Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online

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1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Classic FM Series Beethoven s Fifth Symphony Thursday 14 June pm Friday 15 June pm JOHANNES BRAHMS ( ) Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op.56a Although Brahms hadn t written much for orchestra when he started on his Haydn Variations little more than the First Piano Concerto and the two Serenades he was experienced in the art of composing variations. He had published major sets of variations on themes by Schumann, Handel and Paganini, all of them for piano or piano duet and all reflecting something of the style of the composer who inspired them. The Variations on a Theme by Haydn, which was scored first for two pianos (Op.56b) and only then for orchestra (Op.56a), is clearly a work in the same line. The fact that modern research has proved that the theme, a traditional tune known as the St Anthony Chorale, is actually not by Haydn is interesting but not very significant. The point is that Brahms thought it was by Haydn and that the whole work is a tribute to the Vienna of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and, for the last ten years, Brahms himself. It was in a manuscript belong to a Viennese Haydn scholar that Brahms found the theme and it was in Vienna, at a Philharmonic concert in 1873, that he conducted the first performance of the work. The work was an instant success. The St Anthony Chorale theme is presented by Brahms in much the same instrumental colours as it appears in the Vienna

2 manuscript a wind Partita now attributed to Haydn s pupil Ignaz Pleyel repeating each of its two unequal halves in turn. He retains the same structure, with the longer second half, in the eight variations and stays in the same basic key of B flat (major or minor) throughout. The tempo, however, he changes from variation to variation and he supplies a different rhythmic identity for each one, the metre changing for the expressive fourth variation in the minor and again for the contrastingly scherzo-like fifth variation in the major. The sixth is a vigorous outdoor variation with galloping rhythms and hunting horns, the seventh a graceful siciliano dance featuring solo flute and violas, the eighth an eerily fleeting study in muted colours that scarcely ever rises above pianissimo. The finale, a spacious Andante that follows after a short pause, is a different kind of variation. It is a revival of the baroque passacaglia or chaconne form based on a short theme that is repeated over and over as a bass line while new or related material is developed in the other parts. The ground bass in this case is derived from the first five bars of the St Anthony theme. It is repeated eleven times by lower strings before it passes to horns and woodwind and is finally combined, amid general orchestral rejoicing, with a grand version of the Chorale in its original form. Gerald Larner 2018 JOSEPH HAYDN ( ) Cello Concerto in C major Moderato / At a moderate speed Adagio / Slow Allegro molto / Very fast It has always been known that Haydn wrote a Cello Concerto in C major. For more than 150 years after the composer s death, however, it seemed to have disappeared and was presumed

3 irretrievably lost. This was a source of great frustration to cellists who, aware of the quality of the Concerto in D major written for Haydn s favourite cellist, Anton Kraft, would gladly have welcomed another, similarly expressive, work in the repertoire. Then, in 1961, an 18th-century manuscript copy of a Concerto in C was discovered in the National Library in Prague, and when it was identified as being by Haydn, cellists were quick to take it into their repertoire. For those who like to know how such detective work was carried out, the parts which had apparently been gathering dust in Radenín Castle in Bohemia corresponded exactly to an entry Haydn had made in his own catalogue of his works, begun around Besides, the work was deemed every bit as characteristic of Haydn as its companion in D major. Written some time between 1762 and 1765, however, it is clearly an earlier work, with more than a little of the Baroque in it, and fewer difficulties than the later concerto. Perhaps Joseph Weigl, the cellist in the Esterházy court orchestra at the time, though obviously an accomplished and sympathetic instrumentalist, had not yet acquired some of the techniques required by the concerto written for Kraft two decades later. First movement The C major Concerto corresponds neither to the Baroque nor to the Classical model though it is closer to the latter the first movement being unusually moderate in tempo. An elaborately chivalrous main theme is presented by oboes and violins in the opening bars, followed by a gracious melody introduced by violins. The dazzling eloquence of the cello part is neatly woven into the orchestral tapestry throughout. Second movement The F major Adagio is based on an elegant, songlike melody. Resembling an aria without words, it gives the soloist ample opportunity to demonstrate how to sustain a supple and eloquent line on the A-string.

4 Third movement The energetic Allegro molto finale is virtually based on one theme too, although there is no lack of interest in the dynamic contrast between forte and piano, and in the wide compass of the melodic line, especially that of the soloist. The orchestra carries the solo cello irresistibly along with it, repeated notes in the accompaniment and a few diversions into the minor key enhancing the impression of breathless non-stop virtuoso activity. Gerald Larner 2018 ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD ( ) Cello Concerto, Op.37 Allegro moderato ma con fuoco grave allegro moderato grandioso Moderately fast, but with fire very slow moderately fast with grandeur The career of Erich Wolfgang Korngold is one of the most fascinating yet generally representative of the 20th century. Korngold grew up in Vienna, a child prodigy (his middle name was no accident). He was writing full-sized scores by the time he was 13 and in a resolutely luscious, Romantic style. In the very same city, Arnold Schoenberg and his acolytes were busy tearing up the harmonic rulebook. But that was the least of Korngold s problems. As a Jew, he watched with horror as the Nazis seized power in Germany and later Austria, just as his career as a composer was looking secure. In 1938, Korngold was invited to write the score for a new film shooting in Hollywood, Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. Korngold accepted the commission and travelled to the USA. Months later, mobs were destroying Jewish businesses in Vienna and Berlin.

5 Korngold stayed in Hollywood, recalling later that Robin Hood saved his life. His career turned from symphonies and operas to movie scores, but he remained just as prolific and his music retained the same precision, intricacy, structural integrity and melodic appeal. Moreover, Korngold was determined to continue writing concert works alongside movie scores. Often, he would cross-fertilize the two, as in his famous Violin Concerto that uses themes from some of his best-loved film scores. Korngold s Cello Concerto goes one step further. This piece was itself the star of a film. In 1946, Korngold began scoring a movie titled Deception, a thriller starring Bette Davis as a young composition student taking lessons from an authoritarian composer-conductor figure. The latter starts an affair with Davis s character, only for her cellist husband to return from a European prisoner of war camp just in time to premiere her teacher s new concerto. Will he discover his wife s affair? She kills the conductor before he can let the cat out of the bag. But the performance of the concerto goes ahead. In the movie, the performance sequence lasts six minutes. So pleased was Korngold with the on-screen concerto that he extended it by another six minutes to form the single-movement concert work we hear tonight a stormy and dramatic piece for cello and large orchestra which is as full of romance, intrigue, treachery and ominous tension as the film it was born from. The piece makes uses of a defiant main theme heard first on the cello, which quickly metamorphoses into a voluptuous secondary theme. When that secondary theme returns after an accelerating cadenza at the very end of the piece, the cellist climbs all the way through a Schoenberg-style tone-row (containing all twelve notes of the chromatic scale) before the orchestra abruptly kills it off. Korngold and Schoenberg certainly didn t see eye-to-eye when it came to so-called twelve-tone music; that final gesture may well represent a little personal feud of its own

6 Andrew Mellor 2018 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN ( ) Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67 Allegro con brio / Fast, with vigour Andante con moto / At a walking pace, with movement Allegro / Fast Allegro presto / Fast very fast What can you say about the most famous symphony ever written? From the day of its first performance, in Vienna on 22 December 1808, everyone has had an opinion on Beethoven s Fifth. It s acquired its own myth. Napoleonic soldiers leapt involuntarily from their seats and saluted at the beginning of its finale. Hector Berlioz witnessed fellow audience-members fainting and gasping for breath at its Paris premiere. Its first four notes became the Morse code symbol for V and the musical symbol of Victory in the BBC s wartime broadcasts to occupied Europe. Thus Fate knocks at the door, Beethoven is supposed to have said of them. In 1990, Billy Joel put it slightly differently: Da Da Da Daaa it s Fate knocking at the door. That s one of the biggest hits in history. There s no video to it, he didn t need one! And everyone knows those first four notes. There d never been a symphonic opening like them, or anything in music to match the sheer elemental power of what follows. Everything in Beethoven s Fifth can be explained in terms of traditional musical forms and processes. But despite its stupendous formal strength, that alone is not what makes this symphony such a phenomenon. In music, different key signatures create distinct emotions put simply, minor is negative, major is positive. This symphony is a journey from C minor to C major. Other composers had done this, including Beethoven s own teacher Haydn. But in the civilised 18th century, the change from minor to major was simply a matter of courtesy a way of ending a serious discussion with a friendly

7 smile. No-one in their right mind would describe Beethoven s Fifth like this. Beethoven s C minor first movement isn t just serious, it s a human tragedy portrayed in music of torrential force. If you doubt that this is an emotional drama rather than just an exciting series of notes, listen out for the tiny, heartbroken oboe solo Beethoven slips into one of the music s few moments of hesitation. The lilting Andante seems to offer a gentle respite, but ringing trumpets keep sounding a very different note. The struggle continues; the third movement, traditionally the lightest in a classical symphony, instead surges from an eerie gloom, and trumpets ring out again, now threatening. Finally the orchestra sinks to a hush, drums rumble ominously and time seems suspended until with a sudden, glorious crescendo, C minor changes to C major to launch the finale in a great blaze of brass. In case there s any doubt what he meant, for the first time in any symphony (or at least in any symphony that is still performed), Beethoven introduces the trombones instruments then used only in sacred or dramatic music. Piccolo and contrabassoon also join in the instruments of the wind-bands of Revolutionary France. Beethoven wasn t just battling his own deafness; the whole of Europe was engulfed in war and revolutionary struggle. Let the music sweep you to its supremely stirring finish, and you ll agree this isn t just a classical key-change, it s a triumph of the human spirit. Richard Bratby 2018