|
Haydn: Symphony No. 93 in D major |
|
Symphony
No. 93 in D major Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, on March 31,
1732, and died in Vienna on May 31, 1809. The symphony that was to receive
(from musicologist Eusebius Mandyczewski at the end of the 19th century)
the number 93 in the catalog, was written in London in 1791. It was first
performed on February 17, 1792. The first performance in the United States
was given on February 12, 1859, by Carl Bergmann and the Philharmonia
Society in New York. This symphony runs about 20 minutes in performance. Haydn scored it
for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Haydn's symphony No.93 was first performed by The Cleveland Orchestra
in October 1953, conducted by George Szell. The most recent performance
was during the 1997-98 season. Upon Haydn's arrival in London in January 1791, he was greeted by a fourteen-page poem printed as an independent pamphlet, sold for one shilling around town. Although the publication was anonymous, it soon turned out that its author was Dr. Charles Burney, who wrote a four-volume history of music, one of the first works of its kind. Near the end of his long encomium, Dr. Burney wrote:
Haydn had, indeed, been known in England long before he set foot there
in person. There had been plans to bring him over from Austria a decade
earlier, and Haydn had written his Symphonies Nos. 76-78 for prospective
performances in London. But that visit did not materialize, and Haydn
was almost 59 years old when he began the longest trip of his life. Once in London, the composer quickly adjusted to the new environment. He enjoyed the social scene and the many new friends he made; but he also had to get down to work, having been engaged to write a series of new symphonies for concerts organized by the German-born violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon. In addition, wealthy private pupils also began to flock to him for instruction on the fortepiano, paying a guinea a lesson. As he wrote in a letter to Maria Anna von Genzinger, the wife of Prince Esterházy's physician, in Vienna:
The first two symphonies of the London set, known today as Nos. 96 and
95, were performed within the first year of Haydn's sojourn. The third
one, No.93, followed early the next year, and Haydn must have been particularly
satisfied with this work, for he dedicated it to Frau von Genzinger, who
was his closest friend until her untimely death in 1793. The brief Adagio introduction to the first movement contains a daring,
sudden modulation to a distant key and a gradual return to D major. In
the subsequent "Allegro assai," both the primary and the secondary
themes have a singing, lyrical quality. In the development section, materials
from the exposition are broken up into their smallest components, taken
through numerous keys and moods, from gentle to more energetic. The recapitulation
is much abbreviated, and the second theme, played as before by the strings,
is enriched by imitative responses from the woodwinds. The melody of the second-movement "Largo cantabile" is presented,
surprisingly, by a solo string quartet, before it is repeated by the entire
string section and a solo bassoon. The full orchestra enters for a powerful
minor-key extension of the theme, followed by a new idea for solo oboe.
The same sequence (opening theme, minor-key variant and new idea) is repeated
in a slightly different form, but when the opening theme appears for the
third time, things take an unexpected turn. A two-note (later one-note)
fragment is chipped from the theme and passed around by various orchestral
sections, followed by a dramatic silence broken by a most disrespectful
low note in the two bassoons which launch the movement's final cadence
in a most unusual way. (This highly innovative movement was repeated at
the first performance.) Like many of Haydn's London minuets, the one in Symphony No.93 was inspired
by the Ländler, the Austrian folk dance. Among the individual characteristics
of the present movement, one might notice how the opening melody returns
in the cellos and basses with a new countermelody in the treble. The closing
idea of the minuet, with a pair of oboes moving in parallel thirds against
a roll in the timpani, will be heard again at the end of the finale. It
is a rare instance of motivic connection between movements of a Haydn
symphony. In those days, the four movements of a symphony were not performed
continuously but were interspersed with other music (operatic arias or
instrumental solos). By closing the third and fourth movements in the
same way, Haydn may have wanted, for once, to emphasize the unity of his
work. The central Trio section of the minuet contrasts a fanfare for winds
and timpani, consisting of a single note, with a melodic response from
the strings, entering each time in a different key. The finale ("Presto ma non troppo") contains dramatic moments and touches of subtle musical humor, all derived from the same graceful melody which dominates almost the entire movement. —Peter Laki |
|
^ back to top |
|
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.
47 Johan (later Jean) Julius Christian Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna,
Finland, on December 8, 1865, and died in Järvenpää, Finland,
on September 20, 1957. He composed his violin concerto -- his only concerto
for any instrument -- in 1903. It was first performed on February 8, 1904,
in Helsingfors (Helsinki), with the composer comducyting and with Viktor
Novácek as soloist. Following its (original) publication, n early
1905, Sibelius revised the concerto extensively. The revised score was
heard on October 19, 1905, in Berlin, conducted by Richard Strauss, with
Karl Halir as the soloist. Sibelius made further changes before its final
publication several years later. The concerto was introduced to the Western
Hemisphere on November 30, 1906, when the New York Philharmonic, led by
Vassily Safonov, and soloist Maud Powell played it at Carnegie Hall. This concerto runs about 30 minutes in performance. Sibelius scored
it for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets,
3 trombones, timpani, strings, and solo violin. The published score is
dedicated to Ferenc Vecsey (1893-1935) who first played the work in Berlin
at age 17, and in many subsequent performances established the work's
place in the standard repertoire. The Cleveland Orchestra first played the Sibelius Violin Concerto in January 1922, with Vecsey as soloist and with Nikolai Sokoloff conducting. The most recent performance by the Orchestra was given at Blossom in 1999. "I've got some lovely themes for a violin concerto," Sibelius wrote to his wife, Aino, in September 1902. The Finnish composer, at 37 already a national figure and the recipient of an annual pension from the Finnish government, had been asked by the German violinist Willy Burmester to write a violin concerto. Despite the "lovely themes" Sibelius had, however, the concerto wasn't coming along as expected. The difficulties had to do with the composer's alcoholism that around this time began to alarm his family seriously; that addiction in turn seemed to stem from a deep sense of inner insecurity. It was a year before Sibelius sent the piano score to Burmester, who responded enthusiastically:
What happened after this is rather hard to explain. Burmester was expecting
to play the world premiere of the new work in the spring of 1904, but
Sibelius, for financial reasons, pushed for an earlier date even though
Burmester wasn't available sooner and the orchestration of the concerto
wasn't even finished. Sibelius completed the concerto sometime before
the end of 1903, and gave it to a local violin teacher, Viktor NováFek.
All accounts agree that NováFek was hardly more than a mediocre
player. Leading Sibelius biographer Erik Tawaststjerna writes that at
the Helsinki premiere, in February 1904, "a red-faced and perspiring
NováFek fought a losing battle with a solo part that bristled with
even greater difficulties in this first version than it does in the definitive
score." Sibelius had been trying to pacify Burmester by saying that "Helsinki
doesn't mean a thing," and still promised him performances in Berlin
and elsewhere. But after the Helsinki premiere, he was dissatisfied with
the work and decided to revise it entirely. After the definitive version
was completed, he sent it off to his German publisher who suggested Karl
Halir as the soloist. Sibelius acquiesced, passing over Burmester for
the second time. Greatly offended, Burmester never played the work whose
composition he had initiated. Halir, the concertmaster of the Berlin Court Opera, and a professor at
the Conservatory, was a fine violinist but not a virtuoso of the highest
caliber. It was a 17-year-old boy from Hungary named Ferenc (Franz von)
Vecsey who became the work's first international champion, and it is to
him that the printed score is dedicated. But, as Tawaststjerna has noted, Sibelius wrote his concerto for neither
Burmester nor anyone else but himself. As a young man, he had hoped to
become a concert violinist, and gave up his dreams of a virtuoso career
only with great reluctance. At any rate, his primaty instrument was the
violin; unlike Brahms who consulted Joseph Joachim when he was writing
his violin concerto, Sibelius did not need to ask others for advice on
technical matters. Tawaststjerna writes, "Naturally in his imagination
he identifies himself with the soloist in the Violin Concerto and this
may well explain something of its nostalgia and romantic intensity." "Nostalgia and romantic intensity" -- these are indeed key
words if one wishes to describe the Sibelius Violin Concerto. Written
in the first years of the 20th century, it looks back to the great Romantic
concertos of the 19th. The beginning, with the D-minor tremolos of the
muted first and second violins over which the soloist plays a wistful
melody, is unabashedly old-fashioned. The only unconventional features
are the repeated augmented fourth leaps (from D to G-sharp or G to C-sharp)
which create harsher sonorities, and the irregular pharse structure of
the theme, which makes it impossible to predict how the melody is going
to evolve. Simple and song-like at first, the violin part gradually becomes more
and more agitated, erupting in a first virtuoso cadenza. As the meter
changes from 4/4 to 6/4 time, the orchestra introduces a second idea,
which the violin soon takes over; when that happens, however, the tempo
suddenly slows down and the character of the theme changes from dramatic
to lyrical. This is followed by a third, purely orchestral section, in
a fast 2/2 time; lively and energetic, it ends in pianissimo with
the cellos and basses repeating a single note (B-flat). The three sections
roughly outline the exposition of a sonata form, although the meter changes
and the succession of characters is unusual; also, the key of B-flat minor,
which is eventually reached, is a highly unusual tonal direction for a
concerto movement in D minor. Its many flats contribute to a certain dark,
"Nordic" flavor in the concerto, reinforced by the frequent
use of the violin's low register. The brass parts also abound in "glacial"
low notes, harmonized with austere-sounding chordal passages. There is no real development section; its place is taken by the solo
cadenza, which occurs in the middle of the movement rather than at the
end as usual. The cadenza is followed by a free recapitulation in which
the first melody returns almost literally. The second theme (especially
in its orchestal rendition) is substantially modified. The melody of the
third section is now given to the violas while the soloist adds virtuoso
passages, turning the ending of the movement into a kind of grandiose
Gypsy fantasy. The second-movement Adagio di molto is based on the combination
of two themes, one played by the two clarinets at the beginning, the other
by the solo violin a few measures later. The violin melody is, according
to the composer's own written instruction, "sonorous and expressive;"
the clarinet theme later grows into an impassioned middle section whose
dynamism carries over into the recapitulation of the violin melody (part
of it is now given to the woodwinds). Only at the very end does the melody
find its initial peace and tranquillity again. Speaking about the Finale, it is impossible not to quote Donald Francis Tovey's characterization of its main theme as a "polonaise for polar bears." Tovey's words capture the singular combination of dance rhythms and a certain heavy-footedness felt at least at the beginning of this movement. Again, there are two themes, one in a polonaise rhythm, and one based on the alternation of 6/8 and 3/4 time (the first is subdivided into 3 + 3 eighth-notes, the second into 2 + 2 + 2). "With this," Tovey concluded his analysis, "we can safely leave the finale to dance the listener into Finland, or whatever Fairyland Sibelius will have us attain." —Peter Laki |
|
^ back to top |
|
Impetuosity
The new work runs about 10 minutes in performance. Botti's score calls
for 3 flutes, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3
trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, 2 harps, and strings. Thursday night's performance at Severance Hall is the world premiere of Impetuosity. Composer-singers were common during the Renaissance era, when the vast
majority of music being written was sung rather than played on instruments.
Instrumental music came into its own during the Baroque period, and since
that time most composers have been instrumentalists--usually keyboard
players. Therefore, Susan Botti is quite an exception with her dual career
as a soprano and a composer. Not surprisingly, Botti has written several
works for herself to perform, including some of her greatest successes
to date, like Echo Tempo which was played by the New York Philharmonic
under Kurt Masur in 2001, or Telaio: Desdemona, a stage work with
which Botti has toured extensively. Yet Botti the composer wants more
than producing vehicles for Botti the performer-witness her new work that
receives its world premiere at this weekend's concerts. The dominant emotion of the piece is announced in the title, Impetuosity. In a musical context, this word evokes "impetus" and "momentum," expressed by a strong rhythmic energy. In fact, the work is driven primarily by its rhythm, and by two striking rhythmic figures in particular. One of these is a dotted-syncopated pattern with a jazzy feel, the other a more complex configuration in mixed meters. These rhythms emerge from the more fluid background of the opening, where there is no rhythmic coordination at all between the strings, the harps and the piano. Some rapid woodwind scales and a striking trumpet call lead up to the first rhythmic section. After a general rest and a quiet, somewhat hesitant interlude, the second rhythmic section begins, incorporating brief reminders of the first pattern that eventually makes a full-fledged comeback. The unsynchronized music of the opening then returns, calling into question all the previous "impetuosity"; a rhapsodic violin solo creates further suspense. Then the rhythmic momentum is gradually re-established, and the final portion of the work combines elements from both earlier motifs.
—Peter Laki |
|
|
|
Symphony No. 1 Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg on September 25, 1906, and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. Shostakovich completed his First Symphony in 1925. It was first performed on May 12, 1926, by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Nikolai Malko’s direction. The symphony was introduced to the United States on November 2, 1928, by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. This symphony runs about 30 minutes in performance. Shostakovich scored it for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (triangle, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, bells), piano, and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed Shostakovich’s First Symphony in November 1934, under the direction of Artur Rodzinski. The most recent performance took place during the September 1998 season. Artur Rodzinski and The Cleveland Orchestra recorded Shostakovich’s First Symphony in 1941.
Most composers, especially in the 20th century, have taken a number of years to develop a personal compositional voice — recognizable uniquely as his or her own. Shostakovich is the great exception: in his First Symphony, completed at the age of 19, many characteristics associated with his mature period are already there, fully formed and expressed with remarkable maturity. In particular, one would think that Shostakovich came by his special combination of sarcasm and dark humor as the result of considerable life experience. And although it deepened later, this unmistakable Shostakovichian tone — in which one is rarely sure exactly where a grim joke ends and seriousness begins — is already all present in the First Symphony. Surely one of the most astonishing graduation pieces in the world history of music conservatories, the symphony was a bombshell at the Leningrad premiere, soon followed by performance in Moscow. Within two years, the symphony had reached Western Europe and the United States, championed by Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, and Leopold Stokowski. Its popularity has not diminished ever since. It is not hard to account for this great success. The Shostakovich First is a work filled with an irresistible energy--with alternating moments of high drama, tenderness, and that famous sarcasm. The symphony opens with a quizzical little duet for trumpet and bassoon, which contains the two musical motifs later united in the actual main theme, presented in a march-like tempo by the first clarinet. This grotesque march and its spinoffs dominate most of the movement (except for the lyrical, waltz-like second theme for solo flute), but the many unexpected interruptions keep us constantly on the edge of our seats. Only rarely does the entire orchestra play together; Shostakovich prefers small instrumental groups, apparently at pains to avoid a lush Romantic sound. (It is significant that the first three of the symphony’s four movements have soft endings.) The second movement, an animated scherzo, shares its basic meter with the first movement but is significantly faster. The piano, silent until now, joins the orchestra with a brilliant solo part. The middle section, in a slower tempo, has an interesting metric ambiguity: despite the 3/4 time signature, the melody really sounds in 4/4, with only the percussion accompaniment observing the triple meter). In the recapitulation, the melodies of both sections are heard simultaneously. The mysterious string harmonics at the end seem to conclude the movement with a question mark. The tone of the symphony suddenly changes in the third movement. After two light-hearted movements, the oboe solo that opens this Lento introduces a much more serious, even tragic mood. The melody is made up entirely of traditional gestures but wanders from key to key in a rather unpredictable way. The theme is continued by a solo cello and is soon repeated by the entire orchestra. A second idea, in a slow march-like rhythm, is introduced again by the oboe and stirred up to a few measures of fortissimo. (British musicologist Eric Roseberry has written: “The slow movement and the finale become inextricably bound up with the destiny of a funeral march.”) The first theme eventually returns, played by a solo violin instead of the oboe. The movement ends with a faint reminiscence of the second idea, with a muted trumpet accompanied by a group of solo strings. A drumroll, starting quietly and getting gradually louder and louder, links the slow movement to the finale, in which tragedy and comedy are perhaps the hardest to separate from one another. A brooding introduction is soon followed by a lively Allegro that is, however, fraught with tension and dark sonorities. Before long, the tempo slows down again, and the melody we just heard in a full orchestral fortissimo is repeated, expressively and lyrically, by the solo violin and then by the horn. The fast tempo returns in a section culminating in the symphony’s most powerful climax. Shostakovich immediately “takes it back,” however, with the anticlimax of a mysterious timpani solo and the return of the expressive melody from before (now played by a solo cello, accompanied by solo strings). This melody will dominate proceedings to the end, gradually accelerating and finally erupting in a Presto coda that leads to the surprise ending. The most telling sign of the deep ambiguities in this work is perhaps the wide range of interpretations offered by commentators. In particular, American writers tend to emphasize the youthful vigor, the brilliant orchestration, and the humorous touches (especially in the second movement). The Russians, on the other hand, have stressed the dark side of the work. According to one musicologist, Mikhail Druskin, the symphony reflects the suffering of the young composer (who had lost his father at age 16, and had to help support the family despite his own frail health). For his part, Lev Lebedinsky thought that Shostakovich, in his First Symphony, “already challenged the forces of evil.” Lebedinsky recalled:
One of Shostakovich’s aunts recalled that she recognized in this symphony many fragments that she had heard her nephew play as a young boy. If some moments of the symphony reach back to Shostakovich’s childhood, others point just as decisively to the future. One particular moment in the finale, which seems to allude to the “Fate” motif from Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung operas, finds a late echo in Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony, which includes a full-fledged quote of the same motif.
—Peter Laki |
|
|