Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online

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1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Henry E Rensburg Series The Power of Love Thursday 12 April pm sponsored by Investec GIUSEPPE VERDI ( ) The Force of Destiny, Overture By his mid-forties, Verdi had become nothing short of a standard bearer for Italian opera, demonstrating both a level of popularity and a mastery of the form that none of his compatriots could match. Such treasured status at so relatively young an age seems less surprising given the considerable experience that the composer had already notched up within the genre. By 1857, two-dozen of his stage-works had been premiered, with the smash-hit trio of Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore and La traviata (both 1853) in particular serving to cement his reputation across Europe. The consequence of this success was an unprecedented level of professional freedom, with Verdi now able to handpick the projects that most appealed to him. Indeed, following the 1859 debut of Un ballo in maschera, he opted to drastically ease his work-rate, devoting more time to his country estate in the Emilia-Romagna province of Northern Italy. It seemed like it would take an unusually eye-catching enterprise to wake the fatigued composer from his self-imposed artistic slumber. Fortunately one arrived late the following year in the shape of a lucrative foreign commission: a new opera for the Imperial Theatre of St Petersburg. Collaborating with librettist Francesco Maria Piave, Verdi had soon begun work on an adaptation of the 1835 Spanish drama Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by Ángel de Saavedra, an emotionally charged tragedy

2 tracing the illicit love between Leonora and Alvaro, and the devastating impact that their intended union has upon Leonora s family. La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) aired at the Bolshoi on 22 November 1862, with its initial run proving largely underwhelming for both audiences and composer. It was only having been persuaded to revisit the score for a revival six years later at La Scala, Milan that Verdi arrived at the streamlined, more optimistic version that would gradually become an operahouse staple. One of the most substantial alterations the composer made for the 1868 version of the opera was the ditching of the original prelude in favour of this strikingly dynamic overture that has since become a firm favourite in the concert hall. The arresting brass fanfares that open it assume the role of fate itself, before portentous ruminations in the strings pave the way for a plaintive melody unveiled by flute and oboe. This new figure eventually serves to soften the atmosphere, and following further tempestuous outbursts it falls to the clarinet to unfurl a new, blithesome theme that spreads throughout the orchestra, precipitating a jubilant dash to a cymbal-capped finish. Richard Powell 2018 ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK ( ) Romance in F minor, Op.11 for violin and orchestra Dvořák s F minor Romance is based on the second movement from his String Quartet, Op.9, in the same key. Composed between September and October 1873, it was intended for a semi-professional ensemble based in Prague, but the players decided that it lacked the style appropriate for chamber music and refused to perform it. Dvořák withdrew the work; it was not published until 1929 and only received its premiere the following year.

3 Sometime during the four years after it was composed, Dvořák substantially re-worked the second movement to produce the F minor Romance. He used the opening theme in the new work more or less as it stood in the quartet movement, but replaced the subsidiary themes with new ones, working up to a more impassioned climax than in the original. In the version for violin and orchestra it had its first performance in Prague on 9 December 1877, after Josef Markus, leader of the orchestra at the city s Provisional Theatre, asked Dvořák for a new piece for him to play at the annual fundraising concert organised by the Theatre Orchestra and Choir Pension Association. Dvořák also made a version for violin and piano, but the piano reduction published two years later was by the composer s friend Josef Zubatý, a professor of linguistics at Prague University, an amateur musician, and his first biographer. Dvořák s own violinand-piano version did not appear in print until With its combination of flowing lyricism and gently lilting rhythms the Romance in F minor, in either version, is one of Dvořák s best-loved short pieces. Mike Wheeler 2018 RICHARD WAGNER ( ) Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde After Tristan und Isolde (1859) music was never the same again. It has been claimed that Wagner changed the course of musical history with just one chord, the one where woodwind join the cellos in the second bar of the Prelude to the opera. In fact, other composers including Bach, Mozart and Beethoven had used that same chord before him and had changed nothing much. The significance of the so-called Tristan chord is not the dissonance

4 itself but Wagner s use of it. Instead of resolving it immediately, as he would have been expected to do, he prolongs the tension by moving freely from one unresolved harmony to another. The erotic yearning of the two lovers expressed by that chord is sustained by the denial of its definitive resolution until the closing bars of the opera several hours later. After a passionate development of the melodic material presented in the opening bars, the Prelude ends very quietly with two pizzicato notes on cellos and basses. Although, in the opera, much has happened in the meantime, most prominently the death of Tristan, in this version the Liebestod (literally, lovedeath) follows immediately. Contemplating Tristan s body and recalling music from their amorous duet in the previous act, Isolde sings of a love so transcendental that it inspires her to will herself to join Tristan in death. Even without the vocal part, which is often doubled by instruments in the orchestra, the ecstasy of Isolde s transfiguration is as intensely felt as the finality of the resolution of the Tristan chord in the closing bars. Wagner himself conducted the Prelude and Liebestod in this purely orchestral version before the much-delayed first performance of the opera in Munich in Gerald Larner 2018 JOHANNES BRAHMS ( ) Symphony No.2 in D, Op.73 Allegro non troppo / Fast, but not too fast Adagio non troppo / Slow, but not too slow Allegretto grazioso presto ma non assai / Quite fast, graceful fast, but not very fast Allegro con spirito / Fast, animated As a composer Brahms was his own harshest critic, and he worked on his First Symphony for some fourteen years. Besides

5 his own exacting standards, he knew that something measuring up to Beethoven s example was expected of him: he complained about being dogged by his great predecessor s footsteps. But once it had been completed and performed, in 1876, it was as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He quickly began Symphony No.2 (though we cannot know how much had been sketched, mentally or on paper, beforehand) and finished it in only four months. First movement He told his publisher that it was going to be a tragic piece: the music was so mournful that it would have to be printed on blackedged paper. This has often been written off as one of his more laboured jokes, but though the symphony is, particularly in the last two movements, a relaxed, genial work, he did have a point. Solemn-toned trombones throw deep shadows across the first movement in a number of places, and a jagged transition idea grows out of the second of the two lyrical main themes in the opening section. These suggest a tension which undermines the relaxed calm of the opening. Towards the end of the movement Brahms introduces a long solo horn-call, a recurring image of German romanticism and musical nature poetry throughout the 19th century. Sounding a note of wistful longing, it introduces a coda which leaves the first movement bathed in a glow of tranquillity, though not exactly of contentment. Second movement Tranquillity turns to an introspection bordering on melancholy in the slow movement. This grows from the opening theme, both the falling phrase on the cellos and the rising bassoon line which accompanies it. The thoughtful mood becomes more unsettled in the middle section, where quicker note-patterns gradually take over, as though a gentle stream has now becomes a surging river. The music subsides at the end, but still with hints of an agitated undercurrent. Third movement

6 The mood steadily lightens in the two remaining movements. Brahms often included a moderately-paced movement in his large-scale works at the point where predecessors like Beethoven would have written a quick, jovial scherzo. The allegretto of the Second Symphony is one, but it includes two faster, scherzo-like sections. These are, in fact, variations on the opening graceful oboe melody. They feature some quick-fire exchanges between wind and strings; the whole movement, in fact, shows Brahms orchestral writing at its lightest and most delicate. Fourth movement The main theme of the finale unfolds quietly in a mood of excited anticipation before erupting on the full orchestra, with a contrasting second theme in the shape of a broad, song-like melody for the first violins and violas. At the heart of the movement the excitement melts away for a haunting slower section, with phrases from the main theme stretched into new and scarcely recognisable shapes. This leads to a return of the opening, and the symphony s exhilarating close. Brahms finally gives the trumpets their head, and trombones and tuba (in contrast to the shadows which they cast over the first movement) join them to bring a jubilant blaze of sound to the final bars. Mike Wheeler 2018