characteristically wry comment in the final paragraph.)

Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(1895-1968)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco belongs to the generation of Italian musicians which emerged in that awkward period following the First World War (and the death of Puccini in 1924) when, for the first time in 500 years, Italy was no longer in the forefront of European music. A native of Florence, Castelnuovo-Tedesco studied with Pizzetti and Casella, and while still in his teens showed an extraordinary facility as a composer. Even today it is nearly impossible to make a balanced assessment of a career so prolific and varied, which included: 6 operas, 4 ballets, 11 overtures to Shakespeare plays, 9 concerti for various instruments (including 2 for guitar), 3 oratorios, several hundred songs, dozens of chamber works, dozens of instrumental sonatas, scores of piano works, 14 guitar works, and much more. Not surprisingly there is a great range of quality in this creative torrent, from works of sparkling wit and clarity to compositions notable both for technical mastery shameless note-spinning.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical style was formed in the heyday of Neo-classicism characteristic of Italian composers in the 1920s and ‘30s, reacting against the ingrained traditions of Italian operatic Romanticism, and not surprisingly was strongly influenced by such composers as Ravel, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. With the approach of the Second World War, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who was Jewish, emigrated to the USA, settling in Beverly Hills, becoming an American citizen in 1946. The prevailing neo-classical trends in American musical life were congenial to Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who received many commissions, composed film scores for Hollywood, and held several university positions as teacher of composition, continuing his active creative life to the very end.

The First Guitar Concerto, Op. 99, dates from 1939, early in the composer’s American period. The opening allegretto lays out a sprightly first subject in a short orchestral introduction, then taken up by the soloist, with lively interjections from winds and upper strings, The chordal secondary subject carries a surprising, faint suggestion of the Richard Strauss, always rhythmically pointed, the soloist in the forefront. The brief development is ushered in with a horncall figure in the background over rustling strings, leading to a more extended reworking of the primary thematic material. A section marked “quasi recitativo” for the solo guitar leads in the recapitulation, which proceeds as before.

The slow movement, andantino alla romanza opens with the guitar alone, reflective and lyrical, soon joined by the winds, with the clarinet and flute in a canonic dialogue. The strings provide an expessive background,with strumming chords in the solo instrument soon returning to the opening. Again unaccompanied, the guitar once more is meditative and at peace. Joined by winds against the rich sonority of the strings, the movement comes to a hushed close.

The finale, bearing the unusual marking ritmico e cavalleresco (“rhythmic and chivalrous”) lives up to expectations, sallying forth with a nimble, dancelike theme in the orchestra, immediately taken over by the guitar. A transitional passage in the oboe leads to an increasingly richly textured, often chromatically inflected middle section, with broad strumming chords in the solo instrument, and a hint of hispanic coloration as well. Following an episode with layers of wind sonority against sustained strings, the rhythmic figure from the opening recurs, background to a more slowly-moving melody in the guitar. An extended cadenza leads to the concluding section, the rhythmic energy of the opening theme bringing the concerto to a brilliant conclusion.

Stravinsky: Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)

In only four years (1910-1913) Igor Stravinsky rocketted from near-obscurity to international fame with his three landmark ballet scores composed for Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet. The sensational Paris premiere of le sacre du printemps (1913) aroused expectations for even more dazzling and challenging works from the thirty year-old composer. But the outbreak of the Great War closed the theatres, Diaghilev’s dancers were dispersed, and Stravinsky took his family to wait out the war in Switzerland. With large-scale works out of the question, Stravinsky composed a number of small-scale theatre pieces, including Renard (1916) and Histoire du soldat (1918), as well as many brief, compressed compositions, marking a drastic stylistic change, one which had begun even before the onset of the war.

Among the miniature works written during Stravinsky’s sojourn in Switzerland were two collections of pieces for piano duet: Three Easy Pieces (1915) and Five Easy Pieces (1917). The first collection bore dedications to Alfredo Casella, Erik Satie and Serge Diaghilev, who was encouraged to take part in an impromptu sight-reading with the composer. “On reaching the Polka [dedicated to Diaghilev] I told him that in composing it I had thought of him as a circus ring-master in evening dress and top-hat, cracking his whip and urging on a ride on horseback. At first he was put out, not quite knowing whether he ought to be offended or not; but we had a good laugh over it together in the end.” The second set of piano duets was written for Stravinsky’s children, with easy parts for the right hand. Both sets were first publicly performed in 1919 with the composer in unlikely partnership with Jose Iturbi!

At various times between 1917 and 1925 Stravinsky orchestrated the complete set of eight pieces to form his two Suites for Small Orchestra, each containing four movements. These little works are splendid

“light music” by a composer who took great delight in composing witty and graceful little musical “entertainments” without in any way compromising his artistic standards.

The Second Suite for Small Orchestra is scored for winds in pairs (except for a single oboe), single brass (but for two trumpets), percussion, piano and strings.

The opening Marche is a perky, parodistic little piece, with snappy tin-soldier fanfares and a vaguely bitonal harmonic background. As usual with Stravinsky’s orchestration everything is crystal clear, a breezy little horn solo being particular noteworthy.

The Waltz brings an affectionate recollection of Petrushka, with its harmony based upon a pair of

oom-pah pah chords, with music-box melodic patterns in the upper winds. A marvel of economy, the scoring is pared down to piccolo, flute, oboe, 2 clarinets (supplying the oompah figures), bassoon, and a trumpet that gets to play exactly 32 notes in the whole movement!

The Polka (the movement dedicated to Diaghilev) is a wonderful “pre-echo” of the cheeky, satirical music which young Dmitri Shostakovich used to composed before the Stalinist roof fell in on him: here a saucy little trumpet tune bounces around with blithe aplomb, over another Stravinskian oompah accompaniment. This time (in a nightmare of bar-counting) the cellos and basses repeat a two-note pattern 49 times, then must be alert to jump off for the final bar!

The concluding Gallop may be a fond recollection of Offenbach – or perhaps another echo of Petrushka in its romping high spirits – or another pre-echo, perhaps of Pulcinella’s more madcap moments – or even a glance ahead to the world of Aaron Copland’s Music Theater - ! There are ostinato patterns aplenty (once again, a fine test of bar-counting in the lower instruments), quirky riffs in winds and brass, even a middle “Trio” section (in all but name) with a trumpet/tuba duet.