Douglas Moore (1893-1969)
Farm Journal
Composed in 1947
Born in a Long Island farmhouse, Douglas Moore grew up the child of parents descended from the first English colonial settlers in America. At age seven, Moore began taking piano lessons and later earned two degrees from Yale University in philosophy and music composition. Moore wrote songs while serving in World War I to entertain his fellow Navy officers. While better known for his operas, he composed many tone poems and orchestral works.
Commissioned by the Little Orchestra Society (NYC), Farm Journal is drawn from the score Moore composed for the documentary film “The Power and the Land,” which depicts the arrival of electricity to a farm in Ohio. The music unfolds in four movements, each capturing a different aspect of rural life: morning, the Sabbath, evening, and autumn. The movements are titled Up Early, Sunday Clothes, Lamplight, and Harvest Song.
How did the New York Times music critic react in 1948 to this new work? “The music is unpretentious, of adroit workmanship and humorous except in the slow movement, when the oboe sings over the strings with the thought of the family gathered around the evening lamps.”
Moore won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1951 for his opera Giants in the Earth. This evening is the first performance of Farm Journal by the WSO.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Symphony No. 1 “Classical”
Composed in 1916-1917
Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev took advantage of the turbulent years surrounding World War I and forged a bold musical path into the 20th century.
While studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he was known as arrogant and someone who liked to break the rules. This attitude was reflected in his music, which was often called sarcastic, ironic and mischievous. He had a talent for stringing “wrong notes” together to create a bold sound.
Respected composer Nikolai Medtner said of Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite, “if that is music, then I am not a musician.” Composed between 1915 and 1917, the symphony is light-hearted and offers an escape to a happier time despite the tragedy of the war and the fall of the Russian empire. Prokofiev called the symphony “Classical” because it was inspired by the clarity and simplicity of Haydn and Mozart. He often said the symphony would have been the result if Haydn was composing in the 20th century.
Each of the four movements are brief but follow the classic model of fast movement, sonata form, slower movement, dance movement and fast concluding movement. Prokofiev traded the traditional minuet in the third movement for a galloping gavotte.
Symphony No. 1 is the first piece Prokofiev did not write on a piano. He wrote in his diary in May 1917, “For some time, I contemplated composing my Classical Symphony away from the piano, and all the work I had so far done on it I had done in my head. Now I resolved to finish it. It seemed to me that composing with or without a piano was purely a matter of habit, and it would be good to gain more experience with a work as uncomplicated as this symphony. … When our classically inclined musicians and professors (to my mind faux-classical) hear this symphony, they will be bound to scream in protest at this new example of Prokofiev’s insolence, look how he will not let Mozart lie quiet in his grave but must come prodding at him with his grubby hands, contaminating the pure classical pearls with horrible Prokofievish dissonances. But my true friends will see that the style of my symphony is precisely Mozartian classicism and will value it accordingly, while the public will no doubt just be content to hear happy and uncomplicated music which it will, of course, applaud.”
Six months after the Bolsheviks staged a coup over the Kerensky government, Prokofiev conducted Symphony No. 1 in Petrograd on April 21, 1918.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
The Four Seasons
Composed prior to 1725
From festive birdsong to rumbling thunderstorms and biting winter winds, this four-movement work has transported listeners for 300 years.
So deeply embedded in both the classical canon and popular culture today, it’s hard to believe Vivaldi died in poverty. His music was largely forgotten until the 1920s, when a collection of hundreds of Vivaldi manuscripts was found in a monastery near Turin, Italy.
Born in Venice in 1678, Antonio Vivaldi learned to play the violin and organ as a child. Vivaldi was an ordained Catholic priest (nicknamed the “red priest” for his red hair). Most of Vivaldi’s music was written for the Ospedale della Pietá convent for orphaned girls. The school’s orchestra performed his works on Sunday afternoons.
Vivaldi composed (Le quattro stagioni) The Four Seasons as a set of tone poems. Vivaldi is believed to have written the sonnets himself, creating a close connection between the poetry and music. The Four Seasons brings each season vividly to life through music.
In Spring, you will hear a fantastic rainstorm as well as the happy chatter of birds. Summer’s heat scorches the earth, a cuckoo calls, and storms roll in. In Fall, listeners hear dancers celebrating a successful harvest. In Winter, the strings play short trills to describe the shiver from the cold, or the chattering of teeth. When the violin solo enters, you’ll hear a flurry of fast notes, like the blowing of winter winds.
In 1947, violist Louis Kaufman performed and recorded The Four Seasons at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic, sparking new interest in Vivaldi. Today, The Four Seasons is instantly recognizable in everything from movies to social media and television shows. Classic FM ranked it as one of the top 15 most famous works in all of classical music.
