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A NEW ERA OF EXCELLENCE |
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AUTUMN CONCERT 2007 |
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Wings of Flight La gazza ladra Overture Rossini Swan of Tuonela Sibelius Ma Mere L'Oye (Mother Goose) Suite Ravel Firebird Suite Stravinsky
PROGRAM NOTES A thieving magpie, a legendary swan, a lively Mother Goose, and a mystical, mythical Firebird give flight to the first concert of the 2007-2008 concert season. Works by Rossini, Sibelius, Ravel and Stravinsky headline the program and offer us insights into the imaginary worlds of our feathered friends. From 1813 with Tancredi through 1817 with La gazza ladra, Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), composed more than two dozen operas, ranging from comedy to tragi-comedy. With no effective copyright legislation existing in a disunited Italy, Rossini's earnings from an opera were limited to performances in which he participated, and payments to a composer did not match those to a prima donna. Obliged to support both himself and his parents, Rossini raced to complete one opera after another.
La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie), produced in Milan on May 31, 1817, opens in a rustic setting which heralds a tragicomedy, the opera semiseria genre so popular in this period. To begin the opera, Rossini wrote one of his finest overtures, filled with novel and striking ideas from the opening snare drum rolls and military march, to the superb crescendo. The story exists that the local impresario was concerned that Rossini complete the overture for the premiere that he locked the composer in a room, and Rossini tossed the pages of the score out the window to his copyists as he finished each one. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was born the son of swedish-speaking parents in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. Christened Johan Julius Christian, he adopted the French form Jean after viewing a business card of an uncle. He grew up in an environment dominated by Russian oppressors, and in a climate filled with the Romantic notions of a separate national identity for the Finnish people. It was in this context that Sibelius matured as a man and as a composer. His early works reflect the Finnish longing for an independent state free of Russian influence.
While Sibelius composed in all the major forms, he excelled particularly in two genres - the symphony and the tone poem. Notable among his compositions are his seven symphonies and other symphonic works including the Violin Concerto in D minor, Valse Triste, Karelia Suite, Kullervo, Luonnotar, En Saga, and Finlandia. Of the symphonies, the first two, in E minor and D major, are the most widely performed and most often recorded. The Swan of Tuonela is the second movement from the Lemminkäinen Suite, a set of four tone-poem ‘legends’ from the Kalevala, the Finnish folk epic poem. It is in effect a program symphony under the influence of Franz Liszt's A Faust Symphony, a piece which occupied Sibelius during a period of study in Berlin. The suite's slow movement, The Swan of Tuonela, depicts the gloom and near-immobility of the world of Death (tuoni) from the Kalevala. It is in this work that Sibelius emerged as a master of orchestral atmosphere and tonal coloring. The Swan features the famous, extended solo for English horn which contains the twisting rhythm referred to as the "Sibelius triplet." The solo rests upon a bed of muted strings, seventeen string parts in all, some which are divided further into solo passages. The result is a rich background texture that shifts, glides, swells, and merges one phrase into the next. This slow transformation builds to a climax near the end where the strings again join to bring the piece to a funereal march cantabile finish. Unlike his contemporary Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was in no sense a revolutionary musician. He was for the most part content to work within the established formal and harmonic conventions of his day, still firmly rooted in tonality—i.e., the organization of music around focal tones. Yet, so very personal and individual was his adaptation and manipulation of the traditional musical idiom that it would be true to say he forged for himself a language of his own that bears the stamp of his personality as unmistakably as any work of Bach or Chopin. Like Stravinsky, Ravel supplied a ballet for Sergei Diaghilev, Daphnis et Chloé, in 1912, a work that definitely set him off from a composer with whom he had been compared, Claude Debussy.
The decade of the '20s was a period of great activity for Ravel. He completed several major compositions, including the masterful orchestration of Modeste Mussorgsky's piano work Pictures at an Exhibition. In 1928 Ravel toured Canada and the United States and in the same year he visited England to receive an honorary degree from Oxford. That year also saw the creation of Boléro in its original ballet form, with Ida Rubinstein in the principal role. Ma Mere L'Oye (Mother Goose) Suite - Background Ma Mere L'Oye (Mother Goose Suite) is typical of Ravel's style with its modal melodies, use of dance forms and rhythmic precision. For this suite, Ravel selected favorite French fairy tales with references to fantasy, dreams and legends of childhood. It was originally written for piano four hands, and later orchestrated by Ravel as a ballet. Ravel sought to write piano music that could be played by children, as well as music that reflected the world of childhood. Subtitled Five Children's Pieces, the score is composed of five sections, each based on a fairy tale. These pieces are
In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work. Then, in 1912, he expanded it into a ballet adding new movements and interludes: Prélude (Prelude) and Danse du rouet et scène (Spinning Wheel Dance and Scene). Sleeping Beauty and Little Tom Thumb were based on the tales of Charles Perrault, while Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas was inspired by a tale by Perrault's "rival" Marie-Catherine, Comtesse d'Aulnoy. Beauty and the Beast is based upon the version of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The origin of The Fairy Garden is not entirely known. Ravel composed section one in September 1908, and with the encouragement of his publisher, he completed the other four parts in April 1910. He dedicated the work to the children of his friends the Godebskies, Mimi and Jean. The children were intended to give the first performance, but the piece proved too difficult for the young girl, who 'froze' at the keyboard despite Ravel's best efforts to help her. The work premiered later in 1910 with eleven-year-old Jeanne Leleu and fourteen-year-old Geneviève Durony performing. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is regarded by many as the most original and influential composer of the 20th century. A student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from 1905-08, his early works impressed Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballet Russes, who commissioned him to compose The Firebird. Following the success of The Firebird, Stravinsky collaborated with Diaghilev on two more ballets Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. These three ballets saw Stravinsky move from Romantic nationalism towards vibrant modernism. The ballet world is indebted to Sergei Diaghilev above all for discovering Stravinsky’s genius and, on the strength of the young composer’s three-minute Fireworks (1908), entrusting him with the commission for this first modern ballet. Stravinsky began the composition in December 1909, interrupting work on his opera The Nightingale. The sketch-score was finished in March, the reduction for piano two-hands on 3rd April, the full score on 18th May. Its interesting to note the progression of these three evolutionary ballets. The premiere of The Firebird at the Paris Opéra on June 25, 1910, was a dazzling success that made Stravinsky known overnight as one of the most gifted of the younger generation of composers. This work showed how fully he had assimilated the flamboyant Romanticism and orchestral palette of his Russian teacher Nikolai Rimsky--Korsakov. The Firebird was the first of a series of spectacular collaborations between Stravinsky and Diaghilev's company. The following year saw the Ballets Russes's premiere on June 13, 1911, of the ballet Petrushka, with the great Vaslav Nijinsky dancing the title role in Stravinsky's musical score.
The third ballet in the trilogy had gestated with Stravinsky for some time. When the ideas began to materialize, they did not come easily. The composer spent two years developing the ideas for a ballet based on pagan rituals to be called Great Sacrifice. The completion of the work took two years, 1911-12, and emerged as La sacre du printémps at its premiére. The first performance of The Rite of Spring at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, with Pierre Monteux conducting, on May 29, 1913, provoked one of the most famous first-night riots in the history of musical theatre. Aroused by Nijinsky's unusual and provocative choreography and Stravinsky's startling 'new' music, the audience cheered, protested, argued and fought among themselves during the performance, creating such a clamor that the dancers could not hear the orchestra. This highly original composition, with its shifting and emphatic rhythms and its ostentatious dissonances, ushered in a new and revelatory period in musical thought and practice. From this point on, Stravinsky was known as “the composer of The Rite of Spring” and, for a time, as the man who destroyed music. Stravinsky garnered international fame and fortune from the three ballets he composed for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. It is worth noting, however, that although The Rite of Spring did and still does receive a great deal of printed commentary, it is The Firebird that is the most often performed of the trilogy, and the most frequently recorded.
The Firebird - A Brief Synopsis The Firebird is set in Tsarist Russia. Prince Ivan, son of the Tsar, wandering through the forest one night, comes upon the magical Firebird and captures her. For her freedom, the Firebird offers Ivan one of her feathers. With it, Ivan can call upon the Firebird in times of trouble to come to his aid. Ivan agrees and releases the Firebird.
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