PROGRAM
NOTES
4 April 2008 Concert
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
The pavane
was a dance form originating in Italy during the early part of the sixteenth
century. The name possibly derives from a location (both pavana and padoano
mean “of Padua”). Another possible source, more visually appealing, is the
Spanish word for peacock: pavón. One can imagine court dancers moving
with stately elegance to the slow double time of the melody, the women in long
trailing gowns, the men in brightly colored jackets and powdered wigs. By the
time Fauré wrote his Pavane (1886), the dance was no longer in fashion.
However, it survives today in the hesitation step sometimes used in formal
wedding processions.
Fauré, who
was born in southern France, received his musical education in Paris at the
Ecole Niedermeyer, an institution that trained church musicians. He became an
organist, first in Rennes and then back in Paris; he also held the post of
choirmaster at the Church of the Madeleine. Fauré was one of the founders of
the Societé Nationale de Musique, which premièred a number of his compositions.
Eventually he joined the faculty of the Paris Conservatoire as Professor of
Composition. One of his pupils was Maurice Ravel, whose Pavane for a Dead
Princess (1899, 1911) was performed at our January 2008 concert.
Toni Empringham
Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Like Fauré,
Max Bruch spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Unlike Fauré, however,
his music is firmly rooted in the Romantic period and is seldom heard today,
with the exception of this stunningly opulent concerto. Bruch was born in
Cologne, where he studied music (including the violin); he later moved to
Berlin and taught composition at the Academy of Music. The G Minor Concerto is
his first major work, and its performance history reflects the composer’s
struggle and initial dissatisfaction with the results. After a preliminary
public performance, the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim--who later influenced
the Brahms violin concerto as well--made some valuable suggestions that Bruch
gratefully incorporated. The final version premièred in 1868 with Joachim as
soloist.
The first
and third movements, Vorspiel (Prelude) and Finale (Allegro energico), can be regarded
as a musical frame for the brooding, lyrical Adagio, which musicologist David
Kopplin has called “as rich and seductive as any in the genre.” In a poll of
all-time classical favorites published in April of 2000 by The Guardian
of Great Britain, entitled the “Millennium Top 20,” Bruch’s First Violin
Concerto was voted number one, ahead of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (in
second place), Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A (third), three works by
Beethoven (seven through nine), and Handel’s Messiah (a distant number
18).
T.E.
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
In 1850,
Schumann was appointed principal conductor at Düsseldorf. This was a happy time
for Schumann. He felt that his position as a leading composer in Germany was
being acknowledged, and he was gaining success, both personally and
artistically, with this new post. A cruise down the Rhine during that time is
said to have been the inspiration for the “Rhenish” Symphony (a nickname not proposed by Schumann). The
symphony itself was completed in just over a month in late 1850. The first
performance was given on February 6, 1851, with the composer conducting his new
orchestra. Unfortunately, the happiness Düsseldorf and the Rhineland brought Schumann
was short-lived; two years later, after showing the first symptoms of
schizophrenia, he tried to drown himself in the same river that had been his
inspiration. He eventually died in 1856 in an asylum.
The
symphony is in five movements. The first movement, Lebhaft (lively), is a
sonata-allegro with great rhythmic drive and intensity. From the start the
meter is in question, as the music in the first six measures cuts across the
meter in a broad hemiola, only to be tentatively established in the seventh.
Not until the bridge passage, with its running eighth-note scales, is the meter
solidified. The second theme, by contrast, is a lyrical chorale introduced by
the winds. The second movement, Scherzo: Sehr mässig (very moderate), is a
light-hearted Ländler, a German folk dance, which flows leisurely and
effortlessly to a quiet, contented ending. It would not surprise anyone to
learn that Schumann originally titled this movement “Morning on the Rhine.”
The third
movement, Nicht schnell (not fast), is a noble interlude dominated by
ever-present winds. A pleasant mood of peaceful solitude pervades uninterrupted
throughout. The movement is made up of three distinct themes which become
intertwined at the end. It is interesting that while much has been said of
Schumann's ineptness as an orchestrator, he was a very practical one. German
orchestras of his day showed serious weaknesses, and often, as was the case
with the Düsseldorf Orchestra, key members were often not present in performances.
In an effort to have all the important musical lines heard, Schumann doubled
and often tripled the coverage of each one. The result is a rather
monochromatic orchestral sound. The content, however, remains intact.
Three
trombones (creative orchestration?), which have had nothing to do until now,
introduce the austere strains of the fourth movement: Feierlich (solemn). The
elevation of Archbishop von Geissel to Cardinal in a ceremony held in the
beautiful Gothic Cologne Cathedral is said to be the inspiration for this
music. The original title, “In the Character of an Accompaniment to a Solemn
Ceremony,” was withdrawn by the composer before publication, though it did
appear in the program for the première. Here the inspiration is Bach, in music
of profound dignity and majestic courage.
The finale,
Lebhaft (lively), shows Schumann's sunniest and happiest mood. The original
disposition of the symphony returns in triumph as the strings lead the way, but
it isn't long before they are briefly superseded by the winds and a brilliant
brass fanfare. A typical Schumann feature is for the coda to be the climax, and
here this is clearly the case. The coda brings back some themes from the fourth
movement and keeps building in intensity to a rousing finish, with hunting horn
calls and firmly established tonality.
Bill Malcolm
Please see http://www.beachcitiessymphony.org/PDF/newsletter0804.pdf
for program biographies.