Edvard Hagerup Grieg
(Born in Bergen, Norway in 1843; died in Bergen in 1907)
Holberg Suite (Fra Holbergs tid), Op. 40
Praeludium. Allegro vivace
Sarabande. Andante
Gavotte. Allegretto –– Musette. Un poco mosso
Air. Andante religioso
Rigaudon. Allegro con brio
The marvelous works of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg seem to capture an ineffable sweetness and nostalgia as few other composers’ could. Grieg’s music somehow always satisfies the soul, and so it is with one of his most popular works, his Holberg Suite, written in 1884.
The suite’s inspiration and honoree, Baron Ludwig Holberg (1684–1754), was born in Bergen in 1684, but spent much of his life in Denmark following a tragic fire in his Norwegian hometown. Besides being known as a remarkable historian and scientist, Holberg also had a great talent for writing satires and comedies, so much so that he became known as “the Molière of the North.” Two hundred years after his birth, in 1884, both Norway and Denmark held bicentennial celebrations for their famous, shared native son. Several composers were commissioned to write grand cantatas for these occasions, and Grieg obliged with his Holberg Cantata. That work was swiftly forgotten, but happily for us Grieg also created a delightful piano suite that has endured: Fra Holbergs tid (“From Holberg’s time”), Op. 40. Grieg soon orchestrated and revised the piano suite for strings; this is the version most often heard today and the one performed tonight.
Grieg nicknamed his Holberg Suite his “powdered-wig piece,” and he crafted it with a surprising twist. Realizing that Holberg was a contemporary of the Baroque-era musical giants Bach, Handel and Scarlatti (all born in 1685; Holberg was born just one year prior), Grieg fashioned his homage as a Baroque dance suite to echo the music that Holberg would have heard in his era. Although Holberg and his contemporaries would have recognized Grieg’s collection of dances, Grieg’s particularly gorgeous Romantic melodies and harmonies would have been something of a shock in the early 1700s.
To our modern ears, Grieg’s Holberg Suite is not shocking at all but is instead one of his most beloved works. Beginning with the bracing Praeludium, which is like a horse race with its driving rhythms, Grieg uses the Baroque dance forms only as a launching point for his Romantic-era music-making. The Sarabande is almost Mahler-esque in its beauty and is followed by the Gavotte/Musette that gives pride of place to Grieg’s Norwegian folksong and dance. The Air is one of Grieg’s loveliest themes: its simplicity fittingly echoes the exquisite slow movements of Scarlatti and Bach, but it is infused with a beautiful Romantic melancholy. At the finale, Grieg again chooses a form, the rigaudon, that showcases his love of Norwegian dance. With a weighty and slow middle section that evokes the feeling of a soft love song, the movement is otherwise surrounded by a rustic round dance with virtual foot stomping, fancy fiddling and collective merriment.
Johann Sebastian Bach
(Born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685; died in Leipzig, Germany in 1750)
Concerto for violin and oboe in D minor, BMV 1060
1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Allegro
It may seem inconceivable to us that many of Bach’s compositions, including this concerto, hovered on the brink of extinction. But the truth is that many works by many composers have been lost to the ages. Indeed, we may never have known of many of Bach’s early melody-instrument concertos from his days as kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Cöthen (1717–1723) if he had not reused these works later on. In the case of the concerto for violin and oboe featured in tonight’s concert, all that remains is Bach’s transcription of it as a concerto for two harpsichords and strings from almost a decade later, and that transcription itself only survives in a manuscript copied by his students after his death. Eventually, several hundred years later, this manuscript was used as the basis for a “reverse transcription” to the presumed original for violin and oboe. Thus, it can fairly be said that although many compositions have come and gone and been lost or forgotten, true masterpieces usually find a way of weathering the ages. This concerto is one of those.
The concerto form as used by Bach grew out of the Baroque Italian “concerto grosso” that was perfected by Vivaldi (of The Four Seasons). Though Bach did not invent any new forms, he certainly set new melodic and harmonic standards for existing ones. Tonight’s concerto is a wonderful example. As in most of these concerti, the outer movements are in ritornello form, where the opening statement (the ritornello) returns in various keys and guises throughout the movement. (This is similar to the later rondo form, or ABACAB, and so on; the ritornello being, as it were, section A). In the first movement, the ritornello is heard in its full form only at the beginning and end, as its echo-like last bars lend themselves to many musical manipulations.
The gem of this concerto, however, may well be the second movement, which is as lyrical and lovely as any music Bach wrote. Its gentle, rocking feel and movingly expressive interplay between the oboe and violin achieve a sublime tenderness that is rarely matched by composers of any era. In the spectacular last movement the ritornello gives us the impression that a mighty Bachian fugue is about to unfold. Instead, through Bach’s ingenious contrapuntal abilities, the work launches into a host of enchanting derivations, and portions of the ritornello pervade nearly every phrase. Whereas the second movement allowed the oboe to unfold its singing charms, the finale gives the violin much of the virtuoso’s spotlight.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(Born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, near Kirov, Russia in 1840; died in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1893)
Souvenir de Florence (string sextet, arr. for string orchestra), Op. 70
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio cantabile e con moto
3. Allegretto moderato
4. Allegro con brio e vivace
Tchaikovsky wrote his brilliant Souvenir de Florence in 1890, just after he returned to St. Petersburg from an intense composing “vacation” in his favorite Italian city, Florence. While in Florence, he composed Pique Dame (“Queen of Spades”), an opera based on a Russian novel. Arriving back home in Russia, he immediately threw himself into a new project: a composition written especially for the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society, as thanks for the society having made him an honorary member. In just under a month, this work was complete; after a few revisions, SouvenirdeFlorence had its public premiere in 1892.
Just as Tchaikovsky had often brought Russian themes to Italy, in Souvenir he likewise brought some of his beloved Florence back home to St. Petersburg. In fact, one of the themes of his new composition was written while in Florence — a “souvenir” of sorts from that place. But that’s not all. Just before Tchaikovsky and the rest of the great 19th-century Russian composers came on the scene, Russia had imported its classical music mainly from Italy and was boastful of hosting some of the greatest Italian composers and musicians. In SouvenirdeFlorence, Tchaikovsky amalgamates all of this — Italianesque lyricism, Russian folksong, and high-level counterpoint — to create a masterpiece. All in all, the work is a marvel of creativity and cosmopolitanism, in which Tchaikovsky flexes his late-career compositional muscles.
Souvenir was written as a string sextet scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos, and it is one of Tchaikovsky’s finest chamber compositions. While he was working on it, however, he wrote to a friend, “I constantly feel as though … I am in fact writing for the orchestra and just rearranging it for six string instruments.” Tonight, and fittingly, the sextet is performed as later arranged for string orchestra. Immediately, one notices that Tchaikovsky had big, multilayered soundscapes in mind.
The first movement is full of verve and bravura, with a contrasting middle theme of light and warmth for balance. The opening theme delivers some exceptional interplay between the instruments—it is chamber-like in its virtuosic treatment and even more exciting with multiple strings. And then Tchaikovsky turns up the mania as the movement gains more and more momentum toward its electrifying ending.
In the second movement, Adagio, Tchaikovsky uses his Florentine “souvenir” theme, a meltingly lyrical love duet between violins and cellos. Listen for the cello’s first, brief entrance before it takes up the main theme: This is a moment of sheer beauty, like a distant shooting star. Altogether, whether the love happened in Italy or Russia, this movement reminds us of how Tchaikovsky came to master the waltz in opera, ballet, and symphony, creating dance movements of exquisite grace and delicacy.
The Allegretto shifts radically in tone, sounding deeply Russian and folksy, and delightfully tuneful. Coupled with a middle section of quicksilver dancing strings as light as spider webs, which soon become cleverly mingled with that opening Russian folk tune, the Allegretto is a creation of a truly cosmopolitan composer at the top of his compositional and creative craft.
The last movement, Allegro con brio, also gives a strong Russian feel, like a gopak (a vigorous Russian country dance), suitable for stomping feet. But soon enough it bedazzles with contrapuntal magic, starting a fugato (like a fugue), and then brilliantly overlaying the very first theme from the first movement. It’s a grand mix of sunny Italy and rustic, vibrant Russia. The entire movement, in degrees, cartwheels into faster and faster moments, including a wondrously reckless full fugue (of which Tchaikovsky was expressly proud), until the ending, where the work concludes with a breakneck, spine-tingling finale.
Tonight’s concert presents a fascinating look at the rise of the string quartet, a genre essentially invented by Haydn and perfected by him, together with Mozart. For this reason, Haydn is deservedly considered the “father of the string quartet.” Beethoven and Schubert soon after made important contributions of their own.
The two quartets we offer tonight showcase the beginnings of this great art form with Mozart’s first explorations of it and then the extraordinary heights that it reached almost three decades later with Haydn.
In 1770, Haydn had been devoting serious attention to the string quartet for nearly 20 years. Mozart, in contrast, was just composing his first quartet that year, when he was still just a teenager. In 1772 and 1773, Mozart went on to write his first set of six string quartets (sets of six being a publishing demand at the time). Tonight’s Mozart quartet is the second of those six works (but his third quartet chronologically, since, as noted above, he wrote his first in 1770). It is generally agreed to be among his finest early quartets. Fast forward to 1797 and 1798, after Mozart’s too-short life had ended and Haydn was still going strong. In these years, Haydn wrote his last set of six quartets, of which tonight’s No. 1 in G Major is a part. Together, this last set of quartets constitute Haydn’s Op. 76; in them, the quartet as a genre reaches its ideal form, the model from which all future composers would work.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756; died in Vienna in 1791)
String Quartet No. 3 in G major, K. 156
1. Presto
2. Adagio
3. Tempo di Menuetto
In the early days of string quartets, the prototypes were typically light in character, and Mozart began his first forays into that genre in that general spirit. While he was writing his first set of six quartets (K. 155–160) in 1772 and 1773, he was staying in Milan and also writing an Italian-style opera, Lucio Silla. Thus, these six quartets are nicknamed the Milanese Quartets, and they reflect a typically Italian style: light, breezy and comprising only three movements (in the manner of Italian opera overtures) instead of the four-movement structure that later became standard.
From the perspective of the history of the quartet, we should note that as Mozart was writing these early quartets Haydn had just published his exceptional “Sun” string quartets, Op. 20, the first masterpieces of the genre. It’s clear that Mozart at this point was yet to be influenced by Haydn’s trailblazing. Nevertheless, in only a year, when Mozart was back in Vienna, he had investigated Haydn’s quartets and begun his own trailblazing in earnest.
Nevertheless, Mozart’s early quartets show us solid musical craftsmanship, and they are intimate in nature and slightly exploratory. When we realize he wrote them when he was 16 and 17, they become rather extraordinary. And though the tenor of Quartet No. 3 in G major is indeed light, it has an undercurrent of solemn sentiment, and indeed, pathos, especially in the middle movement. It’s a wonderful look into the beginnings of this important genre, when this brilliant composer had essentially a blank canvas to work with, and seemingly composed simply at his pleasure.
Quartet No. 3 is foremost a work of incredible tenderness. Though fine musicianship is required to perform it, this quartet is not about bravura or virtuosity. The first movement is truly tender: a work of grace and gentle manners.
The second movement is thick with emotion. After the main theme sung by the violin, the rest of the quartet creates a gripping accompaniment with suspended chords, rich with harmonies and sonic depth. It’s clear that Mozart had a mind full of opera here: the songlike main theme, the dramatic feel of the piece, and a wonderful little duet near the movement’s center––as the violin theme yearns, the world calls back to that pining heart with little pitch turns called mordents, evoking the trills of night sounds and rustling breezes.
The third and final movement is in the form of a minuet, a dance of refinement and charm. But Mozart makes it something more involved, allowing the four instruments to begin what will later be called a “a four-part conversation,” which is one of the great hallmarks that makes this genre so desirable and important.Here, the melodies are lyrical and light but bear an unmistakable sobriety, a hint of sadness amidst its dancing. To balance this, the last section comes around bright and cheery, ending this early work of a master with a crystalline lightness.
In all, Mozart wrote 26 string quartets, dedicating six to Haydn. His last string quartets are regarded as masterworks of extraordinary depth and craft.
Joseph Haydn (Born in Rohau, Austria in 1732; died in Vienna in 1809)
String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op.76
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio sostenuto
3. Menuet. Presto
4. Finale: Allegro ma non troppo
Haydn would complete a total of 68 string quartets since beginning his long relationship with them in the 1750s. Tonight, you’ll hear one of his crowning achievements in this genre that he essentially invented: Quartet No. 1 in G major, which begins his last and inarguably finest set of six, Op. 76, written in 1797 and 1798. Filled with craft, genius, playfulness and inventiveness, Op. 76 would influence Beethoven and Schubert immediately, and many later composers.
The opening to No. 1’s first movement clearly announces Haydn’s intentions for his entire set. The first three forte chords of the introduction serve an important purpose: to call the era’s notoriously noisy audiences to sit and hear and to be prepared for the imaginative bars to come. The first theme begins with the cello, a sure mark of the progression of the quartet as “a four-part conversation.” Haydn here seems to be beginning a fugue: the next instrument to enter is the viola, imitating the cello’s theme in typical fugue style, and so on … almost. But the fugue fails to materialize, and we hear, instead, duets on the theme, then a trio, until at long last we hear all four instruments together for the first time since the introduction. We then realize that Haydn, a master of this kind of playfulness, has called us to attention for what will be many pleasant surprises. Among them, listen for a marvelous moment at about one minute in when the entire quartet begins playing wild arpeggios in unison: another surprise and another high-water mark of this genre, in which ensemble virtuosity is becoming just as necessary as individual musicianship.
The middle movement is exceptionally lovely: melancholic, but with a soaring spirit, as though age has captured the body, but the mind is still able to frolic. It’s a hymn, in a sense, and explores the capabilities of the string quartet as an almost vocal ensemble.
The third movement’s unique treatment would make an indelible impact on the likes of Beethoven and his successors. Couched as the dance movement minuet (recall Mozart’s last movement, Tempo di Minuetto, heard earlier), Haydn makes the tempo un-danceable at breakneck speed and popping with anything-but-refined-and-charming sonic eruptions. For Beethoven, this phrasing would morph into his own wild scherzos. Haydn’s central section, however, is disarmingly dancelike and dainty––another example of Haydn’s mischievous sense of humor.
The typical finale of a string quartet, as Haydn himself had crafted the genre, is cast solidly in a major key, joyful and meant to resolve all the tensions from the previous movements. Not so here, and deliciously not. Almost the entire movement is in the minor key, and it explores some murky harmonic moments. Along the way, listen for virtuosic showcasing of the first violin and reprises of the virtuosic ensemble unison playing from the first movement. Last, and as if almost an afterthought, Haydn gives us the final bars in the major key that we had been expecting to wrap up everything, but with a theme of an unexpected kind of nonchalance. And for the sake of surprise, the final three bars are the very three forte chords that began the whole quartet. In every way, this is a masterpiece that confirms why the genre, thanks to Haydn and Mozart as its brilliant creators, became a lodestar of Western music.
Edward Elgar
(Born in Lower Broadheath, England in 1857; died in Worcester, England in 1934)
Salut d’Amour, Op. 12
Elgar was the quintessential underdog, and as such, his masterpieces make us all the more glad he finally achieved his rightful praise. He was a self-taught composer, learning his craft by borrowing books on counterpoint and harmony from the library in his small hometown of Broadheath. He was an accomplished violinist but also played the organ, bassoon and viola (as well as other instruments), and he relied upon the latter to make a living for many years as a private music teacher. He also picked up conducting and freelanced as a conductor in obscure English places for many, many years. His beloved wife, Alice, was his greatest champion and brought him through some severe bouts of low self-esteem and depression. Had it not been for her constant support, Elgar almost certainly never would have persevered to write some of Western music’s most beloved pieces, such as his Enigma Variations and his fleet, tender Salut d’Amour.
Salut d’Amour was Elgar’s first published work and fittingly so. While Elgar and Alice were courting, the composer went on holiday in 1888 with an old friend. Alice bid him a happy trip with a poem that she had written called “Love’s Grace.” In short order, Elgar responded with a musical reply dedicated to her and entitled “Liebesgruss” (Love’s Greeting)—and a marriage proposal. They were soon married, and Liebesgruss was soon sold to Elgar’s publisher for virtually pennies. But it was a milestone, and it was the beginning of so many great things to come for Elgar and his soul mate, Alice. Not long after, Elgar’s publisher changed the title to something more French sounding, Salut d’Amour, and the work has been winning hearts ever since. Though the work is simple and direct, one can’t help but hear the joy and devotion for Alice that inspired the young composer. Here is Elgar at the beginning of his great career with a song-poem to his beloved.
When Alice died in Elgar’s arms in 1920, Elgar grieved to a friend:
“Bless her! You, who like some of my work, must thank her for all of it, not me. I should have destroyed it all and joined Job’s wife in the congenial task of cursing God.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756; died in Vienna in 1791)
Overture to Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is truly one of the great operas ever written, and its Overture is forever welcome in the Concert Hall. The music and libretto were instantly beloved at their premiere in Prague in October 1787. But then, unbelievably, after the opera’s ecstatic premiere there, this masterpiece found only a lukewarm reception in Mozart’s hometown of Vienna. Indeed, Vienna’s near disdain for this extraordinary opera became another tragedy compounding the difficulties Mozart was facing at this stage of his life, all of which soon led to a serious decline in his health and finances. From these hardships, he would essentially never recover.
The opera is based on the life of the fabled Don Juan (“Don Giovanni” in Italian) who was an unrepentant Spanish playboy and libertine. Don Juan’s conquests and his comical hijinks are recreated in Mozart’s opera but amidst the silliness and scandalous behaviour, Mozart’s Giovanni faces a reckoning of abject terror. As in Greek tragedy, the terror is foreshadowed early, as Mozart at the outset of the Overture deftly builds colossally foreboding chords and sinister murmurings with strings and winds. This is then followed, quite eerily, by a series of ascending and descending scales that evoke an atmosphere of extraordinary dread—presaging the last scene of the opera when one of Giovanni’s victims comes back from the grave to drag him to the fires of Hell. This is strong stuff, but the Overture does not dwell there; instead, it springs back musically into the gaiety of Giovanni’s life before its last judgment, full of his devil-may-care attitude, high society enjoyments and complicated entanglements.
That Mozart began this Overture with foreshadowing of its Opera’s ending is only half of the genius in this great work. Reportedly, the day before Don Giovanni’s premiere in Prague there was no Overture at all, much to the alarm of the opera company. Mozart calmed everyone by pointing to his head, explaining he had already mentally composed it. He committed it to paper the evening before the first performance, and astonishingly, it bore none of the themes from the opera – it was all new music. Nonetheless, it fit perfectly as an Overture to the opera even as it was—and remains—a masterpiece in its own right.
Joaquín Rodrigo (Vidre)
(Born in Sagunto, Valencia, Spain in 1901; died in Madrid in 1999)
Concierto de Aranjuez
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio
3. Allegro gentile
Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez is one of the most popular works written in the 20th Century. And although its 1939 premiere in Barcelona whisked Rodrigo from virtual obscurity to international fame almost overnight, the work’s conception faced considerable challenges.
Rodrigo had been studying with Paul Dukas (the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) in Paris when the Spanish Civil War broke out. The war delayed his return to Spain, for which he was desperately homesick. However, returning to Franco’s Spain meant being very careful about the music he brought with him: any compositions had to be appealing to the ultra-conservative Franco regime. A prominent Spanish guitarist. Regino Sainz de la Maza (who wound up becoming the dedicatee and performer of the Concierto’s premiere) begged Rodrigo to revive the guitar concerto tradition, but this was problematic for two reasons. First, Rodrigo was not a guitarist, and therefore he was inexperienced in knowing how to project effectually the idiomatic beauty of that quiet instrument in front of a full orchestra. Second, the way Rodrigo composed created special difficulties: having gone almost completely blind at age three, Rodrigo composed using a Braille typewriter. The output of this machine had to be rather painstakingly transcribed, and the nuances of writing for guitar were an especially great challenge in this context. But like many great artists, Rodrigo overcame the obstacles he faced and created one of the most beloved works of the Century.
To pacify Franco’s censors, Rodrigo said his Concierto was based on material from Old Spain and revived “the essence of an 18th century court where the aristocratic blended with the popular element… an epoch at the end of which fandangos transform themselves into fandanguillos, and when the cante and the bulerias vibrate in the Spanish air.” The court to which he referred was the palatial Aranjuez outside of Madrid with its famous Moorish-style gardens (not coincidentally, it was in these gardens that Rodrigo and his wife had fallen in love).
The orchestration of the Concierto shows Rodrigo’s special brilliance. Listen to the ways he makes the solo guitar and orchestra often speak in chamber-like combinations—the Adagio’s breathtaking conversation between the English horn and the guitar is a perfect example of this.
In fact, everything seems right in Rodrigo’s Concierto. From the flamenco-style strumming of the opening, through the searingly beautiful cante hondo (“deep song”) of the Adagio, to the courtly elegance of the finale, this work’s popularity is well deserved. But there is magic in it as well. As Rodrigo put it, “…in its themes there lingers on the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains.”
Georges Bizet
(Born in Paris in 1838; died in Bougival, France in 1875)
Symphony in C
1. Allegro vivo
2. Andante – Adagio
3. Allegro vivace
4. Finale – Allegro vivace
The son of musicians, Bizet gravitated towards a career in music very early. He was a prodigy in the heritage of Mozart and Mendelssohn, and he entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 9. By 1855, at the age of 17, he had begun studying with Charles Gounod, France’s most eminent composer (creator of the opera Faust and St. Cecilia’s Mass). Bizet was star-struck by this teacher, it seems, saying some years later to him “You were the beginning of my life as an artist. … You are the cause, I am the consequence.” Bizet’s talents were not lost on Gounod, either. It appears that in order to prepare his talented pupil to compete for the extremely coveted Prix de Rome prize in composition, Gounod assigned Bizet the formidable task of writing a symphony. Bizet finished this work, his Symphony in C, within a month, and with it he did indeed win the Prize, two years later, in 1857.
The Symphony’s first movement is bright and fast-paced, much like an early Mozart or Haydn symphony would have been. But what is clearly Bizet’s is the wonderful main theme featuring the oboe, and later, the flute—two instruments that will dominate Bizet’s music later in life. The movement ends with a feeling of charm and grace.
While the first movement is convincingly charming, we truly begin understanding Bizet’s musical genius in the remarkable second movement, the Adagio. The opening chords set a completely different tone from the frisky first movement, leading to the main theme that features the oboe again, show-casing Bizet’s love of exotic sounding melodies that meander and snake about, charming us into his unique musical world. This early work gives strong hints of the kind of writing that will make his great masterpiece, the opera Carmen, come to life in 1875. When we recall that Bizet was just 17 when he composed his Symphony in C, comparisons to Mozart and Mendelssohn are justified.
The third movement is vigorous yet stately, a two-step dance with some splendidly accented outbursts. The middle portion is rustic but graceful, again featuring oboe and flute, with rich harmonic moments.
The last movement is an “off-to-the-races” kind of finale, bristling with energy and joyfulness. Again, it’s a remarkable culminating movement for a 17-year old—we marvel at the ingenious way Bizet uses the whole array of orchestral colors to imbue this finale with ever-changing hues and exciting effects. It’s a bit of a devil to perform for both strings and winds, but so very delightful for the audience!
November 20, 2021 Looking Bach-wards
Program NotesPROGRAM NOTES
Edvard Hagerup Grieg
(Born in Bergen, Norway in 1843; died in Bergen in 1907)
Holberg Suite (Fra Holbergs tid), Op. 40
Praeludium. Allegro vivace
Sarabande. Andante
Gavotte. Allegretto –– Musette. Un poco mosso
Air. Andante religioso
Rigaudon. Allegro con brio
The marvelous works of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg seem to capture an ineffable sweetness and nostalgia as few other composers’ could. Grieg’s music somehow always satisfies the soul, and so it is with one of his most popular works, his Holberg Suite, written in 1884.
The suite’s inspiration and honoree, Baron Ludwig Holberg (1684–1754), was born in Bergen in 1684, but spent much of his life in Denmark following a tragic fire in his Norwegian hometown. Besides being known as a remarkable historian and scientist, Holberg also had a great talent for writing satires and comedies, so much so that he became known as “the Molière of the North.” Two hundred years after his birth, in 1884, both Norway and Denmark held bicentennial celebrations for their famous, shared native son. Several composers were commissioned to write grand cantatas for these occasions, and Grieg obliged with his Holberg Cantata. That work was swiftly forgotten, but happily for us Grieg also created a delightful piano suite that has endured: Fra Holbergs tid (“From Holberg’s time”), Op. 40. Grieg soon orchestrated and revised the piano suite for strings; this is the version most often heard today and the one performed tonight.
Grieg nicknamed his Holberg Suite his “powdered-wig piece,” and he crafted it with a surprising twist. Realizing that Holberg was a contemporary of the Baroque-era musical giants Bach, Handel and Scarlatti (all born in 1685; Holberg was born just one year prior), Grieg fashioned his homage as a Baroque dance suite to echo the music that Holberg would have heard in his era. Although Holberg and his contemporaries would have recognized Grieg’s collection of dances, Grieg’s particularly gorgeous Romantic melodies and harmonies would have been something of a shock in the early 1700s.
To our modern ears, Grieg’s Holberg Suite is not shocking at all but is instead one of his most beloved works. Beginning with the bracing Praeludium, which is like a horse race with its driving rhythms, Grieg uses the Baroque dance forms only as a launching point for his Romantic-era music-making. The Sarabande is almost Mahler-esque in its beauty and is followed by the Gavotte/Musette that gives pride of place to Grieg’s Norwegian folksong and dance. The Air is one of Grieg’s loveliest themes: its simplicity fittingly echoes the exquisite slow movements of Scarlatti and Bach, but it is infused with a beautiful Romantic melancholy. At the finale, Grieg again chooses a form, the rigaudon, that showcases his love of Norwegian dance. With a weighty and slow middle section that evokes the feeling of a soft love song, the movement is otherwise surrounded by a rustic round dance with virtual foot stomping, fancy fiddling and collective merriment.
Johann Sebastian Bach
(Born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685; died in Leipzig, Germany in 1750)
Concerto for violin and oboe in D minor, BMV 1060
1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Allegro
It may seem inconceivable to us that many of Bach’s compositions, including this concerto, hovered on the brink of extinction. But the truth is that many works by many composers have been lost to the ages. Indeed, we may never have known of many of Bach’s early melody-instrument concertos from his days as kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Cöthen (1717–1723) if he had not reused these works later on. In the case of the concerto for violin and oboe featured in tonight’s concert, all that remains is Bach’s transcription of it as a concerto for two harpsichords and strings from almost a decade later, and that transcription itself only survives in a manuscript copied by his students after his death. Eventually, several hundred years later, this manuscript was used as the basis for a “reverse transcription” to the presumed original for violin and oboe. Thus, it can fairly be said that although many compositions have come and gone and been lost or forgotten, true masterpieces usually find a way of weathering the ages. This concerto is one of those.
The concerto form as used by Bach grew out of the Baroque Italian “concerto grosso” that was perfected by Vivaldi (of The Four Seasons). Though Bach did not invent any new forms, he certainly set new melodic and harmonic standards for existing ones. Tonight’s concerto is a wonderful example. As in most of these concerti, the outer movements are in ritornello form, where the opening statement (the ritornello) returns in various keys and guises throughout the movement. (This is similar to the later rondo form, or ABACAB, and so on; the ritornello being, as it were, section A). In the first movement, the ritornello is heard in its full form only at the beginning and end, as its echo-like last bars lend themselves to many musical manipulations.
The gem of this concerto, however, may well be the second movement, which is as lyrical and lovely as any music Bach wrote. Its gentle, rocking feel and movingly expressive interplay between the oboe and violin achieve a sublime tenderness that is rarely matched by composers of any era. In the spectacular last movement the ritornello gives us the impression that a mighty Bachian fugue is about to unfold. Instead, through Bach’s ingenious contrapuntal abilities, the work launches into a host of enchanting derivations, and portions of the ritornello pervade nearly every phrase. Whereas the second movement allowed the oboe to unfold its singing charms, the finale gives the violin much of the virtuoso’s spotlight.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(Born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, near Kirov, Russia in 1840; died in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1893)
Souvenir de Florence (string sextet, arr. for string orchestra), Op. 70
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio cantabile e con moto
3. Allegretto moderato
4. Allegro con brio e vivace
Tchaikovsky wrote his brilliant Souvenir de Florence in 1890, just after he returned to St. Petersburg from an intense composing “vacation” in his favorite Italian city, Florence. While in Florence, he composed Pique Dame (“Queen of Spades”), an opera based on a Russian novel. Arriving back home in Russia, he immediately threw himself into a new project: a composition written especially for the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society, as thanks for the society having made him an honorary member. In just under a month, this work was complete; after a few revisions, Souvenir de Florence had its public premiere in 1892.
Just as Tchaikovsky had often brought Russian themes to Italy, in Souvenir he likewise brought some of his beloved Florence back home to St. Petersburg. In fact, one of the themes of his new composition was written while in Florence — a “souvenir” of sorts from that place. But that’s not all. Just before Tchaikovsky and the rest of the great 19th-century Russian composers came on the scene, Russia had imported its classical music mainly from Italy and was boastful of hosting some of the greatest Italian composers and musicians. In Souvenir de Florence, Tchaikovsky amalgamates all of this — Italianesque lyricism, Russian folksong, and high-level counterpoint — to create a masterpiece. All in all, the work is a marvel of creativity and cosmopolitanism, in which Tchaikovsky flexes his late-career compositional muscles.
Souvenir was written as a string sextet scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos, and it is one of Tchaikovsky’s finest chamber compositions. While he was working on it, however, he wrote to a friend, “I constantly feel as though … I am in fact writing for the orchestra and just rearranging it for six string instruments.” Tonight, and fittingly, the sextet is performed as later arranged for string orchestra. Immediately, one notices that Tchaikovsky had big, multilayered soundscapes in mind.
The first movement is full of verve and bravura, with a contrasting middle theme of light and warmth for balance. The opening theme delivers some exceptional interplay between the instruments—it is chamber-like in its virtuosic treatment and even more exciting with multiple strings. And then Tchaikovsky turns up the mania as the movement gains more and more momentum toward its electrifying ending.
In the second movement, Adagio, Tchaikovsky uses his Florentine “souvenir” theme, a meltingly lyrical love duet between violins and cellos. Listen for the cello’s first, brief entrance before it takes up the main theme: This is a moment of sheer beauty, like a distant shooting star. Altogether, whether the love happened in Italy or Russia, this movement reminds us of how Tchaikovsky came to master the waltz in opera, ballet, and symphony, creating dance movements of exquisite grace and delicacy.
The Allegretto shifts radically in tone, sounding deeply Russian and folksy, and delightfully tuneful. Coupled with a middle section of quicksilver dancing strings as light as spider webs, which soon become cleverly mingled with that opening Russian folk tune, the Allegretto is a creation of a truly cosmopolitan composer at the top of his compositional and creative craft.
The last movement, Allegro con brio, also gives a strong Russian feel, like a gopak (a vigorous Russian country dance), suitable for stomping feet. But soon enough it bedazzles with contrapuntal magic, starting a fugato (like a fugue), and then brilliantly overlaying the very first theme from the first movement. It’s a grand mix of sunny Italy and rustic, vibrant Russia. The entire movement, in degrees, cartwheels into faster and faster moments, including a wondrously reckless full fugue (of which Tchaikovsky was expressly proud), until the ending, where the work concludes with a breakneck, spine-tingling finale.
© Max Derrickson
October 9, 2021 Re-Invention!
Program NotesTwo Rivers String Quartet
PROGRAM NOTES
Tonight’s concert presents a fascinating look at the rise of the string quartet, a genre essentially invented by Haydn and perfected by him, together with Mozart. For this reason, Haydn is deservedly considered the “father of the string quartet.” Beethoven and Schubert soon after made important contributions of their own.
The two quartets we offer tonight showcase the beginnings of this great art form with Mozart’s first explorations of it and then the extraordinary heights that it reached almost three decades later with Haydn.
In 1770, Haydn had been devoting serious attention to the string quartet for nearly 20 years. Mozart, in contrast, was just composing his first quartet that year, when he was still just a teenager. In 1772 and 1773, Mozart went on to write his first set of six string quartets (sets of six being a publishing demand at the time). Tonight’s Mozart quartet is the second of those six works (but his third quartet chronologically, since, as noted above, he wrote his first in 1770). It is generally agreed to be among his finest early quartets. Fast forward to 1797 and 1798, after Mozart’s too-short life had ended and Haydn was still going strong. In these years, Haydn wrote his last set of six quartets, of which tonight’s No. 1 in G Major is a part. Together, this last set of quartets constitute Haydn’s Op. 76; in them, the quartet as a genre reaches its ideal form, the model from which all future composers would work.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756; died in Vienna in 1791)
String Quartet No. 3 in G major, K. 156
1. Presto
2. Adagio
3. Tempo di Menuetto
In the early days of string quartets, the prototypes were typically light in character, and Mozart began his first forays into that genre in that general spirit. While he was writing his first set of six quartets (K. 155–160) in 1772 and 1773, he was staying in Milan and also writing an Italian-style opera, Lucio Silla. Thus, these six quartets are nicknamed the Milanese Quartets, and they reflect a typically Italian style: light, breezy and comprising only three movements (in the manner of Italian opera overtures) instead of the four-movement structure that later became standard.
From the perspective of the history of the quartet, we should note that as Mozart was writing these early quartets Haydn had just published his exceptional “Sun” string quartets, Op. 20, the first masterpieces of the genre. It’s clear that Mozart at this point was yet to be influenced by Haydn’s trailblazing. Nevertheless, in only a year, when Mozart was back in Vienna, he had investigated Haydn’s quartets and begun his own trailblazing in earnest.
Nevertheless, Mozart’s early quartets show us solid musical craftsmanship, and they are intimate in nature and slightly exploratory. When we realize he wrote them when he was 16 and 17, they become rather extraordinary. And though the tenor of Quartet No. 3 in G major is indeed light, it has an undercurrent of solemn sentiment, and indeed, pathos, especially in the middle movement. It’s a wonderful look into the beginnings of this important genre, when this brilliant composer had essentially a blank canvas to work with, and seemingly composed simply at his pleasure.
Quartet No. 3 is foremost a work of incredible tenderness. Though fine musicianship is required to perform it, this quartet is not about bravura or virtuosity. The first movement is truly tender: a work of grace and gentle manners.
The second movement is thick with emotion. After the main theme sung by the violin, the rest of the quartet creates a gripping accompaniment with suspended chords, rich with harmonies and sonic depth. It’s clear that Mozart had a mind full of opera here: the songlike main theme, the dramatic feel of the piece, and a wonderful little duet near the movement’s center––as the violin theme yearns, the world calls back to that pining heart with little pitch turns called mordents, evoking the trills of night sounds and rustling breezes.
The third and final movement is in the form of a minuet, a dance of refinement and charm. But Mozart makes it something more involved, allowing the four instruments to begin what will later be called a “a four-part conversation,” which is one of the great hallmarks that makes this genre so desirable and important. Here, the melodies are lyrical and light but bear an unmistakable sobriety, a hint of sadness amidst its dancing. To balance this, the last section comes around bright and cheery, ending this early work of a master with a crystalline lightness.
In all, Mozart wrote 26 string quartets, dedicating six to Haydn. His last string quartets are regarded as masterworks of extraordinary depth and craft.
Joseph Haydn
(Born in Rohau, Austria in 1732; died in Vienna in 1809)
String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op.76
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio sostenuto
3. Menuet. Presto
4. Finale: Allegro ma non troppo
Haydn would complete a total of 68 string quartets since beginning his long relationship with them in the 1750s. Tonight, you’ll hear one of his crowning achievements in this genre that he essentially invented: Quartet No. 1 in G major, which begins his last and inarguably finest set of six, Op. 76, written in 1797 and 1798. Filled with craft, genius, playfulness and inventiveness, Op. 76 would influence Beethoven and Schubert immediately, and many later composers.
The opening to No. 1’s first movement clearly announces Haydn’s intentions for his entire set. The first three forte chords of the introduction serve an important purpose: to call the era’s notoriously noisy audiences to sit and hear and to be prepared for the imaginative bars to come. The first theme begins with the cello, a sure mark of the progression of the quartet as “a four-part conversation.” Haydn here seems to be beginning a fugue: the next instrument to enter is the viola, imitating the cello’s theme in typical fugue style, and so on … almost. But the fugue fails to materialize, and we hear, instead, duets on the theme, then a trio, until at long last we hear all four instruments together for the first time since the introduction. We then realize that Haydn, a master of this kind of playfulness, has called us to attention for what will be many pleasant surprises. Among them, listen for a marvelous moment at about one minute in when the entire quartet begins playing wild arpeggios in unison: another surprise and another high-water mark of this genre, in which ensemble virtuosity is becoming just as necessary as individual musicianship.
The middle movement is exceptionally lovely: melancholic, but with a soaring spirit, as though age has captured the body, but the mind is still able to frolic. It’s a hymn, in a sense, and explores the capabilities of the string quartet as an almost vocal ensemble.
The third movement’s unique treatment would make an indelible impact on the likes of Beethoven and his successors. Couched as the dance movement minuet (recall Mozart’s last movement, Tempo di Minuetto, heard earlier), Haydn makes the tempo un-danceable at breakneck speed and popping with anything-but-refined-and-charming sonic eruptions. For Beethoven, this phrasing would morph into his own wild scherzos. Haydn’s central section, however, is disarmingly dancelike and dainty––another example of Haydn’s mischievous sense of humor.
The typical finale of a string quartet, as Haydn himself had crafted the genre, is cast solidly in a major key, joyful and meant to resolve all the tensions from the previous movements. Not so here, and deliciously not. Almost the entire movement is in the minor key, and it explores some murky harmonic moments. Along the way, listen for virtuosic showcasing of the first violin and reprises of the virtuosic ensemble unison playing from the first movement. Last, and as if almost an afterthought, Haydn gives us the final bars in the major key that we had been expecting to wrap up everything, but with a theme of an unexpected kind of nonchalance. And for the sake of surprise, the final three bars are the very three forte chords that began the whole quartet. In every way, this is a masterpiece that confirms why the genre, thanks to Haydn and Mozart as its brilliant creators, became a lodestar of Western music.
–– Program notes © Max Derrickson
November 17, 2018 “Nostalgia and Longing”
Program NotesPROGRAM NOTES
Edward Elgar
(Born in Lower Broadheath, England in 1857; died in Worcester, England in 1934)
Salut d’Amour, Op. 12
Elgar was the quintessential underdog, and as such, his masterpieces make us all the more glad he finally achieved his rightful praise. He was a self-taught composer, learning his craft by borrowing books on counterpoint and harmony from the library in his small hometown of Broadheath. He was an accomplished violinist but also played the organ, bassoon and viola (as well as other instruments), and he relied upon the latter to make a living for many years as a private music teacher. He also picked up conducting and freelanced as a conductor in obscure English places for many, many years. His beloved wife, Alice, was his greatest champion and brought him through some severe bouts of low self-esteem and depression. Had it not been for her constant support, Elgar almost certainly never would have persevered to write some of Western music’s most beloved pieces, such as his Enigma Variations and his fleet, tender Salut d’Amour.
Salut d’Amour was Elgar’s first published work and fittingly so. While Elgar and Alice were courting, the composer went on holiday in 1888 with an old friend. Alice bid him a happy trip with a poem that she had written called “Love’s Grace.” In short order, Elgar responded with a musical reply dedicated to her and entitled “Liebesgruss” (Love’s Greeting)—and a marriage proposal. They were soon married, and Liebesgruss was soon sold to Elgar’s publisher for virtually pennies. But it was a milestone, and it was the beginning of so many great things to come for Elgar and his soul mate, Alice. Not long after, Elgar’s publisher changed the title to something more French sounding, Salut d’Amour, and the work has been winning hearts ever since. Though the work is simple and direct, one can’t help but hear the joy and devotion for Alice that inspired the young composer. Here is Elgar at the beginning of his great career with a song-poem to his beloved.
When Alice died in Elgar’s arms in 1920, Elgar grieved to a friend:
“Bless her! You, who like some of my work, must thank her for all of it, not me. I should have destroyed it all and joined Job’s wife in the congenial task of cursing God.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756; died in Vienna in 1791)
Overture to Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is truly one of the great operas ever written, and its Overture is forever welcome in the Concert Hall. The music and libretto were instantly beloved at their premiere in Prague in October 1787. But then, unbelievably, after the opera’s ecstatic premiere there, this masterpiece found only a lukewarm reception in Mozart’s hometown of Vienna. Indeed, Vienna’s near disdain for this extraordinary opera became another tragedy compounding the difficulties Mozart was facing at this stage of his life, all of which soon led to a serious decline in his health and finances. From these hardships, he would essentially never recover.
The opera is based on the life of the fabled Don Juan (“Don Giovanni” in Italian) who was an unrepentant Spanish playboy and libertine. Don Juan’s conquests and his comical hijinks are recreated in Mozart’s opera but amidst the silliness and scandalous behaviour, Mozart’s Giovanni faces a reckoning of abject terror. As in Greek tragedy, the terror is foreshadowed early, as Mozart at the outset of the Overture deftly builds colossally foreboding chords and sinister murmurings with strings and winds. This is then followed, quite eerily, by a series of ascending and descending scales that evoke an atmosphere of extraordinary dread—presaging the last scene of the opera when one of Giovanni’s victims comes back from the grave to drag him to the fires of Hell. This is strong stuff, but the Overture does not dwell there; instead, it springs back musically into the gaiety of Giovanni’s life before its last judgment, full of his devil-may-care attitude, high society enjoyments and complicated entanglements.
That Mozart began this Overture with foreshadowing of its Opera’s ending is only half of the genius in this great work. Reportedly, the day before Don Giovanni’s premiere in Prague there was no Overture at all, much to the alarm of the opera company. Mozart calmed everyone by pointing to his head, explaining he had already mentally composed it. He committed it to paper the evening before the first performance, and astonishingly, it bore none of the themes from the opera – it was all new music. Nonetheless, it fit perfectly as an Overture to the opera even as it was—and remains—a masterpiece in its own right.
Joaquín Rodrigo (Vidre)
(Born in Sagunto, Valencia, Spain in 1901; died in Madrid in 1999)
Concierto de Aranjuez
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Adagio
3. Allegro gentile
Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez is one of the most popular works written in the 20th Century. And although its 1939 premiere in Barcelona whisked Rodrigo from virtual obscurity to international fame almost overnight, the work’s conception faced considerable challenges.
Rodrigo had been studying with Paul Dukas (the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) in Paris when the Spanish Civil War broke out. The war delayed his return to Spain, for which he was desperately homesick. However, returning to Franco’s Spain meant being very careful about the music he brought with him: any compositions had to be appealing to the ultra-conservative Franco regime. A prominent Spanish guitarist. Regino Sainz de la Maza (who wound up becoming the dedicatee and performer of the Concierto’s premiere) begged Rodrigo to revive the guitar concerto tradition, but this was problematic for two reasons. First, Rodrigo was not a guitarist, and therefore he was inexperienced in knowing how to project effectually the idiomatic beauty of that quiet instrument in front of a full orchestra. Second, the way Rodrigo composed created special difficulties: having gone almost completely blind at age three, Rodrigo composed using a Braille typewriter. The output of this machine had to be rather painstakingly transcribed, and the nuances of writing for guitar were an especially great challenge in this context. But like many great artists, Rodrigo overcame the obstacles he faced and created one of the most beloved works of the Century.
To pacify Franco’s censors, Rodrigo said his Concierto was based on material from Old Spain and revived “the essence of an 18th century court where the aristocratic blended with the popular element… an epoch at the end of which fandangos transform themselves into fandanguillos, and when the cante and the bulerias vibrate in the Spanish air.” The court to which he referred was the palatial Aranjuez outside of Madrid with its famous Moorish-style gardens (not coincidentally, it was in these gardens that Rodrigo and his wife had fallen in love).
The orchestration of the Concierto shows Rodrigo’s special brilliance. Listen to the ways he makes the solo guitar and orchestra often speak in chamber-like combinations—the Adagio’s breathtaking conversation between the English horn and the guitar is a perfect example of this.
In fact, everything seems right in Rodrigo’s Concierto. From the flamenco-style strumming of the opening, through the searingly beautiful cante hondo (“deep song”) of the Adagio, to the courtly elegance of the finale, this work’s popularity is well deserved. But there is magic in it as well. As Rodrigo put it, “…in its themes there lingers on the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains.”
Georges Bizet
(Born in Paris in 1838; died in Bougival, France in 1875)
Symphony in C
1. Allegro vivo
2. Andante – Adagio
3. Allegro vivace
4. Finale – Allegro vivace
The son of musicians, Bizet gravitated towards a career in music very early. He was a prodigy in the heritage of Mozart and Mendelssohn, and he entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 9. By 1855, at the age of 17, he had begun studying with Charles Gounod, France’s most eminent composer (creator of the opera Faust and St. Cecilia’s Mass). Bizet was star-struck by this teacher, it seems, saying some years later to him “You were the beginning of my life as an artist. … You are the cause, I am the consequence.” Bizet’s talents were not lost on Gounod, either. It appears that in order to prepare his talented pupil to compete for the extremely coveted Prix de Rome prize in composition, Gounod assigned Bizet the formidable task of writing a symphony. Bizet finished this work, his Symphony in C, within a month, and with it he did indeed win the Prize, two years later, in 1857.
The Symphony’s first movement is bright and fast-paced, much like an early Mozart or Haydn symphony would have been. But what is clearly Bizet’s is the wonderful main theme featuring the oboe, and later, the flute—two instruments that will dominate Bizet’s music later in life. The movement ends with a feeling of charm and grace.
While the first movement is convincingly charming, we truly begin understanding Bizet’s musical genius in the remarkable second movement, the Adagio. The opening chords set a completely different tone from the frisky first movement, leading to the main theme that features the oboe again, show-casing Bizet’s love of exotic sounding melodies that meander and snake about, charming us into his unique musical world. This early work gives strong hints of the kind of writing that will make his great masterpiece, the opera Carmen, come to life in 1875. When we recall that Bizet was just 17 when he composed his Symphony in C, comparisons to Mozart and Mendelssohn are justified.
The third movement is vigorous yet stately, a two-step dance with some splendidly accented outbursts. The middle portion is rustic but graceful, again featuring oboe and flute, with rich harmonic moments.
The last movement is an “off-to-the-races” kind of finale, bristling with energy and joyfulness. Again, it’s a remarkable culminating movement for a 17-year old—we marvel at the ingenious way Bizet uses the whole array of orchestral colors to imbue this finale with ever-changing hues and exciting effects. It’s a bit of a devil to perform for both strings and winds, but so very delightful for the audience!
––Program notes © Max Derrickson