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Madison Symphony Orchestra Program Notes
January 20, 2019
93rd Season / Beyond the Score
Michael Allsen
One of
our more popular features over the past few seasons have
been presentations in
the Beyond the Score series developed by the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra. These
innovative programs combine live actors, multimedia, and the
orchestra to
present deep and entertaining background on a featured
work—followed by
performance of the full work. In the past four seasons the
Madison Symphony
Orchestra has presented Beyond the Score programs on
Dvorák’s “New World”
symphony, Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Scheherazade,
and Elgar’s Enigma
Variations. This season we turn to the most
exuberant of Mendelssohn’s
symphonies, the Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”). Actors
Sarah Day, Jonathan Smoots,
and Nate Burger from American Players Theatre, join the
MSO to present this
program.
Felix
Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Symphony No.4 in A Major, op.90 (“Italian”)
Mendelssohn
composed
the Symphony No.4 in
1830-33, and
conducted the first performance in London on May 13, 1833.
He later revised the
score extensively. The Madison Symphony Orchestra has played
the symphony on six
previous occasions, beginning in 1929, and most recently in
1993. Duration
27:00.
Like
many young men
of wealthy nineteenth-century families, Felix Mendelssohn was
able to indulge
in the tradition of the “grand tour”—indeed, Mendelssohn seems
to have spent
most of his early adulthood as a tourist. Mendelssohn’s
letters from this
period show him to be a keen and enthusiastic observer of the
lands and
cultures he visited. During 1830-31, Mendelssohn was in Italy,
touring and socializing
with other artistic-minded travelers (including Hector
Berlioz). Italy seems to
have been one of Mendelssohn’s favorite stopovers. In a letter
of 1830, he
wrote: “This is Italy! What I have been looking forward to all
my life as the
greatest happiness is now begun, and I am basking in it.”
That Mendelssohn would write a symphony
inspired by festive
Italian culture comes as no surprise. His traveling
experiences provided
inspiration for some of his finest musical works. His “Scotch”
symphony (No.3)
and the Hebrides Overture, are two of the very best musical
observations of Scotland
ever written. Most of the Symphony No.4 was
sketched out during his Italian tour. In February of 1831, he
wrote from Rome
to his sister Fanny: “The ‘Italian’ symphony is making great
progress. It will
be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last
movement. I have
not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that
I will save that
for Naples.”
Like Mozart, Mendelssohn has the historical
reputation of
effortless talent, but the “Italian” symphony was actually the
product of many
revisions. In another letter of 1831, Mendelssohn complained
to Fanny that the
piece was not falling together as well as he had originally
thought, and was costing
him an undue amount of effort. He completed the score in
Berlin in March 1833,
and conducted the first performance a few months later in
London. However,
Mendelssohn revised the score extensively in 1837, and at the
time of his death
he was planning to revise the Saltarello
yet again. The 1837 version of the symphony (the version known
today) was
probably never performed during Mendelssohn’s lifetime, and
was only published
after his death.
None of the creative pains that the
“Italian” symphony cost
the composer are evident in this, the “jolliest” of
Mendelssohn’s symphonies. The
exuberant opening movement (Allegro
vivace) is in 6/8 and is set in a thoroughly Classical
sonata form. The
opening theme is stated by the strings over a background of
repeated chords in
the winds. The second theme, announced by the woodwinds, is no
less festive. Mendelssohn
introduces a new, rather martial theme at the beginning of the
fugal
development section. A lengthy and dramatic crescendo leads
into the recapitulation,
which includes a brief reworking of the martial theme from the
development.
In his letter to Fanny, Mendelssohn wrote
that he intended
to “save” the slow movement until he arrived in Naples, and
the Andante con moto seems
in fact to have
been inspired by a religious procession that the composer
witnessed in that
city. The clarinet’s opening figure sounds much like the chant
intonation of a
priest, and the plodding pizzicato
bass line sets up a rather doleful mood for the main theme of
the movement. This
main theme is not in itself Italian, but may have been based
upon a melody by
Mendelssohn’s composition teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter.
The third movement, marked Con moto moderato, is in the spirit of a courtly
Classical minuet. At
the center of this movement is a lovely, pastoral trio with
sonorous horns and
delicate woodwind lines, that sounds much like Mendelssohn’s
later incidental
music to A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.
The finale, titled Saltarello,
is actually a combination of two Italian dances: the Saltarello, a hopping dance of ancient origin,
and the Tarantella,
a frantically fast and
whirling couple dance. According to Italian tradition, the Tarantella is danced by the victim of a
tarantula bite—the victim
dances until he or she is cured (or dead). There is no
stopping for breath in
this energetic finale,
which is not
without a few dark moments. We
hear
directly from the composer’s heart in this last movement — as
Mendelssohn wrote
to Zelter from Rome: “...I am enjoying the most wonderful
combination of
gaiety and seriousness, such as can only be found in Italy.”
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