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Program Notes for Spring 2015 Concert
THE POWER OF FATE!
Sunday, April 12, 2015, 3 p.m.
Christ Episcopal Church, 2627 Atlantic Street, NE, Warren
By Steven Ledbetter
Sunday, April 12, 2015, 3 p.m.
Christ Episcopal Church, 2627 Atlantic Street, NE, Warren
By Steven Ledbetter
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxony, on March 21, 1685, and died in Leipzig on July 28, 1750. We know this concerto because Bach sent it, along with five others, as a gift to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on March 24, 1721. Almost nothing else is known about the piece. The score calls for solo trumpet, flute, oboe and violin, plus strings and continuo. Duration is about 13 minutes.
The Second Brandenburg Concerto has a most unusual solo ensemble in Bach's presentation manuscript, consisting of trumpet, flute, oboe and violin. We tend to think of the trumpet as a particularly loud instrument and the recorder as very soft, though the instruments of Bach's day would have been better balanced in terms of sheer volume, and in the modest-sized rooms in which this music was performed, the flute would project quite well. While it is possible that Bach composed for these four solo instruments simply because they were there, it is equally likely that he chose them precisely for their diversity. The fact that each sounds so different from the other makes it easier to keep track of their doings throughout the concerto.
Another possibility arises: Bach identified the brass instrument as tromba, which normally means trumpet, in this case a high instrument in the key of F. But he rarely, if ever, wrote for trumpet in F elsewhere, whereas he often composed for a horn in F, and when a copyist wrote out this part in 1750, he called it a "trumpet or horn" suggesting that the mellower and lower-pitched instrument would serve as well—and balance better with the other three soloists.
The opening movement of the second concerto is astonishingly rich in the inventive ways Bach treats his material and brings the four principal soloists into action with one another and with the rest of the ensemble. At climactic moments, when every part is playing a different thematic idea, the ease with which the ear distinguishes the sound of the four soloists is a real advantage to following this elegant game.
As was typical of the time, Bach allowed the trumpet/horn to rest during the slow middle movement. This was also a practical decision, because the brass instrument could not yet play the complete scale, making it difficult to fit it in the more intimate middle movement. So the three quieter instruments have a chance to intertwine in elaborating the opening phrase in the violin to produce a movement that is pure chamber music.
The final movement brings back the brass instrument, which opens the proceedings with a fanfare melody obviously designed for the purpose, which serves as the subject of a lively fugue. The four instruments enter in turn with the fugue subject (trumpet) and answer (oboe), subject (violin) and answer (flute).
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxony, on March 21, 1685, and died in Leipzig on July 28, 1750. We know this concerto because Bach sent it, along with five others, as a gift to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on March 24, 1721. Almost nothing else is known about the piece. The score calls for solo trumpet, flute, oboe and violin, plus strings and continuo. Duration is about 13 minutes.
The Second Brandenburg Concerto has a most unusual solo ensemble in Bach's presentation manuscript, consisting of trumpet, flute, oboe and violin. We tend to think of the trumpet as a particularly loud instrument and the recorder as very soft, though the instruments of Bach's day would have been better balanced in terms of sheer volume, and in the modest-sized rooms in which this music was performed, the flute would project quite well. While it is possible that Bach composed for these four solo instruments simply because they were there, it is equally likely that he chose them precisely for their diversity. The fact that each sounds so different from the other makes it easier to keep track of their doings throughout the concerto.
Another possibility arises: Bach identified the brass instrument as tromba, which normally means trumpet, in this case a high instrument in the key of F. But he rarely, if ever, wrote for trumpet in F elsewhere, whereas he often composed for a horn in F, and when a copyist wrote out this part in 1750, he called it a "trumpet or horn" suggesting that the mellower and lower-pitched instrument would serve as well—and balance better with the other three soloists.
The opening movement of the second concerto is astonishingly rich in the inventive ways Bach treats his material and brings the four principal soloists into action with one another and with the rest of the ensemble. At climactic moments, when every part is playing a different thematic idea, the ease with which the ear distinguishes the sound of the four soloists is a real advantage to following this elegant game.
As was typical of the time, Bach allowed the trumpet/horn to rest during the slow middle movement. This was also a practical decision, because the brass instrument could not yet play the complete scale, making it difficult to fit it in the more intimate middle movement. So the three quieter instruments have a chance to intertwine in elaborating the opening phrase in the violin to produce a movement that is pure chamber music.
The final movement brings back the brass instrument, which opens the proceedings with a fanfare melody obviously designed for the purpose, which serves as the subject of a lively fugue. The four instruments enter in turn with the fugue subject (trumpet) and answer (oboe), subject (violin) and answer (flute).
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Suite No. 1 from the opera Carmen (1875)
Georges Alexandre César Léopold Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838, and died in Bougival, near Paris, on June 3, 1875. His most successful work, the opera Carmen, was the last piece he composed; it was premiered in Paris on March 3, 1875, just three months before his death, which occurred in his thirty‑seventh year. The two traditional suites present selections from the score of the opera in an order that differs from the original dramatic version, based as it is only on considerations of musical variety. The score calls for two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes (second doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, tambourine, snare drum, harp and strings.
Bizet's Carmen, justifiably one of the most popular operas ever composed, aroused shivers of concern from the director of the Opéra-Comique, where it was first produced. The Opéra-Comique was, after all, a family theater, a place of long and unchanging traditions. The works presented there—lighter operas that were largely sung, but contained spoken dialogue—had certain conventions that the audience expected: a heroine of spotless purity, who might suffer at the hands of Fate (and of Man) but would eventually win out; a hero of bold courage and unchanging rectitude who usually comes across as a prude, but he naturally wins the girl in the end; a villain, usually a baritone or bass, of unadulterated evil intentions; and a happy ending.
Bizet happily tossed each of these conventions out the window in selecting Prosper Mérimée's novel Carmen as the basis for an opera and then browbeating his librettists to give him the realistic situations he wanted—even to the extent of writing some of the libretto himself when they wanted to tone down the harsh and realistic story of the moral decline of a simple country boy (with a slight penchant for violence) to a deserter, smuggler, and eventually tormented murderer. Although the librettists Meilhac and Halévy created a pure heroine, Micaela, as a foil to the seductive Carmen, Bizet gave her music in the spirit of Gounod that made her come across as vapid; he was interested in the gypsy girl, Carmen, who was the opposite of everything the Opéra-Comique stood for in family entertainment. Other operas (notably Traviata) had depicted women whose morals were less than impeccable, but Bizet actually showed Carmen seducing José right on stage during the course of the first act—the first step in his moral decline. Carmen's love is capricious and intense; it led men to vie for her favors. In the end, it led to her murder—and on stage to boot! One of the directors of the company is said to have resigned because he could not persuade Bizet to give Carmen a happy ending!
Nobody knew quite what to make of it. The librettists had worked for years with Offenbach, and audiences expected something light and frothy. As each of the four acts went on, the audience became quieter and quieter, until there was nearly dead silence at the end. Though the work was performed forty‑three times that season, it never filled the house, and the management was reduced to virtually giving tickets away. By the time the run had ended, the composer was dead, an apparent failure.
But soon thereafter—in October of the same year—a production in Vienna began the opera's worldwide march of success. Yet it was not the same opera that Bizet had written for Paris. In between musical numbers, the plot at the Opéra-Comique had been told in spoken dialogue, which had revealed many things about the backgrounds and relationships of the characters and about their motivations. For the Vienna Opera the work had to be sung throughout, so the manager commissioned Ernest Guiraud to create recitative to replace the dialogue. Guiraud went about his task seriously; he quoted many of Bizet's musical ideas, and he attempted to imitate his style. But inevitably he had to cut so much from the dialogue that many of the sharp points of the drama got blunted. Yet this is how Carmen became known to the world at large. Recently there has been a welcome trend to return to Bizet's original form, which remains one of the most effective operas ever written, equally successful in musical and theatrical terms.
The orchestral suites include a wealth of music from Bizet's score and point out one of his greatest strengths as an opera composer: the variety and effectiveness of his orchestration, which reveals character at the same time that it underlines mood. The suite selections to be performed here begin with a brief introductory passage from the opening of the opera followed by The Prelude to Act I, which quotes the ominous musical idea often described as Fate, the one factor over which Carmen has no control. The "Aragonaise" is a lively dance number that introduces the final act with its colorful setting just outside the bullring. The "Séguedille" is an orchestral arrangement of the aria sung by Carmen in Act 1 as she seduces Don José into setting her free after her arrest. It references an old Castilian folksong and dance form in quick triple time. "Les Dragons d’Alcala" is the marching song of Don José's regiment, which opens the second act. The final selection, "Les Toréadors," brings the suite to an appropriately colorful close. It is actually the introduction to Act I of the opera, which presents the bustling music of the toreadors and especially the famous song of Escamillo, who is perfectly aware that no bull is a match for him‑‑and no woman either.
Suite No. 1 from the opera Carmen (1875)
Georges Alexandre César Léopold Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838, and died in Bougival, near Paris, on June 3, 1875. His most successful work, the opera Carmen, was the last piece he composed; it was premiered in Paris on March 3, 1875, just three months before his death, which occurred in his thirty‑seventh year. The two traditional suites present selections from the score of the opera in an order that differs from the original dramatic version, based as it is only on considerations of musical variety. The score calls for two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes (second doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, tambourine, snare drum, harp and strings.
Bizet's Carmen, justifiably one of the most popular operas ever composed, aroused shivers of concern from the director of the Opéra-Comique, where it was first produced. The Opéra-Comique was, after all, a family theater, a place of long and unchanging traditions. The works presented there—lighter operas that were largely sung, but contained spoken dialogue—had certain conventions that the audience expected: a heroine of spotless purity, who might suffer at the hands of Fate (and of Man) but would eventually win out; a hero of bold courage and unchanging rectitude who usually comes across as a prude, but he naturally wins the girl in the end; a villain, usually a baritone or bass, of unadulterated evil intentions; and a happy ending.
Bizet happily tossed each of these conventions out the window in selecting Prosper Mérimée's novel Carmen as the basis for an opera and then browbeating his librettists to give him the realistic situations he wanted—even to the extent of writing some of the libretto himself when they wanted to tone down the harsh and realistic story of the moral decline of a simple country boy (with a slight penchant for violence) to a deserter, smuggler, and eventually tormented murderer. Although the librettists Meilhac and Halévy created a pure heroine, Micaela, as a foil to the seductive Carmen, Bizet gave her music in the spirit of Gounod that made her come across as vapid; he was interested in the gypsy girl, Carmen, who was the opposite of everything the Opéra-Comique stood for in family entertainment. Other operas (notably Traviata) had depicted women whose morals were less than impeccable, but Bizet actually showed Carmen seducing José right on stage during the course of the first act—the first step in his moral decline. Carmen's love is capricious and intense; it led men to vie for her favors. In the end, it led to her murder—and on stage to boot! One of the directors of the company is said to have resigned because he could not persuade Bizet to give Carmen a happy ending!
Nobody knew quite what to make of it. The librettists had worked for years with Offenbach, and audiences expected something light and frothy. As each of the four acts went on, the audience became quieter and quieter, until there was nearly dead silence at the end. Though the work was performed forty‑three times that season, it never filled the house, and the management was reduced to virtually giving tickets away. By the time the run had ended, the composer was dead, an apparent failure.
But soon thereafter—in October of the same year—a production in Vienna began the opera's worldwide march of success. Yet it was not the same opera that Bizet had written for Paris. In between musical numbers, the plot at the Opéra-Comique had been told in spoken dialogue, which had revealed many things about the backgrounds and relationships of the characters and about their motivations. For the Vienna Opera the work had to be sung throughout, so the manager commissioned Ernest Guiraud to create recitative to replace the dialogue. Guiraud went about his task seriously; he quoted many of Bizet's musical ideas, and he attempted to imitate his style. But inevitably he had to cut so much from the dialogue that many of the sharp points of the drama got blunted. Yet this is how Carmen became known to the world at large. Recently there has been a welcome trend to return to Bizet's original form, which remains one of the most effective operas ever written, equally successful in musical and theatrical terms.
The orchestral suites include a wealth of music from Bizet's score and point out one of his greatest strengths as an opera composer: the variety and effectiveness of his orchestration, which reveals character at the same time that it underlines mood. The suite selections to be performed here begin with a brief introductory passage from the opening of the opera followed by The Prelude to Act I, which quotes the ominous musical idea often described as Fate, the one factor over which Carmen has no control. The "Aragonaise" is a lively dance number that introduces the final act with its colorful setting just outside the bullring. The "Séguedille" is an orchestral arrangement of the aria sung by Carmen in Act 1 as she seduces Don José into setting her free after her arrest. It references an old Castilian folksong and dance form in quick triple time. "Les Dragons d’Alcala" is the marching song of Don José's regiment, which opens the second act. The final selection, "Les Toréadors," brings the suite to an appropriately colorful close. It is actually the introduction to Act I of the opera, which presents the bustling music of the toreadors and especially the famous song of Escamillo, who is perfectly aware that no bull is a match for him‑‑and no woman either.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36 (1878)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka Province, Russia, on May 7, 1840, and died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. He began the Symphony No. 4 in May 1877 and completed the score on January 19, 1878. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the first performance in Moscow on March 4 that year. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings. Duration is about 44 minutes.
Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony has long been regarded as the first of his truly mature symphonies, and perhaps his finest achievement in the genre. The expressive power of the symphony may bear some trace of the preceding winter, when the composer passed through a crisis that included an attempt at suicide.
Two women were involved, in very different ways, with very different effects on Tchaikovsky's work. The first was Nadezhda von Meck, the recently widowed mother of eleven children, passionately devoted to music, especially that of Tchaikovsky, which she had first heard a few years earlier. Upon learning from a friend of the composer's that he was continually hard-pressed for money, she offered him, in December 1876, a modest commission. It was the beginning of fourteen years of support, carried out with the extraordinary stipulation that they were never to meet in person. The long-distance relationship, which produced over 700 letters, turned out to be the most intense and emotional relationship either of them ever experienced.
At precisely this time Tchaikovsky was wrestling with the personal torment of coming to terms with his homosexuality (still illegal in Russia), which left him open to possible discovery and blackmail. His life became immensely complicated when he received a letter in May 1877 from Antonina Milyukova, a young pupil at his conservatory expressing her passionate and undying devotion to him. Tchaikovsky had just become obsessed with the hope of turning Pushkin's poetic novel Eugene Onegin into an opera. In the poem, a young girl writes a similar letter to the title character; his callous response to it triggers the ultimate tragedy. Life seemed to be imitating art. Tchaikovsky had no desire to be cast in the role of the unfeeling Onegin, so he put Antonina off as gently as possible. But she refused to leave him alone, even after he had darkly hinted at the true state of his emotional makeup. Tchaikovsky felt forced, against his will, into marriage, fearing the consequences if he refused and hoping that a marriage would at least stifle gossip about him.
The marriage took place in midsummer. Within two days, Tchaikovsky knew that he had committed a grave folly. When the couple returned to Moscow from a honeymoon visit to St. Petersburg, with the marriage still unconsummated, the composer implored Mme. von Meck to supply money for a temporary escape. In early August he fled to the Caucasus and spent the rest of the summer at his sister's home. There he worked on orchestrating the Fourth Symphony, which he had fully sketched during the torments of the late spring.
When he finally had to return to Moscow in late September, he found it impossible to face his bride. One night he walked, fully clothed, into the icy waters of the Moscow River, hoping to contract a fatal case of pneumonia. The suicide attempt failed, and Tchaikovsky in despair had his brother send him a faked telegram required his immediate presence in St. Petersburg. From there he ran off to Switzerland, Vienna, and Italy, where he spent the winter finishing the Fourth Symphony.
Naturally, the symphony was dedicated to Nadezhda von Meck. In his letters to her Tchaikovsky always referred to it as "our" symphony. Composed during an extended period of emotional upheaval, the Fourth is arguably his finest symphony, a work of rich expressive force and a more effective architecture than he ever achieved in any other symphony. Like its evident inspiration, Beethoven's Fifth, Tchaikovsky's Fourth progresses from a mood [of] fateful combat to eventual triumph. To Nadezhda von Meck he wrote an explanation of its secret program:
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36 (1878)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka Province, Russia, on May 7, 1840, and died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. He began the Symphony No. 4 in May 1877 and completed the score on January 19, 1878. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the first performance in Moscow on March 4 that year. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum and strings. Duration is about 44 minutes.
Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony has long been regarded as the first of his truly mature symphonies, and perhaps his finest achievement in the genre. The expressive power of the symphony may bear some trace of the preceding winter, when the composer passed through a crisis that included an attempt at suicide.
Two women were involved, in very different ways, with very different effects on Tchaikovsky's work. The first was Nadezhda von Meck, the recently widowed mother of eleven children, passionately devoted to music, especially that of Tchaikovsky, which she had first heard a few years earlier. Upon learning from a friend of the composer's that he was continually hard-pressed for money, she offered him, in December 1876, a modest commission. It was the beginning of fourteen years of support, carried out with the extraordinary stipulation that they were never to meet in person. The long-distance relationship, which produced over 700 letters, turned out to be the most intense and emotional relationship either of them ever experienced.
At precisely this time Tchaikovsky was wrestling with the personal torment of coming to terms with his homosexuality (still illegal in Russia), which left him open to possible discovery and blackmail. His life became immensely complicated when he received a letter in May 1877 from Antonina Milyukova, a young pupil at his conservatory expressing her passionate and undying devotion to him. Tchaikovsky had just become obsessed with the hope of turning Pushkin's poetic novel Eugene Onegin into an opera. In the poem, a young girl writes a similar letter to the title character; his callous response to it triggers the ultimate tragedy. Life seemed to be imitating art. Tchaikovsky had no desire to be cast in the role of the unfeeling Onegin, so he put Antonina off as gently as possible. But she refused to leave him alone, even after he had darkly hinted at the true state of his emotional makeup. Tchaikovsky felt forced, against his will, into marriage, fearing the consequences if he refused and hoping that a marriage would at least stifle gossip about him.
The marriage took place in midsummer. Within two days, Tchaikovsky knew that he had committed a grave folly. When the couple returned to Moscow from a honeymoon visit to St. Petersburg, with the marriage still unconsummated, the composer implored Mme. von Meck to supply money for a temporary escape. In early August he fled to the Caucasus and spent the rest of the summer at his sister's home. There he worked on orchestrating the Fourth Symphony, which he had fully sketched during the torments of the late spring.
When he finally had to return to Moscow in late September, he found it impossible to face his bride. One night he walked, fully clothed, into the icy waters of the Moscow River, hoping to contract a fatal case of pneumonia. The suicide attempt failed, and Tchaikovsky in despair had his brother send him a faked telegram required his immediate presence in St. Petersburg. From there he ran off to Switzerland, Vienna, and Italy, where he spent the winter finishing the Fourth Symphony.
Naturally, the symphony was dedicated to Nadezhda von Meck. In his letters to her Tchaikovsky always referred to it as "our" symphony. Composed during an extended period of emotional upheaval, the Fourth is arguably his finest symphony, a work of rich expressive force and a more effective architecture than he ever achieved in any other symphony. Like its evident inspiration, Beethoven's Fifth, Tchaikovsky's Fourth progresses from a mood [of] fateful combat to eventual triumph. To Nadezhda von Meck he wrote an explanation of its secret program:
The introduction contains the germ, the central idea...this is Fate, the inevitable force that jealously watches to see that felicity and peace shall not be complete... that hangs over the head like a sword of Damocles and constantly, unswervingly, poisons the soul....
Tchaikovsky's fatalism takes him through moods of despair and longing before finally finding that life can be made bearable by taking happiness from the joys of the people around us. But he kept this program a secret between himself and his patron; in performance he preferred to let the music speak for itself. Certainly the strength of the Fourth projects Tchaikovsky's musical ideas even without the explanation sent to his "beloved friend," the one who really made the symphony possible.
© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com). Used with the author's permission.
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