26 January 2007
Introduction to Khovanshchina
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
Mussorgsky was
unfortunate in his affliction--alcoholism--that prevented him from completing
most of the works for which he is known, including Night on Bald Mountain,
the orchestral version of Pictures at an Exhibition, and the opera Boris
Godunov. On the other hand, he was fortunate in having music editors like
Maurice Ravel and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who polished and preserved his legacy
as a composer. The same is true of the
less-performed Khovanshchina, an opera in five acts that tells the story
of the Moscow Uprising of 1682. The central character is Prince Ivan Khovansky,
who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the Westernizing reforms of Peter the
Great.
After
Mussorgsky died, the opera was revised, finished, and scored by
Rimsky-Korsakov, who saw it through its first performance in 1886 in St.
Petersburg. Other versions of the work include those by Ravel, Igor Stravinsky,
and Dimitri Shostakovich. The Introduction, subtitled “Dawn over the Moscow
River,” explores a wistful melodic theme that passes back and forth between
woodwinds and strings. The music embodies the composer’s stage directions;
these describe smoke floating up from early morning fires, roosters crowing,
prayer bells pealing, and the sun rising over cathedral domes. There is irony
in this hopeful beginning to what will become the hero’s doomed enterprise.
--Toni
Empringham
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Opus 35
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Like
several of his other major works, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was the product
of a period of emotional upheaval. Repenting and retreating from his marriage
the previous year, 1877, the 38-year-old composer was living on the shores of
Lake Geneva and working on some solo piano pieces while awaiting inspiration
for a new, larger project. This inspiration came with the arrival of a young
violin student, Yosif Kotek, with whom Tchaikovsky had become infatuated after
meeting him in Moscow in 1876. The composer completed the concerto, including
the orchestration, within a month. Then, fearing the gossip that would arise
from dedicating the work to his companion, he offered it instead to the
celebrated violinist Leopold Auer. To Tchaikovsky’s chagrin, Auer declined the
honor, citing the difficulty of the solo part.
It is hard
to believe that a work that so perfectly showcases the instrument and its
performer met with such initial disapproval. Nonetheless, when Adolf Brodsky
finally gave its first public performance at a Vienna Philharmonic Society
concert in December of 1881, the respected critic Eduard Hanslick “reviled the
very hallmarks which have since made the piece so popular: its athletic energy,
its robust romanticism and its red-bloodedly Slavonic finale” (Anthony Holden, Tchaikovsky:
A Biography, 1995). Today Tchaikovsky’s concerto stands with those of
Beethoven, Brahms, and Sibelius as cornerstones of the concert violinist’s
repertory.
--T.E.
Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
La Mer, subtitled
"Three Symphonic Sketches," was the nearest Debussy came to writing a
symphony. Though it avoids standard symphonic form, it is recognizably in
D-flat, it has three clear movements of which the second is scherzo-like, and
all the main themes are closely related to each other.
Debussy
began work on La Mer in 1903 and finished it in March 1905. This was a
time of emotional crisis for him: in July 1904 he left his wife, Lily, a simple
seamstress, for the wealthy older wife of a prominent banker. They fled from
Paris and spent most of the summer in Jersey and at Dieppe on the Channel
coast. His new love, Emma, fired his inspiration for many later works, but it
cost Debussy dearly. Lily shot herself, nearly all his friends turned against
him, and society denounced him for his failure to uphold its standards of
decency. When La Mer was first performed in 1905 it was not a success,
partly because the orchestra could not understand it and played it badly, but
also because news of the affair had recently come out, and performers and audience
were frankly unsympathetic. However, in time, Debussy’s impressionistic
devices--modality, primary intervals (fourths and fifths) used in parallel
motion, whole-tone scales, and pentatonic (five-note) scales--and his talent as
a composer established La Mer’s current reputation as a 20th century
French masterpiece.
The first
movement, “De l’aube ŕ midi sur la mer” (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea), opens
quietly, the sea rocking gently. An oboe presents a simple motif; then the
English horn and trumpet outline a longer theme. One reason for the unity of
the work is that these two simple themes are the source for almost all the
music in La Mer. The tempo picks up for the first main section, the sea
now more active. This develops and becomes quite agitated before subsiding, and
the cellos state a new theme. This gives rise to a longer section and a bigger
climax, constantly underpinned by a rocking figure. After a brief period of
flat calm, the coda hints at the great, but still latent, power of the sea.
“Jeux de
vagues” (Play of the Waves) is a swift and complex movement, the most “modern”
of La Mer. Themes are never dwelt on for long but quickly abandoned, and
the sound of the particular instruments is fundamental to the music. The
scoring is quintessentially impressionistic: delicate and subtle, often fairly
quiet, and sparkling. Despite one major climax late in the piece, it ends as
airily as it began.
The last
movement, “Dialogue du vent et de la mer” (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea)
has terrific drive, and even when quiet one really feels the power of the sea
unleashed. The tunes are closely based on those of the first movement, even
played on the same instruments at the beginning: oboe and muted trumpet. Then,
above a choppy wave pattern in the strings, a long theme, sustained and
flexible, represents the wind. We hear siren notes in the horns and a long
crescendo to a big climax. Next a calm interlude and, with a sense of
homecoming, D-flat major is re-established, the low strings and bassoons bring
back the first movement theme, the chorale returns, and the work ends with a
sense of the vastness and mystery of the sea.
--Bill
Malcolm