Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
It was a dreamy 17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn who wrote to his sister, Fanny, “I have grown accustomed to composing in our garden. . . . Today or tomorrow I am going to dream there A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is, however, an enormous audacity.” That audacious dream took shape in the following weeks as the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn knew the works of Shakespeare, as had Schubert, through the definitive German translations published in 1801 by Ludwig Tieck and others. Tieck viewed this Shakespearian play as a “romantic masterpiece.” With its magical elfin qualities, it was the vehicle most perfectly matched to Mendelssohn’s personality, so his attraction was natural.
The overture, Mendelssohn asserted, follows the main points of the story, but it does so in a very general way. The four magical woodwind chords heard at the opening (and twice later) forecast Titania awakening to fall in love with her monster. Immediately then, the strings give us fairy music, interrupted occasionally by a mysterious chord. Suddenly, dawn breaks, and we hear the festive hunting party of Duke Theseus. This music becomes a transition to the lovely and graceful second theme, which typifies Hermia and Helena. As a fourth theme, Mendelssohn anticipates Act V’s lively “Dance of Clowns,” including the braying of donkey-headed Bottom. A wonderful musical development reflects the story development among these elements, and a reprise of the themes solidifies them, using new orchestral treatments. Then, in Mendelssohn’s words, “At the end, after everything has been satisfactorily settled and the principal players have joyfully left the stage, the elves follow them, bless the house, and disappear with the dawn. So the play ends, and my overture too.”
Cello Concerto in D Major (H. VIIB.2)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Was it by Haydn, or was it not? For over a century that was the raging issue about the D Major Cello Concerto. The controversy fanned the flames of publicity and helped to make this concerto one of Haydn’s most popular works during the early years of the 20th century. The question was probably raised originally by the son of Antonio Kraft, the cellist and composition student for whom Franz Joseph Haydn had written this concerto. We can guess that after Haydn’s death, the aging Kraft spoke to his son about “collaborating” with the great composer on this work, and that the son merely exaggerated the story, making his father the supposed sole composer. The D Major Concerto’s virtuosic solo part also made the Haydn attribution suspect, since Haydn’s C major Concerto was not as difficult, and the D major’s virtuosic show went far beyond the norms of 18th-century classic concertos. Finally, in 1953 the autograph manuscript came to light in Vienna, establishing the date of composition as 1783 and confirming that the famous work was indeed by Haydn.
What to listen for: After the orchestra has introduced the cello, the soloist plays most of the time. Particularly charming is the duet between cello solo and violins in the second theme. Virtuosity soon gets rolling full force, and later we hear the cello play all the themes with elaborate embellishments. Listen also for some high notes that imitate the sound of a flute. Before the movement’s ending we hear a substantial unaccompanied solo by the cello.
The Adagio has a lovely theme, and the cello decorates each return of this theme with new filigree. Again, there is a solo just before the movement closes.
Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon has likened Haydn’s finale theme to the English folk tune, “Here We Go Gathering Nuts in May,” though Haydn had not yet visited England and probably did not know that tune. Quickly, the cello comes to the fore with virtuoso acrobatics to top the brilliance of the first movement. Later on, listen for a contrasting section, which explores (in a restrained way) the cello’s expressive range, climaxing finally in a big solo. The farewell appearance of the main theme caps the concerto with a dazzling flourish by the soloist and a bright final bit of music in the orchestra.
Symphony No. 5, Op. 100
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
I shall never forget the first performance of the Fifth Symphony in 1945, on the very eve of victory. It was Prokofiev’s last appearance as a conductor. . . . No doubt, the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory was lighted as usual, but when Prokofiev appeared, it seemed as if the light streamed directly on him from somewhere above. He stood like a monument on a pedestal.
Such were the memories of Sviatoslav Richter, the famous pianist-conductor. The event was indeed momentous; for it had been nearly 16 years since Sergei Prokofiev had produced a symphony. His First Symphony (“Classical”) had scored a tremendous success. The next three, however, were critical failures. Since his final return to the Soviet Union in 1936, Prokofiev had been under government orders to make his music more accessible to the public. To comply, he considered that he could modify his style most easily for the theater and films and simultaneously reach a larger public. Thus, the late years of the 1930s and the early 1940s saw the production of Prokofiev’s ballets Romeo and Juliet (1935-36) and Cinderella (1940-44), the children’s tale Peter and the Wolf (1936), the film Alexander Nevsky (1938) and the opera War and Peace (1941-52).
The culmination of his efforts to refine his “new” style as well as the pinnacle of his symphonic endeavors came with the Fifth Symphony. The order of the movements, slow-fast- slow-fast, does not follow the Classical plan, and there is an epic quality about this work, almost as if it were intended to accompany a lavish film. This feeling is apparent in the opening Andante, which sets a prefatory tone. The original but very simple style of melody that pervades the symphony can be heard right from the first theme. This movement is largely dominated by what Prokofiev scholar Malcolm Brown calls “a ‘heroic’ stride.”
The second movement is the symphony’s Scherzo. Its style provides a glimpse of the sardonic style of the “old” Prokofiev. Toccata-like, the strings maintain a spiky accompaniment to themes and fleeting musical ideas etched by the woodwinds, brass and percussion. Expansive lyrical lines dominate the nocturnal third movement. Toward the middle, however, the music builds in intensity to an impassioned climax before receding to a mysterious calm.
The final movement opens with a slow introduction containing a reminiscence of the first movement’s main theme. Then the composer revives the motoristic motion of the second movement, but this time more in the character of a march. Noble or even pompous themes emerge but have to struggle against sarcasms from other quarters of the orchestra. Ultimately, sheer rhythmic drive wins out, as if to express Prokofiev’s aim: “I tried in this symphony to embody a fundamental conception — the triumph of the human spirit.”
Program Notes by Michael Fink and Notes, Inc.
