SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT. October 10, 11 and 12, 2014

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT. October 10, 11 and 12, 2014"

Joleen Pitts
5 years ago
Views:

SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT October 10, 11 and 12, 2014 PETER MAXWELL DAVIES An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise MAX BRUCH Scottish Fantasy, Op.

1 SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT October 10, 11 and 12, 2014 PETER MAXWELL DAVIES An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise MAX BRUCH Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46 Prelude: Grave, adagio cantabile Allegro Andante sostenuto Finale: Allegro guerriero Jeff Thayer, violin INTERMISSION FELIX MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56: Scottish Andante con moto Allegro un poco agitato Vivace non troppo Adagio Allegro vivacissimo Allegro maestoso assai

2 PROGRAM NOTES An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise PETER MAXWELL DAVIES Born September 8, 1934, Salford, near Manchester This program of music inspired by Scotland (all of it written by non-scottish composers) begins with one of the most popular works composed in the late twentieth century, Peter Maxwell Davies An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise. Maxwell Davies may have been born and trained in England, but in 1971 he moved to the remote Orkney Islands north of Scotland, and he has made those bleak islands his home ever since. He composed An Orkney Wedding in 1984 on a centennial commission from the Boston Pops Orchestra, and it was first performed on May 10, 1985, by the Boston Pops under the direction of John Williams. Since then, it has been performed hundreds of times by orchestras around the world. The composer has described An Orkney Wedding as a picture postcard record of an actual wedding I attended on Hoy in Orkney, and in a note in the score he outlines the events depicted in this music. It opens with a storm blowing over the island, and the guests arrive for the wedding, coming in out of the wind and rain. There follows a processional, led by the solo oboe and quickly taken up by the violins. Some sour string glissandos mark the sound of the musicians tuning up, and then the dancing begins. So does the drinking, and soon the guests (and the musicians) are reeling about tipsily. This section, based on folk dances and full of wrong notes, is a lot of fun. The dancing lasts well into the night. Finally the party is over, and the solo oboe leads the guests out into the night as they begin their long walk home across the island of Hoy. But the party has gone on so long that the dawn catches up with them. A series of expectant trills marks the lightening sky, and finally the sun in the form of a bagpiper makes its shining entrance and drives An Orkney Wedding to its resplendent, ringing close. Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46 MAX BRUCH Born January 6, 1838, Cologne Died October 2, 1920, Friedenau It may seem strange that so thoroughly German a composer as Max Bruch should have written a Scottish Fantasy, but in fact Bruch was quite familiar with the British Isles and their folk music. He served for two years as director of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, he traveled widely through England and Scotland and he loved the novels of Sir Walter Scott. All of these interests made themselves felt in his music: he composed Twelve Scottish Folk Songs in 1863 and an Adagio on Celtic Melodies for

3 cello and piano in 1891, and he was proud that he had found those themes on his travels rather than just taking them from books. By far the most famous of Bruch s uses of folk music is his Scottish Fantasy, composed in Cologne in Though Bruch consulted the great German violinist Joseph Joachim about the violin part, he dedicated the piece to the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, who gave the first performance at the Bach Festival in Hamburg in September Bruch himself remained uncertain about the form of his piece, and in a letter to his publisher shortly after the premiere he said: Fantasy is too general and usually leads one to expect a shorter piece rather than a work with several movements. On the other hand, it cannot be called a concerto (which is also Joachim s opinion) since the form of the entire work is very free, and also because folk melodies are used. Though Bruch sometimes referred to this piece as a concerto, perhaps his subtitle is most accurate: Fantasy for violin with orchestra and harp, freely treating Scottish folk-melodies. It was important to him to point out the central role played by the harp in this music: Bruch identified the violin and the harp as the principal instruments of Scottish folk music. The Scottish Fantasy falls into four movements, played without a break between them. It is in the introduction that one senses most clearly the influence of Scott s novels: many years after composing this music, Bruch told a friend that the opening depicts an old bard who contemplates a ruined castle and laments the glorious times of old. Solemn brass chords establish this atmosphere, and Bruch marks the violin s soaring entrance Quasi recitativo. This leads on a trill into the main section of the opening movement, marked Adagio cantabile. The harp takes a central role here, preparing the way for the entrance of the violin on the lovely folk-tune Auld Rob Morris, and the violin then extends that melody in doublestops. The following Allegro is based on the tune The Dusty Miller, which the violin sings over a bagpipe-like drone, and the music grows more brilliant as it proceeds. After the vigorous concluding chords, a slow transition that recalls Auld Rob Morris leads into the Andante sostenuto, based on the love song I m Down for a Lack of Johnnie. The phrases of this touching song conclude with the famous Scotch snap : each phrase ricochets off its last note to land on another note. The movement draws to a quiet close, and the finale marked Allegro guerriero ( warlike ) bursts to life. Here the violin s chords sound the principal melody, Scots wha hae, believed to have been sung by the troops of Robert the Bruce as they routed the English cavalry at the Battle of Bannockburn in June That war-cry becomes the basis here for some virtuoso fiddling, and after a final recall of Auld Rob Morris the Scottish Fantasy powers its way to a heroic close on Scots wha hae.

4 Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56: Scottish FELIX MENDELSSOHN Born February 3, 1809, Hamburg Died November 4, 1847, Leipzig Mendelssohn made his first visit to England in 1829 at the age of 20, and after a successful stay in London where he conducted his own music and played the piano he set off with his friend Karl Klingemann on a walking tour of Scotland that would lead him to compose two pieces. The first was the Fingal s Cave Overture, inspired directly by a stormy sea trip to the misty Hebrides Islands, but the creation of the Scottish Symphony proved a more complex process. Mendelssohn claimed to have had the initial idea for this music during a visit to the ruined Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh: In the evening twilight we went today to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved; a little room is shown there with a winding staircase leading up to the door The chapel close to it is now roofless, grass and ivy grow there, and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything round is broken and mouldering and the bright sky shines in. I believe I today found in that old chapel the beginning of my Scottish Symphony. Mendelssohn may have been precise about the inspiration for this music, but he was in no hurry to write it: not until 1842, 13 years after his trip to Scotland, did he complete this symphony. (Listed as No. 3, it is actually the last of his five symphonies.) Though Mendelssohn referred to the music as his Scottish Symphony, no one is sure what that nickname means. This music tells no tale, paints no picture, nor does it quote Scottish tunes. In fact, Mendelssohn loathed folk music, and it was during this walking tour that he unloaded a famous broadside: No national music for me! Ten thousand devils take all nationality! Now I am in Wales and, dear me, a harper sits in the hall of every reputed inn, playing incessantly so-called national melodies; that is to say, the most infamous, vulgar, out-of-tune trash, with a hurdygurdy going on at the same time. It s maddening, and has given me a toothache already. If one did not know that it bore the nickname Scottish, there would be little in Mendelssohn s Symphony No. 3 to suggest anything distinctively Scottish. And in fact Mendelssohn s friend Robert Schumann managed to humiliate himself on just this issue. He had been sent a copy of the score and wrote a review of it under the impression that he was writing about Mendelssohn s Italian Symphony. So convinced was he of the Italian-ness of this music that he singled out for special praise its beautiful Italian pictures, so beautiful as to compensate a hearer who had never been to Italy. In his preface to the score, Mendelssohn had originally marked the finale Allegro guerriero, and some critics have taken their cue from this and claimed to hear the sound of a battle between Scottish warriors in the last movement. Others have heard in this music a depiction of windswept moors, but all

5 these critics are guessing wildly. The four movements of this symphony, played without pause, are unified around the somber opening melody the theme inspired by the visit to Holyrood Chapel which appears in quite different forms throughout. Played by winds and divided violas, it opens the slow introduction; when the music leaps ahead at the Allegro un poco agitato, the violins surging main theme is simply a variation of the slow introduction. The first movement alternates a nervous, insistent quality with moments of silky calm, and all of these moods are built from that same material. A tempestuous climax trails off into quiet, and Mendelssohn brings back part of the introduction as a bridge to the second movement. Mendelssohn was famous for his scherzos, and the second movement of this symphony, marked Vivace non troppo, is one of his finest. It is actually in sonata form (and in 2/4 rather than the 3/4 standard in scherzos). Throughout, there is a sense of rustling motion; the music s boundless energy keeps it pushing forward at every instant. Solo clarinet has the swirling first theme, and some have identified this tune s extra final accent as the Scottish snap (though typical of Scottish folk music, such extra cadential accents are part of the folk music of many nations). The scherzo rushes to its quiet close and proceeds directly into the Adagio, which alternates a long and graceful main idea marked cantabile with a martial fanfare as a second theme. Out of the quiet conclusion of the third movement, the finale explodes. Marked Allegro vivacissimo, this movement is full of fire and excitement (this is the one originally marked Allegro guerriero), beginning with the violins dancing, dotted opening idea. Along the way Mendelssohn incorporates a second theme, derived once again from the symphony s introduction, and this energetic music eventually reaches a moment of calm. And here Mendelssohn springs a surprise: back comes the simple melody that opened the symphony, but now marked Allegro maestoso assai and set in bright A Major it has acquired an unexpected nobility. That once-simple melody now gathers its strength and drives the symphony to an energetic conclusion. Many regard the Scottish Symphony as Mendelssohn s finest orchestral work, but no one can explain that nickname satisfactorily. Rather than searching for the sound of gathering clans or hearing bits of Scottish folktunes or seeing windswept moors in this music, it may be simplest and safest to regard this as a work inspired by one specific Scottish impression, which then evolved ingeniously into an entire symphony. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger

6 WHY THIS PROGRAM? Jahja Ling opened his initial concert as music director here during the season with the delightful Orkney Wedding piece by Maxwell Davies. That was its first hearing at these concerts. Aside from the fun aspects, it is a very well-crafted piece, calling for a wide range of dynamics and coloration in the orchestra. In fact, this entire program is a repetition of that first 2004 concert, this time with Hilary Hahn as soloist in the Bruch Scottish Fantasy instead of William Preucil, and, after the intermission, Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony. I asked our music director about the unusual situation of repeating an entire program from its performance ten years before. His response was immediate and open: Because it's a wonderful program! He went on to amplify that opinion. It's just so special to find three pieces about one country, all by different composers from different lands and different times. You have three different selections by three different composers, all different in so many ways, but which all have Scottish themes, or musical themes reminiscent of Scotland, and I have never even heard of a different group of disparate pieces that function with each other that way. Moreover, he added, There is over a century between Mendelssohn's symphony and Maxwell Davies' romp, which, I remember, was a big success when we did it here. I don't need the excuse of a program like this to conduct any piece by Mendelssohn. You know how I love his music, and I especially love his Scottish Symphony. And the Bruch piece for violin is gorgeous, especially in the slow movement where, along with the finale, and with the Mendelssohn, you can hear Scotland. Michael Rabin was the San Diego Symphony's first violin soloist to play the Bruch Scottish Fantasy, under Zoltan Rozsnyai's direction, during the season, and subsequently it has been played here four more times, most recently by Mr. Preucil. Mendelssohn's Third, Scottish Symphony was introduced here during that same concert, and these current concerts present it here for the sixth time. -Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist

Peoria Symphony Orchestra Program Notes September 22, 2018 Michael Allsen

Peoria Symphony Orchestra Program Notes September 22, 2018 Michael Allsen This opening program of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra s season features the distinguished violinist Catherine Cho, who performs