Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Peter I. Tchaikovsky, (1840-1893)
On Christmas Eve of 1874, Tchaikovsky experienced a spiritual blow so devastating that it took three years before he could even mention it. It concerned his informal playing of his First Piano Concerto in the home of a friend for Nicolai Rubinstein, his superior at the Moscow Con-servatory. Tchaikovsky was seeking some friendly technical advice about the piano part. Instead, this is what happened:
I played the first movement. Not a single word, not a single comment! . . . Say something, if only to tear it to pieces with constructive criticism. . . . It was as though he was saying to me: “My friend, can I talk about details when the very essence of the thing disgusts me?” I fortified my patience and played on to the end. Again silence. I got up and asked, “Well?” It was then that there began to flow from [Rubinstein’s] mouth a stream of words . . . . It appeared that my concerto was worthless, that it was unplayable, that passages were trite, awkward, and so clumsy that it was impossible to put them right, that as a composition it was bad and tawdry, that I had filched this bit from here and that bit from there, and that there were only two or three pages that could be retained, and that the rest would have to be scrapped or completely revised.
Tchaikovsky left the room and went upstairs. Rubinstein soon followed.
There he told me again that my concerto was impossible, and after pointing out to me a lot of places that required radical change, he said that if by such-and-such a date I would revise the concerto in accordance with his demands, then he would bestow upon me the honor of playing my piece in a concert of his. “I won’t change a single note,” I replied, “and I’ll publish it just as it is now!” And so I did!
[translation by David Brown]
What to listen for: The high point of Tchaikovsky’s famous concerto is the melody that comes right after the piano’s introductory chords. The orchestra plays this melody, and the piano accompanies. Listen closely, because (oddly) this wonderful tune never returns! The rest of the first movement is colored delightfully by Russian folk music. In the second movement, listen for the contrast between slow and fast musical speeds in alternating sections. The finale is quick and dance-like for the most part. Listen for a beautiful lyrical melody, which the composer emphasizes from time to time, however, especially near the end.
Symphony No. 1 in D (Titan)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
An Editorial Comment by Dr. Herbert Rakatansky
Mahler’s First Symphony originated as a five-movement work under the generic title, “Symphonic Poem.” In that form, it had its 1889 premiere in Budapest. The work was not a critical success. Before the next performance in Hamburg in 1893, Mahler revised the score, renaming it “Titan, a Tone Poem in the Form of a Symphony,” and adding programmatic titles and comments to all the movements. This last gesture resulted from the urging of friends, who felt that the public required points of reference to understand Mahler’s radical music. Before the 1896 Berlin performance of the work as “Symphony No. 1,” Mahler dropped these references, although, by Mahler’s own admission, certain genuinely programmatic aspects to the music actually exist. For the 1899 publication, the composer also reduced the number of movements to the more traditional four.
Mahler’s original programmatic designation for the first movement was “Spring without End . . . the Introduction depicts the awakening of nature from its long winter sleep.” This appears to be the music’s intent through the soft, long-held note, while chirping sounds and other “nature” sounds bring the symphony to life. The main section (Allegro comodo) is based on themes from the second of the Songs of a Wayfarer, the text of which reflects springtime awakening:
Through the field I went my way,
Dew drops on the grass and tree,
Said the merry finch to me:
“Fine, bright day?
Is this world not fresh and gay?”
Mahler called the second movement “Under Full Sail,” but this is ambiguous considering that the music is a rustic waltz with a yodeling motive, an obvious reference to Alpine peasant music. For the contrasting central section, Mahler furnishes the cultural opposite in a refined, courtly Ländler (a folk dance that was the transition between the minuet and the waltz many years earlier).
The third movement (“Shipwrecked”) begins oddly as a grotesque parody of the children’s round Frère Jacques scored for some solo instruments with brief sarcastic comments from others. Mahler explains this strange opening and unusual later developments in his note:
The composer received the external stimulus to this movement from the parodical picture, “The Huntsman’s Funeral,” well known to all children of Austria from an old book of fairy tales. The animals of the forest accompany the coffin of the dead hunter to its tomb. . . . Here the movement expresses alternately the moods of jesting irony and eerie brooding.
Without pause, a cymbal crash announces the opening of the fourth movement, dubbed, “Dall’ Inferno al Paradisio . . . expressing the sudden outcry of a deeply wounded heart.” Full of dramatic contrasts and orchestration wizardry, this movement has themes of its own but is noteworthy for reminiscences and transformations of melodies from the previous movements. The length and power of this concluding essay shows Mahler at his best, tying up the ends of the symphony’s portrayal of innocence (Movements I and II), wry irony (Movement III) and a final journey from the sinister to the sublime (Movement IV).
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK, NOTES, INC.
Overture to Benvenuto Cellini
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
In 1830, Berlioz won the Paris Conservatoire’s prestigious Prix de Rome for composers. Acceptance of the prize required the recipient to live in Rome for a year, something that Berlioz would prefer not to have done. According to biographer Hugh MacDonald,
He was supposed to draw inspiration from the relics of classical antiquity. These intrigued him, especially where they touched upon Virgil, but his musical output was small and haphazard. . . . Italy was nonetheless to work upon his music in more gradual fashion, with far-reaching influence on his style. Henceforth there was a new color and glow in his music, both sensuous and vivacious. These derive not from Italian art, which touched him little, or Italian music, which he despised, but from the scenery and the sun, and from his acute sense of locale. Harold en Italie, Benvenuto Cellini, and Romeo et Juliette are the most obvious expressions of his response to Italy. . . .
Berlioz was impressed by the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, the Italian Renaissance goldsmith, sculptor, musician, military hero and raconteur. Possibly, because he recognized in Cellini a spirit kindred to his own, Berlioz hit on the idea of a semi-serious opera based on episodes from Cellini’s life. He worked on the music sporadically over the years 1834-1837, finally getting it accepted by the Paris Opéra for an 1838 premiere. Reactions to the work were mixed. Being used to the conventional music of Meyerbeer, people were scarcely prepared to accept the originality of Berlioz, whom traditionalists considered to be a madman. In his memoirs, the composer succinctly summarized it: “The overture was extravagantly applauded; the rest was hissed with exemplary precision and energy.”
The impetuous explosion that opens the overture gives us an idea of its brilliant originality. This introduces a slow section focusing on the theme from the opera with which the Cardinal grants Cellini absolution from his sins in return for his creating the famous statue of Perseus. The melody of a Harlequin character follows. The lively re-working of the introductory material leads to the statement in the woodwinds of a love theme and more development of the introduction. Berlioz reaches the climactic moment when the brass brings back the Cardinal’s music as a slow hymn tune amid rushing strings, pounding percussion and shrieking woodwinds.
Piano Concerto in G
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
An apocryphal anecdote relates that when George Gershwin asked Ravel to give him composition lessons, Ravel asked Gershwin how much money he was earning from music. On hearing some astonishing figure, Ravel supposedly responded, “Perhaps, I should take lessons from you!” The meeting actually took place, but Ravel really said, “You would only lose the spontaneous quality of your melody and end by writing bad Ravel.”
In a way, Ravel did take lessons from Gershwin. Several of Ravel’s works, notably his Piano Concerto in G, make use of jazz rhythms, “blue” notes and other features of American vernacular style. The first movement of Ravel’s concerto (composed in 1931) is in several respects a remarkable sequel to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Concerto in F (1925). The frenetic rhythm patterns and Ravel’s “bluesy” main theme in this movement bear an uncanny resemblance to Gershwin’s adaptations of the jazz idiom.
The slow movement of the Concerto in G was, compositionally, one of the most difficult pieces Ravel ever wrote. He later remarked that he composed it two measures at a time, using as his inspiration Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (K. 581). However, with its languid waltz rhythms and wandering melody, it also owes something also to Satie’s Gymnopédies and Chopin’s Nocturnes.
The American jazz idiom returns in the finale, but in a subtler, more organic way than in the first movement. This lighthearted conclusion, in the words of Edward Downes, “flies at such supersonic speed that it seems to finish before it has started.”
The witty, playful nature of the outer movements reveals Ravel’s original intention to call the concerto a Divertissement. This helps to explain the scarcity of blend between piano and orchestra. As Ravel himself commented,
A concerto can be gay and brilliant and need not try to be profound or strive after dramatic effects. It has been said of some of the great classic composers that their concertos were written, not for but against the piano, and I think this is perfectly correct.
Symphonie fantastique
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Musical writers love to make connections between the life and works of composers. Sometimes a delicious biographical incident has influenced a work, but more often, the writer’s imagination runs rampant, suggesting emotional references in the works of the masters that are tantalizing yet impossible to prove. With Berlioz and his Symphonie fantastique, however, we have a unique work that was intentionally autobiographical.
In 1827, Berlioz attended an English company’s performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Paris. One Harriet Smithson played the part of Ophelia, and Berlioz fell in love with her at once. He later wrote in his memoirs, “The impression made on my heart and mind by her extraordinary talent, nay her dramatic genius, was equaled only by the havoc wrought in me by the poet she so nobly interpreted.” The composer somehow made himself known to her, and she received his letters. For some reason however, Berlioz could not bring himself to call on her, and when she left Paris two years later, the two had not yet met. Then, in early 1830, Berlioz heard some gossip that involved her in a tawdry affair with her manager. He believed it, and that shock not only enabled him to get on with the composition of his Symphonie fantastique, it probably influenced the program content of the final movement as well. (To complete the story, she saw Berlioz conduct in 1832, and a few days later, they met. The following year they married, but the marriage was not good, and they separated in 1844.)
Berlioz assigned a subtitle to his symphony: “Episode in the Life of An Artist,” and the “artist” is obviously himself. In approaching this work, we must keep in mind the program that Berlioz himself wrote for it, which begins:
A young musician of morbidly sensitive temperament and fiery imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of lovesick despair. The dose of the narcotic, too weak to kill him, plunges him into a deep slumber accompanied by the strangest visions . . . . The loved one herself has become a melody to him, an idée fixe, which he encounters and hears everywhere.
Following a slow introduction, the idée fixe theme becomes the basis of the first movement (Reveries, Passions) intended to express
. . . those depressions, those groundless joys that he experienced before he first saw his loved one; then the volcanic love that she suddenly inspired in him, his frenzied suffering, his jealous rages, his returns to tenderness, his religious consolations.
In the second movement, A Ball, “He encounters the loved one at a dance in the midst of the tumult of a brilliant party.” The middle section of this waltz derives from the idée fixe theme, and it reappears hauntingly near the end of the movement.
The artist seeks rest in the Scene in the Country, the third movement. The sound of two shepherds piping a duet begins to bring him peace —
But she appears again, he feels a tightening in his heart, painful presentiments disturb him . . . . One shepherd takes up his simple tune again, the other no longer answers. The sun sets — distant sound of thunder — loneliness — silence.
In the fourth movement, March to the Scaffold,
He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to the scaffold. . . . At the end, the idée fixe returns for a moment, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.
The finale, a multi-section Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath depicts the artist at his own funeral,
. . . in the midst of ghosts, sorcerers, monsters of every kind . . . the beloved melody appears again, but . . . it is no more than a dance tune, mean, trivial, and grotesque: it is she coming to join the sabbath. . . . Funeral knell, burlesque parody of the Dies irae [a medieval chant from the Requiem Mass], and sabbath round-dance. The sabbath round and the Dies irae combined.
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK, NOTES, INC.
Overture to La gazza ladra
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
Again, it would be almost impossible to describe the enthusiasm and the delirium of the Milanese audience on first hearing this masterpiece. The pit, having clapped and cheered to the echo, having shouted for five whole minutes on end, . . . found itself in the end utterly exhausted, too physically weak to cheer a moment longer. . . .
Those were the words of Stendhal, who was part of the audience when Rossini’s La gazza ladra premiered, and his description refers only to the overture! The year was 1817, and La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) was the first attempt by to write a tragi-comic opera semi-seria, but a triumphant one. The opera’s plot, based on a reportedly true incident, dealt with a servant girl accused of stealing a silver spoon, who is tried and hanged for the crime. Later, the townspeople discover that a magpie stole the spoon.
The opening snare drums, a theatrical innovation in its time, lead to a military march announcing the arrival of the soldier with whom the girl is in love. By complete contrast, the main exposition is in a waltz-like rhythm and tempo. In true Rossini fashion, a parade of irresistible tunes follows. The first is a foretaste of the heroine’s anxiety-plagued prison aria from the second act. The rest of the tunes are at turns light or bombastic. The second half of the overture is a delightful reprise of these. In all, this captivating Rossini overture progresses as Stendhal described the way the opera itself went, “from triumph to triumph.”
Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 (“Italian”)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
During the winter of 1830-31, at the impressionable age of 21, Mendelssohn traveled to Italy. Like so many first-time visitors to the peninsula, the composer was enthralled with the entire experience. In a letter of October 10, 1830, he wrote, “What I have been looking forward to all my life as the greatest happiness is now begun, and I am basking in it.” Soon he decided to compose a symphony about his journey, and after four months he wrote, “The ‘Italian’ Symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement.”
Mendelssohn completed most of the Italian Symphony during his stay in Italy. In November 1832, the Philharmonic Society of London offered him a handsome commission for a symphony, an overture and a third work. The following April Mendelssohn presented the Society with the Italian Symphony, the Hebrides Overture and the Trumpet Overture. He conducted the premiere of the symphony in London in May 1833. Although the English premiere was an outstanding success followed by several more performances there, the composer was never satisfied with his score. Off and on, he continued to revise the first three movements until his death in 1847, and the German premiere of the work did not take place until two years later.
The symphony begins like a burst of sunlight, and the entire movement is bathed in light and open air. The freshness of the first theme breathes the exciting adventure of a journey. A second, lilting theme appears in the clarinets, but a new theme becomes the foil for the central section before a reprise of the earlier ideas.
If the first movement is a sunlit landscape, the slow movement is a painting of the mysteries of the Italian night. The clear-cut main theme of this three-part nocturne is one of the most memorable of the entire work.
The third movement is a stately and graceful minuet rather than a light, brilliant scherzo (the mood that the outer movements provide). It is diverting, but it calls for less of our attention than the rest of the symphony.
Right from the outset, the fourth movement restores the excitement of the opening movement. Subtitled Saltarello (a leaping Roman dance and close relative of the Tarantella), the finale gives us all the gaiety of Carnival time in Rome, which Mendelssohn experienced firsthand. One can picture the composer amid the merry tumult of what he described as “a thousand jests and the most extravagant masquerade costumes.”
Piccola Musica Notturna
Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975)
I’ll not try to fool you: This is not the easiest music to listen to. However, if we keep in mind the word Notturna (nocturnal, nighttime) in the title, we have a context for listening. Many moods and feelings of night (even the spookiest of them) find expression in this music by 20th-century composer Dallapiccola. The title of this piece is an obvious parody on the title of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music) and on the composer’s own name.
Dallapiccola was primarily a vocal composer and a touring pianist with a violinist. With his Italian cultural background and vocal orientation, it was natural that melody played an important part in his works. We hear this in the Piccola Musica Notturna. The piece can be experienced as a chain of melodies (though some of them a little weird) expressive of external nocturnal visions as well as internal emotions.
Fortunately, we also have another guide as to the meaning of the Piccola Musica Notturna. In the score, opposite the first page of music, a poem appears. It is Noche de verano by Antonio Machado (1875-1939), one of Spain’s most popular poets:
Es una hermosa noche de verano.
Tienen las altas casas
abiertos los balcones
del viejo pueblo a la anchurosa plaza.
En el amplio rectángulo desierto,
bancos de piedra, evónimos y acacias
simiétricos dibujan
sus negras sombras en la arena blanca.
En el cenit, la luna, y en la torre
la esfera del reloj iluminada.
Yo en este viejo pueblo paseando solo, como un fantasma
(English translation)
It is a beautiful summer night.
The tall homes have their balconies open to the old town’s spacious plaza.
In the big deserted rectangle,
stone benches, hedges and acacias
symmetrically sketch their black shadows on the white sand.
At the zenith, the moon, and in the tower
the sphere of the illuminated clock.
I passing through this old town
alone, like a phantom.
Pines of Rome
Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
There are only a few 20th-century masters of colorful orchestration. Leading composers among this select group, such as Respighi, usually worked in a musical style that was a holdover from the Romantic 19th century. Respighi received his advanced training in orchestration directly from another of the world’s most coloristic orchestrators, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1900, Respighi travelled to Russia to play violin in the St. Petersburg Imperial Opera orchestra and to study with Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter’s influence is felt throughout Respighi’s symphonic poems, notably the famous Fountains of Rome (1916) and Pines of Rome (1924).
Two dominant themes run through much of Respighi’s orchestral program music. One is a choice of subject that is sensorially perceived (rather than intellectual). The other is his interest in the remote past. Both are at work in Pines of Rome. So sensual is his orchestration that one can almost smell the pines. At the same time, the pines are symbolic of the timelessness of Rome itself.
Respighi’s printed score offers the following program for the four movements of Pines of Rome:
1. “Pines of Villa Borghese” (Allegretto vivace). Children are at play in the pine grove of the Villa Borghese, dancing the Italian equivalent of “Ring around a Rosy.” They mimic marching soldiers and battles. They chirp with excitement . . . and they swarm away. Suddenly the scene changes.
2. “Pines Near a Catacomb” (Lento). We see the shadows of the pines, which crown the entrance of a catacomb. From the depths rises a dolorous chant which spreads solemnly, like a hymn, and then mysteriously dies away.
3. “Pines of the Janiculum” (Lento). There is a tremor in the air. The pines of Janiculum Hill are profiled in the full moon. A nightingale sings.
4. “Pines of the Appian Way” (Tempo di marcia). Misty dawn on the Appian Way. Solitary pines stand guard over the tragic campagna. The faint, unceasing rhythm of numberless steps. A vision of ancient glories appears to the poet’s fantasy: trumpets blare and a consular army erupts, in the brilliance of the newly risen sun, toward the Sacred Way, mounting to a triumph on the Capitoline Hill.
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK, NOTES, INC.
MESSIAH
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
In addition to the chorus and vocal soloists, Messiah is scored for 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 trumpets, timpani, continuo and strings.
THE Messiah?
“‘The characterizing trait of all authentic masterpieces,’ Lawrence Gilman once observed, ‘is their capacity for infinite self-renewal.’ There may be no other work in the last two centuries of which this is more profoundly true than Handel’s Messiah. It seems to be, like nature itself, unchangeable yet ever-changing.” – Klaus G. Roy
There are two reasons to omit the “the” when we refer to this great masterwork. First and foremost, Messiah, sans “the”, was Handel’s title. Second is the “ever-changing” nature of this most popular of choral works, despite its monumental status. Handel conducted no fewer than ten ver¬sions during his lifetime, re-writing arias and even changing their sequence to suit particular soloists or a given performance. The aria “But who may abide” was sung for Handel in four different versions for male alto, bass and soprano.
Handel’s first Messiah performance in 1742 included an all-male chorus of around 24 and an orchestra of roughly 40, consisting of oboes, bassoon, trumpets, timpani, strings and continuo. Over the years Messiah became immensely popular, but as times and tastes changed, it was updated and “improved,” resulting in even more versions after Handel’s death. By the 1780s a new version was being written in Berlin. Mozart wrote his own arrangement in 1789, adding trombones and clarinets. In 1791 a Westminster Abbey performance included 1,068 musicians, and by 1883 Messiah was performed in London’s Crystal Palace by 4000 performers, including cymbals. (This was the period when Messiah was encumbered with “the”!) Though musicological scholarship has helped us understand these many versions, hopefully bringing us closer to Handel’s intentions, every performance involves making choices—there is no THE Messiah!
Tonight’s choices were influenced by the tastes and considerations unique to our time. These include attention span; we don’t often sit for several hours at a stretch (at least not without a computer screen!). Tonight we’ll perform 28 of Handel’s original numbers, chosen to preserve the theological thread. We will sing Part I, Prophesy and Nativity, in its entirety; followed by selections from Part II, Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, and Part III, the Last Judgment and the Acclamation of the Messiah.
Messiah is Handel’s only oratorio (of 23) with no narrative and no characters; there’s no Jesus, no Mary, no Pontius Pilate. Rather it is a presentation of a concept – redemption – as told through prophesy, contemplation and reaction. The appearance of the Angel to the Shepherds in Part I and the crowd’s angry “He trusted in God” in Part II are exceptions.
Despite this theological focus, Handel, the great opera composer, was always concerned with dramatic impact. Messiah, like his other works in the genre, was subtitled an “Entertainment.” (One cannot help but believe that the monumental 19th century performances lost their dramatic punch.) He used every musical style available to him (the French overture, the opera aria, the anthem, the fugue, the turba chorus), all with the aim to move the audience. And move the audience it did. When Susanna Cibber, a singer with a scandalous reputation, sang “He was despised” at the premiere, a minister in the audience shouted out “Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!”
This theatrical aspect did not minimize the solemnity of the subject matter, though there was much criticism of the work in London for this very reason. (Messiah was not performed regularly there until 1750, almost a decade after its premiere in Dublin.) Nor did Handel himself lack devotion. After writing the “Hallelujah Chorus” he said, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God himself.” It was Handel’s great skill at making words come to life that, coupled with the significant substance of the libretto, created this most enduring and popular of choral masterworks. Like all true masterworks, it will continue to survive the choices made by this and subsequent generations—“unchangeable yet ever-changing.”
notes by Betsy Burleigh
Dance Suite
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Bartók composed his Dance Suite on commission in 1923 for the 50th anniversary of the merging of Buda, Pest and Óbuda as the single Danube city of Budapest. For the same festival concert, Zoltán Kodály composed the famous Psalmus Hungaricus and Ernö Dohnányi contributed his Festival Overture. Bartók’s work was an instant sensation, and during the following year it received more than 50 performances in Germany alone.
Despite the Hungarian nationalist spirit that prompted the commission, Bartók built the Dance Suite on materials derived from other cultures as well. He had a wide range of folkloric interests. He himself pointed out that the first and fourth movements resemble Arabic music, and the fifth has a “peculiarly primitive” Rumanian cast. The second and third movements have a Hungarian spirit, as does the ritornello (recurring music) that ties the dances together — a parody (in the highest sense of the word) of Hungarian peasant songs.
Bartók’s frequent bent toward primitivism does not wait for the final movement, however. As the first movement gains momentum, we are reminded how much this composer came under the influence of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. By contrast, the introduction of the ritornello is sweet, peaceful and sunlit. Again the music becomes rustic and athletic as the second dance unfolds.
A new setting of the ritornello leads to the third movement, the suite’s centerpiece. We hear a masterful multiplicity of themes and scale materials. The orchestration is the most brilliant and spontaneous of the entire work. Without a ritornello link, the fourth dance then unravels a speech-like theme in the woodwinds in phrases that alternate with fragmentary, atmospheric string statements. Biographer Halsey Stevens writes, “It is almost as if this were music heard in the stillness of the desert night, so vividly has Bartók employed the fruits of his study of Arabic music.”
A mere suggestion of the ritornello brings the fifth movement, building gradually to a finale, in which the composer reprises and interweaves most of the suite’s themes into a powerful climax. The cumulative effect of the Dance Suite then rises to a fever pitch, which Bartók quells first with an anticlimax and then with a resolute concluding stroke.
Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Although Grieg revered Chopin and was himself dubbed “the Chopin of the North,” he looked to Schumann as a guide for the first movement of his own Piano Concerto. Beginning with the same choice of key and the explosive introduction, Grieg ran parallel to Schumann’s Piano Concerto in technical and formal matters as well. This does not mean that Grieg’s music is unoriginal. His concerto is one of the freshest-sounding heroic piano concertos of the Romantic Era, and when Liszt played it through, he was enthusiastic about its originality. This was a youthful work stemming from 1868, and it formed not only the climax to Grieg’s early period but also became the longest concert work of his entire output. Despite the concerto’s widespread success, the composer was never quite satisfied with it and continued to tinker with the orchestration throughout his life. Every change, however, was an improvement.
Grieg’s vast lyrical gifts are obvious in the themes throughout, but themes are more folk-like in the outer movements. He constructs these in small bits, repeating the main ideas often but never becoming static. In the first movement, he works on them thoroughly. Toward the end come the brilliant piano solo and a final section cleverly formed from the movement’s introductory material.
Grieg next unfolds a three-part Adagio. The orchestra alone expresses the ravishing main theme. The piano enters in the contrasting, lighter middle section and continues by accompanying the orchestra through a reprise of the main theme.
The finale follows without a break. It has a dance-like main theme that contrasts with the lyrical innocence of the second theme. Following a dramatic section and a brief piano solo, the first theme returns in a light-hearted transformation. Grieg then tops the originality of this gesture with a slower apotheosis of the second theme that also serves as the movement’s finale. Upon playing this, Liszt is said to have jumped up from the piano exclaiming, “Splendid! That’s the real thing. . . . Keep it up, I tell you. You have what it takes — and don’t let anyone scare you.”
Symphony No. 8 in G, Op. 88
Antonín Dvorák (1841- 1904)
The year 1889 was a particularly happy and productive one for Dvorak. During that summer, he began to sketch ideas for his Eighth Symphony at his country house in Vyoská. Ideas came to him so quickly that he complained he could not set them down fast enough. He completed the symphony’s sketch between September 6 and 23, and finished the scoring on November 8 in Prague. Dvorak conducted the premiere of his Eighth Symphony there in April 1890 as part of his induction into Emperor Franz Josef’s Czech Academy of Science, Literature and the Arts.
The first movement of the symphony virtually overflows with melodic ideas. Particularly striking and colorful is the introductory theme heard in the cellos. The main themes of this movement are varied in character and rich in Czech flavor. The second movement has been dubbed a “mood picture” because of similarities between it and the Poetic Mood-Pictures, Op. 85, no. 3, “At the Old Castle.” Whether a connection really exists, the movement is extremely appealing. The theme heard at the beginning provides ample ideas for the composer to work with as the movement progresses. Next comes a waltz, Allegretto grazioso, a gesture reminiscent of Brahms. Also Brahmsian are its long-breathed opening phrases and what has been termed a “sturdy peasant lilt.” In contrast, the middle section uses a theme quoted from Dvorak’s opera, The Stubborn Lovers.
A trumpet fanfare announces the symphony’s finale. This reveals the principal idea of the main theme, which immediately follows. As in the theme that opened the symphony, the cellos present this idea, which provides the substance for most of what follows. Toward the end, the tempo quickens little by little, propelling the movement to a joyful finish.
PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK, NOTES, INC.
Appalachian Spring: Suite
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
By 1943, Copland had attained a considerable reputation as a ballet composer with Billy the Kid and Rodeo to his credit. Those works had also helped to establish him as an “accessible” composer in his “American Folksong” period. It was natural, then, that choreographer Martha Graham should come to Copland that year with a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and a scenario set in rural Pennsylvania of the early 19th century. Copland accepted the commission and completed the ballet the following spring.
The original version of Appalachian Spring (title from a poem by Hart Crane) was scored for only 13 instruments and premiered in Washington, D.C. alongside works by Hindemith and Milhaud in October 1944. Copland’s music was an immediate success, and the following May, Graham’s company danced it in New York. In 1945, Appalachian Spring won not only the New York Music Critics Circle Award for dramatic music that season, but also the Pulitzer Prize in music for Copland.
Copland arranged the ballet as a continuous suite for full orchestra, which the New York Philharmonic premiered in October 1945. That version, which preserves most of the music of the original ballet, is the form in which we usually hear Appalachian Spring today. According to notes by Copland himself, there are eight distinct sections:
1. Very slowly. Introduction of the characters, one by one, in a suffused light.
2. Fast. Sudden burst of unison strings . . . starts the action.
3. Moderate. Duo for the Bride and her Intended — scene of tenderness and passion.
4. Quite fast. The revivalist and his flock. Folksy feelings — suggestions of square
dances and country fiddlers.
5. Still faster. Solo dance of the Bride — presentiment of motherhood. Extremes of joy
and fear and wonder.
6. Very slowly (as at first). Transition scenes reminiscent of the introduction.
7. Calm and flowing. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer-husband.
There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, is
called “Simple Gifts.”
8. Moderate. Coda. The Bride takes her place among her neighbors. . . . Muted strings intone a hushed, prayer-like passage. . . . The close is reminiscent of the opening music.
Serenade (After Plato’s “Symposium”)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
In the summer of 1954, Bernstein spent an extended vacation in Europe with his wife and daughter. Without conducting responsibilities and professional distractions, Bernstein could devote extended periods of concentration to composition. He had announced that he would be writing a “really big opera,” but what he actually composed was the Serenade, which he premiered the following September in Venice with Isaac Stern as soloist. Bernstein provided the following description of his music:
There is no literal program for this Serenade, despite the fact that it resulted from a re-reading of Plato’s charming dialogue, “The Symposium.” The music, like the dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love, and generally follows the Platonic form through the succession of speakers at the banquet. The relatedness of the movements does not depend on common thematic material, but rather on a system whereby each movement evolves out of elements in the preceding one. For the benefit of those interested in literary allusion, I might suggest the following points as guideposts:
I. Phaedrus; Pausanias (Lento; Allegro) Phaedrus opens the symposium with a lyrical oration in praise of Eros, the god of love (fugato, begun by the solo violin). Pausanias continues by describing the duality of lover and beloved. This is expressed in a classical sonata-allegro, based on the material of the opening fugato.
II. Aristophanes (Allegretto) Aristophanes does not play the role of clown in this dialogue, but, instead, that of the bedtime story-teller, invoking the fairy- tale mythology of love.
III. Eryximachus (Presto) The physician speaks of bodily harmony as a scientific model for the workings of love patterns. This is an extremely short fugato scherzo, born of a blend of mystery and humor.
IV. Agathon (Adagio) Perhaps the most moving speech of the dialogue, Agathon’s panegyric embraces all aspects of love’s powers, charms, and functions. This movement is a simple three-part song.
V. Socrates; Alcibiades (Molto tenuto; Allegro molto vivace) Socrates describes his visit to the seer Diotima, quoting her speech on the demonology of love. This is a slow introduction of greater weight than any of the preceding movements and serves as a highly developed reprise of the middle section of the Agathon movement, thus suggesting a hidden sonata form. The famous interruption by Alcibiades and his band of drunken revelers ushers in the Allegro, which is an extended rondo, ranging in spirit from agitation through jig-like dance music to joyful celebration. If there is a hint of jazz in the celebration, I hope it will not be taken as anachronistic Greek party-music but rather as the natural expression of a contemporary American composer imbued with the spirit of that timeless dinner party.
Fantasie for Violin and Orchestra
James Stephenson (1969 - )
A native of the Chicago area, James Stephenson was educated in music as a trumpeter. In that capacity, he graduated from the New England Conservatory and served for 17 seasons in the Naples (Florida) Philharmonic before settling down to full-time work as a composer. Stephenson has had immense success in writing for nearly all combinations of instruments as well as for the voice. His educational piece for small orchestra, Compose Yourself! Been performed over 200 times. One of the secrets of his success is his unabashed adherence to traditional sounds, which enables him to communicate directly and clearly with audiences without a lot of explanation.
The Fantasie originated as a piece for violin and piano commissioned for the Florida Music Educator’s Conference of 2005. What you are hearing tonight is the world premiere of the orchestral version of this fascinating piece. About it, the composer has written:
This is one of my favorites among my compositions. I think it combines melodic themes that are in a sound-world that will be familiar for audiences. It is sometimes French, sometimes “gypsy” (my favorite parts) and sometimes Russian in sound, all the while carrying a mostly neo-Romantic, yet fresh, quality. It has beautiful, touching moments, and other extremely virtuosic sections. The gypsy sections will feature a prominent solo drum part, to accompany the violin soloist.
Stephenson anticipates this premiere as something uniquely important in his career:
This premiere will be a very special one for me, relating back to my early years of musical experiences at Interlochen Summer Arts Camp. As a young student there, I recall fondly working with Larry (Rachleff), who was also quite young and being very inspired by his musical integrity and tireless demeanor. His refusal to be satisfied, and to always search for a higher level of musical profundity, is something that has always remained with me throughout the years. Seeing him from time to time since those experiences years ago has only reinforced my early impressions.
I knew Alex Kerr as a youngster (probably around age 12) at Interlochen as well. It has been so wonderful to watch his career reach so many levels of success over the years. He brings such technical command and musical breadth to the instrument. I am absolutely thrilled to share this orchestral premiere with him and Larry!
An American in Paris
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
In March 1928, Gershwin made a trip to Europe with the center of activities planned for Paris. It was not his first trip to Paris (that took place in 1923), but it turned out to be his last. With him were his sister, “Frankie,” his brother, Ira and Ira’s wife, Leonore. The party first stopped in London to catch the final performance of Oh, Kay! and then went on to Paris for some fun and a change from the pressures of Broadway. There, as well as in Berlin and Vienna, Gershwin received a king’s welcome, and his music was performed before enthusiastic audiences.
It was not entirely a vacation for Gershwin, however. He had a commission from Walter Damrosch for a new symphonic piece, and he intended to do some work on it during the trip. How much he actually accomplished is a mystery, but the journey did give Gershwin the idea and the title for An American in Paris. By June, the composer was back in New York, and on August 1, he finished the sketch for his new piece. Because of work on a new show, it was not until mid-November that he completed the orchestration. Less than a month later, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra premiered An American in Paris. For that occasion, Gershwin had collaborated with composer-writer Deems Taylor to produce a detailed program of the music. It is too lengthy to reproduce here, and much of it, allegedly, is afterthought. Yet about three weeks after completing the sketch, Gershwin gave an interview in which he provided the following more general and spontaneous description:
The opening gay section is followed by a rich blues with a strong rhythmic undercurrent. Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a cafe and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. The harmony here is both more intense and simple than in the preceding pages. This blues rises to a climax followed by a coda in which the spirit of the music returns to the vivacity and bubbling exuberance of the opening part with its impressions of Paris. Apparently the homesick American, having left the cafe and reached the open air, has disowned his spell of the blues and once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life. At the conclusion, the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant.
Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra Program Notes by Dr. Michael Fink, Notes, Inc.
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
“That is all very nice, but now I’d like to hear you play a real violin piece,” was Louis Spohr’s comment to young Joseph Joachim on hearing him play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in 1855. Spohr’s reaction was natural for a virtuoso of the Romantic era, because the concerto by Beethoven is not tailored to display a violinist’s showmanship. Though difficult, it does not test the limits of a player’s technique. As a result, this profound (and, arguably, perfect) violin concerto had been performed only sporadically until Joachim, with the aid of Mendelssohn, began to popularize it in the mid-1840s.
The audience who came to hear the 1806 premiere of Beethoven’s concerto had expected a good show from the soloist, Franz Clement, first violinist and conductor of the Theater an der Wien. He gave it to them. Between the first and second movements of the Beethoven work, Clement played a sonata of his own, performed on one string with the violin upside down.
The integrity of Beethoven’s concerto stands out in sharp contrast with such empty display. It closely integrates and balances the soloist’s part with the orchestra. Throughout, the composer also devotes attention to balance within the orchestra. Thus, the woodwinds play many passages by themselves, compared with the string section. This feature also provides effective color contrasts with the solo violin.
The serene musical ideas that determine the expansive first movement are four-square, hymn-like themes such as Beethoven wrote so naturally during his maturity. Much of the time the solo violin is asked to play decorative, lacy elaborations of the main melody. The soloist’s cadenza near the end produces even further elaboration of Beethoven’s ideas.
Serenity turns to contemplation in the second movement. Analyst Donald Tovey characterized this music as “sublime inaction,” because once it starts, there are no sweeping changes. In effect, it is a musical meditation. Tovey continued, “It is impossible to bring the movement to any conclusion except that of a dramatic interruption.”
The “interruption” is a brief passage for the soloist alone that spills into the finale. This concluding movement is dance-like and broad-humored. It has a down-to-earth manner, even in the middle section, a folksy, ballad-style theme. At the same time, it exceeds the preceding movements for fireworks in the solo part, including a full cadenza that includes bravura effects and one humorous poke at virtuosity: the soloist’s two lonely pizzicato notes.
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (“Eroica”)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The year was 1804, and Beethoven had just finished a new symphony that was musically revolutionary and was longer than any the world had yet known. It was to be the “Bonaparte” Symphony, dedicated to Napoleon and, implicitly, to the spirit of the French Revolution. The score lay on a table in Beethoven’s quarters when his student, Ferdinand Ries, burst in with the news that Napoleon had proclaimed himself the French Emperor. Ries describes that Beethoven
. . . flew into a rage and cried out: “Is he then, too, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he will trample on all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others and become a tyrant!” Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor.
Beethoven had previously viewed Napoleon as the ideal hero, and the symphony was more a portrait of heroism than of Napoleon personally. Thus, the work’s new title page would read Sinfonia eroica, with the additional comment, “composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.”
Following two sharp chords, Beethoven launches into one of his most famous first movements. Just sit back and relax; this is going to be rather long. However, you will be swept up in a rhythmic momentum that carries the music forward constantly. The music is alternately heroic, turbulent and tragically tender. Beethoven makes the most of these plus a new theme introduced in the middle of everything. At the end, we have the feeling that a monumental declaration has been made, that Beethoven has encapsulated his philosophy in a single musical statement.
During Beethoven’s lifetime — the French Revolution and early Napoleonic era — ceremonial funeral marches commemorating fallen heroes became extremely popular in France. Beethoven’s contribution to that tradition in the Marcia funebre movement explores heroic grieving and spiritual contemplation through variations and fugue in one of his profoundest musical essays.
The very jovial Scherzo lifts the listeners from these depths with its buoyant rhythms and raucous outbursts. For many listeners, however, the high point of this movement is the central passage, where Beethoven employs three horns in passages both memorable and heroic.
The Eroica’s finale is an extensive set of variations on a skeletal theme that Beethoven had already used more than once, notably in the ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus. In the third variation, a new, lyrical melody — also from Prometheus — is layered over the skeletal theme. However, our attention moves away from it in the music that follows. Now, Beethoven turns to more complex expressions and new rhythmic ideas. An extensive Andante section explores the tragic and noble possibilities of the lyrical theme. Again comes an interruption; this time it is the final, triumphal finish to the symphony.
Fireworks
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
The composition and orchestration teacher of young Stravinsky was Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. More than just a student, Stravinsky was like a member of Rimsky’s family. So, when the master's daughter was about to be married, it was natural that Stravinsky should offer a valuable gift. His gift was a short composition, Fireworks, written while on vacation in the summer of 1908. He immediately sent the work to his teacher for comments. Unfortunately, a few days later Stravinsky received a telegram saying that Rimsky-Korsakov had died, and shortly afterward the packet containing the manuscript was returned unopened.
Stravinsky called Fireworks an “orchestral fantasy.” In its spirit and three-part form, it resembles a symphonic scherzo. The style of the mercurial outer sections is adventurous, foreshadowing his music for The Firebird and Petrouchka ballets. The more relaxed middle section shows the influence of Paul Dukas’s The Sorcerer's Apprentice, composed about ten years earlier.
Although Fireworks is neither lengthy nor profound, it led the composer to the “big break” that influenced the course of his career. For, when the work premiered in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1908, Sergei Diaghilev was in the audience. Diaghilev liked what he heard and invited Stravinsky to write for his ballet company, the Ballets Russes. Stravinsky immediately contributed orchestrations to Les Sylphides (based on Chopin’s music), and two years later he composed The Firebird, the first of his three famous early ballets for Diaghilev.
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33
Peter I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
In June 1879, the young cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen wrote to Tchaikovsky from the Wiesbaden Festival,
I produced a furore with your variations. I pleased [the audience] so greatly that I was recalled three times, and after the Andante [D minor] variation there was stormy applause. Liszt said to me: “. . . Now there, at last, is real music!”
Tchaikovsky had completed the variations three years earlier and dedicated them to Fitzenhagen, who had taken a leading role in shaping the solo part. The cellist also re-arranged the order of several of the variations, and in the face of the new work’s success, Tchaikovsky reluctantly accepted the revised order, making it the official version.
The work, an obvious homage to Mozart, begins with more of an introductory “gesture” than an actual introduction. It serves also to establish the main key of the work. Led by the cello, Tchaikovsky’s graceful theme then follows.
What to listen for: Follow the layout of the theme in two sections, each repeated. In the second, try to identify a return to ideas from the first. At the end of this comes a segment of music that we might call a “pivot.” You will frequently hear it used later.
The first two variations are fairly jolly, but notice slight mood differences between them. Variation 3 is a complete contrast: melancholy music that emphasizes the cello’s expressive qualities. The cheerful Variations 4 and 5 each contain extended virtuosic passages for solo cello surrounded by orchestral material derived from the theme.
Variation 6 is famous, and its shows Tchaikovsky at his brooding best. With a steady string accompaniment and occasional woodwind commentary, the cello spins out its sad cantilena. The seventh variation, Allegro vivo, awakens suddenly. Virtuosic demands on the cello reach their height in this quick-tempo finale. At times executing difficult broken chords or buzzing with bee-like trills, the mercurial cello part drives the Rococo Variations to a brilliant close.
Symphony No. 7, Op. 60 (“Leningrad”)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
On that peaceful summer morning of June 22, 1941. . . Molotov’s radio address [announcing Hitler’s invasion of Russia] found me hurrying down the street. . . . Peacetime plans, the manuscript of a symphonic work I had just started — all these things I put aside to start on an entirely new epoch of life and work. . . . Meanwhile, I started work on my Seventh Symphony, conceived as a broad musical embodiment of majestic ideas of the patriotic war. . . .
When completed, the Seventh Symphony bore a dedication to the city of Shostakovich’s birth, the city he loved, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). But in those dark days of 1941, Leningrad and its people were put to a severe test. The Nazi forces had besieged the city, and people were starving; people were dying. The guns pounded the city relentlessly. In the midst of this, Shostakovich addressed the populace over the radio, offering them the ray of hope that his new composition held for him:
An hour ago I finished scoring the second movement of my latest large orchestral composition. If I manage to write well, if I manage to finish the third and fourth movements, the work may be called my Seventh Symphony. . . . Why am I telling you all this? . . . So that the people of Leningrad listening to me will know that life goes on in our city. . . . A deep conviction grows within me that Leningrad will always stand, grand and beautiful . . . that it will always be a bastion of my country, that it will always be there to enrich the fruits of culture.
Shostakovich wanted desperately to have his new work premiered in Leningrad. But that was impossible, and the music’s message was too urgent to wait. So, the city of Kuibyshev first heard the Seventh in early March, 1942. It was repeated in Moscow to immense acclaim. However, the most moving performance took place in the still-besieged city of Leningrad in August, 1942. The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra had been reduced to only 15 players, but more were recruited.
Concurrently, the symphony and its message of wartime courage spread circuitously to the West. Arturo Toscanini conducted the symphony in August 1942, and during the following season, more than 60 performances were given in the United States. Nicolas Slonimsky later compared Shostakovich’s Seventh to Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony but pointed out its uniqueness:
No composer before Shostakovich had written a musical work depicting a still raging war, and no composer had ever attempted to describe a future victory, in music, with such power and conviction, at a time when his people fought for their very right to exist as a nation. No wonder, then, that the Leningrad Symphony became a symbol of the war effort, acquiring propaganda value in the most exalted sense of the word.
Fortunately, we have the words of the composer to relate the content and meaning of each movement. Shostakovich stated that the first movement
. . . tells of the happy, peaceful life of a people confident in themselves and in their future. . . Then comes the war. I have made no attempt at a naturalistic interpretation of the war. . . . I wrote no so-called battle music. I tried instead to give an emotional image of the war. . . . A central place is given to a requiem in memory of the heroes who sacrificed their lives. . . . In the final passages, I introduce something very intimate, like a mother’s tears over her lost children. . . . The closing chords resemble the din of distant battle, a reminder that the war continues.
The rest of the symphony is more objective, and Shostakovich was briefer in his comments on it. The second movement, he remarked, “is a lyrical scherzo recalling happy episodes of the recent past. It is tinged with melancholy.” It is also tinged at times with eeriness. The “trio” to this scherzo is an expressionistic waltz in which the melody appears in the low woodwinds against a hammering accompaniment in the rest of the orchestra.
Shostakovich remarked, “The love of living, the wonder of nature — this is the meaning of the pathetic adagio that is the third movement, the dramatic center of the symphony.” Centrally, he embarks on a series of new ideas. However, the rhythms in the snare drum echo as a reminder of the first movement.
The finale proceeds without a break. Shostakovich explained that it can be described by one word: victory. “But my idea of victory is not something brutal; it is better explained as the victory of light over darkness, of humanity over barbarism, of reason over reaction.”
Gradually, the composer builds his theme of victory into a huge, delirious dance of victory. A lament to the fallen victims forms a sumptuous middle section. Out of this darkness, the spirit of triumph struggles to emerge and then does so in a blaze of glorious light. In the composer’s words, “A moving and solemn theme rises to the apotheosis of the whole composition — victory.”
Sacred Symphony for Brass
Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
Gabrieli was called “The Glory of Venice.” His music was truly glorious, truly splendid in its brilliant sound, its virtuosic demands on performers and its spatial effects. Yes, “space music” and stereophonic sound 400 years before our composers and sound engineers re-invented them. Gabrieli composed virtually all of his music for the famous St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, where he was the music director. The church had two choir lofts, one on either side of the congregation. Each held a small choir, a group of instruments and an organ. Thus, the people were treated to “stereophonic” music during Mass and other ceremonies. Gabrieli composed specifically for this arrangement.
The city of Venice was wealthy, and the musical budget at St. Mark’s was also flush, so that Gabrieli kept some of Italy’s finest musicians on the payroll. Among the instrumentalists were virtuosos on the cornett and sackbut, forerunners of our trumpet and trombone. As you listen to this music, you may hear trumpets featured from time to time playing passages of rapid notes. Modern conductors usually like to use the large space of the concert hall to spread out the players. This approximates the unique spatial qualities of St. Mark’s.
A German Requiem, Op. 45
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Philharmonic Premiere Performance
It was the longest work Brahms ever wrote, and it was the first work to bring him international prominence. He named it A German Requiem to distinguish its texts and intent from the tradition Requiem Mass of the Roman Catholic liturgy. His was not a work for the dead. Rather, it was music to bring solace to the living with words to help us all cope with the ideas of suffering and death. Brahms meant his work to have a universal message, and for that reason, he chose and coordinated quotations from the Old and New Testaments as well as from the Apocrypha. One of the composer’s few remarks concerning A German Requiem underlines his effort to give the work universal meaning: “I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and simply put Human. . . .”
A choral-orchestral work of this magnitude and depth does not develop quickly. Brahms’ labor on it went back to the mid-1850s, when he composed a sonata for two pianos (which never appeared in that form). The slow movement of the sonata became the “funeral march” second movement of the Requiem. There is strong evidence also that Brahms sketched a cantata in the late 1850s or early 1860s under the strong influence of Bach, and that portions of that cantata formed the foundation of the first and third movements of the Requiem.
The work had not crystallized in Brahms’ mind when, in February 1865, he received news that his mother was dying. He could not reach her before she passed away. The depression following her loss stayed with him for a very long time, and he tried to overcome it by playing and composing.
Over the next two years, the Requiem began to take shape. In December 1867, the first three movements were performed in Vienna, but by this time, Brahms was hard at work on three more movements. A full performance was planned for Good Friday of the following year at the Bremen Cathedral, and attendees of this momentous event included many of Brahms’ friends and supporters, including Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and old father Brahms. The performance was a resounding success and instantly made the 35-year-old composer one of the most prominent in Germany. Within a month, the Requiem was repeated at Bremen, and during the next year, it was performed 20 times in Germany. Over the next few years, audiences heard it in London, St. Petersburg and Paris — all accepting the Requiem as a masterwork.
Following the second Bremen performance, Brahms added a final touch to his Requiem: the portion of the work that became the fifth movement. He never formally dedicated the Requiem, but his choice of text here left no doubt as to his intent: “Yea, I will comfort you as one whom his own mother comforteth.”
Attempts have been made to assess the balance and symmetry of Brahms’ movement plan. Certainly, he intended to make the first and last movements relate. Not only do both movements correspond spiritually, but in their opening texts as well:
I: Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall have comfort.
VII: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.
However, which movement, IV or V, is the central or pivot point of the Requiem? Movement IV (“How lovely is Thy dwelling place”) is unique for its sweet character as a choral song. Movement V, on the other hand, contains the only soprano solo and was the pièce de résistance that Brahms later added.
* * *
One of Brahms’ rare uses of the harp comes in the Requiem during the first and last movements. Unique to the first movement, however, is the lack of violins. Here, Brahms wishes to emphasize the darker string colors, balancing these with occasional brighter parts in the woodwinds. The choral part considers each phrase of text in a distinct texture that exploits some musical germ idea.
The first section of the second movement (“Behold, all flesh is as the grass”) has been loosely nicknamed a “funeral march.” Its dirge-like character is underlined by muted strings and woodwind parts marked mezza voce (restrained). Solid blocks of choral sound give out a message dark at first but then more hopeful. Finally, the fast-tempo “The redeemed of the Lord shall return again” brings illumination, driving toward the final illustration of the words “joy and gladness.”
A dialogue between baritone solo and chorus occupies about half of movement III. Here, the text questions the meaning of life and death and reflects on the human condition. With the words, “Now, Lord, what do I wait for?” Brahms introduces a contrapuntal texture that builds to a climactic point that introduces the uplifting conclusion, “But the righteous souls are in the hand of God.”
For many listeners, the fourth movement, “How lovely is Thy dwelling place,” is the highpoint of the Requiem, and it is definitely the movement most often extracted for separate performance. It is a flowing choral part-song in which the chief melody is most often in the soprano part. The text is direct and personal.
The Requiem’s only soprano solo is in the fifth movement. Partially alternating with the chorus and partially soaring above it, the solo part expresses its message of comfort in the face of sorrow.
Movement VI offers a varied chain of sections. Beginning with the march-like “Here on earth have we no continuing place” for chorus, a baritone solo soon interrupts with a portent of the Last Judgment. Excitement gradually builds to “For the trumpet shall sound” and remains at high intensity throughout the text dealing with the defeat of death. Release then comes with the Handel-inspired conclusion on “Worthy art thou to be praised,” bringing the movement to a thunderous ending.
The lengthy last movement focuses again on the chorus. Brahms treats the brief text in varied textures, and individual sections of the chorus are often featured. There is some glorious orchestral writing here, capped by a reappearance of the harp on the intonation of the concluding words, “blessed, blessed.”