In this program celebrate the Vernal Equinox with two very different musical versions of Spring. Violinist Robert McDuffie has previously appeared with the Madison Symphony in two 20th-century works, Leonard Bernstein's Serenade (in 1998) and the Violin Concerto of John Adams (in 2000). At these programs, he plays the challenging solo parts of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, a set that begins with Vivaldi's genteel evocation of springtime. After intermission, maestro DeMain and an expanded Madison Symphony Orchestra present our very first performance of one of the 20th century's most influential works. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, written as a ballet score in 1913, is a stark and savage portrayal of pagan ritual.
 

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
The Four Seasons - Concertos Op. 8, Nos. 1-4

Vivaldi published his Op.8 concertos in 1725, though they were probably written a decade or more earlier. The Madison Symphony Orchestra has performed the complete "Four Seasons" concertos on one previous concert, in 1988. Duration 37:00.

The Venetian Antonio Vivaldi, nicknamed the "Red Priest," was the most prominent and influential Italian composer of his generation. He composed in nearly every genre: over 500 concertos, some two dozen operas, nearly 100 of his chamber works and dozens of Latin sacred works survive. He spent most of his life in Venice, but maintained connections with patrons and business partners throughout Europe. Aside from the operas, the vast majority of his works were written for use at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, the girl's orphanage in Venice where he spent most of his career. All four of Venice's ospedali had large musical establishments in the early 18th century, but the chorus and orchestra he directed at the Pietà must have particularly good, to judge by Vivaldi's virtuoso concertos and fine sacred pieces. The concertos were written to feature either the students themselves (as in a series of bassoon concertos written for one particularly talented young woman) or the other professional musicians associated with the school. His solo violin concertos--over 230 in all--were probably to feature Vivaldi himself, a virtuoso violinist with a high reputation among his contemporaries.

Vivaldi's concertos were widely circulated and emulated in his day, and it was he who popularized many of the standard operating procedures followed by his contemporaries Bach, Handel, and Telemann in their concerto writing. Some of Bach's concertos are in fact straightforward arrangements of Vivaldi originals. Though his works were passed around Europe in handwritten copies, they were also well known in a series of printed collections, mostly published by his business partners in Amsterdam. Vivaldi's Opus 8 collection of 1725 was given the fanciful title Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (The contest between harmony and invention), and dedicated to a Bohemian patron named Wenzel von Morzin. The first four concertos of Il cimento are collectively known as The Four Seasons. Each is given a descriptive title: La Primavera (Spring), L'Estate (Summer), L'Autunno (Autumn), and L'Inverno (Winter). Programmatic titles like this were not unusual for Vivaldi, but here he goes a step further, publishing sonnets with each concerto that describe the action of each season. And, as if you could miss the point, the sonnets also provide cues to specific measures in the music. Vivaldi himself may have been responsible for these picturesque, if rather pedestrian bits of poetry. (The sonnets and translations appear at the end of these notes.)

Though they were published in 1725, it is likely that the concertos of The Four Seasons were as much as ten years older than that. In a typically self-effacing and overblown letter of dedication to Count von Morzin at the beginning of Il cimento, Vivaldi writes:

"Pray do not be surprised if, among these few and feeble concertos, Your Most Illustrious Lordship finds the Four Seasons which have so long enjoyed the indulgence of Your Most Illustrious Lordship's kind generosity, but believe that I have considered it fitting to print them because, while they may be the same, I have added to them, besides the sonnets, a very clear statement of all the things that unfold in them, so that I am sure that they will appear new to you."

The concertos of The Four Seasons were international hits even in Vivaldi's lifetime. They were well-known in Germany, and there are copies of the concertos in England and in France, where King Louis XV and other members of the royal court participated in a performance of Spring in 1730, and where the concertos were often played at public concerts. The Four Seasons is an even bigger hit today--arguably the single most familiar Baroque music, with the possible exception of Handel's Messiah--and it remains Vivaldi's most familiar work. Since the first complete 78-RPM records of the concertos in 1942, there have been--by conservative estimate--well over 200 recordings.

Aside from the striking musical images suggested by the sonnets, the music of the concertos is in fairly typical, matching the style of the many other solo violin concertos by Vivaldi--placing a solo violin part in contrast a small string orchestra. Typically, he sets the concertos in three movements, fast-slow-fast. The outer fast movements have the typical alteration of ritornellos--passages for the entire ensemble--and flashier solo sections. Slow movements are generally more vocal in conception, emulating the passionate vocal display of contemporary Italian opera. But it is of course the wonderfully programmatic aspects of the concertos of The Four Seasons that make them so attractive.

Concerto in E Major, "Spring," Op.8, No.1, RV 269
Undoubtedly the most familiar of this very familiar set, Spring begins with a ritornello that announces the arrival of the goddess Springtime--Vivaldi in fact recycled this music in a later opera, where it was used as entrance music for yet another goddess. The first solo episode, for the birds, is an appropriately chirpy passage for the concertino. We hear both a thunderstorm and murmuring brooks in subsequent solo episodes. The Largo has some of the most evocative music in the set, with the orchestra playing the role of gently shifting foliage, and the viola plays the role of the goatherd's dog throughout, insistently barking as the solo violin plays a wonderfully lyrical melody. [NOTE: One of my favorite memories from a long-ago Music History class is of my rather dignified professor playing a recording in class and solemnly intoning "bow-wow" along with the viola! - M.A.] The final Allegro is clearly pastoral in nature, with long held notes in the low strings filling in for bagpipes, accompanying a rather serious peasant dance. Flashier episodes for the two solo violins intrude, but the music always returns to the dance.

Concerto in G minor, "Summer," Op.8, No.2, RV 315
The second concerto is a perfect picture of a blistering hot summer in northern Italy. Uncharacteristically, it begins with an uneasy slow ritornello, and the tempo quickens for a bit of turbulence from the solo violin. The birds chirp again here, but there is none of the happiness of Spring. In the end, violin takes the role of the weeping peasant as he sees the potentially destructive weather. The slow movement is a purely operatic aria--a lament set for a solo violin above strings playing a rather spooky background. In the Presto, the storm finally breaks, with lightning flashes and booming thunder throughout.

Concerto in F Major, "Autumn," Op.8, No.3, RV 293
After the natural disasters of Summer, Autumn is a return to optimism, and the first movement is a rustic harvest party. There are quick and witty solo passages, perhaps representing the peasants who have had just a bit too much of "Bacchus's liquor" and stumble around until they finally settle down to sleep--a quiet passage that sounds suspiciously like a lullaby. Their sleep is cut short by a final dancing ritornello. Vivaldi titled the slow movement "Sleeping Drunks"--a series of quiet and sometimes startlingly chromatic chords that allow the continuo part to create most of the melodic interest. In the third movement, Vivaldi once again exercises his full programmatic powers: virtually everything in his poem--from hunting horns and barking dogs to the terrified quarry--shows up clearly in the music.

Concerto in F minor, "Winter," Op.8, No.4, RV 297
The shivering violin lines at the beginning of Winter set the tone for the entire movement. Vivaldi uses the imagery of wind and cold as the inspiration for the most virtuosic solo passages in the entire set. In contrast, the Largo is a cozy picture of a winter day spent inside in a warm room: a lovely solo melody set above a string background that suggests a gently crackling fire. Vivaldi seems to have meant the last movement in part as slapstick comedy: tiptoeing across the ice, falling down on your behind, and eventually scooting across the ice happily until it finally cracks. The final line of his sonnet is fitting end to the set as a whole: "This is Winter, but it brings joy!"
 

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
The Rite of Spring (1947 version)

Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring (Le sacre du printemps), subtitled Pictures from Pagan Russia, was written in 1911-1912. It was first performed on May 29, 1913, under the direction of Pierre Monteaux, at a concert of the Ballet Russe in Paris. This is our first performance of the work. Duration 35:00.

By 1909, Stravinsky, a student of the great Russian nationalist Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, had already made his mark in Russia with works such as the Symphony No.1 and Fireworks. In late 1909, came his big break, however. He received a telegram from Serge Diaghilev, inviting him to come to Paris to write a ballet score, The Firebird, for Diaghilev's Ballet Russe. Diaghliev was a phenomenally successful impresario who had more or less singlehandedly engineered a craze for Russian art and music in early 20th-century Paris. He had put together successful shows of Russian traditional painting, and productions of Russian opera in the years before 1909. His most successful venture, however, was the Ballets Russe, a company largely comprised of Russian dancers and choreographers. It became the most influential ballet company of its day, and the Ballets Russe gained a reputation for cutting-edge dances that expanded the tradition-bound limits of classical ballet.

Stravinsky quickly completed Firebird, a scenario based on an old Russian folk tale. The score was largely finished by the time he arrived in Paris, and the ballet was the hit of the 1910 season in Paris. Reaction to his second score for Diaghilev, Petrushka of 1911--also on a Russian-inspired theme--was every bit as enthusiastic. The origins of Stravinsky's third score for Diaghilev seem to date back to 1909 or 1910.  According to Stravinsky:  "One day, when I was finishing the last pages of l'Oiseau de feu [The Firebird] in St. Petersburg, I had a fleeting vision which came to me as a complete surprise, my mind at the moment being full of other things. I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite. Sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the God of Spring. I heard and I wrote what I heard. I am the vessel through which Le sacre passed."

He mentioned the idea to a fellow Russian expatriate, Nicolas Roerich. Roerich was among the most colorful characters among the large population of Russians in Paris: a talented painter and poet, he had worked as a set- and costume-designer for Diaghilev and for other theaters in Paris. He was had wide-ranging interests in aesthetics and spirituality--he was one of the first Westerners to advocate the practice of Yoga, for example. More to the point, Roerich was also an amateur archeologist and an expert on the culture and ritual of pre-Christian Russia. Together, he and Stravinsky created a detailed two-part scenario, and presented it to Diaghilev, who was supportive.

  Stravinsky and Nijinsky (as Petrushka)
The third member of the team that created the ballet was Diaghilev's lead dancer, Vaclav Nijinsky. Nijinsky, possibly one of the finest dancers of all time, was interested in choreography that would push the boundaries of ballet. His first effort was a controversial and sexually explicit 1912 ballet on Debussy's Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" with choreography based in part on the stylized two-dimensional world of Greek vase paintings. For Rite, he created he created motions that were brutal and deliberately awkward and primitive: dancers standing pigeon-toed and knock-kneed rather than the more usual graceful turnout position. Though much of the score was finished by the time Nijinsky was involved, he and Stravinsky collaborated closely on the final version. In many cases, Stravinsky's rhythms suggested specific motions, and in others Nijinsky's choreography necessitated revisions to the score. The result was something entirely different than traditional ballet, with its free-flowing relationship between musical rhythm and dance. Virtually every note of Rite's score was reflected in the dancers' often violent motions. Though Nijisky never notated his choreography, it was reconstructed some 70 years later by dance historian Millicent Hodson, and performed by the Joffrey Ballet in the 1980s.

The premiere of Rite is infamous as the scene of a riot. An open dress rehearsal on the day before had been well-attended and uneventful, but on opening night, the jeers and catcalls began almost immediately, followed quickly by cries of "Ta guele!" ("Shut up!"). Twenty years later, Stravinsky remembered:  "During the whole performance I was at Nijinsky's side in the wings. He was standing on a chair, screaming 'sixteen, seventeen, eighteen'--they had their own method of counting to keep time. Naturally, the poor dancers could hear nothing by reason of the row in the auditorium and the sound of their own dance steps. I had to hold Nijinsky by his clothes, for he was furious, and ready to dash on stage at any moment and create a scandal. Diaghilev kept ordering the electricians to turn the lights on or off, hoping in that way to put a stop to the noise. That is all I can remember about that first performance. "

Why were they so upset? The riot seems to have been the work of a small group, who came determined to disrupt the performance. The main objection was probably to Nijinsky's revolutionary choreography. (Parisians took their ballet seriously.) But according to biographer Stephen Walsh: "...the music might well have merited a riot. Certainly it was to remain the most notoriously violent score of a time when huge, noisy orchestras and harsh dissonance were more or less commonplace appurtenances of the new music." In any case, the next night's performance and several later performances by the Ballets Russe were received warmly.

Roerich and Stravinsky described the action of Rite as follows (Section-titles have been inserted into their synopsis.):

"The Rite of Spring is a musical-choreographic work. It represents pagan Russia and is unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring. The piece has no plot, but the choreographic succession is as follows:

"First Part: THE ADORATION OF THE EARTH-- The Spring celebration. It takes place in the hills. The pipers pipe and the young men tell fortunes [Augurs of Spring]. The old woman enters. She knows the mystery of nature and how to predict the future. Young girls with painted faces come in from the river in single file. They dance the spring dance. Games start [Dance of the Abduction]. The Spring Khorovod [Spring Rounds]. The people divide into two groups, opposing each other [Ritual of the Rival Tribes]. The holy procession of the wise old men [Procession of the Sage]. The oldest and wisest interrupts the spring games, which come to a stop. The people pause trembling before the great action. The old men bless the earth. The Kiss of the Earth [The Sage]. The people dance passionately on the earth, sanctifying it and becoming one with it [Dance of the Earth].

"Second Part: THE GREAT SACRIFICE -- At night the virgins hold mysterious games, walking in circles [Mystic Circles of the Young Girls]. One of the virgins is consecrated and is twice pointed to by fate, being caught twice in the perpetual circle. The virgins honor her, the chosen one, with a marital dance [Glorification of the Chosen One]. They invoke the ancestors and entrust the chosen one to the old wise men [Ritual Action of the Ancestors]. She sacrifices herself in the presence of the old men in the great holy dance, the great sacrifice [Sacrificial Dance]."

The work begins quietly with the famous bassoon solo, playing at the extreme upper end of the instrument's range. The introduction is dominated by woodwind timbre. Augurs of Spring is signaled by a barbaric string rhythm, and when the young girls enter, the music is only marginally more gentle. Brass gradually dominate during the violent Ritual of Abduction, until a sudden break in the tension: high woodwind trills above a mysterious melody and the ponderous rhythm of the Spring Rounds. The rounds climax with great tam-tam crash and a savage brass phrase. The violent games of the rival tribes are all there in angry barks from the tubas, and wild trumpet and horn phrases. The games are gradually taken over by the slow, shambling approach of the Sage, and the music reaches a peak of intensity before the Adoration itself: a mysterious chord played as the Sage painfully falls prone on the ground to kiss the earth. The concluding Dance of the Earth is partly a reprise of ideas from the games, but here it reaches a furious conclusion.

Part II again opens quietly. The scene is set with a lengthy introduction with delicate woodwind and string textures above a harmonically static background. The opening is a scene of thirteen young girls dancing an intricate interweaving circle dance, played by woodwinds and strings. This is serious business, as the girl who makes a mistake becomes the sacrificial victim. Her two missteps are clearly audible as sudden breaks in the dance. On the second, she is placed in the center of the Mystical Circle--she has become the Chosen One, never to leave the circle alive--and the dance suddenly becomes brutally joyful as the other girls glorify her. The mysterious entry of the Ancestors is signaled by low woodwinds--alto flute and bass clarinet--and the music moves inexorably towards another ferocious climax. The Sacrificial Dance itself alternates the Ancestors' ritualistic music with the increasingly frantic music of the Chosen One as she dances herself to exhaustion, and finally to death.

[A footnote: In the late 1940s, Stravinsky republished several early works, including most of the Diaghilev ballets, in slightly revised versions. This was done primarily to preserve his copyright on these early works, and partly to protect them from appearing in faulty versions. The most egregious example is the shortened and bowlderized version of Rite that appears in the 1940 Disney film Fantasia. Though Stravinsky apparently didn't raise a fuss at the time, he later said that he was appalled by the use of Rite as an accompaniment for lumbering dinosaurs. What is usually known as the "1947 version" of Rite--the version heard at this concert--differs only in small details from what was heard in Paris in 1913. - M.A.]

Sonnets to The Four Seasons:
 

La Primavera      I. Allegro Giunt' è la Primavera e festosetti  la salutan gl' augei con lieto canto,  e i fonti allo spirar de' Zeffiretti  Con dolce mormorio scorrono intanto. Vengon' coprendo l' aer di nero amanto  e lampi, e tuoni ad annuntiarla eletti;  Indi tacendo questi, gl' augelletti  Tornan' di nuovo al lor canoro incanto.      II. Largo E quindi sul fiorito ameno prato  al caro mormorio di fronde e piante  dorme 'l caprar col fido can' à lato.       III. Allegro Di pastoral Zampogna al suon festante  danzan ninfe e pastor nel tetto amato di primavera all' apparir brillante.  L'Estate      I. Allegro non molto Sotto dura staggion dal sole accesa  Langue l' huom, langue 'l gregge,       ed arde il pino;  scioglie il cucco la voce, e tosto intesa  canta la tortorella e 'l gardelino.  Zeffiro dolce spira, mà contesa  muove Borea improviso al suo vicino;  e piange il pastorel, perche sospesa  teme fiera borasca, e 'l suo destino.       II. Adagio Toglie alle membra lasse il suo riposo  il timore de' Lampi, e tuoni fieri  a de mosche, e mossoni il stuol furioso.       III. Presto Ah che pur troppo i suo timor son veri:  tuona e fulmina il aiel e grandioso  tronca il capo alle spiche e a' grani alteri. L'Autunno       I. Allegro Celebra il vilanel con balli e canti  del felice raccolto il bel piacere  e del liquor de Bacco accesi tanti  finiscono col sonno il lor godere.       II. Adagio molto Fà ch' ogn' uno tralasci e balli e canti  l' aria che temperata dà piacere,  e la staggion ch' invita tanti e tanti  d' un dolcissimo Sonno al bel godere.       III. Allegro I cacciator alla nov' alba à caccia  con corni, schioppi, e canni escono fuore;  fugge la belua, e seguono la traccia.  Già sbigottita, e lassa al gran rumore,  se' Schioppi e canni, ferita minaccia  languida di fuggir, mà oppressa muore.  L'Inverno      I. Allegro non molto Aggiacciato tremar trà neri algenti  al severo spirar d' orrido vento.  Correr battendo i piedi ogni momento  e pel soverchio gel batter i denti.       II. Largo Passar al foco i di quieti e contenti  mentre la pioggia fuor bagna ben cento.       III. Allegro Caminar sopra 'l giaccio, e à passo lento  Per timor di cader gersene intenti. Gir forte sdruzziolar, cader à terra  Di nuove ir sopra 'l giaccio e correr forte  sin ch' il giaccio si rompe, e si disserra.  Sentir uscir dalle ferrate porte  Sirocco Borea, e tutti i Venti in guerra.  Quest' é 'l verno, mà tal, che gioja apporte.

Spring      I. Allegro Springtime has arrived, and merrily the birds salute her with happy songs, and at the same time, at the breath of Zephyrus, the brooks flow with a gentle murmuring voice. The sky is covered with a dark mantle and thunder and lightning are elected to a announce her; when they are silenced, thelittle birds take up their harmonious songs anew.      II. Largo And so, in the meadow, strewn with flowers, to the welcome murmuring of leaves and trees, the goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.      III. Allegro To a rustic bagpipe, making a festive sound, nymphs and shepherds dance in their favorite spot, when Springtime appears in its brilliance. Summer     I. Allegro non molto Beneath the relentless season heated by the sun, languishes both man and flock,      and the pine tree are scorched; we hear the cuckoo's voice, and then the turtle-dove and the goldfinch sing. Sweet Zephyrus blows, but suddenly Boreas joins battle with his neighbor; and the shepherd weeps, because he fears the dreaded storm overhead, and his destiny.      II. Adagio His tired limbs are robbed of their rest by fear of lightning and powerful thunder, as gnats and flies swarm furiously around him.      III. Presto Alas, his fears are well-founded: the sky is filled by dreadful thunder and lightning and hail cuts down all of the tallest crops. Autumn      I. Allegro The peasants celebrates with song and dance the sweet pleasure of a rich harvest, and when they are fired by Bacchus's liquor, they finish their celebration with sleep.      II. Adagio molto The singing and dancing is now halted, by the air, now mild, giving pleasure and the season which invites everyone to enjoy the sweetest slumber.      III. Allegro At dawn the hunters begin the chase leaving home with horns, guns, and dogs; the wild beast flees and they track it. Already terrified, fleeing the great noise of guns and dogs, it is wounded, feebly tries to escape, but finally dies, overwhelmed. Winter      I.  Allegro non molto To shiver, frozen in icy snow, in the severe blasts of a horrible wind. To run while stamping one's feet constantly, with teeth chattering in the cold.      II. Largo To spend quiet and happy days by the fire, while rain soaks hundreds outside.      III. Allegro To walk on ice, stepping very slowly, moving carefully, in fear of falling. To hurry, slip, and fall to the ground. To go again over the ice and run energetically until the ice cracks and breaks open. To hear, as they leave their iron gates, Scirocco, Boreas, and all the winds in battle. This is Winter, but it brings joy.