March 17, 2012
European Holiday
Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Composed: 1880
Although Johannes Brahms never attended college, in 1876 he was offered an honorary Doctorate of Music by Cambridge University in London. However, receipt of the doctorate required him to be present at the award ceremony. Since Brahms was terrified of sea travel and despised showiness and organized events in his honor, he turned down the tribute of the honorary degree.
Three years later, in 1879, the University of Breslau in Poland awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy. Brahms was pleased with this appointment and sent the University of Breslau a letter of thanks. Soon Brahms received a letter from Bernhard Scholz, a friend of his who was also Breslau’s Director of Music. In the letter, Scholz let Brahms know that the college expected him to compose something as a way of thanking the university. He told Brahms, “Compose a fine symphony for us! But well-orchestrated, old boy, not too uniformly thick!”
Brahms proceeded to pen the Academic Festival Overture, a work that he described as “a very boisterous potpourri of student songs.” Four beer-hall songs make up the themes of his overture, which is decidedly more “festival” than “academic.” One of the songs used at the end of the Overture contains the following lyrics: “Let us rejoice while we are still young; after a jolly youth and a burdensome old age, the earth will claim us.” Brahms himself conducted the premiere on January 4, 1881, and since, it has become one of his most popular compositions.
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Composed: 1875
Edvard Grieg, a contemporary and acquaintance of Franz Liszt and Peter Tchaikovsky, was one of the greatest Norwegian composers of all time. His most famous works are his Piano Concerto in A minor and his Peer Gynt Suite. The story of Peer Gynt was written by playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1866. Ibsen had no original intention of orchestrating Peer Gynt, which he thought of as national epic poem. However, he wrote to Grieg in 1874, asking him to compose music to the verse he had written.
Grieg composed the music to Peer Gynt over a period of two years. One of the most famous products of his collaboration with Ibsen is In the Hall of the Mountain King. This music is quite recognizable, as it has been featured in commercials, rock band albums and movies, including the recent film “The Social Network.”
The morning after Peer Gynt was premiered on stage, a prominent city newspaper reviewed the piece as, “a most exceptional piece of work … and there is bold originality in the entire musical treatment.” However, Grieg did not feel that In the Hall of the Mountain King was one of his best works, and told his friend Frants Beyer, “I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain king … something that I literally can’t bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies, exaggerated Norwegian nationalism, and trollish self-satisfaction! But I have a hunch that the irony will be discernible.” Nevertheless, the entire work was met with immediate and lasting success.
In 1887, Grieg arranged his music from Peer Gynt into an orchestral suite, and in 1892, he arranged a second suite. The arrangement of these two suites ensured that the music of Peer Gynt would survive through time, as it could be more easily performed by orchestra only, and did not necessarily have to be staged. In this way, the music of Peer Gynt has outshone even the original creation by Ibsen.
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904)
Composed: 1895
In Antonín Dvorák’s early life, he found himself drawn to one of his piano students, Josefina Kaunitzová. Although he professed his deep love for her, Josefina never returned his devotion and eventually married another man. Antonín later married Josefina’s sister, Anna, but it seems that his affinity for Josefina was still evident 22 years after his marriage to Anna. It was around this time, as Josephina became seriously ill, that Dvorák wrote his Cello Concerto in B minor as a memorial to her. Dvorák’s song “Lasst mich allein” was a favorite of Josephine’s, and he wove it throughout his Cello Concerto in B minor.
The concerto is influenced by both his Bohemian roots as well as his American absorptions. At the time of its composition, Dvorák was living in New York with his wife. Dvorák found writing a cello concerto to be quite a daunting task, one with which he was not particularly pleased even upon its completion. One hurdle to overcome was the relation of the relatively quiet cello to the boisterous orchestra. To solve this dilemma, Dvorák gave both the cello and the orchestra moments in the limelight, and varied the texture of the sound when the cello and orchestra play together. He achieved this by switching up the combinations of instruments that played together, particularly pairing the cello with the winds, which illuminated the beauty of the cello’s rich sound.
Dvorák was adamant that no one change any part of his composition, not even his friend Hanuš Wihan, for whom the piece was written. Wihan suggested two cadenzas, but Dvorák rejected them, particularly at the end of the piece, stating that the end should be “like a breath … then there is a crescendo, and the last measures are taken up by the orchestra, ending stormily. That was my idea, and from it I cannot recede.” The concerto was premiered in 1896 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Leo Stern as the cello soloist.
February 4, 2012
Adventures of the Heart
Musica Celestis
Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960)
Composed: 1990
Musica Celestis is the second movement of Aaron Jay Kernis’s String Quartet No. 1, which was commissioned by the Lark String Quartet before it was transcribed for string orchestra. The piece was inspired by the songs of angels singing praise to God, as portrayed in medieval texts discovered by Kernis. It is to the strings playing the highest notes that Kernis assigns most of the duty of portraying these angelic songs. Of his inspiration, Kernis said:
“I don’t particularly believe in angels, but found this to be a potent image, reinforced by listening to a good deal of medieval music, especially the soaring work of [composer and poet] Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179).”
The piece follows a simple, spacious melody and harmonic pattern through a number of variations (like a passacaglia) and modulations and is framed by an introduction and codas. Kernis is one of the youngest composers to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Music, an award he won in 1998. He was born in Philadelphia and now resides in New York City. He is a self-taught pianist and studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Yale School of Music and the American Academy in Rome.
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219 “Turkish”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Composed: 1775
When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child, his father took him and his sister on musical tours of Europe. At the time, Mozart performed both on the keyboard and the violin. His father was his tutor and was particularly impressed with his son’s talent for the violin. When Mozart was 14 years old, he met Giovanni Sammartini and Pietro Nardini, two famous violinists/composers of the day. Both composers were so impressed with Mozart’s violin-playing ability that they wrote exercises especially for him. Mozart’s father told him, “You have no idea how well you play the violin. If you would only do yourself justice and play with boldness, spirit and fire, you would be the first violinist in Europe.” However, Mozart desired to play the piano, even to the neglect of his violin.
His five violin concertos, written before Mozart was 20 years old, were composed for his own use, though the leader of the court orchestra at Salzburg may have played them as well. The fifth concerto begins uncharacteristically in that, after a decidedly thematic sounding introduction by the orchestra, the soloist begins with an expressive adagio before returning to an allegro tempo, from which point the movement unfolds as expected. The lush but sensitive second movement uses two themes within a sonata-allegro format (exposition/development/recap) and includes two cadenzas. The final rondo is comprised of two different kinds of music – a minuet and rondo (allegro) in an A-B-A format. The rondo’s B section, played in a minor mode, is where the listener hears Turkish style elements which give the concerto its nickname “Turkish.” This quality is further enhanced by the percussive “slapping of the strings” by the cello/bass section during some of the tutti sections of the rondo.
Symphony No. 2 in D
Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827)
Composed: 1802
The Second Symphony was written primarily during Ludwig von Beethoven’s 1802 stay in Heiligenstadt. It was during this stay that Beethoven grappled with the inevitability of incurable deafness. In response, he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, a moving testimony explaining his life and his unsocial behavior and affirming his will to live despite his hardships. The letter remained, as Beethoven intended, unread until after his death.
Symphony No. 2 is made up of four movements. The first, Allegro con brio, begins with a slow introduction, Adagio molto, that contrasts dramatic and lyric moments. The main section of the piece is written in standard sonata form. Its two main themes present themselves immediately, the first characterized by a 16th-note rhythmic motive, the second, a more martial and robust theme with its own fanfare.
The second movement, Larghetto, is slow and lyrical with echoes of its place of origin suggested throughout the movement. Heiligenstadt was a small country town to which Beethoven liked to escape and take long walks in the forests. One can easily hear the peace Beethoven found in Heiligenstadt throughout the second movement, which begins with a phrase so organic and restful that a sunrise in the countryside is brought to mind. The movement calmly and delicately proceeds, with an occasional bird song in the flute, until it finally comes to an unexpectedly declarative ending.
Beethoven’s progressiveness can be heard in the third movement. Rather than creating a minuet — the typical third movement form for a symphony — Beethoven employs another fast dance in triple meter, the Scherzo. The pointed articulation and unexpected dynamic contrasts of the scherzo unsettles the regularity of the phrases, creating a humorous effect. Beethoven contrasts the Scherzo with the interior Trio, an utterly charming double reed quartet whose regularity of rhythm and dynamics sets off the unpredictable character of the Scherzo. The bold beginning of the finale sets the tone for the rest of the fourth movement, a rollicking conclusion to a dynamic symphony.
October 29, 2011
Ode to Russia
Piano Concerto No. 3
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Composed: 1909
The Third Piano Concerto was written for an America tour in 1909-10, which turned out to be very successful, despite Rachmaninoff’s reservations about doing such a tour. He was well compensated and received offers to perform with both the Boston and Cincinnati Symphonies, but wanting to return to his homeland, he declined. Eventually the Russian Revolution forced him to leave Russia in 1917, and he chose to live in the United States.
The Third Piano Concerto is one of the most revered and difficult concerti in standard piano repertoire. Pianist Gary Graffman said of the piece that he regretted that he had not learned it while he was a student, when he was “still too young to know fear.”
The piano opens the first movement with a single theme in octaves, followed by flourishes in the piano, while the orchestra hums the theme underneath. The middle section introduces a second and third theme, intertwined with woodwinds, horns and low strings, followed by a huge cadenza, part of which is sprinkled with commentary from the woodwinds and horns. The coda begins with the restatement of the opening theme in the piano and quietly concludes.
The second movement opens gently with woodwinds, answered by strings, then combine forces just before the piano enters with a flurry of scales and arpeggios. The first theme is heard, followed by a cadenza-like section. This movement is rhapsodic in nature, with alternations of solo piano and woodwind/string interaction. A fast section in 3/8 time is followed by another slower section, then fast again, leading directly into the final movement.
The final movement was described by Patrick Piggot as, “one of the most dashing and exciting pieces of music ever composed for piano and orchestra.” It can be divided into three segments, the first of which is the unifying link of the concerto, containing themes from the first movement. The second segment also recalls themes from the opening movement. The third section closes with the four-note rhythm that some believe to be Rachmaninoff’s musical signature.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
Composed as a piano suite (1874)
Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel at the suggestion of Sergei Koussevitsky (1923)
Mussorgsky honored artist Victor Hartmann by composing an aural tour of the memorial exhibit of his late friend’s works. While each musical selection depicts the mood of a different picture, unity is achieved through use of the promenade – grand music heard several times throughout the piece. The movements (pictures) are as follows:
Promenade – introduced by brass and strings
The Gnome – a grotesque nutcracker, played by strings and woodwinds
Promenade – played more gently by horn and woodwinds
The Old Castle – a troubadour (alto saxophone) sings in front of the ancient castle ruins
Promenade – abbreviated, led by solo trumpet
Tuileries – “Dispute of the Children after Play”(Mussorgsky’s subtitle) in the famous Parisian garden
Bydlo – an old ox cart approaches, passes and fades away, while its driver sings plaintively (solo tuba)
Promenade – begins with woodwinds
Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells – pecking of chicks (upper woodwinds) as they hatch
Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle – A wealthy man (low strings) speaks with a poor man (muted trumpet)
The Marketplace at Limoges – the hustle and bustle of the market place
Catacombs, Roman Tombs – lantern-bearing guide leads Hartmann, who represented himself in this picture, through underground tombs
Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua (with the Dead in a Dead Language)– subtle rendering of promenade (tremolo strings)
The Hut on Hen’s Legs – Russian folklore’s fearsome, man-eating witch, Baba Yaga, takes a wild, midnight ride
The Great Gate of Kiev – Hartmann’s design for a grand arch for the city gates at Kiev, in ancient Russian style, with Cupola Promenade – heroically stated, while the city’s bells peal in jubilation