In this section...

Saturday, Oct 13 & Sunday Oct 14, 2018

Program Notes

Ralph Vaughan Williams, (Born in Down Ampney, England in 1872; died in London in 1958)

Overture to The Wasps (from his Aristophanic Suite)

In the first decade of the 20th Century Vaughan Williams was already in his mid-thirties and struggling with his music writing.  He needed a break and he looked outside Britain for fresh ideas, specifically to Paris and the young musical magician, Maurice Ravel.  In 1908, Ravel and Vaughan Williams worked together for three months, soon inspiring Vaughan Williams to say that he acquired “a little French polish”  and that he learned to create harmonies “in colours rather than linearly.”  The compositions that flowed from Vaughan Williams in the next few years were made of this delightful recipe – a kind of English folksong meets impressionist-like colors, at once mystical and sophisticated.  His Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is probably his best known work from this period, but his first piece in this post-Ravelian inspiration was an entire set of incidental music for the play that is considered one of the greatest satiric comedies in history, The Wasps, by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes.

In 1909, within months of Vaughan Williams’s return from Paris, Cambridge University commissioned him to write the incidental music for their performance of The Wasps.  The play pokes some very sharp fun at the judiciary of Athens, opening with the curious scene of a house draped with a huge net.  Inside a prisoner is being held, a “monster” or “trialophile,” who is addicted to litigious activity and suffering from “obsessional thinking, paranoia, poor hygiene and hoarding.”  When the monster’s legal peers arrive, they swarm the house like wasps.

Vaughan Williams’s witty and gorgeous Overture to the play begins with some clever trills and tremolos that rise and fall in volume and pitch, sounding much like insects whirring through the orchestra.  Vaughan Williams then brings the drama to present day England: the main two themes are English folksong in character, are lovely, and of hearty good cheer – perhaps surprisingly considering the subject.  The “wasp” trills and tremolos return here and there to whisk us into new musical sections.  Also, listen closely at about 3 minutes into the Overture, with its solo horn, then violin, then flute.  Here you’ll hear some wonderful orchestration by Vaughan Williams trying out his new Ravelian techniques, harmonizing with rich hues and instrumental voices melting into one another, then floating into a moment of hushed expansiveness.   There will be more of these fine moments to come in this great Overture, as there will be in Vaughan Williams’s long career that follows this early, masterful work.

Aaron Copland, (Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1900; died in North Tarrytown, New York in 1990)

Appalachian Spring (suite from the Ballet)

For many, Appalachian Spring is virtually an American hymn.  It has taken its place in the oeuvre of Copland’s works that capture “America’s sound,” and has uniquely, too, come to represent the “sound of Appalachia” – that ancient chain of low mountains marching up the eastern seaboard, with their dense wilderness, brilliant autumnal colors, filled with the folksong seeming as ancient as the mountains themselves.  The underlying story of Copland’s ballet is also equally well known: that of a newlywed pioneer family “building a house with joy and love and prayer.”  Interestingly, neither the Appalachia theme nor this ballet story appeared in this piece until much later in its creation.  Co-commissioned of Copland in 1942 by the famous American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, the grande dame of Modern [American] Dance, as well as by the Coolidge Foundation, the ballet music that Copland originally conceived of was first titled “Ballet for Martha” and he said that “the music … takes as a point of departure the personality of Martha Graham.”  Just before the ballet’s premiere in 1944, Graham herself happened across the lovely phrase that became its title, “Appalachian spring,” finding it in a poem by Hart Crane called The Dance (from the larger collection titled The Bridge) where the poem’s “spring” referred to a water source, not the season.  Although a basic outline of the ballet’s story existed from the start, most of the details that we know today were hammered out in the several months prior to its premiere.

Two aspects in the commissioning of Appalachian Spring, however, were essential to its creation from the very beginning: the music had be danceable, and it had to be “American” sounding.  And these two aspects Copland undeniably achieved.   American born and bred, Appalachian Spring has remained peerless as music that captures the spirit of America.   To be sure, its musical canvas conveys a simplicity and newness that has become attached to America’s nostalgic perception of itself.  And one of its most beloved melodies, the beautiful hymn tune “Simple Gifts*,” gives the musical score a deeply honest and hopeful feel.  These characteristics lend themselves wonderfully to any dance interpretation.  Originally scored for 13 instruments and intended to be danced by a small troupe in the intimate Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Copland revised and condensed the score in 1945 into a suite for full orchestra, which is now its most well-known version (and the version we hear on this concert).

The underlying story, according to the original published score, is as follows:

“…a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century [1800’s].  The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their domestic partnership invites.  An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience.  A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate.  At the end the couple is left quiet and strong in their new house.”

*A note about the tune “Simple Gifts”:  The Shakers, a break-off sect from the Quakers, emigrated from England to America in 1774.  “Shakers” was a pejorative term for the sect and referred to their lively and ecstatic form of worship which involved a lot of their own, original music accompanied by swaying and twirling dance.  Music played a part in all aspects of Shaker life, and was thought of, dually, as utilitarian and spiritual in essence, and these songs were referred to as work-song-hymns.  In 1875, Shaker member Elder Joseph Brackett composed “Simple Gifts.”  It was published in a compendium not long afterwards called The Gift to Be Simple: Shaker Rituals and Songs, which is where Copland found it.  The song’s lilting, sweet melody and its humble, yet joyful, lyrics seem to capture the essence of Copland’s Appalachian Spring as well as any description.  They are:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free;
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be;
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we sha’n’t be asham’d
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning we come round right.

Edvard Hagerup Grieg, (Born in Bergen, Norway in 1843; died in Bergen in 1907)

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16

  1. Allegro molto moderato
  2. Adagio
  3. Allegro vivace

Ever since its premiere in 1869, where the piano soloist was greeted with “a real storm of applause [even before the end of the first cadenza],” Grieg’s timeless Piano Concerto has been praised by audiences and performers alike.  It abounds with exquisite themes and rich, Romantic harmonies.  Not only did it achieve lasting success immediately, but its tonal language influenced the burgeoning Impressionist movement that arose soon after.

Grieg’s inspirations often came from the Norwegian countryside where he spent his entire life, and the characteristic sounds of Norwegian folksong that appear in so many of his works.  One can almost see images of the craggy, wild fjords of Norway, or the distinct “dragon style” architecture of a Norwegian country town halfway into the Arctic Circle.  The very first theme played by the piano solo in this Concerto, for example  – a descending three note motive spanning the interval of a fourth  – is as much like a dramatic leap off a rocky cliff into the icy blue as it is a common melodic device in Norwegian folksong.

Just as noticeable in his Concerto opening, however, is a conspicuous likeness to Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor (1845), a work that Grieg was enchanted with.  As does Schumann’s, Grieg’s Concerto begins with an imaginatively exclamatory introduction, in Grieg’s case, a thundering timpani roll.  It is for Grieg both an homage and an announcement of the wonders to come. Nonetheless, Grieg’s uniquely lyrical Norwegian voice comes through as all his own – rich and lusty, yet poetically simple.

After the dramatic opening, the first theme emerges with a delightfully tricky contrivance, soon flipping that descending three-note motive upside down as an integral part of the melody.  The second theme is a dressed-up sounding Norwegian folk song, and then the first movement moves into that famous cadenza that so excited the audience at its 1869 premiere, which then leads to the brightly spirited ending.

The second movement Adagio offers a perfect balance, soft and pastoral.  This is a lovely improvisational lullaby, exquisite in its sense of calm and lyricism.  Grieg achieves a weightlessness in his piano writing, as though it were the sound of summer breezes.

The finale Allegro is essentially in two parts, the first being a fancied up halling, a regional Norwegian dance that requires exceptional athleticism, skill and grace.  The second part is poignantly melancholy and yet an irresistibly lovely tune of the type that seemed to peal off Grieg like raindrops.  Grieg’s use of a pedal note (a note or harmony held for a particularly long time) here, over which melody and harmony wander and modulate, affected the Impressionists greatly a decade later.  In this Concerto the device creates a sensuous and ethereal atmosphere.  The finale returns to its athletic halling and ends this masterpiece grandly.

It’s impossible to hear Grieg’s Piano Concerto and not feel its unique mix of infectious vitality and delicate warmth.  Another of Grieg’s early admirers, Tchaikovsky, described his music aptly:

“[Grieg’s music] quickly finds its way into our hearts . . . If we add to this that rarest of qualities, a perfect simplicity, far removed from affectation and pretense . . . it is not surprising that everyone should delight in Grieg.”

 

Program notes by Max Derrickson, 2018