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Diabelli Variations Uri Caine was born in Philadelphia on June 8, 1956, and currently
lives in New York. He created his arrangements and improvisations on Beethoven's
Diabelli Variations in 2001, for the Kempen Musik Festival in Germany,
where Caine performed the world premiere on June 2, 2001, playing a fortepiano
(an instrument from Beethoven's time) with the period-instrument ensemble
Concerto Köln. This performance will run about an hour. In addition to the solo piano,
we shall hear a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon, a horn, a trumpet,
timpani, and strings. This weekend's performances by The Cleveland Orchestra are the first
in the United States. What we are about to hear are variations on variations - often irreverent,
always virtuosic, and making a well-known classic sound like it has never
sounded before. Uri Caine, as one critic put it, "brings to light
[Beethoven's] parodying sense of humor and reconfirms the uplifting power
of musical whimsy." Antonio Diabelli was an Italian composer and music publisher in Vienna,
who one day sent a little waltz he had written to about 50 different composers,
requesting each of them to write a variation on the theme. This anthology,
with contributions by Franz Schubert and an 11-year-old Franz Liszt, was
published in due course, but Beethoven - whose vision of what could be
done in the framework of variation form far surpassed everyone else's
-- filled a separate volume all by himself. His Thirty-three variations
on a waltz by Diabelli, composed between 1819 and 1823, are nothing
less than an encyclopedia of ways to look at the world through music.
Beethoven's Diabelli Variations contain many lyrical, introspective
and intensely spiritual moments, but humor plays a very important part
throughout - as in the very first variation, a pompous march with startling
harmonic clashes, or in No.22, which contains a singularly tongue-in-cheek
quote from Mozart's Don Giovanni. Uri Caine shows that even Beethoven
hasn't completely exhausted the possibilities of Diabelli's waltz - especially
if we allow other stylistic elements, such as jazz, to provide further
artistic inspiration. In the present arrangement of the Diabelli, the orchestral music
is all written out, but the piano part is largely improvised -- which
is entirely in the spirit of Beethoven, one of the greatest improvisers
of his day. Caine's improvisation reflects all the years that have passed
between Beethoven's time and our own. You may hear echoes of Beethoven's
Third, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies as well as the Moonlight sonata,
and maybe even a snippet from Wagner's Tristan prelude. On the
other hand, such jazz classics as Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz"
or Bud Powell's "Parisian Thoroughfare," will also make passing
appearances. There will be an elaborate cadenza, though its exact contents
remain a mystery at the time of this writing. All in all, Caine, who has previously "recomposed" music by Schumann, Wagner and Mahler, not to mention the other great keyboard variation cycle, Bach's Goldberg, will no doubt confound our received notions on the Diabelli, too. But the truth of the matter is that Diabelli's original waltz melody is based on the same simple harmonic progressions that have served countless musicians working in many different styles. Thus, it is not entirely surprising that Caine, as he himself has commented, "heard passages [in Beethoven's work] which were commensurate to various other compositions." Caine invites us to follow these (sometimes quite bold) associations of musical thought. In doing so, we will embark on an interesting musical journey, and we are bound to make some fascinating discoveries along the way. -Peter Laki |
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Symphonic Dances from West Side
Story Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on August 25, 1918, and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. The musical West Side Story, based on a book by Arthur Laurents and with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, opened on September 26, 1957, at New York's Winter Garden Theatre. With help from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, Bernstein made a suite from West Side Story for large symphony orchestra. The "Symphonic Dances" were premiered at New York's Carnegie Hall on February 13, 1961. The New York Philharmonic was conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite runs about 20 minutes in performance and calls for an orchestra of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, E-flat clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bongos, tambourine, timbales, tom-tom, 2 snare drums, conga drum, tenor drum, bass drum, 4 pitched drums, traps [cymbals, snare drum, tom-toms, bass drum], triangle, suspended cymbal, pair of cymbals, finger cymbals, 3 cowbells, tam-tam, vibraphone, glockenspiel, chime, woodblock, guiro, maracas, xylophone, police whistle), harp, piano (doubling celesta), and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra has previously performed the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story on April 24, 1997, under Alan Gilbert's direction. Not many Broadway musicals have made the crossover into the symphonic
repertoire, and fewer still have achieved the classic status that belongs
to West Side Story. It seems that this Bernstein-Laurents-Sondheim
collaboration had everything one could wish for. One of the world's greatest
plays (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) was brilliantly adapted
as a contemporary saga with a timely social message (ethnic hostility
in modern New York City). And the musical score, bold, dissonant, intricate,
yet irresistible in its rhythmic richness, drives home the social message
while singing a paean to love and providing supreme entertainment all
at the same time. It is a tribute to Bernstein's music that it is viable even in purely
instrumental form without lyrics or staging, and it could be arranged
as a suite along the lines of those drawn from classical operas and ballets.
(In fact, choreography was an important element of West Side Story
in both its stage and film versions.) Bernstein liked to stress the links
of his musicals with the operatic tradition. After all, opera used to
be a popular form of entertainment in many European countries, and Bernstein
tried to reclaim this function of the art form that "modern classical"
opera had all but abandoned. The sections in the "Symphonic Dances" are played without pauses
between them. The excerpts do not follow the order in which they appear
in the show, their order is, rather, based on "feel," as Sid
Ramin put it in his preface to the published score. The suite opens with
the nervous, syncopated prologue from the show in which the rivalry of
the two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, is acted out in pantomime. Next,
we hear "Somewhere there's a place for us" and "Scherzo,"
two excerpts from the musical's dream ballet sequence. "Mambo"
and "Cha Cha" are from the scene at the gym where the two protagonists,
Tony and Maria, first meet during a dance. The music of the "Meeting
Scene" accompanies their first words to one another. In the "Cool"
Fugue the Jets make a show of their fierce power. The "Rumble"
is the climactic showdown between the two gangs where the leaders of both
groups are killed. The poignant, lyrical Finale recalls the dream of "Somewhere"
as, after so much agitation and violence, the piece ends in a whisper. In these Symphonic Dances, Bernstein accomplished the amazing feat of
bridging the worlds of Broadway and Carnegie Hall as only he could do,
being equally at home in both places. The symphonic version allows the
jazzy melodies and rhythms to shine in full orchestral splendor, The score
uses many contemporary techniques that are unusually advanced for a Broadway
musical. Complex patterns such as notes grouped in sevens across measures
of 2/4 make the music more exciting without making it any less accessible.
The tritone (augmented fourth), that most dissonant and tonally unstable
interval, runs like a leitmotif through the entire score. And the Jets'
cynical warning, "Keep cooly cool, boy," is developed as --
of all things -- a fugue (although one shouldn't necessarily think of
J.S. Bach here). Yet Bernstein and his collaborators didn't hesitate to ask "as many
members of the orchestra as possible" to snap with their fingers
for a special percussion effect, and even to shout "Mambo!"
-- something one would hardly expect from a symphony orchestra. The trap
set finds a natural niche in the midst of the percussion section. Despite
their newly-won symphonic garb, the jazz dances of the show, lose nothing
of their original flavor. By calling his suite "Symphonic Dances," Bernstein may have
intended a secret nod to Rachmaninoff, who had used that title in his
last work (also heard on this weekend's program!). Yet it is more likely
that he wanted to emphasize his focus on the instrumental dances from
the show, to the exclusion of most of the songs. Had he included the great
hits "Tonight," "Maria," or "America," we
would inevitably be reminded of the lyrics (masterpieces in their own
right by Stephen Sondheim). By grouping (and regrouping) the instrumental
dances, Bernstein not only kept the rhythmic momentum going throughout
but also created a piece that was entirely self-contained. You don't have
to know the lyrics, indeed you don't have to know the plot of West Side
Story to enjoy the Symphonic Dances as one of Bernstein's greatest orchestral
scores. —Peter Laki |
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Suite from The Incredible Flutist Walter Hamor Piston was born in Rockland, Maine, on January 20, 1894, and died in Belmont, Massachusetts, on November 12, 1976. He wrote his ballet The Incredible Flutist in 1938, in collaboration with dancer Hans Weiner (later known as Jan Veen). The Boston Pops Orchestra and Weiner's dancers gave the first performance, under Arthur Fiedler's direction, on May 29, 1938. The suite drawn from the ballet score was premiered by Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on November 22, 1940. The suite from The Incredible Flutist runs about 17 minutes in performance. Piston's score calls for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, castanets, glockenspiel), piano, and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed the suite from The Incredible Flutist in November 1940, under the direction of Artur Rodzinski. The most recent subscription performances were in the 1953-54 season, under Rudolph Ringwall. The Orchestra played the work at Blossom in 1986 under John Williams and in July 1993 under Leonard Slatkin. At Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra gave performances in 1987 under Jahja Ling and in 1999 under Steven Smith. What is so incredible about this flutist? A cross between Pied Piper and the Music Man, he manages to break the monotony of a sleepy small town's humdrum everyday life, and to cure a strait-laced rich widow of her inhibitions. He arrives in town with a traveling circus, and - in the words of the ballet's published outline - "not only charms snakes; he also charms….the snake dancer," and, maybe most importantly, the merchant's daughter. The Incredible Flutist was a collaboration between three men: Arthur Fiedler, the legendary conductor of the Boston Pops, who gave the commission; Hans Weiner, the dancer, whose company staged the ballet in 1938; and Walter Piston, the composer and longtime Harvard professor (and one-time teacher of Leonard Bernstein), who wrote what would remain his only work for the musical stage. It was also one of the rare occasions that the usually reserved Piston truly let his hair down and wrote a piece replete with waltzes, polkas and other dances, evidently enjoying every minute of it. One might venture to say that the Incredible Flutist had charmed the composer himself. The ballet suite, first presented by Fritz Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1940, soon became the most frequently performed of Piston's works. It contains the following sections: Introduction (Siesta in the Market Place) - Entrance of the Vendors - Entrance of the Customers - Tango of the Merchant's Daughters - Arrival of the Circus - Circus March - The Flutist - Minuet - Spanish Waltz - Siciliana - Polka Finale.
Synopsis: The siesta is over. With a hearty yawn and a wide stretch, the village shakes off its drowsiness. First to wake up, the apprentice opens the shop, and life begins its uneventful flow. The merchant's daughters demonstrate their father's wares to the shoppers. The busybody and the crank have their argument. But what is this? A march is heard! The band, the circus band, marches in, followed by the people of the circus. They're all there: the barker, the jugglers, the snake dancer, the monkey trainer with her monkeys, the crystal gazer, and, of course, the main attraction, the Flutist. The Flutist is a remarkable fellow, an incredible fellow. He not only charms snakes; he also charms, believe it or not, the snake dancer. He is so romantic, the Incredible Flutist…He charms also the merchant's daughter, and they meet at eight o'clock that very evening. When the clock strikes eight, couples are all over the place, and love is in the air. Even the prudish, rich widow cannot resist the charged atmosphere and grants the merchant that kiss he's been begging for well-nigh two years. But they don't fare so well. Their sustained embrace is discovered, and the poor, rich widow faints right into the arms of her bewhiskered boyfriend. But the Incredible Flutist hies to the rescue. A little dancing, a little fluting, and the widow comes out of her swoon, none the worse for wear. And then - the band strikes up; the spell is broken; the circus, the Incredible Flutist and all, leaves the village.
—Peter Laki |
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