In this section...

Saturday, March 4, 2017

HSO Cover 2016-2017

Program Notes

Girando, Danzando
Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez (b. 1964)

Girando, Danzando (“Spinning, Dancing”) was commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center through the Paul Jacobs Memorial Fund. Much of the source material for each of its larger sections derives from two earlier works, “Girándula” and “Fandango y Cuna”. Throughout the piece, treatment emphasizes various motivic, harmonic, instrumental and formal dichotomies. The first half-as if slowly emerging out of those spinning wheels sometimes used in fireworks-gradually dilates until it is thrown amidst a serpentine beam of fire that ultimately dissolves back into nothingness. The boisterous second half is as much a dance as it is a dawdling ritual where materials are introduced and elaborated through the use of juxtaposition and sharp contrasts. The above compositional plan seems to be finding its way with greater frequency into many of my works, perhaps reflecting my own experience as a Mexican artist living and working in the United States. © 1995, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez

Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67

Sergei Prokofiev
(Born in Sontskova, Ukraine in 1891; died in Moscow in 1953)

Prokofiev was equally gifted as a pianist as he was a composer. His talents were obvious when he was very young – he remembered writing a March for the piano at the age of 6 and his first opera was composed when he was 13. Always precocious, in 1918 he set off to tour the world as a concert pianist. His travels would not bring him back to Russia until 1927. In that decade abroad, he continued composing, performing, and soon conducting. His work soon earned him the nickname “Enfant Terrible” (“Wild child”), and indeed, works such as his Scythian Suite and his Piano Concerto No. 1 of 1914 were full of ferocity, brashness and shock-value. His uncanny melodic talents were present early on, too, but Prokofiev relished in his bad boy reputation: by all accounts he enjoyed dismaying his audiences.

By the time he fully repatriated to the Soviet Union in 1936, Stalin was in power, Russian life was turned upside down, and musical creativity was essentially dictated by the State. Though there was a honeymoon period following Prokofiev’s heralded return, soon he too was being dictated to. For allof his delight in his once notorious reputation, Prokofiev seemed astonishingly at peace with those constraints and eager to compose with the utmost integrity. One of those official dictates was an emphasis on music for children, a campaign to nurture and teach young people. Prokofiev first responded with Music for Children, easy pieces (12) for piano, Op. 65 (1936), a delightful set of piano vignettes that brought music, rhythm and wonderful melodies to a child’s level. He was approached that same year by the Central Children’s Theater in Moscow to write a symphony for children. The Enfant Terrible in Prokofiev must have fondly remembered his first March from age 6 because he set to work and finished his Peter and the Wolf in just four days – its main theme, a March, is the theme for the main character, Peter.

Peter and the Wolf had an “inauspicious” debut – attendance was poor and preparation was apparently shoddy – but it soon captured audience’s imaginations worldwide, and for very good reason. Ingenious in its approach, it’s a children’s story narrated with orchestral accompaniment, and each main character has a theme that features specific instruments. The narrator captivates the child’s imagination with a charming tale (which was written by Prokofiev) while introducing the instruments of the orchestra. For the Bird a flute (of course), the Duck an oboe, the Cat a clarinet, the grumpy Grandfather a bassoon, the Wolf the French horns, the Hunters the winds and trumpets (and for their gun shots, naturally, bass drum and timpani), and for Peter the string instruments. But more than cleverness and charm make Peter and the Wolf beloved of children and grown-ups. Prokofiev’s themes each are delightfully tuneful and inventive, and the music, even without the spoken story, carries its own narrative wonderfully, and in the end, all’s well that ends well with the child-hero, Peter, triumphing over the Wolf with just the right degree of comedy.

Program Notes by Max Derrickson

Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36
Edward Elgar (Born in Lower Broadheath, England in 1857; died in Worcester in 1934)

Theme (Andante) “Enigma”
Var. I (L’istesso tempo) “C.A.E.”
Var. II (Allegro) “H.D.S-P.”
Var. III (Allegretto) “R.B.T.”
Var. IV (Allegro di molto) “W.M.B.”
Var. V (Moderato) “R.P.A.”
Var. VI (Andantino) “Ysobel”
Var. VII (Presto) “Troyte”
Var. VIII (Allegretto) “W.N.”
Var. IX (Adagio) “Nimrod”
Var. X (Intermezzo: Allegretto) “Dorabella”
Var. XI (Allegro di molto) “G.R.S.”
Var. XII (Andante) “B.G.N.”
Var. XIII (Romanza: Moderato) “* * *”
Var. XIV (Finale: Allegro) “E.D.U.”

Just into his 40’s and scraping out a meager living as a music teacher, Elgar arrived home one night after a long day and began noodling a theme on the piano. It perked up his wife’s ears, who was Elgar’s strongest champion and constant support, and together they had a great evening of imagining their friends as music: “What would so-and-so sound like?” Within a few months these musical musings had morphed into a full set of variations on that theme, each variant capturing something of the personality of their close friends. As Elgar described it to his friend and publisher August Jaeger (one of the variations’ inspirations): “I have sketched a set of Variations … I’ve liked to imagine the ‘party’ [friend] writing the var. him (or her) self … if they were asses enough to compose.” Over the top of the first few bars in the musical score, Elgar wrote the word, “Enigma.”

When these Variations on an Original Theme was published in 1899, Elgar provided a program note that was playfully enigmatic:

“The Variations should stand simply as a piece of music. I will not explain—its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another larger theme “goes,” but it is not played … So the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas … the chief character is never on the stage.”

Scholars and enthusiasts have pondered what Elgar meant by this “enigma” – was it a hidden key, a musical mystery? No one seems to have ever truly solved it. Solutions to the enigma range from “Auld Lang Syne” and “Rule, Britannia!” to the first four notes of the work being a cryptograph for the number “Pi” (3.142…). Whatever the enigma, the Variations quickly catapulted Elgar into the forefront of English music for many decades. They’re beautiful and inventive and paced magnificently, and include some of the great music of the Century. Below are the keys to the work’s first enigma (i.e., the initials at the beginning of each variation), and some of Elgar’s own notes (in quotations).

Theme (Enigma) and Variation I. (C.A.E.) = Alice Elgar
The opening theme is a halting and melancholic melody, and gorgeous. It seems to belie the depression that Elgar often battled with but which his wife and friends were paramount in supporting him through. Both psychologically and musically, the theme is a goldmine of material for the variations to come. This introductory theme leads without break into the first variation (I), a sweet offering and fittingly meant for his wife, Alice. “The variation is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this reference to one whose life was a romantic and delicate inspiration.”

II. (H.D.S-P.) = Hew David Steuart-Powell
Steuart-Powell was a violinist who played chamber music with Elgar, along with their cellist (Var. XII – B.G.N). As captured by the banter and chatter of the strings, Steuart-Powell was apparently a furtive and driven fellow.

III. (R.B.T.) = Richard Baxter Townshend
“Has reference to [Townshend’s] presentation of an old man in some amateur theatricals—the low voice flying off occasionally into ‘soprano’ timbre.” The woodwinds and pizzicato strings represent the constantly ringing bell on Townshend’s bike as he dashed about Oxford.

IV. (W.M.B.) = William Meath Baker
“A country squire, gentleman and scholar. In the days of horses and carriages it was more difficult than in these days of petrol to arrange the carriages for the day to suit a large number of guests. This Variation was written after the host had, with a slip of paper in his hand, forcibly read out the arrangements for the day and hurriedly left the music-room with an inadvertent bang of the door.”

V. (R.P.A.) = Richard Penrose Arnold
Arnold was “a great lover of music which he played (on the pianoforte) in a self-taught manner, evading difficulties but suggesting in a mysterious way the real feeling. His serious conversation was continually broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.” One of Elgar’s loveliest themes appears here in the strings, and reflecting Arnold’s genuineness in making music and noble character.

VI. (Ysobel) = Isabel Fitton
Fitton was a young lady who tried to learn viola from Elgar. Naturally, the main instrument here is the viola and this variation jabs fun at her inability to master the technique of string crossing, but its tenderness suggests a romantic tug on Elgar’s part.

VII. (Troyte) = Arthur Troyte Griffith
Troyte Griffith was a piano student of Elgar’s who struggled, and this variation portrays one of Troyte’s “maladroit essays to play the pianoforte; later the strong rhythm suggests the attempts of the instructor (E.E.) to make something like order out of chaos, and the final despairing ’slam’ records that the effort proved to be in vain.” Depicting bad piano playing with cacophonous, nigh rude, timpani and basses is one of Elgar’s cleverest moments.

VIII. (W.N.) = Winifred Norbury
Rather than the personality Winifred herself, Elgar depicted her lovely house, “Sherridge,” where she lived with her sister, Florence, and where many a delightful evening with friends was spent, though “The gracious personalities of the ladies are sedately shown.” At the end, a beautiful moment occurs where the strings are left singing a solitary note, and then the chords gently change the key for the next, and most beloved variation, “Nimrod.”

IX. (Nimrod) = August Jaeger
As mentioned, Jaeger was Elgar’s publisher and close friend. In German “Jaeger” means “hunter” and in the Bible Nimrod was a great hunter – the nickname stuck. “The Variation . . . is the record of a long summer evening talk, when my friend [Jaeger, nicknamed Nimrod] discoursed eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven, and said that no one could approach Beethoven at his best in this field, a view with which I cordially concurred.” What Elgar did not mention was that on that same summer evening talk, Elgar was battling a serious bout of depression and wanted to give up music. Jaeger reasoned that Beethoven had even harder obstacles to conquer, and yet wrote the most beautiful music even so. “You need to do the same,” said Jaeger to Elgar. It clearly inspired one of the greatest beauties in English music, and what is often attributed to Elgar as the “the truest of English-ness.”

X. (Dorabella) = Dora Penny
Elgar and Dora were very close friends, and it seems clear with the longing string and woodwind solos in this variation that they may have both pined for more than friendship. The flitting string figures followed by the wind stammerings poke gentle fun at Dora’s stuttering problem as a young lady.

XI. (G.R.S.) = George Robertson Sinclair
Sinclair was the organist of Hereford Cathedral, but the music depicts a charming incident with his dog. “The first few bars were suggested by [the] great bulldog Dan (a well-known character) falling down the steep bank into the River Wye (bar 1); his paddling up stream to find a landing place (bars 2 and 3); and his rejoicing bark on landing (second half of bar 5). G.R.S. said ‘set that to music.’ I did; here it is.”

XII. (B.G.N.) = Basil Nevinson
Nevinson was the cellist in Elgar and Steuart-Powell’s (Var. II) chamber group, “[This] Variation is a tribute to a very dear friend whose scientific and artistic attainments, and the wholehearted way they were put at the disposal of his friends, particularly endeared him to the writer.” Naturally, the cellos are featured prominently here.

XIII. (* * *) = Lady Mary Lygon
The asterisks and the marking of “Romanza” provided another enticing enigma in this work, but in truth, Elgar wasn’t given permission to publish the noblewoman Lygon’s initials. Perhaps all for the better because of its romantic implication. At the time of writing, Lygon was on a steamer to Australia, and Elgar creates one his most remarkable orchestrations. As the timpani create a buzzing sound with wooden sticks that replicate whirring engines, the clarinet quotes a theme from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture. Elgar then captures the feeling of gravely missing his dear friend with high, soft strings and somber brass chords.

XIV. E.D.U. = Edward Elgar
The initials, when said as a word, becomes what Alice, Elgar’s wife, nicknamed him – Edoo. “Written at a time when friends were dubious and generally discouraging as to the composer’s musical future, this variation is merely intended to show what E.D.U. intended to do. References are made to two great influences upon the life of the composer: C.A.E. and Nimrod.” The three friends, Elgar, Alice and Nimrod, together end this work musically in a “…triumphant broad presentation of the theme in the major” – in other words, in a triumphant blaze of glory.

 

Program Notes by Max Derrickson