Concerts of Thursday, June 7, and Saturday, June 9, 2018, at 8:00p

Transcription

1 Concerts of Thursday, June 7, and Saturday, June 9, 2018, at 8:00p Robert Spano, Conductor Inon Barnatan, piano Claude Debussy ( ) Prélude à L après-midi d un faune (1894) Alan Fletcher (b. 1956) Piano Concerto (2017) I. Song in a Time of War II. Song Without Words III. Quodlibet Inon Barnatan, piano Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Aspen Music Festival and School Intermission Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov ( ) Scheherazade, Opus 35 (1888) I. The Sea and Sinbad s Ship II. The Story of the Kalendar Prince III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess IV. The Festival of Baghdad The Sea The Ship Goes to Pieces Against a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior

2 Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer Prélude à L après-midi d un faune (1894) Claude Debussy was born in St. Germain-en-Laye, France, on August 22, 1862, and died in Paris, France, on March 25, The first performance of Prélude à L après-midi d un faune took place in Paris at the Salle d Harcourt on December 22, 1894, with Gustave Doret conducting the Société Nationale de Musique. Prélude à L après-midi d un faune is scored for three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, crotales (antique cymbals), harp, and strings. Approximate performance time is ten minutes. First Classical Subscription Performance: Henry Sopkin, Conductor, March 10, Most Recent Classical Subscription Performances: October 8, 10, and 11, 2015, Donald Runnicles, Conductor. According to Pierre Boulez: modern music was awakened by L après-midi d un faune. Other pioneering works, such as Ludwig van Beethoven s Eroica Symphony (1803), Giuseppe Verdi s Nabucco (1842), and Igor Stravinsky s The Rite of Spring (1913) stunned the music world with their overwhelming power, energy, and dissonance. Debussy chose to wake his listeners in a far more seductive and beguiling fashion, with elusive tonalities and rhythms couched in the most exquisite orchestral sonorities. Debussy s most famous orchestral work was inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé s poem, the genesis of which dates as far back as L après-midi d un faune relates the tale of a faun s erotic (and unrequited) fascination with a pair of nymphs. Mallarmé conceived The Afternoon of a Faun as a monologue to be recited on stage by an actor. Debussy composed his music between 1892 and It appears Debussy first envisioned the work as a series of pieces (Prélude, interlude, et paraphrase finale), designed to serve as incidental music to a dramatic recitation of Mallarmé s poem. It is possible Debussy incorporated music from the sketches for the Interlude and Final Paraphrase into his Prélude. Prior to the first performance, Debussy played the Prélude for Mallarmé. As Debussy described to his friend, G. Jean-Aubry: Mallarmé came in with a prophetic air and his Scotch plaid around him. After listening he remained silent for a long time; then said: I didn t expect anything like this. It is music that brings out the feeling of my poem, providing it with a warmer background than color. Debussy described his Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun as a very free interpretation of Mallarmé s poem. It has no pretensions of presenting a synthesis of the poem. It is rather a series of scenes against which the desires and dreams of the Faun are seen to stir in the afternoon heat.

3 In an October 10, 1896 letter to music critic Henry Gauthier-Villars, Debussy observed: More precisely, the work conveys the general impression of the poem it follows the ascendant movement of the poem and illustrates the scene marvelously described in the text. The close is a prolongation of the last line: Couple adieu! Je vais voir l ombre que tu deviens. ( Farewell, couple! I go to see the shadow that you become. ) Piano Concerto (2017) Alan Fletcher was born in Riverside, New Jersey, on November 19, The first performance of the Piano Concerto took place at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colorado, on July 30, 2017, with Inon Barnatan, piano, and Robert Spano, conductor. In addition to the solo piano, the Concerto is scored for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, marimba, vibraphone, chimes, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam-tam, triangle, suspended cymbal, two harps, and strings. Approximate performance time is twenty-six minutes. These are the First Classical Subscription Performances. When I started on the thrilling assignment of writing a piano concerto for the supremely gifted Inon Barnatan, to be given first performances by a trio of great orchestras the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Atlanta Symphony I knew the music should be on a large, dramatic scale. After a period of abstract thinking, the conception of the whole came as if all at once. While writing a piano concerto, Ravel was asked how it was going, and he replied that the composition was complete, but I just have to find the melodies. Now I know exactly what he meant: from one morning to the next, the narrative arc of the whole piece, its structure, size, and shape, were all clear. It was just a matter of finding some thousands of pitches and rhythms. The piece is about singing. The piano and orchestra are sometimes opposed and sometimes united, but they are always singing to each other. Further, the sequence of songs has a story to tell, and the three movements are intricately tied together, even though they come separately. The first movement comprises half the work and is titled Song in a Time of War. The song here is an old German chorale tune called St. Anne. Bach used this tune as the basis for his prodigious Prelude and Fugue in E flat. English speakers know it as the tune for Isaac Watts s great paraphrase of Psalm 90, O God, our help in ages past. His text continues, Our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home: Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away; we fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day. The music has a restless,

4 searching character at first, with martial and clarion elements leading to the introduction of the chorale. The piano and orchestra are clearly in opposition, with the orchestra displaying raw power, until the chorale brings a different, shared relationship between piano and orchestra. A passionate cadenza for the piano appears to be the climax, but it turns out actually to be in the middle of things, and the return of the opening music leads to a tremendous, chaotic outburst. It s very loud and troubling. The final statements of the chorale do not manage to balance things; in fact, the chorale takes on a snarling, menacing character. The second movement is titled Song Without Words. Here I am imagining an actual poem, and the piano part could technically be used as a melody to set the text, which is the second stanza of Wordsworth s Ode: Intimations of Immortality. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where er I go, That there hath pass d away a glory from the earth. The final movement is titled Quodlibet. Literally meaning what might please, a quodlibet is an ancient musical form in which several songs or parts of songs are combined. The primary song here is Louis Armstrong s composition, Someday you ll be sorry. A solo trumpet sings this song while the piano, a clarinet, and vibraphone murmur along with it. After two variations, with some brilliance for the soloist, two more songs are introduced: Rodgers and Hart s standard, My Romance, and an African-American spiritual, Nobody knows the trouble I ve seen. There s a theoretical reason for these choices, in the interval patterns of the tunes, but, more importantly, there s an emotional meaning. When Louis Armstrong sang his composition, though the words are sad The way you treated me was wrong the effect is infinitely tender and even consoling. He s singing to himself, to make himself feel better. My romance doesn t have to have a moon in the sky My romance doesn t need a thing but you brings more tenderness, and the spiritual If you get there before I do, don t forget to tell my friends I m coming, too also looks forward. But here, the restlessness of the first movement returns, crowned with one more statement of Armstrong s song. Whether our human imperative to make art in the face of harsh reality leads to redemption, or consolation, or resolve, or just a moment of respite, will be up to the listener. Alan Fletcher

5 Scheherazade, Opus 35 (1888) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was born in Tikhvin, Russia, on March 18, 1844, and died in Lyubensk, Russia, on June 21, The first performance of Scheherazade took place in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 3, 1888, with the composer conducting. Scheherazade is scored for two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, suspended cymbals, snare drum, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam, harp, and strings. Approximate performance time is forty-eight minutes. First Classical Subscription Performance: November 23, 1949, Henry Sopkin, Conductor. Most Recent Classical Subscription Performances: May 28 and 30, 2105, Robert Spano, Conductor. Recording: Robert Spano, Conductor, Telarc CD: The fantastic collection of tales known as The Arabian Nights, or A Thousand and One Nights, has captivated readers for centuries. The ancient stories, mostly of Arabic, Indian, or Persian origin, were first presented to European readers in an early 18 th -century French translation by Antoine Galland. British explorer Sir Richard Burton created a popular English-language version in the late 19 th century. To this day, such tales as The History of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, The History of Sinbad the Sailor, and The History of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, continue to weave their magical spell. Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov created his Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite after A Thousand and One Nights, in the summer of During that same period, Rimsky-Korsakov also completed his brilliant Russian Easter Overture, Opus 36. In his autobiography, My Musical Life, Rimsky- Korsakov offered this explanation of Scheherazade: The program I had been guided by in composing Scheherazade consisted of separate, unconnected episodes and pictures from The Arabian Nights, scattered through all four movements of my suite: the sea and Sinbad s ship, the fantastic narrative of the Prince Kalendar, the Prince and the Princess, the Baghdad festival and the ship dashing upon the rock with the bronze rider upon it. Several musical themes recur throughout the work s four movements. However, Rimsky-Korsakov cautioned: In vain do people seek in my suite leading motives linked unbrokenly with ever the same poetic ideas and conceptions. On

6 the contrary, in the majority of cases, all these seeming leitmotives are nothing but purely musical material or the given motives for symphonic development. These given motives thread and spread over all the movements of the suite, alternating and intertwining each with the other. Appearing as they do each time under different illumination, depicting each time different traits and expressing different moods, the self-same motives and themes correspond each time to different images, actions and pictures. Nevertheless, the composer did acknowledge that the famous recurring violin solo, which makes its initial appearance early in the first movement, represents the heroine, Scheherazade, telling her wondrous tales to the stern sultan. Rimsky-Korsakov was a master of the art of instrumentation. His Principles of Orchestration ( ) remains one of the most important texts on that subject. In speaking of Scheherazade, as well as his Capriccio espagnol, Opus 34 (1887) and Russian Easter Overture, Opus 36 (1888), the composer proudly acknowledged, my orchestration had achieved a considerable degree of virtuosity and bright sonority. Rimsky-Korsakov s brilliant deployment of orchestral forces coupled with his unerring sense of dramatic contrast and impressive melodic gifts have assured continued affection for Scheherazade by musicians and audiences alike. Musical Analysis As a preface to his score, Rimsky-Korsakov provided the following program for Scheherazade: The Sultan Schahriar, convinced of the perfidy and faithlessness of women, vowed to execute each of his wives after the first night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her own life by interesting him in the tales she told him through 1001 nights. Impelled by curiosity, the Sultan continually put off her execution, and at last entirely abandoned his sanguinary resolve. Many marvels did Scheherazade relate to him, citing the verses of poets and the words of songs, weaving tale into tale and story into story. I. The Sea and Sinbad s Ship The movement opens (Largo e maestoso) with a menacing fortissimo orchestral pronouncement, perhaps representing, at least in this passage, the Sultan Schahriar. A series of pianissimo woodwind chords leads to the delicate entrance of the solo violin (Lento). Scheherazade begins her first tale. The principal section of the opening movement (Allegro non troppo) features variants of the opening motif and Scheherazade s music. Throughout, an accompanying undulating string figure evokes the motion of the sea, upon which

7 Sinbad s ship travels. The movement proceeds to a series of grand climaxes, but finally resolves to a whisper. II. The Story of the Kalendar Prince Scheherazade s music returns (Lento) as the introduction to the second movement, which concerns a Kalendar, or beggar Prince (several Kalendar Princes are mentioned in The Arabian Nights). A solo bassoon plays a seductive melody (Andantino), marked dolce ed espressivo. The melody is soon incorporated by the solo oboe, followed by the violins and woodwinds. A reprise of the oboe solo leads to a contrasting, agitated sequence (Allegro molto). Toward the close, a magical reverie, featuring muted strings, harp, and various solo instruments, is followed by a thunderous conclusion. III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess The violins offer the initial statement of the slow-tempo movement s graceful principal melody (Andantino quasi allegretto). The various presentations of the melody are punctuated by rapid ascending and descending woodwind scales. After a jaunty, delicatelyscored interlude (Pocchissimo più mosso), Scheherazade (solo violin) returns. A reprise of music from the second movement s Andantino leads to a dolce resolution. IV. The Festival of Baghdad The Sea The Ship Goes to Pieces Against a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior Furious statements of the opening Sultan motif, alternating with Scheherazade s music (Allegro molto. Lento. Allegro molto e frenetico. Lento.), serve as a prelude to the central portion of the finale. Flutes introduce the sprightly principal melody (Vivo). A whirlwind of activity ensues, growing ever more ominous. At the climax, there is an imposing reprise of the Sinbad music (Allegro non troppo e maestoso). Finally, the mood calms, and the solo violin brings Scheherazade s narrative to a magical conclusion.