Octandre (CLASSICAL CONCERT ONLY)
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
This work is a Philharmonic Premiere Performance. It is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone and double bass.
Few composers could be termed “visionaries” — those blessed with the ability to anticipate coming developments —Beethoven and perhaps Wagner, and, in the 20 th century, Edgard Varèse (1883-1965). Though he competed only about a dozen works, his music was known and respected by such a wide range of composers as Busoni and Debussy on the one hand, and Schoenberg and Boulez on the other.
The main thrust of Varèse’s work came in the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps chief among this music was a trilogy of ensemble pieces: Hyperprism (1923), Octandre (1923), and Intégrales (1925). About such unusual titles, Varèse wrote, “I often borrow from higher mathematics or astronomy only because these sciences stimulate my imagination and give me the impression of movement, of rhythm.” These were the first works in a visionary genre, which Varèse termed “spatial music.” This idea came to him during a concert of Beethoven in the Salle Pleyel in Paris. He wrote,
Probably because the hall happened to be over-resonant . . . I became conscious of an entirely new effect produce by this familiar music. I seemed to feel the music detaching itself and projecting itself in space. I became conscious of a third dimension in the music. I call this phenomenon “sound projection” or the feeling given us by certain blocks of sound. . . . For the ear — just as for the eye — it gives a sense of prolongation, a journey into space.
Octandre received its premiere in January 1924. The audience loved it, and (predictably) the critics hated it. The prestigious W. J. Henderson wrote:
An ‘Octandre’ is a flower having eight stamens. Mr. Varèse’s Octandre was no flower; it was a peach. It cannot be described. It ought not to be. Such music must be heard to be appreciated. It shrieked, it grunted, it chortled, it mewed, it barked — and it turned all eight instruments into contortionists. It was not in any key, not even in no key. It was just a ribald outbreak of noise.
Varèse was not discouraged. In a famous statement, he declared, “Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time, but most people are far behind theirs.” In a way, he was correct. Though misunderstood in the 1920s, by 1960, he was lionized as the prophet of a new generation. His music was recorded by Columbia Records, and all-Varèse concerts were presented in New York.
Has Octandre by Varèse stood the test of time in our new century? Does it seem like only noise, or does it have some significance for you? Just listen, and form your own opinion.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sandwiched between the Appassionata Piano Sonata and the three “Rasumovsky” String Quartets (but not far from the Violin Concerto and the Fourth Symphony) comes the opus number of Fourth Piano Concerto by Beethoven. Completed in 1808, the concerto originated in a period of great creative fertility, and it represented Beethoven’s first completely mature essay in the piano concerto idiom. The composer dedicated it to Archduke Rudolf, but he did not intend for that musical amateur to perform it. Beethoven himself premiered the work as part of a famous long-winded concert of December 22, 1808, an evening that also included premieres of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.
The standard for concertos in Beethoven’s day was that the orchestra starts the first movement, and after a little while, the soloist plays (rather like waiting royalty to arrive). Beethoven’s G Major Concerto was only the second in history in which the soloist plays at the opening (the first was by Mozart). It has been said that Beethoven’s opening piano solo reflects his own practice of improvising. If so, the orchestra is also improvising, for the strings answer in a remote key, but skillfully working back to the home key. This musical idea is a close cousin of the famous rhythmic motto in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony ( . . . — ), though the mood of the concerto is entirely different. A few more themes are introduced, and then, according to analyst Donald Tovey, Beethoven “is free to raise his edifice to heights undreamt of in earlier music.” Another standard of the time was that the soloist was supposed to invent a long solo passage near the end of the first and last movements (the “cadenzas”). However, Beethoven the revolutionary changed that, too, and so we can hear his authentic, which put the finishing touches on these movements.
The brief Andante con moto is the final chapter in the Classic Period’s aesthetic polar struggle — between masculine and feminine, action and meditation, power and charm. Here, as in an opera aria, the gentle soloist gradually quells the tempestuous string section, opening the way to the quiet but rhythmically potent opening of the finale.
Despite the finale’s obvious exuberance and good humor, it nonetheless balances the first movement in nobility and serene grace. Beethoven also matches the virtuosity of the first movement. Following the cadenza, the soloist’s plethora of trills breaks open a sumptuous concluding section that gathers momentum until the piano propels the music into its high-spirited final chords.
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Just before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Ravel conceived the idea of a suite of piano pieces as a tribute to François Couperin and other clavecinistes of the 17th and 18th centuries. Unfortunately, the war prevented him from carrying out his project immediately.
Ravel served France during the war but had immense difficulties with army life. He had to be hospitalized in 1916 and discharged for health reasons the following year. We can partially attribute the latter event to grief following the death of his mother in January 1917. From June to November of that year, Ravel worked on the Tombeau, dedicating each movement to a comrade who had fallen in the war.
The composer was most anxious to have the new work premiered, but complicated circumstances delayed its presentation until April 1919. The six-movement Tombeau was instantly successful, and Ravel immediately set about extracting four movements for orchestral transcription. His instrumentation runs close to a Classical orchestra with the addition of a harp.
The “Prélude” displays Ravel’s genius for translating piano music into the orchestral idiom. The ornamental arabesque figures that dominate the movement are apportioned naturally and colorfully between woodwinds and strings.
A “Forlane” was originally an Italian dance (forlana) that Couperin had adapted to the French keyboard idiom. The rocking rhythms and urbane wit of Ravel’s main section contrast with the twinkling cascades and poignant melody of the central Trio section.
The “Menuet” movement has been compared to the composer’s earlier Menuet antique for its delicate mood and neo-classic gestures. The present Menuet is unique, however, for its Trio section. This is a Musette, a folk-style melody supported by a sustained “drone” bass.
The suite’s exuberant finale is a “Rigaudon.” Here is a dance-type beloved of Purcell, Rameau, and Bach, which, in Ravel’s hands, fairly bubbles with excitement. Only its pastoral middle section offers a respite from the mercurial rhythms that culminate the Tombeau suite.
Orchestral Suite No. 4, Op. 61(Mozartiana)
Peter I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
In 1887, the musical world celebrated the 100th anniversary of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Tchaikovsky, an ardent Mozart-lover, often played piano music by Mozart for his own pleasure, and through that habit he conceived the idea of a suite of Mozart’s keyboard pieces arranged for orchestra. This suite, which became his Orchestral Suite No. 4, would be his personal homage to Mozart. During summer holidays in Borzhom and Aachen, Tchaikovsky worked on the scoring of Mozartiana, completing it on October 29, 1887, the exact centennial of Don Giovanni’s original premiere.
Mozartiana’s Gigue and Minuet (movements one and two) were originally short, little known keyboard pieces by Mozart. Tchaikovsky scored these in his characteristic lighter style.
The texture and orchestration of the Preghiera (third movement) are richer, however. This is due to its different source, a piano arrangement by Franz Liszt of Mozart’s choral masterpiece, Ave verum corpus (K. 618).
As a finale, Tchaikovsky chose Mozart’s ten variations on an aria from Gluck’s comic opera, The Pilgrims of Mecca. Here we find Tchaikovsky’s most colorful orchestral arranging in an approach resembling his balletic variations.
Throughout this work, one can hear Tchaikovsky’s love of Mozart’s music, and he expressed that love again in his note to the score of Mozartiana:
A large number of Mozart’s excellent small compositions are, for incomprehensible reasons, little known not only to the public but also to many musicians. The author of the suite of arrangements entitled Mozartiana wishes to see new cause for more frequent performance of these pearls of musical composition, undemanding in form but filled with incomparable beauty.
