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Madison Symphony Orchestra Program Notes
April 12-13-14, 2019
93rd Season / Subscription
Concert No.7
Michael Allsen
This concert begins with Mozart’s brilliant
“Prague” symphony. The Madison Symphony Orchestra then
welcomes pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who makes his Madison
debut with two contrasting works: Strauss’s flashy Burleske, and the
Jazz-inflected Concerto in G Major by Ravel. Rounding off
the program is Debussy’s La Mer—a colorful, impressionistic seascape
painted by this great French composer.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
Symphony
No.38 in D Major, K.504 (“Prague”)
Mozart completed the
symphony on December 6, 1786, it was first performed in
Prague on January 19, 1787. We have played it twice at these
concerts, in 1981 and 1994. Duration 26:00.
In the late 1780s, Mozart and his music
were meeting only limited success in his adopted home town of
Vienna. The last few years of his life in the Austrian capital
were marked by financial setbacks, family problems, and
illness. His four visits to Prague during period were true
bright spot in an otherwise gloomy period. His first visit was
in January of 1787, just a month after the Prague premiere of
his opera Le Nozze de
Figaro. This production of Figaro was an
unparalleled hit and Mozart was invited to visit to conduct
the opera and to perform. When he and his wife Constanze
arrived in Prague on January 11, they were welcomed by the
most important musical patrons of the city. Mozart found that
Prague audiences couldn’t get enough of him or of his music,
as he wrote to friend in Vienna: “Here, they talk about
nothing, they play nothing, sing nothing, whistle nothing but
Figaro; they go to
no opera but Figaro
and forever Figaro.”
Mozart’s “Grand Musical Academy” on January
19—a benefit concert arranged by his Prague friends—was every
bit as much of a hit. He had brought with him the score of the
just-completed D Major symphony, in hopes that he could have
it played. The concert began with a half-hour piano
improvisation by Mozart and included the new symphony, which
was a particular sensation. Mozart
was extremely pleased by the performance, which employed an
orchestra of the best musicians in the Bohemian capital, a
group that was apparently better disciplined and more
attentive than Vienna orchestras he was used to 1eading. (He
later wrote “My orchestra is in Prague, and my Prague people
understand me.”) We have a remarkable account of this concert
written by an admiring Bohemian musician. Franz Xaver
Niemetschek, who described the effect of the new symphony:
“[Mozart’s
symphonies] are true masterpieces of instrumental composition,
full of unexpected transitions, and have élan and a fiery
momentum, so that they immediately incline the soul to expect
something sublime. This is especially true of the great
symphony in D Major, which is still a favorite in Prague, even
though it has probably been heard a hundred times.”
What is now known as the “Prague” symphony
is richly orchestrated, and calls for skillful playing,
particularly from the woodwinds. There is also a depth to this
music, particularly in the way that Mozart develops his
material, that points to what is to come in the great final
trilogy of symphonies he would compose in 1788. The opening
movement begins—rather uncharacteristically for Mozart—with a
long slow introduction (Adagio). In the
middle of this section, Mozart turns rather abruptly from
Major to minor, heightening the sense of operatic drama. When
he finally slides back into Major it sets up a sense of
expectation, fulfilled at the appearance of the energetic
beginning of the Allegro,
set in sonata form. Several writers have commented upon the
uncanny resemblance between the main theme and the opening of
the overture to his final opera, The Magic Flute
(1791), and the exposition provides a wealth of additional
thematic ideas, often with surprising harmonic twists. Mozart
then proceeds to one of his longest and most intense
development sections. The way in which he carefully developed
and combined thematic material in this section apparently the
result of quite a bit a bit of careful labor—Mozart’s
surviving sketches for this section show him experimenting
with various permutations and combinations of his themes. None
of this work shows through in the seemingly effortless grace
of his development section, however. A conventional
recapitulation gives way to a lengthy coda that reinforces the
comic-opera flavor of this movement.
The operatic character of this symphony
continues in the beautifully songlike Andante. Set
Mozart breaks with tradition by abandoning
the Minuet that
usually stands as the third movement, moving instead directly
to the finale (Presto).
It begins with a bit of self-quotation that must have tickled
his Prague audience: the opening theme bears an unmistakable
resemblance to “Aprite presto,” the hilarious duet between
Susanna and Cherubino in Act II of Figaro. This
irrepressible melody is merely the first of several lively
ideas he explores in this movement, which calls for brilliant
playing from woodwinds and strings. Again there are occasional
turns to the minor, but in this exuberant movement, the effect
is wry and good-humored, rather than tragic.
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Burleske
Strauss composed
Burleske in 1885-86.
The first public performance of the work was in Eisenach, on
June 21, 1890, with pianist Eugen D’Albert. Our previous
performances of the work were in 2007 with Per Tengstrand
and in 2015 with Emanuel Ax. Duration 22:00.
Burleske
is among Strauss’s early compositions, marking the end of his
musical apprenticeship. When he was still a teenager, Strauss
wrote his first orchestral pieces for the Wild Gung’l
(roughly, “the wild gang”), an amateur orchestra his father
conducted in Munich. In 1883, he came to the attention of the
pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, whose Meiningen court
orchestra was possibly the finest ensemble in Europe at that
time. Bülow promoted the teenager by performing and
commissioning works by Strauss, and eventually naming him an
assistant conductor. It was during these heady times that the
young composer completed an ambitious Scherzo in D minor
for piano and orchestra. In the spring of 1886, Strauss played
and conducted a test-run of the new piece with the Meiningen
orchestra, and was thoroughly disappointed. He later wrote to
Bülow that: “...given an outstanding (!) pianist, and a
first-rate (!) conductor, perhaps the whole thing will not
turn out to be the unalloyed nonsense I took it for after the
first rehearsal. After the first run-through, I was totally
discouraged...” For his part, Bülow was not particularly
encouraging, describing the work as “unplayable” after looking
through the score.
The Scherzo
was promptly buried, and didn’t reemerge until Strauss showed
the score to the pianist Eugen D’Albert, a disciple of Liszt,
four years later. D’Albert was taken with the work and offered
to play the premiere. Though he seems to have remained a bit
ambivalent about the piece (he never, for example, assigned it
an opus number), Strauss undertook some revisions to his 1886
score. D’Albert premiered the work, now retitled Burleske, in June
1890. While it has never ranked among the most popular works
in the Romantic solo piano repertoire, Burleske is still
played today: a brilliant showpiece for the pianist, and a
work of youthful exuberance by Strauss.
Though Strauss avoided calling this a
“piano concerto”—Burleske
translates as “mockery” or “farce”—the whole piece is
structured very much like a vastly-extended concerto first
movement. There are tongue-in-cheek touches however. Much of
the basic thematic material is laid out in the opening bars,
not by the piano or orchestra, but in a brusque timpani solo.
The piano enters abruptly with a strident version of this
idea. This theme works itself to a rather quiet conclusion,
and then the piano introduces a second idea in lilting waltz
rhythm. The development of these themes is carried equally by
the orchestra and the solo part. There is a rather literal
recapitulation of the opening section, broken up by two
extended solo cadenzas, before the piece ends with a
surprisingly subdued coda.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Concerto
for Piano and Orchestra in G Major
This concerto was
composed between 1929 and 1931. The premiere was given in
Paris, on January 13, 1932, with Ravel’s student Marguerite
Long as soloist. It has been performed twice previously at
these concerts by Grant Johannesen in 1987 and by Philippe
Bianconi in 2001.
Duration 23:00.
Though Ravel had apparently made sketches
for a G Major piano concerto as early as 1911, the direct
inspiration for completing the concerto can be traced to a
highly successful American tour in 1927-1929. Though he
eventually returned to Paris, Ravel was seriously considering
a long-term tour in the United States as a pianist and
conductor. The G Major concerto was probably intended to serve
as a solo vehicle for Ravel himself, but when he completed the
work he found that he had apparently created something that
was beyond his talents as a pianist! (The task of premiering
the work fell to his protégé Marguerite Long.) He was actually
working on two piano concertos at the same time—from
1930-1932, he was also working on the D Major concerto for
left hand alone, a commission for pianist Paul Wittgenstein (a
virtuoso who lost his right arm during the first world war).
Despite the fact that they were produced simultaneously, the
two pieces are strikingly different in character. The D Major
concerto is a densely-textured work of almost heavy-handed
virtuosity, while the G Major is a light and happy piece that
attempts to create an equal balance between soloist and
orchestra. (Ravel originally considered titling the work Divertissement—a
reflection of its light style.) Both concertos show strong
Jazz influence—Ravel was fascinated by this American idiom—but
these effects are used in a much more facile and humorous way
in the G Major concerto. Ravel’s views on the concerto are
best summed up in a contemporary interview, where he described
it as “...a concerto in the most exact sense of the term, one
that is written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. I
believe that the music of a concerto can be cheerful and
brilliant, and that it need not pretend to depths nor aim at
dramatic effects.”
The work is laid out in the mold of a
Mozart concerto, in three movements. The opening movement (Allegramente) is set
in sonata form. The main theme is a quirky, offbeat melody
carried first by the piccolo and then by the trumpet, as the
piano provides a showy accompaniment of arpeggios and
glissandi. The second theme, presented by the piano, is a
sleepy Spanish-flavored melody, accompanied by Jazz-inflected
“blue notes” from the woodwinds. True to Classical form, he
presents a brief development and slightly reworked
recapitulation of the main themes. The piano has a flashy
cadenza just before the close of the movement.
The second movement (Adagio assai) begins
with a dramatic rhythmic effect in the piano: the right hand
melody is in 3/4, while the left-hand accompaniment is in 6/8.
This figure continues throughout, adding a note of uneasiness
to what is otherwise a quiet and atmospheric movement. This tension is not
relieved until the last two measures, when the pianist’s left
hand finally gives in, and joins the melody in 3/4. In keeping
with the “Mozartian” character of the concerto, the last
movement (Presto)
is a rollicking rondo in 6/8. This is the most clearly “Jazzy”
of the three movements, but it also provides a showcase for
the soloist, as everything flashes by at blazing speed.
Claude
Debussy (1862-1918)
La Mer was composed between
1903 and 1905. The premiere took place on October 15, 1905
at the Concerts Lamoureux in Paris. It has been performed
five times previously at these concerts between 1967 and
2013. Duration 25:00.
The Impressionist
painters loved water. Its reflective and refractive
qualities—its ability to sparkle or to take on the colors
around it—were attractive and useful to these painters
concerned with light and subtle shadings of color. Water
plays a central role in hundreds of Impressionist works,
such as Renoir’s The
Siene at Asnières, Cézanne’s Lake at Annecy, or
dozens of works by Monet, from his early seaside pictures to
his late series of water lilies. Though
Debussy
clearly hated the term “Impressionism” as much as the
painters, he had similar artistic
concerns, and it is hardly surprising that much of his music
is based on his impressions of water in different states. A
few of the more famous examples are works for piano such as
Jeux d’eau
(literally: “games of water”) and Le cathédrale engloutie
(“The sunken cathedral”), the “fountain scene” from the
second act of his opera Pelléas et Melisande
, and, of course, La
Mer (“The Sea”) In these, and many other works,
Debussy’s multicolored harmonic palette and his freedom from
strictly-defined musical forms help to portray the sometimes
glittering, sometimes swirling, sometimes murky, always
inconstant nature of water.
In composing La Mer, Debussy
drew his inspiration directly from the sea: specifically the
English Channel. He began work on the piece in 1903, but in
1905, he traveled to Eastbourne, a seaside town on the
southern coast of England, to finish the score. Writing to
his publisher from Eastbourne, Debussy noted: “This place is
peaceful and charming. The sea rolls itself with a
correctness that is truly Britannic... But what a place in
which to work! No noise, no pianos (except for those
delicious mechanical pianos), no musicians talking about
painting, no painters talking about music...” The first
performance, at the Paris Concerts Lamoureaux later that
year, caused a furor, and received some extremely nasty
reviews. Although La
Mer was indeed revolutionary in sound, part of the
blame for its bad reception with the Paris critics may have
lain with indignation over Debussy’s own sarcastic and
combative writings about music, and with the public scandal
surrounding the composer’s marital troubles. La Mer’s early
career continued on the same rocky course: performances in
Paris, London, and Boston and New York over the next three
years were scarcely better-received than the first. One
Boston reviewer’s reactions are typical: “We clung like a
drowning man to a few fragments of the tonal wreck, a bit of
theme here, a comprehensible figure there, but finally this
muted-horn sea overwhelmed us.” The work gained public
acceptance only after Debussy’s death, and has since become
one of his most well-known orchestral works.
La Mer is laid out in three sections, each of
which is given a descriptive title. However, this music is
not “programmatic” in the traditional sense: Debussy
subtitled the work Three
Symphonic Sketches, suggesting that the
sections portray only the vaguest notions of visual images.
The opening section, titled De l’aube à midi sur la
mer (“From dawn to noon at sea”), begins quietly with
fragments of melody in the woodwinds, above muted strings.
The central portion is constantly in motion, flowing from
one brief impression to the next, and the first section ends
with a recollection of the sea’s depth and power. The second section,
Jeux de vagues
(“Games of the waves”) is in some sense a dance, although it
is a chaotic and playful dance of complex and shifting
rhythms, and unexpected changes of orchestral color. The concluding
section is titled Dialogue
du vent et de la mer (“Dialogue of the wind and the
sea”). There are several subtle references to material from
the opening section, and broader presentation of a few
melodies. The scoring is much denser than in the previous
sections: full orchestra much of the time. If the word
“bombastic” can be used anywhere in description of Debussy’s
music, it is in this section of La Mer, where the
sea is squalling and wild.
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program
notes ©2018 by J. Michael Allsen