PROGRAM NOTES for Concerts on March 1-2, 2008
RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883)
Prelude to Tristan and Isolde
Richard Wagner was one of the 19th century's most gifted and controversial figures. His unique talents as a composer of opera and as a writer and philosopher earned him legions of partisans and made him a formidable cultural figure for the entire second half of the century. On the other hand, his well-known hedonism, opportunism, marital scandals, and monstrous ego earned him almost as many enemies.For more than twenty years Wagner was absorbed in the writing of his great epic cycle of four operas, The Ring of the Nibelung. Early into this work he fell in love with the wife of a business acquaintance. Wagner was so inspired by this love affair that he interrupted work on The Ring and began work on another opera, one drawn from the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde and their own illicit love affair. Completed in 1859, Tristan and Isolde received its first performance six years later in Munich.
The concept of the redemptive power of love through a heroic woman savior was a constant theme in Wagner's operas, and one that his personal life frequently mirrored. For Wagner, the connection between his creative powers and his fascination for strong, independent yet sacrificing women was essential.
Tristan and Isolde is Wagner's most daring work. Musically, it challenged the ears of the opera-going public; morally, it flaunted a sensualism that was completely counter to Victorian society. The story is of the knight Tristan who is sent to Ireland to escort the princess Isolde to her arranged marriage to his king. En route, a passionate and all-consuming love overtakes the two. Fearful of discovery, they experience their ecstasy only under the cover of darkness. Their affair is discovered, a battle ensues, and Tristan is mortally wounded. He dies at the feet of Isolde, who herself then dies, experiencing their spiritual union in transfigured song.
For the opera Wagner wrote one of his most enigmatic and elusive musical introductions ever. From the first chord, the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde presents the listener with a vague yearning quality which, though greatly developed throughout the Prelude, remains ultimately inconclusive. Not until some five hours later, in the opera's final moments, does this sense of incompleteness finally reach its musical and dramatic resolution.
For this weekend's performances, guest conductor Mark Russell Smith has chosen to immediately follow Wagner's Prelude to Tristan and Isolde with Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, an equally radical musical work for its time, but one that grew out of a far different and contrasting musical perspective than Wagner's. As Maestro Smith states:
"For me, the relationship between these two preludes is at once subtle and pronounced. These are two of music's most unique and revolutionary voices, and Wagner's influence on Debussy was profound. Debussy's creative and individual compositional voice was equally profound, and while his version of love and sensuality is uniquely his, it owes much to Wagner as well. Both preludes use silence and rhythmic and harmonic ambiguity. Especially at the beginning(s), the music emerges out of silence and then returns to silence before things really get going. The arching structure of both preludes is also evident when they are heard back-to-back. I think it is the suspension of time and motion that Wagner first captured and Debussy perfected that is the most intriguing part of this pairing. Both composers say so much in a relatively short period of time, and both really cast a magical spell that few others can. They speak such very different musical languages, but somehow express the same intoxicating passion and drama, and take us all to a very different place. It's one of those things that words really can't do justice to - where words end, the music begins."
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun
In 1876 the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé completed The Afternoon of a Faun, a poem whose vague and evocative language matched in words what the painters Monet and Renoir were then doing on canvas: creating a new artistic movement that would ultimately be called "Impressionism." Known for its deliberate blurring of realistic elements and emphasis on merely an "impression" of a scene or object, the Impressionist movement burst upon the Paris art scene and grew quickly to inspire leaders in all the creative arts.One of those enamored of the Impressionist painters was the young composer Claude Debussy, then an uninspired music student at the Paris Conservatory. Between 1888 and 1889 Debussy had twice traveled to Bayreuth, Germany to attend the summer music festival devoted to the operas of recently deceased Richard Wagner. Falling under the powerful spell of Wagner's musical and theatrical magic, Debussy had returned to Paris determined to write music that followed Wagner's Germanic models. Alas, he found that he could not, and ultimately rejected Wagner as a musical model. Instead however, he embraced the painting style of the Impressionists, embarking on a stylistic discovery that would ultimately credit him as the father of musical Impressionism.
The work that put Debussy on the musical map was his 1894 composition based upon Mallarmé's poem, The Afternoon of a Faun. Intending a simple orchestral evocation of Mallarmé's poetical style, Debussy actually produced a work that was as unintentionally radical as anything heard in Europe to that day. His Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun evokes the poem's description of an afternoon reverie of a faun, a half-man, half-goat creature from Greek mythology. Waking from sleep, the faun plays his flute, attempts to attract the attention of women bathing in a stream, and when rebuffed, returns to his sleep. This simple storyline, when later choreographed and danced to Debussy's music in 1912 by the Ballet Russes, created quite a scandal. What had been only a suggestion of sensualness in both the poem and music, became on stage a far more explicit statement of the faun's sexual nature.
The solo flute plays a large role in the music, representing both the faun's dream-like state as well as his musical instrument. Almost in a trance the flute begins alone, then is joined briefly by a delicate harp glissando and muted horns. The stillness of the summer scene is matched by stillness in the orchestra, broken only by the suggestion of summer breezes as played by muted strings. Gradually the flute "awakens" and becomes more virtuosic in its playing. With deliberately limited instrumental resources Debussy paints an astounding array of musical colors and sounds. Melody and rhythm seem deliberately ambiguous and diffuse, while instrumental textures and combinations of sounds shift gloriously about. As the music gradually returns to the quiet of its opening, Debussy introduces the unique sound of two antique cymbals. With only five notes, these bell-like shimmering tones provide a final, exotic touch as the music fades from hearing.
ALEXANDER ARUTIUNIAN (b. 1920)
Concerto in A-Flat Major for Trumpet and Orchestra (1950)
Armenia is a small mountainous country in Eurasia bordering Georgia, Turkey, and Iran. A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia has had little international visibility for much of the 20th century due to its inclusion in the Soviet sphere of control. But the country has a long and distinguished history most noticeable in the music written by Armenian composers who forged links between their folk music traditions and Western classical music. Of these composers, Aram Khachaturian is surely the best-known in the West.Alexander Arutiunian, however, is virtually unknown to Western audiences. Equally adept musically as his countryman Khachaturian, Arutiunian chose to work largely within the Soviet music establishment, thereby limiting his exposure to the West. Born in 1920 in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, he studied first at the city's music conservatory before moving on to Moscow for further education. In 1954 he was appointed professor of composition at the Yerevan Conservatory and artistic director of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. In his long career he has written numerous compositions including operas, symphonic works, and chamber music. But his name and reputation in the West are based almost exclusively on a single work - his Concerto for Trumpet written in 1950.
Arutiunian wrote the Trumpet Concerto for renowned Russian trumpet virtuoso Timofei Dokschitzer, who served as an advocate for the work, performing it many times on world concert tours. Today the concerto is a favorite world-wide of trumpeters and audiences alike. In it, Arutiunian fuses Armenian folk traditions with lavish orchestral writing. The soloist is challenged by an array of differing styles from lyrical melodies to burlesque and dramatic passages. The concerto is written as a single extended movement, but with several sections of contrasting tempos which correspond to the traditional three-movement concerto structure of fast, slow, fast.
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Selections from Romeo and Juliet
Like many of his fellow Russian composers, Sergei Prokofiev began his musical career as both a composer and outstanding pianist. His reputation grew steadily until 1918, when the upheavals of the Russian Revolution caused him to move first to the United States, then later to Paris. For more than ten years he lived the life of an expatriate until finally in 1936, he moved back to Russia and remained there the rest of his life.One of the first works Prokofiev completed upon his return to Russia was a ballet to Shakespeare's tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He had begun composing the music in 1934 under a commission from the Kirov Theatre of St. Petersburg; but before he could complete the music, the Kirov backed out of the project. Prokofiev then immediately signed a contract with Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre. However, when he presented the completed score to the theatre for approval, disagreements arose over the ballet's ending. Eventually, the Bolshoi pronounced the music "unsuitable for dancing" and cancelled the entire project. Romeo and Juliet did finally receive its first performance in 1938, not in Russia, but in Brno, Czechoslovakia.
Because of the ballet's performance difficulties, Prokofiev sought exposure for the music by arranging several concert suites of movements lifted from the full ballet score. It is in this form that his extraordinary music first found an audience. Today, Romeo and Juliet is both a classic of the ballet stage and a staple of the concert hall.
Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet is set in 15th-century Verona, where the city is ruled by two rival families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Between them, a shaky peace exists which is routinely tested by the brash young men of both families. When the teenaged son of the Montagues and the young daughter of the Capulets fall in love, the stage is set for one of history's great love tragedies.
For these performances by the Quad City Symphony, guest conductor Mark Russell Smith has selected eight movements from the ballet's concert suites:
The Montagues and Capulets. After a dramatic and dissonant introduction to the story about to unfold, the knights of the two warring families present an angular and somber ceremonial dance, filled with posturing and antagonism. A contrasting melancholy dance appears midway through the movement, portraying the reluctant Juliet as she dances with Paris, the fiancé chosen for her by her parents.
Young Juliet is a portrait of the carefree heroine, poised on the verge of womanhood, but still a young girl at heart.
Friar Laurence is the kindly priest who secretly performs the marriage ceremony for Romeo and Juliet. He is represented by two themes: the first for bassoon, tuba, and harp; the second by richly-voiced writing for the cellos.
Dance. Prokofiev included several "diversion" dances in the ballet to provide relief to the drama of the unfolding story. This dance is rapid and lively, driven along by the rhythmic tapping of the snare drum.
Romeo and Juliet Before Parting. The music is a poignantly beautiful description of the parting at dawn of the young lovers, who are now destined for tragedy.
Death of Tybalt. Tragedy upsets the uneasy truce between the Montagues and Capulets when a fight breaks out between the rival young men. A bitter sword fight between Mercutio and Tybalt unexpectedly ends in Mercutio's death. Romeo, blinded by rage at the death of his friend, picks up the sword and kills Tybalt, whose lingering death is one of the most dramatic moments of the ballet. Romeo flees the scene as brittle, hollow chords portray the solemn procession bearing Tybalt's body to burial.
Romeo at Juliet's Tomb and The Death of Juliet is the final scene of the ballet and begins with a procession of mourners bearing Juliet's body. They believe her to be dead, although she is only drugged, part of a "faked death" plan concocted by Juliet so she can later awaken and run away to join her fugitive husband. Unfortunately, the truth of Juliet's plan does not reach Romeo, and when he hears of her death, he rushes to her gravesite. As the grieving Capulet family departs the tomb, Romeo appears, and seeing the apparently lifeless Juliet, drinks a vial of poison to join her in death. He collapses across Juliet's body as she begins to stir, awakens, then recoils in horror at the scene before her. Taking the vial of poison from Romeo's dead hand, she drinks from it too, then sinks peacefully and lovingly into his arms.
Program notes by Dennis Loftin
PROGRAM NOTES for Concerts on April 5-6, 2008
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
In a remarkably long and productive career, Johannes Brahms wrote more than one hundred and twenty compositions. His life spanned the period almost from the death of Beethoven to the start of the 20th century. He was often pitted against the turbulent and radical trends of Germanic music as practiced by Richard Wagner. For conservatives, Brahms offered music that was still Romantic in spirit, but that reflected the Classical ideals of formal integrity, control, and moderation.Within Brahms' large output of music are only four symphonies. But these four works form the creative center of his music. Brahms once said that writing a symphony after Beethoven was no laughing matter. For him the nine symphonies of Beethoven were an intimidating precedent to follow - so much so that not until he was forty-three years old did he finally complete his first symphony. Its success inspired him to immediately compose a second, which was equally successful. Then Brahms put aside his symphonic pen and for the next six years wrote only chamber music and smaller orchestral works. Brahms was by this time one of the giants of Germanic music and lived a very full life of concert engagements and conducting. Only during the summers could he compose, when he would move to a scenic vacation location for rest and inspiration.
In May 1883 Brahms left his home in Vienna for an extended stay at a health spa in Wiesbaden, Germany. While there, he began work on his Third Symphony, which he completed in time for his return to Vienna in October. The symphony's first performance was presented by the Vienna Philharmonic that December, with later performances in Berlin. The public and critics loudly approved of the Third Symphony and Brahms was inspired once again to follow it within a year with another symphony, his fourth and final effort in the genre.
The Third Symphony contains four distinctly different movements. The first movement opens with two broad chords from the woodwinds and brass before the strings enter with the principal melodic theme, a down-then-upward leaping phrase. A second, contrasting lyrical theme appears shortly after, played by the solo clarinet and bassoon. Following the techniques of symphonic development, Brahms uses these two thematic elements to produce a tightly and economically constructed movement. As the movement's conclusion approaches, Brahms allows the musical energy to abate, and he closes the movement quietly, an unusual break from traditional expectations of a loud and forceful ending.
The quiet ending of the first movement in some sense prepares the way for the introspective two inner movements. The slow and contemplative second movement offers lyrical contrast to the energetic rhythmic drive that dominated the first movement. The melancholy, song-like third movement focuses primarily on the cello section, with contrasting excursions into woodwind sonorities.
The final movement begins in a dramatic orchestral whisper as the strings and bassoons state the introduction in unison. As in the first movement, Brahms produces a tightly constructed movement filled with drive, conflict, and virtuosic orchestral writing. The energy abates in the reflective ending as the movement quietly closes to the pungent sonority of winds.
GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813-1901)
Stabat Mater & Te Deum
At the end of his extraordinarily long career, Italy's great opera composer Giuseppe Verdi had good reason to want to rest. He was eighty years old and had just completed what would be his last work for the stage, his acclaimed opera Falstaff. His librettist Arrigo Boito attempted to interest the old man in writing another opera on Shakespeare, but he would have none of it. His wife noted that he was "too old, too tired" to do much else now that his friends and colleagues had mostly all died.But Verdi still had something musical to say, and he turned to two traditional texts of the Catholic Church to say it. Over the years 1895-1897 he wrote a large-scale choral setting of the Te Deum followed by an equally large Stabat Mater. He then arranged for them to be published in 1898 together with two earlier-composed unaccompanied choral works under the title Four Sacred Pieces. With this task done, Verdi devoted his remaining two years of life to his truly final work: the construction of a home for aged musicians, his Casa Verdi, built in Milan at his expense, and where he and his wife are buried.
The first performances of Stabat Mater and Te Deum were organized on Verdi's behalf by Boito and took place at the Paris Opera during Easter week, 1898. Second performances were conducted by Toscanini a month later in Turin. Verdi was particularly pleased with both works and reportedly asked to be buried with the score to Te Deum.
The Stabat Mater is a poetical text of uncertain authorship dating from the 13th century. Some Catholic scholars attribute it to a Franciscan cleric or possibly even Pope Innocent III. The first section expresses deep pity for the mother of Christ as she stands beneath her son's cross, and anger at those who have caused his death. The poet then prays to the Madonna to allow him to share in her sorrow and to be spared in the Final Judgement. At the end the poet addresses Christ directly, praying for a place in Paradise.
The text to the Te Deum dates back to at least the 6th century. Legend has that it was spontaneously composed by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine on the occasion of St. Augustine's baptism in the year 387. The first portion is a hymn of praise to God the Father, followed by references to Christ the Judge and Redeemer, and finally a series of pleas quoted from the book of Psalms. At the end, a single soprano voice chants three times "In Thee, Lord, I have put my trust," words which are gloriously repeated by the full chorus and rounded off with the orchestra's hushed conclusion.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
To Benjamin Britten goes almost all the credit for the 20th-century revitalization of opera in the English language. He enriched the repertoire with seventeen contributions to the stage, eleven of which were large-scale works.Britten was an Englishman who, curiously enough, traced the inspiration for his first opera to the United States. In 1939 Britten and his companion, tenor Peter Pears, moved to the U.S. with the intent of becoming Americans, and also with hopes of potential work in the Hollywood film music industry. Back in England Britten had become friends with W.H. Auden, who was now an English expatriate living in Brooklyn. Britten and Pears moved in with Auden, sharing the communal house with an extraordinary clutch of friends that included critic and novelist Paul Bowles and his wife, Harper's Bazaar editor George Davis, Golo Mann, son of German novelist Thomas Mann, and later, Carson McCullers. While living in this self-described crazy house, Britten regained his sense of Englishness and encountered the poetry of George Crabbe, a late 18th-century writer and contemporary of Lord Byron. To his surprise, Britten discovered that he and Crabbe were natives of Suffolk and that Crabbe's poems sparked a homesickness in him for "that grim and exciting coastline around Aldeburgh," Several months later, Britten and Pears returned to England and Britten began work on his first opera, drawing on Crabbe's poetry for its subject - Peter Grimes, a fisherman from the Suffolk region. Three years later in June 1945, his opera Peter Grimes received its world premiere with Peter Pears singing the title role. The work was a critical success and quickly established itself as one of the 20th century's great works for the operatic stage.
Peter Grimes is an extraordinarily tragic and bleak work. It tells the story of Grimes, a solitary and gruff fisherman mistrusted by the villagers for whom he has little time or patience. His harsh treatment of a succession of apprentices invokes the villagers' disapproval, although he is acquitted of the charge of murdering one of the youths. When his latest apprentice dies of an accident, the villagers turn on Grimes, determined to bring him to justice. With his mind unhinged by guilt, Grimes' only recourse is the sea, where he drowns himself by sinking his small fishing boat.
For the different scenes of the opera, Britten wrote orchestra interludes which he later extracted as concert music under the title "Sea Interludes." These four musical portraits capture the essence of the bleak and singular existence of the villagers who depend upon the unforgiving sea for their livelihoods. The first interlude, "Dawn," presents an early morning portrait of the North Sea fishing village and the cold, gray ocean alongside of which it lies. High notes in the flutes and strings mimic the cries of sea birds; ripples of notes in the harp imitate the play of light on the water's surface; sustained, low chords in the horns and trombones portray the dull thud of waves breaking on the shoreline. The second interlude,
"Sunday Morning," captures the pealing of church bells and the glitter of sunshine on the water on a bright Sunday as villagers leave their homes for worship. The cheery mood is tempered by a repetitive and unsettling chord in the low brass that echoes the pealing bell. "Moonlight" portrays the harbor on a moonlit night as little jabs and pin pricks of sound from the flute, harp, and xylophone represent Grimes' disordered thoughts. The powerful and violent last interlude, "Storm," is music that occurs several times in the opera, each time representing both the tumultuous coastal weather as well as the emotional torrent raging in and around Grimes.
Program notes by Dennis Loftin