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Madison Symphony Orchestra Program Notes
April 3-4-5, 2009
83rd Season / Subscription Concert No. 8
Michael Allsen
Our eighth subscription program features the return of a familiar and
welcome soloist: pianist André Watts, making his fifth
appearance with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Watts has
previously appeared at these concerts in 1991 (Brahms’s second
concerto), 2000 (Beethoven’s fourth concerto), 2002 (Rachmaninoff’s
second concerto), and most recently in 2004 (Beethoven’s “Emperor”
concerto, at a special Overture Hall gala opening concert). Here,
he plays a French romantic masterpiece, the second piano concerto of
Saint-Saëns. We open with the mystical beauty of Wagner’s
Parsifal prelude, and close with the jovial second symphony of Brahms.
Richard
Wagner (1813-1883)
Prelude to Parsifal
Wagner completed the prelude to Parsifal
in 1878—some three years before he
completed the opera itself. The prelude was premiered in Bayreuth
on December 25, 1878. The Madison Symphony has played the work on
one previous concert, in 1992. Duration 13:00.
“Has any painter ever depicted so sorrowful a look
of love as Wagner has done in his prelude?”
- Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche, on Parsifal
The genesis of Wagner's last opera began in 1843, during his research
for the opera Lohengrin.
In researching medieval German literature, he came across the poem Parsifal, by the 13th-century
Minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach—the story of the young knight
Parsifal (Sir Percival of Arthurian legends), and his quest to reclaim
the Holy Grail through knightly virtue. He would begin work
on his libretto some 14 years later, and did not complete work on the
libretto until 1877, Wagner described Parsifal as a Bühnenweihfestspiel—a
“festival of consecration in a theater.” Its libretto is a
convoluted synthesis of Wolfram's story and other medieval Grail
legends, Christian theology, Eastern philosophy, overt sensuality, and
Wagner's own artistic theories. In Wolfram's Parsifal, the grail is a stone that
has descended from heaven, but Wagner has restored its full Christian
significance: a cup that once contained the blood of the crucified
Christ. Parsifal begins the opera as a wanderer who is ignorant
even of his own name, and in the climactic scene, set on Good Friday,
he redeems the Grail and takes up the leadership of the Knights of the
Grail.
The prelude to Parsifal was
completed in 1878, not long after Wagner finished work on the
libretto. The composer prepared an initial version as a gift for
his wife Cosima, and he had it performed at their home in Bayreuth by a
small orchestra the day after her birthday, Christmas Day of
1878. The final version of the prelude was performed two years
later, for Wagner's patron King Ludwig of Bavaria. Like Wagner's
other opera preludes, this work is largely built from the musical
phrases, or Leitmotifs that
signify characters, objects, or ideas from the drama. The prelude
to Parsifal is dominated by
three of these Leitmotifs.
The opening phrase, heard first in strings and woodwinds, and then
played by the solo trumpet, symbolizes the Eucharist and the communion
ceremony held by the Knights of the Grail at the end of Act I. A
series of seven ascending notes, announced by the trumpets and
trombones, symbolizes the grail itself. This musical phrase is
unusual among Wagner's Leitmotifs
in that it is based upon a traditional bit of church music: the
familiar “Dresden Amen.” Directly after this Grail motive, there
is a powerful motive representing Faith played by the brass. The
entire texture of the prelude is built from these potent symbols.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2
in G minor, Op. 22
This concerto was written in April
1868. Saint-Saëns was the piano soloist at the premiere, on
May 13, 1868, in Paris. The concerto has appeared once before on
these programs, in 1992, with Cecile Licad as soloist.
Duration 23:00.
Saint-Saëns was undoubtedly the longest-lived and most prolific
French musician of his time. This calm, cool, and intellectual
composer was a fixture on the Parisian musical scene for over sixty
years. He was equally gifted as a pianist, noted for his
seemingly effortless technique and his prodigious knowledge of the
repertoire: in 1860, Richard Wagner was “simply amazed” when
Saint-Saëns sat before him, and played a large portion of Tristan und Isolde from
memory. His second piano concerto grew out of a close
relationship with another pianist/composer, Anton Rubenstein. The
two had been friends since the late 1850s, and collaborated on several
concerts in the early 1860s. As Saint-Saëns later
recalled: “We were very close and often played duets
together. The pianos that served as our battlefield had a rough
time of it and we took little pity on the ears of our listeners.
Those were the days!”
When Rubenstein was engaged to conduct a concert at the Salle Pleyel in
1868, it was natural for him to ask his old friend to provide a
piece. The concerto was written in just seventeen days in April,
and the score was ready in time for Rubenstein’s concert in May, though
Saint-Saëns admitted in his memoirs that he himself had trouble
being ready to perform the exceedingly difficult piano part.
Critical reaction was hostile. The French musical press, always
on the lookout for anything too “Germanic” latched on to what many
considered to be over-intellectual counterpoint: “an imitation of
Bach in a hyper-Romantic spirit,” in the words of one critic.
Saint-Saëns got a bit more encouraging reaction when he sent a
copy of score to one of his idols, Franz Liszt. Liszt wrote: “…I
want to thank you again for your Second
Concerto, which I greatly applaud. The form of it is new
and very happy: the interest of the three portions goes on
increasing and you take into just account the role of the pianist
without sacrificing anything of the ideas of the composer, which is an
essential rule in this class of work... The totality of the work
pleases me singularly. It ought to meet with success in every
country.” And of course it eventually did, becoming one of the
standard works of the piano repertoire well within the composer’s
lifetime.
The concerto’s first movement (Andante
sostenuto) begins boldly, with a long piano cadenza that does
indeed sound more than a bit like a Bach toccata. The body of the
movement, announced with a few brusque orchestral chords, is set in
sonata form, though his use of the form is far from standard, blurring
the traditional oulines with a series of developmental episodes.
The movement—nearly half of the concerto’s length—is dominated by
virtuoso piano writing throughout. (That Liszt liked this concerto is
no surprise.) The movement closes with a second extended cadenza
and a forceful orchestral passage. After all of this Romantic
drama, the Allegretto scherzando
is a refreshingly brisk movement in 6/8 that features frequent flashes
of humor in an animated conversation between orchestra and
soloist. For the finale (Presto),
Saint-Saëns turned to the rhythms of the tarantella, a furiously fast dance
of Italian origins that was the inspiration for many Romantic
composers. According to legend, the tarantella originated as a folk
cure for spider bites—by dancing as fast and as long possible, one
could counteract the effects of the tarantula’s venom. In this
version of the tarentella,
Saint-Saëns gives most of the flash and fury to the piano, in a
rondo-form movement that concludes with a blazing coda for the soloist.
Johannes
Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No.2 in D Major, Op.73
Brahms’s second symphony was composed
during the summer of 1877. It was first performed on December 30,
1877 by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Hans
Richter. The work has been performed by the Madison Symphony
Orchestra six times—our earliest performance was in 1943, and the most
recent was in 1997 season. Duration 42:00.
Brahms finished his second symphony directly on the heels of his
first: less than a year elapsed between their dates of
completion. It would be hard to find two more different works,
however. The first symphony was the result of almost two decades
of sometimes agonized composition and recomposition, while the second
was the work of a single summer holiday spent at his favorite summer
retreat, the lakeside resort of Pörtschach in southern
Austria. The Symphony No.2,
occasionally referred to as Brahms’s “Pastoral” symphony, was of a much
happier and lighter nature than the Symphony
No.1, and it was immediately taken to the hearts of his Viennese
audience.
The decade of the 1870s was a happy and productive period in Brahms’s
life. After the premiere of his German
Requiem in 1868, his international reputation was secure, and
honors, commissions, and job offers came in an ever-increasing
stream. The completion of his Symphony
No.1 in 1876 marked the end of a long self-imposed
apprenticeship in symphonic writing—a period of intense study and
self-criticism that had produced works such as his two orchestral
serenades, his first piano concerto, and the Variations on a Theme by
Haydn. In some sense, the happy nature of the Symphony No.2 was a reflection of
Brahms’s own happiness over the end of this apprenticeship. The
“Pastoral” designation may also be an accurate description: according
to his own accounts, Brahms composed the symphony as a reaction to the
beauty of the countryside surrounding Pörtschach.
A sharp contrast to the turbulent opening of first symphony, the
opening movement (Allegro non troppo)
of the Symphony No.2 is quiet
and peaceful, a horn and woodwind melody above hushed cellos and
basses. The importance of this introduction goes beyond setting a
mood, however—the motives of this opening passage are the basis for all
of the melodic material of the movement. This quiet opening
section gives way to a flowing melody played by the violins.
After a transitional section, the cellos and violas play a lovely cantabile melody that is probably
Brahms’s most familiar orchestral theme. This theme is played a
second time, now by the woodwinds, and this same theme closes the
exposition closes in a rhythmically intricate setting. The
development is dense and contrapuntal, building in intensity until a
dissonant proclamation from the trombones begins a long passage of
harmonic instability. The recapitulation brings back all of the
opening material and is rounded off with beautifully lyrical horn
solo. The coda ends with a gentle parody of a Viennese waltz.
Beneath the calm surface of the second movement (Adagio non troppo) lies one of
Brahms’s most complex and original forms. Brahms bases this movement on
four distinct groups of melodic material and an exceedingly complicated
harmonic plan. The opening theme, stated by the cellos, sounds
simple enough, but features a complicated notation that grates against
the barlines. A contrasting episode in 12/8 sets winds in
syncopation above a background of pizzicato strings. Another 12/8
theme, first in the violins, and then in woodwinds and solo horn, is
more placid, but no less complex. A forceful passage from the
full orchestra introduces new material, based on the opening theme, and
the movement comes to an understated conclusion.
The third movement (Allegretto
grazioso) begins with a brief Haydnesque Ländler, an echo
of Austrian country dances. This quickly leads into Beethovenian
scherzo in 2/4. The Ländler returns again, but is quickly
overshadowed by more forceful minor-key music. Again, the texture
lightens, now for an episode in 3/8. The movement closes with a
densely contrapuntal passage that fades away after a sustained chord
from the strings.
The finale (Allegro con spirito)
opens quietly, with a subdued theme stated in the strings and answered
by the bassoon. This theme is subtly related to the main theme of
the opening movement, tying the entire symphony together into an
organic whole. This hushed opening gives no hint of what is
to follow: a forceful transition section that develops this opening
theme. A brief clarinet flourish leads into the second them, a
broad syncopated melody stated by the strings. Near the end of
the development section, the storm is broken by a brief tranquillo
episode that blends elements of the two main themes. The
recapitulation is cut short by the trombones, with a dissonant
statement of the second theme’s syncopated rhythm. The movement
concludes with a long and powerful coda.
________
program notes ©2009 by J. Michael Allsen