Madison Symphony Orchestra
Program Notes
November 8-9-10, 2019
94th Season / Subscription Concert No.3
Michael Allsen
This this program opens with a work by American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Five years ago, the Madison Symphony Orchestra played his exuberant Too Hot Toccata. Kernis’s Newly Drawn Sky, heard here, is a much broader and more introspective work—filled with musical drama that leads to a quiet conclusion. We then welcome pianist Joyce Yang, who makes her first appearance at these concerts playing Prokofiev’s powerful third piano concerto. The program ends with Schumann’s great Symphony No.2, a revealing autobiographical work.
Aaron Jay Kernis (b.
1960)
Newly
Drawn Sky
Kernis composed this work in 2005, for the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra,
who played the premiere at the Ravinia Festival on July 1,
2005. This is our
first performance of the work. Duration
17:00.
Aaron Jay Kernis first came to national
prominence in 1983
when, as a 23-year-old, he had a work premiered by the New York
Philharmonic. Since
then, he has garnered an impressive number of performances and
commissions for
new works, and awards that include a Pulitzer Prize and the
prestigious Grawemeyer
Award for Composition. A Philadelphia native, Kernis studied at
the San
Francisco
Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, and Yale
University. He
has served on Yale’s faculty since 2003. Many of his works are
topical or
political, such as the Second
Symphony (a
response to the Gulf War of
1991), Still Movement
with Hymn (his
reaction to the senseless ethnic violence that erupted in the
former Yugoslavia
in the early 1990s), or Colored
Field
(a response to his visits to the Auschwitz and Birkenau
concentration camps). But
Kernis is also capable of exuberance and humor, as in his
salsa-inspired 100
Dance Hits. More recent music
includes his Violin
Concerto, which won
a 2018 Grammy Award for best contemporary classical composition.
His
works
are most often characterized by the rather slippery term
“postmodernist”—music
that freely adapts influences from across the musical spectrum
without being
rigid or doctrinaire.
Kernis provides the following note on his
2005 Newly Drawn Sky:
“Newly Drawn
Sky is a
lyrical, reflective piece for orchestra, a reminiscence of the
first summer
night by the ocean spent with my young twins (who were six
months old when the
work’s initial inspiration came to me), and of the changing
colors of the
summer sky at dusk. While the work is not programmatic or
specifically
descriptive, it reflects a constancy of change and flux
musically and
personally. The piece begins with chromatically shifting
three-note chords in
the foreground that move upwards through the strings, then
enlarge into the
horns and winds as a background to a long, singing line in the
violas. These
chords and their shifts between diatonic and chromatic
voice-leading are a
fundamental element in the formation of the work. Short bursts
of quick,
scherzando music which grow larger in orchestration alternate
with
continuations of the increasingly expressionistic singing
melodic line and
rhythmically punctuated brass and percussion outbursts. A
chaotic culmination
leads to a return of open fifths (the first notes of the piece)
in the full
orchestra and metal percussion. The calm middle section of the
work features
serene melodic writing in the winds and solo trumpet,
underpinned by
undulating, slow moving harmonies in the strings. The opening
lyrical line
returns in the strings and leads upwards to a brief
interruption, a
transformation of the scherzo-like music which quickly vanishes
into a full
return of the opening music which grows into a vast landscape of
sound in the
entire orchestra, leading upwards once again to a short, intense
climax. Newly
Drawn Sky closes with a simple, consonant coda,
which gradually and
lyrically calms the memory of tensions that have surfaced over
the course of
the work.”
Sergei Prokofiev
(1891-1953)
Concerto No.3 for Piano and Orchestra in C Major,
Op.26
Prokofiev’s third piano
concerto was
composed in the summer of 1921, and the first performance took
place on
December 16, 1921, when he played the solo part with the
Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. This is our sixth performance of the work. Previous
soloists
include: Grant Johannesen (1968), Horacio Guttierez (1982),
John Browning
(1991), Philippe Bianconi (2003), and Yefim Bronfman (2008).
Duration 28:00.
In the aftermath
of the 1917
revolution, Prokofiev left Russia for the United States. His
decision to leave
probably had less to do with politics than with his assessment
of the market
for new music in his devastated country. He had apparently
intended to return
to Russia after a few months, but he would not return to his
homeland
permanently for almost twenty years. His American sojourn
(1918-22) was
personally disappointing however. In an attempt to cash in on
his novelty
value, he was promoted as a “Bolshevik composer” from “Godless
Russia.” Prokofiev
always tried to maintain good musical relations with Soviet
musical
authorities, even at this early date, but there is little
evident that he
considered himself to be a Bolshevik. While he was financially
successful,
American audiences gave his music and performances a lukewarm
reception. Musically
conservative American audiences found his music too harsh and
dissonant, and
American critics were savage. One Chicago
Tribune writer, reviewing a 1921 performance of his opera The Love for Three
Oranges, wrote that:
“…Mr. Prokofiev might well have loaded up a shotgun with several
thousand notes
and discharged them against the side of blank wall.” He was particularly
disappointed by the tepid
reaction to his Piano
Concerto No.3,
premiered in Chicago that year. He played the concerto the next
year in Paris,
and received an enthusiastic response. French reaction to this
and other works was
a major factor in his decision to leave America. He later wrote
that he left
America “…with a thousand dollars in my pocket and an aching
head.” He moved to
Paris in 1922, and spent most of the next fourteen years there.
Prokofiev’s third
piano concerto
was completed in 1921, during a summer vacation on the coast of
Brittany. The
work brought together several bits of sketch material from as
early as 1911,
but Prokofiev was able to fuse all of these ideas into an
organic whole. It was
composed directly after his famous “Classical” symphony (1917)
and the The Love for
Three Oranges (1919). Like
these works, the concerto is built along Classical lines, with
forms that
resemble those of Mozart and Haydn. He conceived the concerto as
a solo
showcase for himself, and the main focus is the piano writing,
reflecting
Prokofiev’s own style of playing—bold, incisive, and powerful.
(A friend once
remarked that, when Prokofiev played fortissimo,
it was “...hard to bear in a small room.”)
The concerto
opens with a quiet
and thoroughly Russian melody played by the solo clarinet. The Andante introduction
abruptly changes
character and speed (Allegro),
and
the piano introduces the main theme, an angular and exuberant
melody. The more
fragile second theme is stated by the oboe. After this theme is
developed by
the piano, the tempo slows to the original Andante
for an extended central episode. Insistent beats from the
timpani lead into a
lengthy conclusion that serves both as a recapitulation and
development of the
two main Allegro
themes.
The basis of the
second movement
(Theme and Variations)
is a droll,
marchlike melody played by the woodwinds. The piano plays the
first variation,
a sentimental commentary on the theme. The tempo quickens for
the next two
variations, in which the orchestra carries bits of the theme
beneath piano
ornamentation. The fourth variation is an unhurried dialogue
between piano and
orchestra. The final variation calls for brilliant forte technique from the soloist. In the coda, the
theme is played
quite slowly under a delicate countermelody from the piano.
In his own
program notes for the
concerto, Prokofiev described the finale (Allegro
ma non troppo) as an “argument” between soloist and
orchestra. The opening
bassoon theme “is interrupted by the blustering entry of the
piano.” This
difference of opinion is not settled until the piano picks up
the orchestra’s
theme and develops it. (The composer mined this melody from an
unfinished
string quartet written “on the white keys” of the piano.) The
tempo slows and
the woodwinds introduce a calmer idea, to which the piano makes
a sarcastic
reply. After further development of this new material, the
movement closes with
a blisteringly virtuosic coda.
Robert Schumann
(1810-1856)
Symphony No.2 in C Major, Op.61
Schumann’s Symphony
No.2 was composed in
Dresden, during a three-week
period in December 1845. It was first performed in Leipzig in
November 1846,
conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. It has been played on four
previous occasions
at these programs: in 1952, 1968, 1987, and 2005. Duration
38:00.
Schumann referred
to the
two-year period leading up to the composition of his Symphony No.2 as his “dark days”—a time when he
was depressed and
deep in the grip of the mental illness that would eventually
lead him to an
asylum a decade later. The work itself was written rather
quickly in 1845—between
December 12 and 28—but he continued to revise and orchestrate
for another ten
months. Considering his mental state, the outwardly brilliant
nature of the
symphony seems a surprise. However, Schumann hinted at a deeper
significance in
writing about the symphony: “I might say that it was the
resistance of my
spirit that was at work here. The first movement is full of
struggle and is capricious
and refractory in nature.” The
circumstances
of the symphony’s composition still were still clear in his mind
three years later when he wrote to a colleague: “I
wrote my symphony in December 1845, and I sometimes fear my
semi-invalid state
can be divined from the music. I began to feel more myself
when I wrote the
last movement, and was certainly much better when I finished
the whole work.
All the same it reminds me of dark days.”
The quality and
the “meaning” of
the Symphony No.2
have remained a
point of contention since the time of its first performance. In
writing about
it, one early London reviewer remarked: “Schumann went for his
melody to a
dried-up well.” Most 19th-century writers were much more
enthusiastic—Clara
Schumann, in a letter to Brahms called it “...the most masterful
of his
orchestral works.” The
symphony was
certainly the most popular of Schumann’s orchestral works during
the 19th
century. Though Schumann himself never discussed it as a
programmatic piece,
critics such as Brahms and Eduard Krüger lavished the highest
praise on
it—comparing it favorably to Beethoven’s fifth symphony as an
expression of
triumph over adversity. Early 20th-century writers, from W. H.
Hadow onwards
were generally a lot less kind: Hadow complained of the
symphony’s “vagueness
of form,” and other writers focused on weaknesses in
orchestration.
A 1984 essay by
Anthony Newcomb
is one of the best interpretations of the symphony. He points
out that the notion
that a work could have an underlying narrative or biographical
reference
without being overtly programmatic is central to much of
Schumann’s music and
writings about music. In a penetrating analysis of the work,
Newcomb suggests
that the forms used by Schumann in the work, which are often
inconsistent with
“Classical” norms are in fact consistent with the idea of an
evolution from
confusion and struggle to triumph. The first three movements
represent a
working out of the two conflicting ideas presented in the slow
introduction to
the first movement: a starkly simple motto and a chromatic
countermelody. Nearly
all of the major themes of the opening two movements are derived
from one of
these two ideas and that the melody that dominates the third
movement is in
fact a fusion of the two. The Adagio’s
tone of resignation is then shattered by the joyous opening of
fourth movement.
But despite the triumphant opening, the real focus of the finale
is its
conclusion, where the composer finally resolves the thematic
conflicts of the
finale and of the preceding movements.
Many of his
contemporaries noted
references to Beethoven in the Symphony
No.2, and its opening movement sounds purely “Classical”
in nature: a long
introduction (Sostenuto
assai) with
textures that would not have sounded out of place in Haydn. The
body of the
movement (Allegro ma non
troppo) is
roughly in sonata form, though Schumann develops his themes
rather freely
throughout the movement and in an extended coda.
The light-footed
second movement
(Scherzo: Allegro vivace)
has an
innovative form. Most scherzos, from Beethoven onward have a
contrasting trio
section at the center, but here, Schumann gives us two trios: a rustic woodwind folk-dance that mixes
6/8 and 2/4, and
a mock-solemn chorale theme. Just before the end he slyly works
in a reference
to the symphony’s opening motto theme in the midst of a flurry
of strings.
The melancholy
third movement (Adagio)
must have its roots in Schumann’s
“dark days.” A series of solo lines present the long, flowing
main over a
pulsing string background. The mood is broken at a few points
within the
movement, however. There is a brief horn chorale near the
beginning (later
reinterpreted by strings), and a short central fugue that leads
to a
restatement. In the end, the Adagio
fades away in quiet sadness.
This mood is swept away quickly by the
jubilant opening of
the finale (Allegro molto
vivace). The
second theme is clearly a transformed version of the Adagio melody. In
an
autobiographical moment—Schumann credited part of his return to
health to his
study of J.S. Bach—there is a reference to Bach’s personal
motive (BACH - or B
- A - C - B-flat). The dramatic climax of the movement
is the end, where Schumann introduces a new theme, borrowed
from Beethoven’s
song-cycle An die ferne
Geliebte (“To
the distant beloved”). The melody is from the final song in
the cycle, Nimm sie hin
denn, diese Lieder (“Take,
then, these song that I sang to you, beloved”). The musical
quotation many have
been intended as a tribute to his wife Clara—he had quoted the
same song it his
1839 Fantasie in
C Major for
solo piano, where it was present as a private message to
her at a time when their plans to marry were being frustrated
by her father. This
sets up a long coda in which the symphony’s melodic material,
particularly the
opening motto, is transformed.
________
program
notes ©2019 by J.
Michael Allsen