Madison Symphony Orchestra
Program Notes
March 6-7-8, 2020
94th Season / Subscription Concert No.6
Michael Allsen
Guest conductor Kenneth Woods leads this
program, which begins with Haydn’s cheerful Symphony No.96—one of
the twelve great “London” symphonies that rounded out his career
as a symphonist. We then welcome
Blake Pouliot, a brilliant young Canadian violinist, who will
make his Madison Symphony Orchestra debut with the beloved
Mendelssohn concerto. After intermission, we turn to one of the
largest of Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems, his monumental Ein Heldenleben, in which
the composer himself is clearly the hero of the story.
Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809)
Symphony
No.96 in D Major (“Miracle”)
Haydn composed this work
in 1791, and the first performance took place in London in
April or May of 1791. We have performed the symphony once
previously, in 1958. Duration 23:00.
When his long-time patron Prince Nicolaus
Esterházy died in 1790, Haydn was presented with almost total
freedom to compose and travel. Johann Peter Salomon, a London
violinist and impresario, wasted no time in engaging Haydn for
his spring concert series. After some initial hesitation—which
was overcome by Salomon’s promise of some £1200—Haydn agreed to
come to England. His first English tour in 1791-92 was wildly
successful: Salomon’s receipts were tremendous, and the concert
series was helped by friendly competition from a rival London
series of concerts by Haydn’s former student Ignaz Pleyel. He
arrived in London on New Year’s Day in 1791, and London
audiences obviously could not get enough of his music…or of
Haydn himself. Just a week after his arrival, an exhausted Haydn
wrote to a friend in Vienna that “Everyone wants to know me. I
have had to dine out six times up to now, and if I wanted I
could have an invitation every day; I must consider my health,
and secondly my work. Except for the nobility, I admit no
callers before two in the afternoon.” Haydn subsequently
contracted with Salomon for a second trip to London in 1794-95.
Under the terms of his contracts, Haydn composed twelve
symphonies for Salomon’s concerts during his two visits: nos.
93-98 during his first visit, and nos. 99-104 during his second.
The “London” symphonies are the final, crowning glories of his
long career as a symphonist. He seems to been inspired by the
large orchestras Salomon put at his disposal to create
richly-scored works filled with orchestral color and novel
effects. These symphonies also have a new harmonic subtlety and
depth of development.
The Symphony
No.96 was one of the first symphonies he wrote in London,
and premiered with No.95
at one of Salomon’s concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms in the
spring of 1791. Like many of his symphonies, No.96 has a nickname—in
this case the name “Miracle” refers to a story about the
premiere performance. The room where it was performed seated
about 500 people, and was lit by large candle chandeliers. As
the story goes, the crowd had stood and crowded up to the stage
to congratulate Haydn after the performance, when one of the
chandeliers crashed to the floor, miraculously harming no one.
It’s a good story, and it’s actually true…but it is about the
wrong symphony! This incident actually happened during Haydn’s
second London visit, after the premiere of his Symphony No.102, but
the name “Miracle” has remained enduringly stuck to No.96.
There are miracles enough in the music
itself—this is one of the lightest and most joyful of the
“London” symphonies. After a short, harmonically unsettled slow
introduction (Adagio),
Haydn suddenly picks up the tempo (Allegro) and settles
firmly into D Major for the lively main body of the movement,
which is set in sonata form. As in many of his sonata-form
movements, this works with the same set of ideas throughout the
exposition—there is no distinct “second theme,” and all of the
drama comes from the underlying harmonic changes. The material
he lays out is rich enough to supply a particularly intense
development section, and one that contains a formal joke, what
is known as a “false recapitulation.” This is easy to hear:
there is a sudden grand pause, and the main theme returns. It is
however in the wrong key, and Haydn soon launches into a short
and stormy burst of development to let us in on the joke. The
“real” recapitulation, which starts soon afterwards, is short
and to the point.
The main theme of the Andante is a gentle
melody in 6/8 laid out by the strings. Salomon had provided an
orchestra of at least 40 players for these concerts—much larger
than the ensemble Haydn was used to working with in Austria—and
he seems to have luxuriated in this: exploring ways in which to
vary this theme using different orchestral textures. The
movement features a stern minor-key central episode that begins
in fugal style. The opening music returns, as expected, but
there is a surprise at the end: a lovely pastoral violin solo
(written for Salomon himself) in dialogue with the woodwinds.
The Minuet that
follows is one of Haydn’s typically forceful and rustic takes on
this courtly dance. Its trio is a pastoral Austrian Ländler featuring a
solo oboe. The movement ends with a reprise of the opening
music.
The bright finale (Vivace assai) is laid
out in rondo form, its playful main theme introduced by the
strings, with witty interjections by the woodwinds. This music
appears in alternation with a pair of contrasting episodes, the
first a turbulent minor-key idea, and the second closely based
upon the main theme. Once again Haydn throws in a surprise near
the end: a sudden pause, and a final wind-band version of the
theme, before an exuberant coda.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Concerto
in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op.64
Mendelssohn began work on
this concerto in 1838, but most of it was completed in the
summer of 1844. Ferdinand David was the soloist at the
premiere, in Leipzig on March 13, 1845. Previous Madison
Symphony Orchestra performances have featured Arthur Kreuz
(1935), Masuko Oshioda (1971), Tyrone Grieve (1985), Nadja
Salerno-Sonnenberg (1991), and Naha Greenholz (2013). Duration
29:00.
Mendelssohn’s violin concerto is certainly
the most popular of his solo works, and is probably one of the
most often-played concertos for the instrument. It was just as
familiar the 19th century: it was a hit as soon as it was
introduced in 1845, and some sixty years later, the virtuoso
Joseph Joachim listed it as one of the “four German violin
concertos”—alongside those of Beethoven, Bruch, and Brahms. He
concluded by saying: “But the dearest
of them all, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.” The
concerto deserves every bit of its popularity. Mendelssohn’s
melodies are memorable and his musical forms are immaculately
shaped. And violinists generally love to play this piece—it is
certainly not “easy” in any way, but it is crafted in such a
way that it lays perfectly on the instrument.
The concerto was
the product of Mendelssohn’s friendship with the composer and
violinist Ferdinand David (1810-1873). David spent most of his
career as a violinist and conductor in Leipzig, primarily in
connection with the famed Gewandhaus. He and Mendelssohn had
become friends in the late 1820s, and in they spent much of
late 1830s working together in Leipzig. In 1838 Mendelssohn
wrote to David: “I would like to write you a violin concerto
for next winter. One in E minor keeps running through my head,
and the opening gives me no peace.” The violin concerto was
not finished that winter or the next, however. In 1840,
Mendelssohn took a position in Berlin that kept him too busy
to finish the concerto...or much else. (One of the few large
works he did complete in Berlin was the incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)
Mendelssohn returned to Leipzig in 1843, however, and finished
the concerto in relatively short order. He worked closely with
David, who provided technical advice, and who probably
composed the cadenza in the first movement.
The violin is
present from the opening bars of the first movement (Allegro molto appasionata),
with a lyrical melody that is soon picked up by the orchestra
and further developed in the solo part. The second theme is
equally expansive, and Mendelssohn closes the exposition with
more energetic music. The brilliant cadenza is fully
written-out—still a fairly unusual feature in 1844—and appears
not as usual at the very end of the movement, but ushers in a
shortened recapitulation and fiery coda. Mendelssohn
reportedly hated applause between movements, and made sure to
connect the opening movement and the second (Andante) by having
the bassoon hold its final pitch as link. This single note
soon blossoms into a flowing and thoroughly Romantic melody.
There is slightly darker middle section, but the opening mood
soon returns. Once again, Mendelssohn links this movement to
the next—in this case with a short interlude (Allegretto non troppo)
based upon the first movement’s main theme. Suddenly there are
trumpet calls, answered by flippant little flicks from the
soloist (Allegro molto
vivace). The main theme has the soloist dancing lightly
above the orchestra, and eventually bowing furiously. Critic
Donald Francis Tovey described the second theme as “cheeky”—a
perfectly apt term for this offbeat tune. Many writers have
noted the similarity in tone between this movement and the
dancing fairies and good humor of his Midsummer Night’s Dream
music. Though Mendelssohn conjures up some ingenious details
in the accompaniment, it is the solo line that dominates this
entire movement, ending with a brilliant flourish.
[Note:
Though this is usually known as the Mendelssohn
violin concerto, it is actually his second concerto for the
instrument. As a 12-year old, he composed a D minor concerto
that was performed by his teacher Eduard Reitz at a private
concert in the Mendelssohn home. While this early effort is an
entirely satisfactory piece, very much in the style of Mozart,
it is not the same kind of mature masterwork as the much more
famous E minor concerto.]
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Ein
Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”), Op.49
Strauss composed this
symphonic poem in 1897-98. The first performance was in
Frankfurt on March 3, 1899. The Madison Symphony Orchestra has
performed it twice previously, in 1985 and 2012. Duration
42:00.
Many late Romantic composers composed
symphonic poems (a.k.a. tone poems)—large programmatic
orchestral works that depicted a scene, a story, or a character
in purely musical terms—after Liszt introduced the genre in the
1850s. But it is a series of symphonic poems by a young Richard
Strauss that remain the best-known works in this form. Strauss
would eventually compose ten of these works while he was in his
20s, 30s, and 40s, from Aus
Italien (“From Italy” - 1886) through Eine Alpensinphonie (1915).
Heldenleben of 1898 is
the last of the seven symphonic poems that really secured his
reputation, and in orchestration and scope, it is the most
ambitions of these. (It is exceeded in size only by the
gargantuan Alpensinphonie.)
Heldenleben’s
orchestra is massive: in addition to the usual orchestration,
Strauss tripled the woodwinds, and added four additional horns,
tenor tuba, and huge percussion battery.
Strauss’s model in Heldenleben was
Beethoven’s Eroica
symphony—a work Strauss admired, and which he felt was then
being neglected by German orchestras. But he was a bit cagy
about whether or not the “hero” in Heldenleben was
actually himself. Strauss was steeped in Nietzsche’s philosophy
at the time—Also sprach
Zarathustra (“Thus spoke Zarathustra”) of 1896 is a direct
response to Nietzsche’s most widely-known work—and Strauss
clearly found the idea of a “superman” rising above the petty
concerns of the “herd” an attractive idea. He had suffered at
the hands of critics, most notably Eduard Hanslick, and if
Strauss’s letters to family and friends are any indication, he
identified with the archetypical artistic hero little
appreciated in his own time. He originally included fairly
specific section headings in the work, but later removed them
and backed away from the idea of a specific story line, writing:
“There
is
no need for a program; it is enough to know there is a hero
fighting his enemies.”
The
Hero begins with a bold, wide-ranging, and—well—heroic theme in the
horns that represents the central figure. The texture thickens
quickly and secondary ideas that represent various sides of the
Hero’s character emerge. After a grand pause, Strauss introduces
The Hero’s Adversaries—not
grand figures like the hero, but a group of small-minded yappers
represented by the woodwinds, and more ponderous phrases from
the tubas. (He includes the directions sehr scharf und spitzig
“very shrill and biting” and schnarrend “snarling.”)
Though Strauss never acknowledged the identity of these
nattering nabobs, it seems clear that he had some of own
nitpicking critics in mind. The long central section is a solemn
statement by the Hero, but the yammering of the woodwinds
intrudes again at the end of the section.
Strauss was perfectly open about the identity
of The Hero’s Companion—the
longest, and most lyrical section of Heldenleben. The violin
solo here is a musical portrait of his wife, the soprano Pauline
de Anha, whom he had married in 1894. At turns flirtatious,
passionate, and pensive, the solo part eventually grows into a
broad, romantic love-theme for the full string section. The
“adversaries” break into this serene mood, and a distant trumpet
fanfare heralds a great battle-scene (The Hero’s Battlefield).
This music has brief moments of repose, but the dominant mood is
ferocious, with the Hero’s theme transformed into an angry
march, and constant explosions and cannon-shots from the
percussion. In the end the Hero clearly emerges victorious, as
his theme is stated triumphantly by the full string section.
Strauss denied that this was work entirely
about himself, but the next section, The Hero’s Works of Peace
is clearly about his music—it is a parade of quotations from
several of his symphonic poems and other works of the previous
few years: there is the boisterous main theme of Don Juan, and music
from Don Quixote, Tod und
Verklärung, Till Eulenspiegel, Macbeth, and Zarathustra, as well
as melodies from his opera Guntram and an art
song, Traum durch die
Dämmerung (“Dreaming in the Twilight”). The final section,
The
Hero’s
Retirement from the World and Consummation,
begins with one last reference to the adversaries’ music, but
this pushed aside by briefly agitated music—as if the Hero is
dismissing his critics for the final time. The section that
follows grows gradually from a quiet English horn solo to a
lush passage for strings and horn. There is a reminiscence of
the great battle, but serenity returns quickly, with a passage
that features luminous solo music for the violin and horn. A
rather muted brass fanfare ends the work, building into the
great chord that ends Ein
Heldenleben.
________
program
notes ©2019 by J. Michael Allsen