PROGRAM NOTES
Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla
Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857 )
The Philharmonic last performed this overture on October 18, 1997 with Music Director Larry Rachleff conducting. The work is scored for 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons,1 contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, timpani and strings.
It was Alexander Pushkin’s fairy-tale poem, Russlan and Ludmilla, that catapulted the 21-year-old Russian poet into fame, and not long after, Glinka, Russia’s first nationalist composer, was attracted to it as a possible opera scenario. Pushkin was interested in Glinka’s operatic project, and the two planned to collaborate. Unfortunately, Pushkin became involved in a duel and was killed before much work was done. Glinka was at a loss, and before the completion of Russlan and Ludmilla in 1842, the composer had gone through no fewer than five different librettists. That partially explains the looseness of the libretto, cast in a series of tableaus (like the later Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky).
In the story Ludmilla, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Kiev, chooses to marry Russlan, who is one of three suitors. However, the evil spirits of Chernomor, the dwarf-wizard, carry off Ludmilla and place her under a sleeping spell. Russlan defeats Chernomor and is carrying Ludmilla back when she is again abducted by a wicked fairy who gives her to one of Russlan’s rivals. He brings Ludmilla back to Kiev but is unable to revive her. Russlan arrives with a magic ring with which he awakens Ludmilla, and there is general rejoicing for the happy couple.
What to listen for: The opening section of the brilliantly orchestrated overture features two energetic themes from the final scene. These have an obvious Russian flavor. By contrast, the lyric theme that follows is more like mainstream European music of the time. Towards the end, the music illustrates one feature of the story literally, as Chernomor’s menacing theme is “defeated” in the brilliant and joyous final measures.
Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”), Op. 36
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Elgar’s Enigma Variations was last performed by the Philharmonic on January 12, 2002 with Larry Rachleff on the podium. This work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, timpani, percussion and strings.
Elgar sat improvising a theme at the piano. Suddenly, his wife, Alice, interrupted him. “What is that?” she asked. Edward replied, “Nothing — but something might be made of it.” He continued exploring the possibilities of making something of the theme, trying to use it to produce musical caricatures of some of their friends. These would become the Variations on an Original Theme, the “Enigma” Variations. “Powell would have done this . . . ” and he played the idea for Variation 2. “Or, Nevison would have looked at it like this . . .” (Variation 12). Elgar’s wife, and later his friends were all fascinated by the exactness of these characterizations, which they could all easily identify.
Elgar marked the theme, “Enigma,” and in the score each variation bore some mark to identify the person it illustrated. For most of them, this was merely a set of initials. However, a few were identified by some pet name or pseudonym. “Ysobel” of Variation 6 was Isabel Fitton, a lanky viola student of Elgar’s. “Troyte” (Var. 7) was Arthur Troyte Griffith, a friend who “could be direct to the point of abruptness and just as ‘staccato’.”
Variation 9 is the Adagio centerpiece of the set, mysteriously titled “Nimrod.” This represents Elgar’s close friend and confidante, August Jaeger, and the composer counterbalanced the emotionalism of the music with the placid classicism of its title. The “Dorabella” Intermezzo (Var. 10) was Dora Penny, a family friend whose stammer Elgar captured in her music. Variation 13, Romanza, marked “***” was for a lady friend on a sea voyage to Australia. Elgar framed the variations with musical pictures of his wife and himself. Variation 1 was “a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be a romantic and delicate addition.” The composer saved his own variation for last. In that way, by musically exploring the personalities of those closest to him, he gained new insight into himself.
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (“Emperor”)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto was last performed by the Philharmonic on October 16, 2004 with Larry Rachleff on the podium and Anton Kuerti as the piano soloist. The concerto is scored for 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, with timpani and strings.
It is a truism to say that Beethoven changed the course of music history. It is another matter, and a more exciting one, however, to hear a Beethoven composition that actually did change history. The “Emperor” Piano Concerto is such a work.
Before Beethoven, the role of the performer was more creative than in later times. Performers were expected to improvise not only ornaments and filler passages but, in a solo concerto, also a whole cadenza (a long solo near the end of the first movement). It was the performer’s job to “finish” the composition for the audience (in the same way that today, an interior decorator finishes the work of an architect and a builder). Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto wrested that decorative privilege from the performer, who often took too much license with it anyway. In this concerto’s first movement just before the conclusion, where the soloist’s cadenza is expected, Beethoven wrote in the score, “Non si fa una cadenza, ma s’attacca subito il seguente” (“Do not play a cadenza, but immediately proceed to the following”). With those fateful words, Beethoven seized full control and forever closed what one analyst has called “the saddest chapter in the story of the concerto.” The movement continues with Beethoven’s own written-out cadenza, briefly treating the two principal themes and gradually bringing in the orchestra for a triumphant ending.
The second movement projects a nocturnal atmosphere through its song-like theme and delicate treatments of it following. At the soft, sustained ending, the finale bursts forth exuberantly. This movement has an ingenious architecture in which the main theme keeps reappearing between episodes, always growing and evolving. Despite the analysis that such formal genius invites, however, the concerto’s finale is impetuous and spontaneous, written with the exhilaration and pure joy of a creative artist making a modern form out of an old one.
The “Emperor” Concerto was written in 1809, the year of the French siege and occupation of Vienna, when Beethoven’s patron and student, Archduke Rudolf, suddenly had to leave the city to protect his safety. This was the occasion of Beethoven’s Les Adieux piano sonata, dedicated to Rudolph, as was the concerto. By 1809, Beethoven had grown too deaf to perform at the piano, and perhaps for that reason the “Emperor” was his final piano concerto. Probably because of the war, the work had to wait until 1812 for its premiere. At that occasion, the press was ecstatic, calling the work “one of the most original, imaginative, most effective but also one of the most difficult of all existing concertos.” The exact origin of the nickname “Emperor” is unknown, but a story persists that a French army officer attending the premiere enthusiastically dubbed it “an emperor among concertos.”
Program Notes by Dr. Michael Fink, Notes, Inc.
