27 October 2006
The Hebrides Overture ("Fingal's Cave"), Op. 26
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
In 1829,
while on a grand tour of Europe, Felix Mendelssohn visited Fingal's Cave, a
popular tourist attraction on the uninhabited island of Staffa on the west
coast of Scotland. Mendelssohn set out on a two-day trip to sail round the
Inner Hebrides islands, returning down the Sound of Mull to Oban. The sea was
rough and all the passengers were seasick. Despite the wild weather, the sight
and sound of the Atlantic swells tumbling into the Cave made a profound
impression on the composer. He jotted down what would become the opening notes
of the overture and included them in a letter home written that same evening.
Mendelssohn continued to work on the overture as he traveled, finally
completing it a year later in Rome, but he was dissatisfied with it when it was
performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra on May 14, 1832. He complained
particularly about the middle section, which he felt “smells more of
counterpoint than of train-oil, seagulls and salt fish, and must be altered”.
He revised the work and published it in its finished version in 1833.
The Hebrides
was one of the first of a new genre of composition that arose early in the 19th
century: the “concert overture” that was not associated with a stage
production, but intended specifically for the concert hall. The work opens with
the famous theme inspired in Mendelssohn as he bobbed about at the mouth of
Fingal’s Cave. Not really a complete melody at all, it is simply a one-measure
motive that recurs over colorful, changing harmonies. The broad complementary theme,
“the greatest melody Mendelssohn ever wrote,” according to Sir Donald Tovey, is
presented by the bassoons and cellos. A martial closing theme ends the
exposition. The development section, built largely upon the main theme, rises
to a ringing climax before an upward scalar passage from the flutes ushers in
the recapitulation. The second theme provides a brief emotional respite before
the stormy mood of the opening returns in the extended coda. The storminess
subsides, and the Overture concludes with a soft whisper from the flute.
--Bill
Malcolm
Viola Concerto, Op. post. (Completed by Tibor Serly)
Bela Bartok (1882 - 1945)
On
September 21, 1945, Bela Bartok met in his 57th Street New York, apartment with
his friend, fellow musician and former student, Tibor Serly. On September 22,
Bartok was taken to the hospital where he died five days later from leukemia.
His works in progress at that time were the Third Piano Concerto and Viola
Concerto.
Bartok’s
widow gave Serly the scores and he completed the orchestration of the last 17
measures of the Piano Concerto. The Viola Concerto was another problem. A draft
was completed in early September according to a letter Bartok wrote to William
Primrose, the famous Scottish violist who had commissioned the work. But what
was found on Bartok’s nightstand under a clutter of medicine bottles was a
manuscript lacking page numbers, movement order, dynamics, bowings, or details
of any sort. The score was further enigmatic in that Bartok was in the habit of
writing over existing passages to modify them, and the only orchestration
suggestion Serly had was that “It was to be more transparent than the Violin
Concerto.” Fortunately, Serly was a professional violist and had indeed written
a viola concerto himself. Still, it took him years to assemble the sketches
into a complete piece. In late 1949, Primrose finally premiered it with Antal
Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.
The Serly version enjoys great popularity among the viola community and is among the most commonly performed, even though it faces charges of inauthenticity and other versions have been drafted (including one in 1995 by a committee: Nelson Dellamaggiore, Paul Neubauer and Peter Bartok, the composer’s son). But how should we regard a work unfinished at the time of the composer’s death and later completed by others? Whose work is this viola concerto? Who decides what is authentic? I’m sure musicologists would agree that the thematic materials emanate unmistakably from Bartok, and to have this concerto available in any form is immeasurably preferable to never having had one at all.
The
three-movement concerto echoes the classical simplicity of the Third Piano
Concerto. The opening movement, in the most classical of forms, rhapsodic
sonata form, develops extensively from its straightforward first theme. A slow
interlude, largely for the viola alone (reminiscent of the Sixth String Quartet
opening), leads to the second movement. This music, for which Serly borrows the
Adagio religioso marking Bartok used for the parallel movement of the
Third Piano Concerto, is conceived in Bartok’s favorite arch form, with serene
chorale passages framing a sudden outburst. Another interlude, the last of
Bartok’s folk dances complete with the sound of droning bagpipes, leads without
pause to the short finale.
--B. M.
Symphony No. 6: “Pathetique,” Op. 74
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Like the
Bartok Viola Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony was the composer’s last work.
Unlike the concerto, however, the symphony was completely realized and received
its premiere on October 16, 1893, in St. Petersburg with the composer as
conductor. Another difference is that whereas Bartok was aware of his serious
illness and its dire prognosis, Tchaikovsky felt invigorated by his departure
from tradition in this work. He wrote to his nephew Vladimir Davidov on
February 23, 1893, “There will be much that is new in this symphony where form
is concerned, one point being that the finale will not be a loud allegro, but
the reverse, a most unhurried adagio. You cannot imagine the bliss I feel after
becoming convinced that time has not run out and that it is still possible to
work.” While Tchaikovsky had in mind a “program . . . imbued with subjectivity”
in composing this symphony, he never explained its meaning. The opening bars of
the first movement contain a musical allusion to Beethoven’s Sonate
pathatique (Piano Sonata No. 8), but it was in fact Tchaikovsky’s brother
Modest who suggested the subtitle. Despite the composer’s later request to
delete the name, the publisher ignored his wishes. “pathetique” does not
translate into the English “pathetic” or the Greek “pathos”; instead, it is
more closely related to the Russian cognate meaning something deeply emotional
and touching.
The
orchestral musicians, audience, and press who heard the first public
performance of the Pathetique were almost uniformly baffled by its
innovative structure, receiving it with politeness and respect rather than the
enthusiasm the composer had hoped for. At its second performance, however, two
weeks after Tchaikovsky’s unexpected death (most probably from cholera), the
response was much more accepting of its sonorous melodies, opulent
orchestration, and unorthodox finale.
--Toni
Empringham
BARRY BRISK has been Music Director and
Conductor of the Beach Cities Symphony since 1994. A native of Southern
California, he was a Music Composition major at Mount St. Mary’s College in
Brentwood before moving to Vienna. He studied at the Academy of Music (now the
University of Music) under the world-renowned Hans Swarowsky, earning a Diploma
in Conducting, and eventually returned to this area to pursue a professional
career.
In addition to his post with the Beach Cities Symphony, Maestro
Brisk has appeared as guest conductor for numerous Southern California
orchestras, including the Inland Empire Symphony, the Westside Symphony
Orchestra, the West Los Angeles Symphony, the Topanga Symphony, the Burbank
Philharmonic, the Livic Chamber Orchestra (Torrance), the United Chinese
Musicians Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles, and the Central Coast Philharmonia
in Santa Barbara. Farther afield, he has conducted the Orquestra Sinfonica de
Veracruz (Mexico), the American Opera Workshop in Vienna, and the Vienna
Chamber Orchestra.
Maestro Brisk is also a violist in several symphonies, a teacher
of conducting and composition, and a composer. His most recent work, Serenade,
will receive its world premiere at our May 2007 concert. His articles have
appeared in Musical America, Opera Quarterly, and The Inner Voice,
newsletter of the Southern California Viola Society.
Maestro Brisk's family consists of his wife, Cathy, an expert on
ancient Greek and Roman coins; their son, Philip, who has just received his
Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA; and Philip's wife, Marilyn.
PAUL COLETTI was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, of Italian parentage and began
his viola studies at age eight. At 18 he won a scholarship to study at the
newly formed International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) in Switzerland. There
he studied with Alberto Lysy, Yehudi Menuhin, and Sandor Vegh. He collaborated
in performances with Sandor Vegh in Salzburg; with Yehudi Menuhin in
performances and recordings in Paris, Edinburgh, Gstaad, and London; and with
Lord Menuhin conducting in a live televised performance in Berlin of Bartok’s
Viola Concerto.
In 1984 Mr. Coletti returned to IMMA for his first teaching
position, which subsequently led to his appointment at age 25 as Head of
Strings at the University of Washington. He moved to New York, which became his
home for 14 years, and concurrently taught at the Peabody Institute at Johns
Hopkins University for seven of those years. In the 1980s and 90s, as a soloist
and chamber musician, Mr. Coletti appeared in over 1,000 concerts throughout
Asia, Europe, Australia, and North and South America in such venues as the
Sydney Opera House, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo,
Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center, and in the fourth-century church of San
Miniato al Monte in Florence.
Paul Coletti has made over 30 award-winning CDs, DVDs and
videotapes. As a television and radio personality, he is producer of The Viola
Show and director of music videos featuring narration by actor Leonard Nimoy.
Mr. Coletti s concerts are broadcast worldwide, notably on the BBC, NHK and
Classical Arts; and he is a frequent guest on St. Paul Sunday on NPR. Paul
Coletti’s “Three Pieces for Viola and Piano” is published by Oxford
University Press. His compositions have been performed worldwide and are
featured on the Sony label. He has performed jazz with the Claude Bolling Trio
on St. Barts, and on more familiar territory has conducted the New Japan
Philharmonic Orchestra in an all-Mozart concert in Tokyo.
After seven years of tours, recordings and concerts, Mr. Coletti
accepted a position as a visiting guest professor at the University of Missouri
in Kansas City. One year later, in 2002, he began his duties as Professor of
Viola and Head of Chamber Music at UCLA. As of 2004, Professor Coletti has been
on the faculty at the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles.