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Saturday, March 3, 2018

Program Notes

“Rosamunde” Overture, D. 644

Franz Schubert: (Born in Vienna in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)

Even as a young lad, Franz Schubert desperately wanted to find his fame as an opera composer.  And in his hometown of Vienna, where works for the stage were all the rage, it seemed that the exceptionally talented Schubert should have succeeded.  The route, however, to one of his greatest theatre triumphs, the Rosamunde Overture, was a bedeviling path through many dead ends and disappointments, but leading to one of the great Overtures in Western music.

The story begins when Schubert was 20: Hedging his bets that Vienna wanted to hear more Italian-esque operas, such as the great works that were currently coming from the pen of Rossini, in 1817 Schubert wrote two operatic Overtures “in the Italian style” hoping to gain an operatic commission.  But those Overtures led nowhere and so Schubert then teamed up with a German playwright in 1820 to try to capitalize on the success of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and the newly growing German Romantic interest in magical folktales.  Schubert composed the incidental music to Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp), a folk-mystical play written by Georg von Hofmann, but the play failed to charm anyone and ran for only a few performances.  Nevertheless, Schubert’s music attracted some notice, which gave him the encouragement to write his own full opera in 1822, Alfonzo und Estrella.  While he was searching for an opera house that would perform it (though none in Schubert’s lifetime ever did), Schubert met the author Helmina von Chézy in 1823.

Intelligent, gifted and somewhat eccentric, Chézy had recently returned to Vienna from Paris where she had been working as a correspondent.  She had just collaborated with Carl Maria von Weber to write the music to her opera libretto Euryanthe.  Though it served to bring Weber some musical accolades, the opera was not a theatrical success.  Chézy then engaged the Theatre an der Wien and sought out the starry-eyed Schubert to write the incidental music to her play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus).  Schubert, still hoping to capitalize on Vienna’s current fads, agreed.  This play, too, met with an unappreciative Vienna and has come to be remembered solely for Schubert’s musical contributions.  And indeed, some of his finest inventions take place in Rosamunde, such as the exquisite Entr’acte No. 3 and several great choruses and ballet pieces.  There was enough interest, in fact, that Schubert soon published all of the incidental music as a set.  Except that there was no specific Overture for Rosamunde – Schubert hadn’t written one.

The Play’s premiere had instead used the Overture that Schubert had written for his earlier opera Alfonzo.  When he published his Rosamunde set, however, he substituted his Overture to Die Zauberharfe.  This musical shuffling has never been satisfactorily explained, but it was clearly something that Schubert had intended, and we can presume that Schubert knew the value of this great Overture that was written for a play that was likely forever gone from the repertoire.  And from Schubert’s day to the present, audiences have loved it but have forever known it as the “Rosamunde” Overture.  After its somber but gorgeous introduction, featuring a gossamer oboe solo, Schubert presents several of his loveliest, and cheeriest, themes in succession.  Ruefully, Schubert never had success in the Opera hall, but, under any name, this Overture is one of Schubert’s finest works for orchestra, full of the charm, lyricism and energy of a young genius.

Overture and Dance of the Comedians from The Bartered Bride
Featuring Shodekeh, beatboxer/vocal percussionist

Bedřich Smetana: (Born in Litomyšl, near Prague, in1824; died in Prague (Czech Republic) in 1884)

When Smetana was first making music, life in his hometown Prague of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was politically charged against Bohemian (Czech) nationals like him, and opportunities for Czech musicians were especially hard to find.  So to make ends meet and to avoid the worsening political scene, Smetana moved to Sweden in 1856 where he found success as a teacher and piano virtuoso.  Before long, though, the death of his first wife and homesickness encouraged him back to Prague in 1861.  Newly emboldened, he soon founded several schools to foster Czech music and he generously championed other Czech composers (particularly Dvořák).  He thrust himself to the fore as a Czech Nationalist and advocated for Czech independence, and he immediately began composing rich, Czech-centric works.  But in a Prague still hobbled by Austro-Hungarian sentiment, Smetana’s career seemed to remain in constant flux.  By the 1870’s Smetana was finally beginning to enjoy some recognition in his home country (much of it thanks to the ever-growing popularity of his opera The Bartered Bride), when in 1874 a series of medical ailments led to his diagnosis of syphilis.  One of the first symptoms was hearing difficulty, followed by his complete and sudden deafness by 1875.  The fairly rapid progress of the disease led him into insanity and an asylum, where he died in 1884.

But in those early years of his repatriation to Prague, between 1863-66, Smetana was aglow with love for his second wife (Bettina) and hopeful in writing his second opera with librettist Karel Sabina: producing the magnificently comic and Czech-influenced The Bartered Bride.  The story centers on two young Bohemian lovers whose parents and a marriage-broker try to thwart their courtship, but whose true love wins the day.  Importantly, Smetana’s opera showcases the iconic personalities, countryside scenes, and folkways of his beloved Bohemia.  The work, at first in two Acts, was premiered in 1866 with little success; but then Smetana revised it extensively into a three Act version which played in 1870, and which won Prague’s heart and has ever after received international acclaim.

Smetana infused The Bartered Bride with Czech-sounding folk tunes and lots of Czech folkdances, such as the polka and the furiant.  It is its outstanding quality, though, that made it so extremely popular and which keeps it in the repertoire today.  Several of the opera’s purely orchestral moments, too, have become standards in the Concert Hall: especially the Overture and the Dance of the Comedians.  The Overture is a showstopper in its own right, rippling with whirlwinds of energy.  After the initial declamatory introductory phrase, the strings enter into a blazing fugue-like section that suggests there’s much ado in the air.  The Overture features several truly Romantic themes, but which are always interrupted by tutti orchestra led by the timpani.  The last minute of the Overture sets the pace of the opera – festive, comical and alive with glee.

The Dance of the Comedians is a skočná (a rapid two-step Czech dance) and occurs in the third Act.  A circus troupe has blundered through the country town and interrupted one of the main character’s confused and troubled ruminations.  It’s one of the charming moments in the opera for its provincial authenticity and for musical fun – a perfect venue for several great melodies (including the breakneck opening theme) allowing for much dance pageantry onstage.  Its vitality and singability are deliciously infectious, and the galloping ending is as exciting as any in the concert hall.

Symphony No. 7 in D-minor, Op. 70, B. 141

  1. Allegro Maestoso
  2. Poco Adagio
  3. Scherzo – Vivace – Poco meno mosso
  4. Finale: Allegro

Antonin Dvořák: (Born near Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) in 1841; died in Prague in 1904)

At the age of 36, struggling as a composer and unknown outside Prague, Dvořák caught the attention of Johannes Brahms in 1874.  Brahms became indispensable in helping the Czech composer get published and become known, and from this point forward, Dvořák’s success began to build quickly.  His publisher began asking for more and more works, and his music began to be played and adored throughout Europe and America.  By 1884 his renown led to a commission for a new symphony from the Royal Philharmonic Society (the same Society that had commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth in 1824).  His friend Brahms made it clear that he would be disappointed if Dvořák’s new symphony didn’t show something much deeper than his previous works, and although he was no longer struggling, Dvořák nonetheless felt the weight of success and expectations as he contemplated his new Symphony.

Two contextual matters underscored Dvořák’s world during this Symphony.  First, there was a collaboration between the Slovaks (mostly in Pest, Hungary) under Hungarian rule with the Czech’s (mostly in Prague, Bohemia) under Austrian rule with the two groups banding together to be independent from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Dvořák was not only deeply patriotic, but his Czech Nationalist music along with that of Bedřich Smetana’s were rallying cries for this collaborative Independence movement.  Secondly, Dvořák was reeling in grief from several tragedies: one of his children had recently died; his colleague Smetana, who nearly single-handedly began the Czech Nationalist movement, was disintegrating mentally and physically from syphilis; and Dvořák’s mother was dying.  Patriotism and grief would certainly find their expression in Dvořák’s new Symphony.  But inspiration came in a delightfully peculiar way.

Just to quiet his mind, every day Dvořák would sit and watch a few trains come and go at the Prague train station, and one day while he was ruminating on this Symphonic “crisis,” a train arrived.  As Dvořák explained it: “the first subject of my new symphony flashed [into] my mind on the arrival of the festive train bringing our countrymen from Pest.”  These passengers were, in fact, arriving for an evening festival to support the Slovak- Czech Independence movement.  There is no mistaking the same polemical fervency in the opening of Dvořák’s Seventh.  Timpani and basses rumble off a sustained D note as the strings quietly play the opening theme – tightly knit, coiled and determined.  The theme builds into a fairly colossal climax, only to pull back, and then build toward another, even greater, climax.  As a pastoral and gently natured second theme emerges, we begin to see what this Symphony will hold – struggle and restlessness.  Despite these aspects, however, the movement ends almost despondently, with fading tones halting its momentum, as if grief had struck its marrow.

The second movement was footnoted by Dvořák as “From the sad years.”  It begins with rich sonorities in the winds which beautifully unfold like an anthem or chorale.  The second theme is melancholic, and gives way to some very anguished moments.  Still, in this movement’s bitter sweetness, a restlessness remains from the first movement, a striving for something more.  It is truly one of Dvořák’s most psychologically riveting movements.

The valiant and folksy third movement appears to be a typical Dvořák scherzo, with Czech cross-rhythms, lots of grace and delightful Czech dance music.  It is all this, but as it dances to its ending, a certain agony begins to creep into the themes, as if the “dancers” are inwardly weeping – it’s a profound moment, and it serves to anchor the overall tone of the Symphony – of struggle and sorrow – and it sets the stage for the very sober finale.

Now, in the Finale, Dvořák recalls the determined opening of this Symphony with a similar theme, but now somewhat more resolute.  Of particular note, one can’t help noticing how Dvořák is showing Brahms how he has mastered orchestration as well as his Austrian mentor, but again, restlessness pervades this movement.  Though the themes allow some lovely passages of serenity, they seem to only add to the ever changing, agitated mood.  It all gets summed up at the end when, although the music is racing toward a bracing finish, the progression from D-minor to D Major seems to not be about triumph, but rather defiance, about not giving in.  Dvořák said that this Symphony was about the resolve of the Czech people – the ending chords are as wrought out of iron as any could be, and it makes for an incredibly wrenching finish to what may well be Dvorak’s finest masterpiece.

A Note about Beatboxing (Shodekeh: Beatboxer/vocal percussionist)

The most versatile instrument on the planet may indeed be the human voice, and its potentials are virtually limitless.  One of the most extraordinary testaments to its special capabilities is mimicking percussion instruments, today generically called “beatboxing.”  The technique of vocally creating percussive sounds has a long history tracing back for centuries, but it became especially popular in the 1970’s when Western pop musicians began vocally mimicking an electronic drum machine called the “beatbox,” a machine that was epitomized by the 1980 Roland TR-808 and which became a cornerstone in hip-hop music.  The term “Vocal percussion” is often used as another term for beatboxing, but, it encompasses even more novel mimicry and vocal virtuosity.  Today, beatboxing is accompanying all kinds of music making, including Tibetan Chant and Tuvan throat singing.  But tonight’s fusing of Smetana’s great classical-folk-opera music and Shodekeh’s virtuosic vocal percussioning will be an innovative and ground-breaking showcase of that most versatile instrument on the planet.

Program Notes by Max Derrickson