Three Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat (Suite No. 2)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
The origins of The Three-Cornered Hat go back to a Spanish folk tale that was variously adapted as a poetic romance, a theatrical zarzuela, and a novel by Pedro Alarcón published in 1875 (the basis for Hugo Wolf’s opera, Der Corregidor). The novel attracted Manuel de Falla, who then composed the music to a pantomime on it. This was produced in Seville in 1917. The following year, Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, visited Spain and heard portions of the score to the pantomime. With his infallible talent for sniffing out a masterpiece, Diaghilev enthusiastically commissioned de Falla to expand the pantomime into a full ballet. The result was a successful London premiere in July 1919 with Léonide Massine dancing, Ernest Ansermet conducting, and scenes and costumes by Pablo Picasso (in his first ballet design).
The ballet is in two parts. The scene is in front of the Miller’s house in a small Andalusian town around 1800. The Miller and his wife are happy together, but they occasionally test their love by flirting with others. As the couple go about their chores, various people pass by. Among them is the Corregidor (Governor), wearing an ostentatious three-corned hat, the symbol of his authority. The Miller’s Wife catches his eye, and when he later returns to court her, she toys with him to amuse her husband, who is hiding. Ceremoniously, she greets the Corregidor. She offers him grapes, and then teases him amorously with them, causing him to stumble and fall. The Miller appears. As the couple helps the Corregidor to his feet and dusts him off, he becomes aware of their plot. Angrily, he marches off to the delight of the couple.
The Three Dances all come from the second part. It is evening, and the town has gathered for the feast of St. John. “The Neighbors’ Dance,” a seguidilla, enacts this celebration. Following this comes “The Millers’ Dance,” a proud and masculine farruca that is a highlight of the score. The police come and take the Miller away to give the Corregidor a chance at the wife. Imitating the mannerisms of a Don Juan, the Corregidor begins to cross the bridge to the Miller’s house. Startled by the moonlight, however, he stumbles into the water. He leaves his drenched uniform outside the Miller’s house and hides inside. Soon the escaped Miller returns, sees the clothing, assumes his wife’s infidelity, and decides to take revenge by impersonating the Corregidor, donning his uniform. There follows a whirling comedy of mistaken identities. In the “Final Dance” (a jota), all is set right, and in mock punishment, the villagers toss the Corregidor on a blanket.
Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85
Edward Elgar (1857- 1934)
No one who lived through World War I was the same after it ended. The world looked different, people had aged, and many prewar values now seemed irrelevant. Edward Elgar found himself in just such a state in 1919, the year in which he composed the Cello Concerto, his last major work. At that time, he and his wife lived in a cottage near Sussex. Biographer Michael Kennedy describes Elgar then: “He was an autumnal figure now, and his surroundings suited his frame of mind. He occupied himself chopping wood and making hoops for barrels and building bonfires.”
In the previous year, Elgar had composed three chamber works. Their restrained character and instrumentation no doubt had an influence on his approach to writing the Cello Concerto, so different from his Violin Concerto of ten years earlier. Donald Tovey writes that the cello work is “. . . a fairy tale, full, like all Elgar’s larger works, of meditative and intimate passages; full also of humor, which, in the second movement and finale, rises nearer to the surface than Elgar usually permits.”
In addition, the movement plan is different from anything else Elgar wrote. The first two movements connect (moderate — fast tempos) as do the last two (slow — fast tempos).
Building from a noble cello solo, the first movement’s slow introduction arrives at a solemn grandeur and then subsides to introduce the graceful, lilting main theme. Most of this movement of “autumn smoke and falling leaves” (Kennedy) is based on that melody. A brief cello solo furtively introduces the second movement’s main theme. The cello’s busy but very precise part is highlighted throughout.
The slow movement is concise in size, instrumentation, and musical material. Elgar masterfully builds an entire tragic nocturne on two phrases. A rhapsodic cello recitative (reminiscent of the concerto’s opening) forms a bridge to the highly spirited finale. The robust main theme contrasts with a second idea that to Tovey suggests “dignity at the mercy of a banana-skin.” Toward the end, reminiscences of themes from the third and first movements appear. The quietude of these sets up a last burst of the finale’s main theme, which tersely ends the concerto.
Petrouchka
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
In his 1935 Autobiography, Igor Stravinsky describes the genesis of Petrouchka:
Before tackling the Sacre du Printemps . . . I wanted to refresh myself by composing an orchestral piece in which the piano would play the most important part — a sort of Konzertstück. In composing the music, I had in mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life . . . Petrouchka, the immortal and unhappy hero of every fair in all countries.
Stravinsky played his piece for Sergei Diaghileff, impresario of the Ballets Russes, who was so taken with it that he persuaded Stravinsky to develop it into a full-length ballet. The composer’s Konzertstück became the entire second scene. Stravinsky worked on the score for nearly a year during 1910 and the following year, infusing it with originality, but also incorporating folk and street songs he had heard in St. Petersburg and Paris. Petrouchka premiered quite successfully in Paris in June 1911 with an “unsurpassed” performance of the title role by Vaslav Nijinsky. Here is a scene-by-scene synopsis of the ballet:
1. Shrovetide Fair opens with the bustle of the crowd at this pre-Lent carnival. Street musicians with hand organs and music boxes vie for attention. Finally, the Showman appears at the puppet booth. He draws the curtain to reveal three puppets: Petrouchka, the Ballerina, and the Blackamoor. Playing a flute, he charms them to life, jerkily at first, but then dancing to the astonishment of the crowd. The scene ends with the “Russian Dance,” which also introduces the piano as a featured instrument.
2. Petrouchka’s Room, which is actually a painted cardboard box. Introduced by the “Petrouchka chord” in the clarinets (two different broken chords heard at once), we see the curse of the puppet’s having been brought to life. Petrouchka (portrayed in the piano) is miserable about his grotesqueness, even more since he loves the Ballerina. She visits him briefly but flees, fearing his ugliness. In despair, Petrouchka hurls himself at his portrait, tearing the cardboard wall. At the close, there is a reprise of the “Petrouchka chord.”
3. The Blackamoor’s Room. The brutish Blackamoor lounges in luxuriant surroundings. The Ballerina comes to him, finds him attractive, and captivates him in a curious duet on two different melodies. Petrouchka bursts in on their love scene and quarrels with the Blackamoor, who boots him out.
4. The Grand Carnival. It is evening at the fair, and now a series of special dances takes place: the Nuns, the Peasant and Bear, the Gypsy Girls, the Coachmen, and the Masqueraders. Suddenly, Petrouchka, chased by the Blackamoor, rushes out from behind the puppet booth. The Blackamoor kills Petrouchka with a scimitar. When the Showman appears, he reassures the crowd that the body is only that of a stuffed puppet. Left alone on stage, the showman drags off Petrouchka’s corpse, as the puppet’s ghost appears on top of the booth, jeering and mocking the crowd who believed him to be a real person.
