2010–2011 Season Program Notes

SEPTEMBER 10 & 11, 2010

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande

Widely regarded as the master of the French art song, Gabriel Fauré worked mostly in small forms, never writing a symphony or a concerto and only two operas. He ranks as the most important French composer between Berlioz and Debussy, and he influenced the course of French music significantly during his term as head of the Paris Conservatoire from 1905 to 1920. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Fauré was not himself educated at the Conservatoire but rather at the École Niedermeyer (a Paris school for the study of church music), where he studied with, among others, Camille Saint-Saëns, the French composer who was perhaps the greatest musical mind of his day. Later Fauré would write that he owed everything to Saint-Saëns, but it is undeniable that he was also influenced powerfully by his harmony instructor Gustave Lefèvre, whose 1889 work Traité d’harmonie expressed the (then) daring view that seventh and ninth chords should not be considered dissonant.

In 1898, Fauré was commissioned to write music for Pelléas et Mélisande, Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 play about the doomed, forbidden love between its title characters, to be used in performances in London of an English translation of the drama. Fauré composed nine musical numbers, orchestrated by his Conservatoire pupil Charles Koechlin (who later became a fine and quite prolific composer in his own right), and conducted all nine performances at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre in June and July of 1898. Although this music was the first to be inspired by Maeterlinck’s play, it was far from the last; in 1902, Fauré’s rival composer Claude Debussy wrote his ground-breaking opera based on the story, and several other composers (including Sibelius and Schoenberg) have written music inspired by it as well. Prior to any of these, Fauré decided to create an orchestral suite from his incidental music, and expanded Koechlin’s orchestrations for the Act I Prélude and the entr’actes for Acts 3 and 4 to make a three movement suite which was first performed in 1901. In 1909, Fauré added a fourth movement, inserting the Sicilienne which preceded Act 2 in front of the final adagio to form the suite as it is performed today. This movement (which retains Koechlin’s original orchestration) is among the most popular music Fauré ever wrote, and has inspired several chamber music arrangements, especially for flute and piano.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Shéhérazade

From his earliest works, Maurice Ravel displayed a careful and precisely structured style of composition that prompted Stravinksy to label him “a Swiss watchmaker.”  Yet this fine craftsmanship incorporated materials of diverse origins, from the exotic brilliance of Rimsky-Korsakov to the daring rhythms of his older compatriot Debussy. In 1903, Ravel decided to create a song cycle with orchestral accompaniment using the texts of three poems by his friend, the poet Tristan Klingsor (who despite the Wagnerian pseudonym was thoroughly French). As Klingsor acknowledged years later when writing about his collaboration with Ravel, works about the Orient were very much in vogue at the time, and a new French translation of One Thousand and One Nights by physician J.C. Mardrus was just being published. Ravel titled his new work Shéhérazade, just as Klingsor had titled his book in which the poems were published, in tribute to the Queen of The Nights who tells all but the end of a story each night in order to stave off her execution the next morning. Klingsor was surprised by Ravel’s choice of poems, which were of descriptive poems that might have seemed challenging to set to music. Although many poets have been less than pleased with the music composed for their works, Klingsor was a notable exception: “In order to be sure not to defeat the intentions of the author, he [Ravel] made me read each poem. Thus, when I repeated three times the initial word Asie, I lowered my voice a degree each time, as is normal if one wants to avoid affectation. Ravel, on the contrary, calls for the word  to be sung in a rising pattern. By all accounts, he was right... I must add that Ravel has been able throughout to set in relief the slightest inflection of the poems, and to adorn them with all the colors of an orchestra as rich as it is delicate.” Klingsor’s glowing praise is nothing but appropriate for this work, which certainly ranks as one of the finest orchestral song cycles ever written.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Symphony No. 3 in c minor (“Organ”)

There have been many child prodigies in the history of music, but it may well be that Camille Saint-Saëns was the most remarkable of them all. At the age of two and a half, he could pick out a tune on the piano; by the age of three, he could read and write, and before he was four he had already composed his first piece of music (the autograph manuscript, dated March 22, 1839, is in the Paris Conservatory). After beginning formal musical training at the age of seven, he made his debut recital as a pianist at the age of ten where, as an encore, he volunteered to play any one of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas from memory. Possessed of absolute pitch and total recall, Saint-Saëns went on to become one of the most important pianists and organists of his day. Early in his career, he supported the progressive composers Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner; later in life, he would become a reactionary who disparaged the music of d’Indy, Strauss, and especially Debussy.

Despite the fine craftsmanship of Saint-Saëns’ own compositional style, his symphony in C minor for organ and orchestra is one of a surprisingly small number of his works that remain in the modern repertoire. He composed it when he was 50, on a commission from the Philharmonic Society of London, and it was there that Saint-Saëns conducted the premiere on May 19, 1886. The composer provided this introduction to his detailed program notes provided for the occasion:

This symphony is divided into two parts, in the manner of my fourth piano concerto and my violin sonata. It nonetheless includes practically the traditional four movements. The first, checked in development, serves as an introduction to the adagio. In the same manner, the scherzo is connected with the finale. The composer has thus endeavored to avoid somewhat the interminable repetitions which are now more and more disappearing from instrumental music.

The symphony is scored for enormous forces (Saint-Saëns explaining that it was “high time the symphony benefited from the progress of modern instrumentation”): three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three timpani, organ, piano, triangle, cymbal, bass drum, and strings. An English critic wrote that “there is a great deal to admire in this glowing orchestral rhapsody, but we distinctly decline to term it a symphony.” Saint-Saëns would have vigorously disagreed, but however you classify it, it remains a splendid monument to the late Romantic era and is filled with powerful, melodic music.

OCTOBER 15 & 16, 2010

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Manfred Overture

Though the person and music of Robert Schumann epitomized the philosophy of the day known as romanticism, his music was largely disliked and misunderstood during his lifetime, not to mention little performed. Still, he had a group of dedicated followers who saw that his music was circulated among important musicians, and this ultimately insured his place in music history. He was the first composer to completely break with the classical tradition and compose music that was constructed not for any requirements of structure or symmetry but for the pure, emotional direction of the phrases. Later he made more of an effort to incorporate formal structure in his compositions, but his music always seems to come straight from the heart. He was also most generous in his praise and encouragement of other composers, both living (such as the Danish composer Niels Gade) and dead (he was instrumental in rescuing many of Schubert’s unperformed masterpieces from potential oblivion).

Immediately after completing his opera Genoveva, whose central character is a tragic woman, Schumann began work on music for Lord Byron’s dramatic poem Manfred, whose central character is a tragic man with whom Schumann could easily identify. Lord Byron’s Manfred is a nobleman in the Bernese Alps who is wracked with guilt for having caused the death of his beloved Astarte; he realizes that if he does not commit suicide he may be driven insane by his guilt. Himself a tortured soul who teetered on the brink of insanity, Schumann found the persona of Manfred fascinating and composed music for fifteen scenes from the poem. Of this music, today it is only the overture that is still performed with any frequency, and it makes a fine concert opener. The music was completed in 1849 and the overture premiered under Schumann’s direction in Leipzig in March of 1852, with the complete work being staged later that year under the direction of Franz Liszt in Weimar. The overture begins with three evenly spaced chords that never return anywhere in the music, and the work is filled with a romantic yearning that remains unsettled and unsatisfied, like Manfred himself.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 129

The Cello Concerto is one of Schumann’s last major works to be written before the onset of the mental illness that would eventually claim his life. It was composed soon after he took his last paid position as a conductor in Düsseldorf. The concerto was written in only two weeks in October of 1850, though the composer persisted in making minor changes for several years. The first performance did not take place until 1860, four years after Schumann’s death. The concerto is a demanding work for the soloist, who is almost always highlighted against relatively light orchestration. Two lyrical movements precede a lively, dance-like finale, with transitions between the movements rather than the usual pauses. It seems a great pity that Schumann never heard this music performed, and inexplicable that more performances of this beautiful concerto are not heard today.

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Symphony No. 7 in E

Troubled by self-doubt and tormented by the vicious attacks on his music by Establishment critics, Anton Bruckner sustained himself with a deep religious faith that lies at the center of all of his music. The rustic peasant who took up composition relatively late in life and once tipped the wealthy conductor Hans Richter at a performance of his Fourth Symphony (Richter later had the coin put on his watch chain as a memento), Bruckner would never stray emotionally far from his roots first as chorister and later as organist and choirmaster at St. Florian’s Abbey. What characterizes his music more than anything else is the slow, deliberate progression of the harmonies and themes. The eminent Viennese music critic Max Graf attended some of the composer’s university lectures, and though he went expecting to be amused, he came away thoroughly impressed by Bruckner’s approach to composition: “Bruckner pondered over chords and chord associations as a medieval architect contemplated the original forms of a Gothic cathedral. They were his path to the Kingdom of God.”

Although he produced a large body of sacred music, it is on his nine symphonies that Bruckner’s modern reputation now rests. He completed his first acknowledged symphony in 1866, but Bruckner did not conduct the first performance until two years later and received virtually no positive critical notice until the premiere of his seventh symphony on December 30, 1884. It begins with an opening movement with a long, arching first theme which the composer said he had heard in a dream, played on a viola, and wrote down on awaking (the tune also includes a quotation from the Credo of his D minor mass, written in 1864, which he was then in the process of revising). Learning of the poor health of his idol, Richard Wagner, Bruckner wrote most of the second movement in tribute to the Bayreuth master, and added the final coda on learning of the composer’s death “in memory of the immortal and dearly beloved master who has departed this life.” There follows a scherzo in classical sonata form, and a relatively brief finale. When Bruckner’s friend Josef Schalk, showed the finished score to the young conductor Artur Nikisch, who would conduct the premiere in Leipzig, Nikisch became passionate about the music: “From this moment I regard it as my duty to work for Bruckner’s recognition.” As a result of Nikisch’s efforts, Bruckner received critical acclaim for a symphony for the first time, and his career took a dramatic turn for the better as orchestras around the world gave performances of  the symphony.

JANUARY 21 & 22, 2011

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor

The illegitimate son of Prince Luka Gedeanishvili, Alexander Borodin showed music ability as a child, dabbling in composition by the age of 9. But life as a composer was never considered a realistic proposition in Tsarist Russian, and so Borodin instead entered the Academy of Physicians at the age of 16, graduated with honors, and went on to study at Heidelberg. His studies centered on chemistry (his doctoral thesis was titled “On the Analogy of Arsenical with Phosphoric Acid”) and he returned to St. Petersburg in 1862 with an appointment as adjunct-professor of chemistry at the Academy. He would spend the rest of his life as a working chemist, authoring and translating textbooks, and serving as teacher and administrator. But music was never far from his attention, as he had married a young pianist whom he had met in 1861, and he managed to devote a considerable amount of time to composition, especially during academic holidays. In 1862 he met Balakirev, the influential and self-appointed leader of the Russian nationalist composers, and became an important member of Balakirev’s group. This association led to friendships with Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, and Mussorgsky, and an 1877 visit to Liszt at Weimar that convinced that generous composer to take up Borodin’s cause. Through Liszt’s influence, Borodin’s music began to be heard in Germany, France, and Belgium. Unfortunately, Borodin suffered from poor health most of his life, and heart trouble and an attack of cholera took their toll. He died at the age of 53 of a heart attack in the midst of his friends at a fancy-dress ball at the Academy of Physicians.

His opera Prince Igor, perhaps Borodin’s most important single work and one of the greatest of Russian national operas, was unfinished at the time of this death, and Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov worked to complete and orchestrate it for its first complete performance in St. Petersburg in 1890. Borodin began work on the opera in 1869 and 1870, then set it aside to work on his second symphony and returned to it in 1874, after which it occupied him for the rest of his life. The libretto is an adaptation of the East Slavic narrative The Lay of Igor’s Army, which tells the story of the Slavic prince Igor’s struggle against the invading Polovtsian tribes in the twelfth century. Having captured the prince and his son, the Polovtsian leader, Khan Konchak, treats them royally with festivities that include a display of Oriental dancing. Written and orchestrated by Borodin himself long before he had finished the rest of the opera, the composer conducted the first performance of the dances in St. Petersburg on February 27, 1879, where they were received with wild enthusiasm. Incorporating an exotically Oriental flavor, strong rhythmic drive, and introduced by one of the most beautiful melodies Borodin ever wrote, the dances have remained popular orchestral showpieces ever since.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra

The two most important women in Tchaikovsky’s life both made their entries in 1877. The first was his wife Antonina, with whom he had a disastrous relationship that broke up after only nine weeks; the second was the wealthy, forty-six-year-old widow Nadejda von Meck who, on the condition that they would never meet, offered to provide him with monetary support—and did so for fourteen years while they conversed only in correspondence. When Tchaikovsky fled Moscow and the marriage that had ended in nightmarish fashion, it was Madame von Meck who sent him the money needed to make his escape. During the next several months, in a Swiss resort on the shores of Lake Geneva, Tchaikovsky poured out his soul into three important works: the Fourth Symphony, the opera Eugene Onegin, and his Violin Concerto. In writing the concerto, the composer was closely advised by a former student, Yosif Kotek, a violinist employed by Madame von Meck. Intending the work for performance by the great Leopold Auer (for whom Tchaikovsky had earlier written the Sérénade mélancolique), Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to him, only to have Auer declare, after being presented with the score, that it was unplayable. The premiere did not take place until 1881, when Adolph Brodsky performed it under the direction of Hans Richter. The first performance was, to put it mildly, not well-received, and the acidic critic Eduard Hanslick famously declared that the concerto demonstrated “the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.” But Brodsky persisted in bringing the work to the public, and subsequent performances in London and Moscow finally brought acclaim to the work. Today it is regarded as one of the most beautiful of the concertos for violin and orchestra, and even Auer later encouraged his students Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman to champion the piece. Like other composers before him, Tchaikovsky had brought a new style of composition to the violin that challenged violinists and extended the range of what had previously been thought possible on the instrument. Fortunately, he also did so with his characteristic melodic gifts that insured that the music was beautiful enough to lure violinists into meeting the challenges.

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Symphony No. 2 in b minor

Borodin’s first symphony, premiered in 1869, was one of the works that caught the attention of Franz Liszt and made him into an advocate for the Russian’s music, and despite a hostile newspaper review, the symphony generally convinced listeners that Borodin the chemist was a remarkably good musician. Encouraged by this taste of success, Borodin immediately began work on a second symphony. He was sidetracked almost at once when he discovered that he also wanted to write a new opera, and when the scenario that would later become Prince Igor was given to him by his friend (and later his biographer) Vladimir Stasov, he set to work on it with great enthusiasm. But after nearly a year of work, he felt discouraged and set the opera aside with the conviction that the story was simply unsuitable: “There is scarcely any drama or scenic movement... Anyhow opera seems to me an unnatural thing... I am by nature a lyricist and symphonist; I am attracted by symphonic forms.” When the dismayed Stasov expressed regret at the music that Borodin had written and would now not be used, Borodin replied: “Don’t worry on that account: the material won’t be lost; it will go into my Second Symphony.” Borodin worked on the symphony for the next 5 years, finally finishing it in a piano duet version in September 1875 and in full score the following year. The first performance on February 26, 1877, was a disaster, in part because Borodin had overestimated the virtuosity of the brass players, and conductor Eduard Nápravník was forced to take the Scherzo at a much slower tempo than the composer had intended. Revising the movement to lighten the scoring, Borodin was able to conduct the next performance the following season at what he felt were the proper tempos. Later performances confirmed the work as one of the greatest and most dramatic of the 19th century Russian symphonies.

MARCH 4 & 5, 2011

James Stephenson (b. 1969)
Celebration Overture

Chicago area composer James Stephenson’s works have been performed by leading American orchestras and hailed by critics as having “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds.” His music incorporates a fresh and energizing sound scape that delights the audience while maintaining integrity and worthwhile challenges for the performing musicians. This rare combination has rewarded Stephenson with a host of ongoing commissions and projects. Recent collaborations include a concerto for Branford Marsalis with Rodney Mack; a work for the
Houston Symphony; and a concerto for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal trombonist, Nitzan
Haroz. In 2010 and 2011, Stephenson premieres include a trumpet concerto in Sydney, Australia, as well as concertos for flute and clarinet in Flordia and Ohio (Cleveland), respectively. The 2011-2012 season will see the premiere of two new violin concertos, to be performed respectively by the Minnesota Orchestra (Osmo Vanska conducting, Jennifer Frautschi, violin) and the Rhode Island Philharmonic (Larry Rachleff with Alex Kerr). Stephenson is also active in the concert band world, with premieres occurring at major venues such as the 2010 Midwest Clinic, and the 2011 ABA (American Bandmasters Association) convention with the US “President’s Own” Marine Band.

Celebration Overture was composed in 1999 to commemorate the 48th anniversary of the Chicago Chamber Orchestra; written in just two weeks while Stephenson was at a lake cabin in northern Michigan, the work features the timpanist in a prominent role (as requested by the composer’s good friend Edward Benyas, who conducted the premiere). Stephenson decided to incorporate the anniversary as part of the music itself: “Puns and symbolism have always been a part of my game when writing music, and so I took advantage of whatever I could with the number 48 (or 48th) when composing this piece. For example, the piece opens with a flurry of 40 eighth-notes in the strings (I was going to go for 48 notes, but it didn’t work, so I settled for forty 8th notes instead). Additionally, the harmonic structure of the piece is almost entirely built upon a minor 7th chord; this is because when one counts up 4 semi-tones from the root of the chord, and then another 8, the resulting notes spell out most of a minor 7th chord. [Example: C up to E-flat, and then again up to B-flat]. Lastly, the one of the main themes is a very catchy tune written to the time signature of 4/8. Of course, all the games and symbolism are fruitless unless the piece stands on its own musically. This is first and foremost with every piece I write, and I am pleased to say that this piece was a joy and honor to compose, and to present to the Chicago Chamber Orchestra for its premiere that September of 1999, and again to the city of Lake Forest in honor of its 150th anniversary celebration.”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No. 9 in C (“The Great”)

Overshadowed by Beethoven for most of his life, Franz Schubert never achieved the recognition he deserved until long after his death. Only a few works from his enormous compositional output were published during his brief lifetime: none of the nine symphonies, only one of the nineteen string quartets, three of the twenty-one piano sonatas, one of the seven masses, none of the ten operas, and 187 of the more than 600 songs. A short, pudgy, bespectacled man who, like Mozart, could conceive of an entire composition in his head and write it down at one sitting, Schubert was a gifted, highly original composer and perhaps the greatest writer of songs in the history of music.

Although the autograph manuscript appears to be dated March 1828, musicologists are now convinced (based primarily on the kind of music paper it was written on) that what we know as Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major was written in 1825 and revised in 1828. Robert Schumann discovered the symphony on New Year’s Day 1838 when he came to visit Schubert’s brother Ferdinand, who showed him piles of manuscripts. “Who knows how long it would have lain neglected there in dust and darkness?” Schumann wrote. He immediately sent it to Mendelssohn who conducted the first performance on March 29, 1839, in Leipzig. Although at first the critics and orchestras who performed it found it overlong and difficult, it has become recognized for the symphonic masterpiece it is, and the nickname “The Great” is well deserved. As we listen to this incredibly beautiful music, we can only be grateful to Schumann for finding this treasure that might well have been lost to us forever.

MAY 20 & 21, 2011

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No. 8 in b minor (“Unfinished”)

Modern research has discovered much that was previously unknown about the symphonic writings of Franz Schubert, including the discovery that he worked on no less than six unfinished symphonies in addition to the seven that he completed. Schubert began work on what would become known as the “Unfinished” symphony in 1822 but set it aside in order to work on the Wanderer Fantasy for piano. He returned to the work in the spring of 1823 after he was given an honorary membership in the Styrian Music Society in Graz. Schubert (in response to one of the only acknowledgments of his talents that would take place in his lifetime) pledged to give the society a manuscript of one of his symphonies, and wrote and orchestrated the first two movements of a B minor symphony. He also completed a sketch of a third movement and orchestrated part of it, but what he gave to his friend Josef Hüttenbrenner in September were the two movements that he had completed. Josef gave the manuscript to his brother Anselm, a member of the Society, who inexplicably never gave the music to anyone else.  Instead, the manuscript remained in his possession for forty years. Only when his brother mentioned the work to conductor Johann Herbeck in 1860 was Anselm finally persuaded to allow the music to be performed. Once again, a Schubertian work of genius lay in obscurity, this time for 43 years before Herbeck conducted the first performance in Vienna on December 17, 1865. We can only be grateful that some of Schubert’s most beautiful music was rescued from possible oblivion.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 52, “Hymn of Praise”

No composer before or after Felix Mendelssohn ever achieved so great a level of maturity and accomplishment at such an early age.  His Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written at the age of seventeen, and many critics argue that it was his finest work. Born to a wealthy Jewish banking family in Hamburg who moved to Berlin when he was three years old, Mendelssohn benefited considerably from his family’s position since they were able to provide him with virtually anything he needed to further his education. Initially, the family resisted his desire to be a musician (since it was not a proper career for someone of his status), but there was no denying his enormous musical gifts. Once it was accepted that he would pursue music, money was available for such things as hiring an orchestra for him, while still a teenager, so that he could conduct performances of his own works. Between 1821 and 1823, he completed thirteen string symphonies that display an astonishing degree of ingenuity and craftsmanship, and finally wrote his first full symphony in 1824 at the ripe old age of fifteen.

Although numbered as his second symphony, the Hymn of Praise (Lobgesang in German) was written after Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, which is known as Symphony No. 4 (the symphonies are ordered in sequence of publication rather than composition). Composed for a festival in Leipzig in 1840 to honor Johannes Gutenberg, the pioneer of printing, this symphony is one of Mendelssohn’s most striking works and is often described as a “symphony-cantata.” Its obvious ancestor is Beethoven’s ninth symphony, but it includes a much more extensive choral section based on religious texts rather than a secular (although highly idealistic) poem. Mendelssohn stated his intentions for this work by including this text of Martin Luther as a heading to the score: “But also I would like to see all the Arts, especially Music, in the service of Him who has given and created them.” Although Mendelssohn clearly had a unified vision for the whole work (in his words, “first the instruments praise in their own way, and then the chorus and the individual voices”), it can easily be viewed as a purely orchestral symphony of three movements, followed by an oratorio on a succession of religious texts. Following performances in Germany and England, Mendelssohn made some additional changes to the score and conducted the final version in Leipzig on December 3, 1840.