| Classics 9: Burst of Nature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Le corsaire Overture It has always been difficult to separate fact from fiction in the stories Hector Berlioz told about the inspiration for his compositions. According to the composer, he read Lord Byron’s The Corsair in Rome’s St. Peter’s Cathedral: “During the fierce summer heat I used to spend whole days there, comfortably established in a confessional, with Byron as my companion.” But the transformation of titles that this overture underwent tells of a more complex provenance. Originally entitled The Tower of Nice, it was conceived during a stay in Nice while Berlioz was recuperating from a botched love-induced attempt at suicide by drowning. He renamed it Le corsaire rouge after a reading of James Fenimore Cooper’s Red Rover, and finally in 1851, after another revision, Le corsaire, courtesy of Byron. It was his last concert overture. This overture has one of the repertory’s trickiest openings for the orchestra players, and Berlioz rubs salt in the wound by making them repeat it at unexpected moments several times during the piece.  Aside from the opening, the overture is fairly conventional for the quirky Berlioz, although the music retains his characteristic nervousness. The most lyric part of the overture, a lovely melody for strings that could have been written by Beethoven, follows the opening and is never repeated. The mood of the piece vacillates between tenderly melancholic and boisterously “piratical,” the recurring theme a typically Berlioz brass blast. A brilliant and innovative orchestrator, Berlioz saves the low brasses for a rousing climax. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Selections from Chants d'Auvergne Composer and pianist Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret – Malaret was the name of his ancestral estate – grew up in the Auvergne region of central France. Starting early in his childhood he showed musical aptitude and developed an enthusiasm for the local folk music. In 1902 he became a composition student of Vincent d’Indy, whose biography he wrote. Canteloube dedicated himself to the renewal of French musical traditions by incorporating folksong into his concert music, and to the preservation of the regional traditions of folk music. While he composed numerous original works, he is best remembered for his collections and arrangements of folksongs, having spent his last 50 years traveling through France collecting them. Closest to his heart were the songs of his native Auvergne. These he transcribed for voice and orchestra in five sets between 1923 and 1954. All of his original compositions, including two operas, have been generally neglected. Canteloube belongs to a group of twentieth-century folk music collector/composers, which included such well-known names as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. There is, however, little similarity between his approach and that of his colleagues. Bartók used the short motivic elements and rhythms of the original folk songs and dances and transformed them into instrumental pieces of true originality. Vaughan Williams, whose approach at times resembles Canteloube’s, usually provided simple orchestral accompaniments to the original songs. By contrast, Canteloube’s take on these folksongs in his Chants d'Auvergne transforms them from simple folk melodies in the original dialect of the Auvergne, many not more than ditties, into lush – even grandiose – late nineteenth century Romantic garb, sung in full operatic style with sweeping, almost cinematic, orchestration. Virtually every song is preceded by a long orchestral introduction. The selections are as follows: La pastoura als camps (The Shepherdess in the Field) (Set 1, No.1): Baïlero (Set 1, No.2): Pastourelle (Shepherd’s Song) (Set 2, No.1): Lo fiolairé (The Spinner) (Set 3, No.1): Malurous qu’o uno fenne (Wretched the man who has a wife) (Set 3, No.5): Lou coucut (The Cuckoo) (Set 4, No.6): | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 Unsure of his ability to compose symphonies, Brahms took fourteen years to finish his first in 1876. Its critical and popular success, while far from overwhelming, gave him the confidence to try his hand at a symphony again, and this time with much greater assurance; thus it took him just a few months in the summer and fall of 1877 to compose his second. The contrast between the two can be compared to that between Beethoven’s fifth and sixth symphonies, and the parallel can be extended to the environment that gave them birth. Brahms spent the summer of 1877 in Pörtschach, an out-of-the-way village in the Austrian countryside, from where he wrote to Eduard Hanslick: “So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to step on them.” The symphony’s sunny spirit – especially the last two movements – and relatively transparent orchestration harks back to the young Brahms of the two orchestral serenades (1856-60), and has less of the dense orchestration that permeates much of Brahms’s symphonic writing. It induced one of Brahms’ friends to exclaim: “It is all rippling streams, blue sky, sunshine and cool green shadows. How beautiful it must be at Pörtschach!”. But true to Brahms’s nature, the symphony has its darker moments. Clara Schumann commented on the somber mood in parts of the first movement, and when a friend objected to the gloom and harshness of the trombones in the second movement, the composer replied that it reflects his habitual melancholy. Brahms kept all but his closest friends in the dark about the character of the new work, hinting that it was tragic, somber, dirge-like, and - adding facetiously - would require the orchestra members to wear black crêpe armbands. The premiere in Vienna on Dec. 30, 1877, under the baton of Hans Richter, was an unqualified success, the ebullient third movement having to be repeated at the insistence of the enthusiastic audience. The Symphony presents many original and ingenious variations on traditional symphonic forms, including ways of integrating the movements thematically. It opens with a gentle, lilting theme, the opening three notes of which, in the cellos and basses, comprise a motivic element that pervades the first movement. The motive appears sometimes in the melody, at others as an accompanying figure. Yet, offsetting this persistent kernel is a considerable array of themes, some of which find the little motive embedded within them, as in this rhythmically varied version that opens the second theme. Once audiences are attuned to listen for it, they can find it everywhere. The second theme in f-sharp minor is one of those places where Hanslick's perceived sunshine temporarily hides behind the clouds of Brahms's melancholy. There is also a heart of darkness in the development. Nevertheless, good weather prevails by the end with a gentle coda recalling the recurring motto and ending with a restatement of the first theme.Like the preceding movement, the Adagio non troppo is packed with thematic material, but this time the sunshine pretty much stays behind the clouds from the start. Here Brahms breaks down two longer themes into fragments, using the three-note motto from the first movement as an integral part of the second thematic group. The reprise of both sections is in free variation, reminiscent of the slow movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The movement concludes with a wistful coda. The Scherzo opens with a beautiful allegretto grazioso solo for the reed woodwinds, accompanied by pizzicato cellos. The Trio sets the traditional contrast of mood with a change from triple to duple meter and an abrupt increase in tempo and new orchestration emphasizing the strings. Brahms, however, does not use the customary new thematic material for the Trio, but rather a radical transformation of the Scherzo theme. The Trio gradually winds down in tempo to blend smoothly into a free variation of the Scherzo reprise. The finale, the most festive movement Brahms ever wrote, begins, however, with a sotto voce rhythmic variation of the three-note motto from the opening movement, here as the once again in the cellos and basses. The movement is in modified sonata-rondo form with the following second theme. Brahms freely develops both themes in the intervening episodes, ending with an ebullient coda and a final trumpet fanfare. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
