Conductor
Bruno Ferrandis

featuring
Joyce Yang , Piano

SHOSTAKOVICH: Festive Overture
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 2
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4

October 14, 15, 16, 2006
Wells Fargo Center
$27 - $50

Bruno Ferrandis steps onto the podium for the first time as SRS music director in our season opener. The Prokofiev concerto, with its dazzling second movement of ear-popping virtuosic tricks, is a perfect vehicle for 20-year-old Cliburn medalist Joyce Yang in her SRS debut. Capping this roster of Russian composers is Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, replete with brilliant orchestration and majestic brass fanfares. An era-beginning program of irrepressible energy!

Shostakovich: Festive Overture, Opus 96

Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg on September 25, 1906, and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. He composed the Festive Overture in 1954. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, three oboes, three clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, and strings.

Shostakovich’s career was marked repeatedly by sudden changes of fortune dictated by political currents within the Soviet Union, particularly during the era of Stalin, when he was twice publicly denounced for his music and living in sheer terror of execution, a fate that had already befallen so many artists. Yet he remains the greatest Russian composer of the 20th century. The majority of his fifteen symphonies, searing string quartets, various concertos, stage works, and other pieces have long since become established as contemporary classics. The circumstances of Shostakovich’s career would seem to allow little opportunity for truly cheerful music, but the Festive Overture is a piece that falls into the category, with a brilliant display of orchestral effect, melodic vivacity, and rhythmic life.

Shostakovich wrote it in the fall of 1954, about a year and a half after the death of Stalin had begun to make possible a loosening of restrictions on artists, and the overture’s mood may well reflect that period. Officially written for the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917, through which the Bolsheviks came to power, it is not difficult to hear in the unforced cheerfulness of this score Shostakovich’s relief at no longer having to contend with Stalin’s violent unpredictability. The brighter future that seemed to be promising did not last long, but it seemed apparent at the time of this composition.

SERGEI PROKOFIEV:
Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in G minor,
Opus 16

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, in the Ekaterinoslav district of Russia, on April 23, 1891, and died in Moscow on March 5, 1953. He composed his Second Piano Concerto in 1912 13, performing the solo part in the first performance, which took place at Pavlovsk on August 23, 1913, under the conductor Aslanov. The original score was, according to Philip Hale, lost when the composer’s apartment “was confiscated by decree of the Soviet government,” but sketches of the piano part were saved, and Prokofiev used these to reconstruct the work, while at Ettal, in Bavaria, in 1923. The revised version was first performed in Paris on May 8, 1923, with Prokofiev again as soloist and Serge Koussevitzky conducting. In addition to the solo part, the score calls for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, three trombones and tuba, two trumpets, timpani, tambourine, side drum, cymbals, bass drum, and strings.

During the ten years he spent at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the young Prokofiev developed his own piano playing to a remarkable degree of brilliance and quickly turned out his first two piano concertos. The premiere of the First Concerto had given him a taste of what it was like to be somewhat controversial, to be discussed by the leading critics in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. There was something of a furor, and Prokofiev astutely used the excitement when, in his final year at the conservatory (1913 14), he aimed for the Rubinstein Prize, the top piano award offered by the institution, choosing as his competition piece not a classical concerto but his own work, even going to the extent of having the score printed for the occasion! (He won the prize, though the judges were not unanimous.)

By this time Prokofiev had already completed and performed his Second Concerto, which, according to one critic, left its listeners “frozen with fright, hair standing on end.” Actually, many of them seem to have been ready for such a reaction even while on their way to the performance, which took place in the slightly out of the way town of Pavlovsk. The critics came out from St. Petersburg in force, sensing the kind of event that sells newspapers. The reviewer in the Petersburgskaya Gazeta wrote:

The debut of this cubist and futurist has aroused universal interest. Already in the train to Pavlovsk one heard on all sides, “Prokofiev, Prokofiev, Prokofiev.” A new piano star! On the platform appears a lad with the face of a student from the Peterschule [a fashionable school; it should be remembered that the composer was just twenty one]. He takes his seat at the piano and appears to be either dusting off the keys, or trying out notes with a sharp, dry touch. The audience does not know what to make of it. Some indignant murmurs are audible. One couple gets up and runs toward the exit. “Such music is enough to drive you crazy!” is the general comment. The hall empties. The young artist ends his concerto with a relentlessly discordant combination of brasses. The audience is scandalized. The majority hisses. With a mocking bow, Prokofiev resumes his seat and plays an encore. The audience flees, with exclamations of: “To the devil with all this futurist music! We came here for enjoyment. The cats on our roof make better music than this.”

Of course, we can’t be positive that the audience in Pavlovsk heard the piece as we know it today, since the manuscript was lost and had to be reconstructed ten years later on the basis of the solo piano part, but on the whole it seems likely that any changes were relatively minor. Thus, we are rather bemused—not to say astonished—at the vehemence of the early reaction. Certainly there are moments in the score that might raise eyebrows, but there are also wonderful lyric ideas, delicate colors, and accessibly elementary harmonies, with varied passages of rich pianistic elaboration.

Prokofiev’s beginning is about as atypical as one can imagine: instead of dramatic fireworks between opposing forces (piano and orchestra), a gentle introductory phrase in the muted strings (pizzicato) and clarinets ushers in a Chopinesque figuration in the pianist’s left hand supporting a long, delicate melody in the right. A faster, marchlike section brings in the acerbic, witty, piquant side of Prokofiev, culminating in an extended solo that is not a cadenza—more or less irrelevant to the musical discourse—but a continued working out of its issues, though the soloist completely takes over until the climactic return of the orchestra and a pianissimo recollection of the opening.

The scherzo is a relentless moto perpetuo in which the soloist has unbroken sixteenths played by both hands in octave unison throughout, while the orchestra supplies color and background in a sardonic mood. In the Intermezzo, the orchestra suggests a dark, heavy march (with many repetitions of a four note bass figure hinting at a passacaglia); over this the piano cavorts with figures alternately delicate and forceful.
The finale brings on the traditional opposition between forces, with the soloist attempting to overwhelm the orchestra now with fleet brilliance, now with full fisted chords. This does not, however, preclude a surprisingly tranquil contrasting passage begun by clarinets and violas, but carried on at some length by the unaccompanied piano, sounding like a Russian folk melody. This melody is the subject of much further discussion, growing more energetic and lively, eventually--after another extended solo passage, here more like a traditional cadenza--reappearing embedded in the rhythmic orchestral material that brings the concerto to its breathtaking close.

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka Province, Russia, on May 7, 1840, and died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893. He began the Symphony No. 4 in May 1877 and completed the score on January 19, 1878. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the first performance in Moscow on March 4 that year. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, and strings.

Less than two years separate the composition of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony from his Third. An entire decade elapsed before he wrote the Fifth. Yet, as far as the composer’s stylistic devel¬opment is concerned, the gap comes between the Third and the Fourth. Conductors and audiences agree on this point. The first three symphonies are heard but rarely. The last three, as familiar as any in the repertory, add a new intensity of emotional expression, a char¬acteristic that was to be the hallmark of his greatest music for the rest of his life.

It is always dangerous to seek reasons for such development in a composer’s biography; musical expression is far more than simply a transcription of emotions. But in the case of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, a great deal of evidence documents the connection of this music with the crisis that befell the composer precisely in the period between the Third and Fourth symphonies, a story that involves his relations with two women.
Nadezhda von Meck, at age forty-five the recently widowed mother of eleven children, was a passionate devotee of music. Having fallen in love with Tchaikovsky’s music, she sent the astonished composer a modest commission in December of 1876. Thus began a fourteen-year friendship by correspondence. At her insistence, they never met and never even saw each other (except at a distance by accident!) Yet she provided him with a handsome subsidy and he responded gratefully with dedications. The long-distance friendship, which produced over 700 letters, some of great length and intimacy, was the most intense emotional relationship that either of them ever experienced.

During this period Tchaikovsky was wrestling with his homosexuality, always worried about discovery and concerned at the possibility of blackmail. The last thing he needed at this time was a complicated relationship with a woman. Unfortunately, that is exactly what he got. In May of 1877, a young pupil at the Conservatory, Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova, wrote him expressing a passionate and undying devotion. As luck would have it, the composer had just become obsessed with the idea of turning Pushkin’s novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin into an opera, and the details of the literary work seemed to be repeating themselves in real life. In the poem, the young Tatiana writes a passionately personal letter declaring her love to Onegin; his callous response ultimately triggers a tragedy. Tchaikovsky had no desire to be cast in the role of the unfeeling Onegin, so he responded to Antonina’s letter as gently as possible. She refused to accept dark hints as the true state of his emotional makeup.

Tchaikovsky felt himself, against his will, forced into marriage. Only after he and Antonina had set off on their honeymoon did he fully realize the folly of his actions. “As the train started,” he wrote to his brother two days later, “I was on the point of screaming.” A loan from Mme. von Meck gave him the opportunity to make a temporary escape to the Caucasus, leaving behind his bride, the marriage still unconsummated.

By late September he returned to Moscow to face her, but within a few days he vainly attempted suicide by walking into the Moscow River and standing in the frigid water in hopes of catching a fatal case of pneumonia. In desperation he escaped to Switzerland and finally to Italy, where he spent the winter composing the Fourth Symphony. Though some sketches go back to the previous spring, the bulk of the work took shape at the end of 1877. Tchaikovsky finished the score on January 19, 1878. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the first performance, in Moscow, less than two months later. The piece bears the dedication, “To my best friend,” who, as the composer’s correspondence makes clear, was Mme. von Meck.

Tchaikovsky wrote her a long letter describing the meaning of his symphony. There he described the significance of the new work, proceeding from the introductory fanfare, “the seed of the whole symphony,” of which he declared flatly, “This is fate, this is that fateful force which prevents the impulse to happiness from attaining its goal.” The various themes of the first movement, then, represent a fruitless languishing under this fate and a retreat into vain hopes and daydreams, from which the clarion call of fate awakens one. “Thus all life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness...No haven exists.”

The second movement, wrote Tchaikovsky, expresses a weary regret for all that is hopelessly gone. The third movement “is made up of capricious arabesques, of the elusive images which rush past in the imagination when you have drunk a little wine and experience the first stage of intoxication.” It suddenly alternates with visions of “drunken peasants and a street song.”

The finale proposes a return to active life: “If within yourself you find no reasons for joy, look at others. Go among the people. Observe how they can enjoy themselves, surrendering themselves wholeheartedly to joyful feelings.” But even here, “the irrepressible fate again appears and reminds you of yourself....But others...have not even turned around, they have not glanced at you, and they have not noticed that you are solitary and sad.”

This famous letter has led many to think of Tchaikovsky’s music as nothing more than the accompaniment to some kind of romantic film, a tearjerker translating heart-on-sleeve emotion into corny musical effects. But how different were Tchaikovsky’s words when addressing another composer! Here he speaks in clear technical terms: “In essence my symphony imitates Beethoven’s Fifth; that is, I was not imitating its musical thoughts, but the fundamental idea. Do you think there is a program in the Fifth Symphony?...My symphony rests upon a foundation that is nearly the same, and if you haven’t understood me, it follows only that I am not a Beethoven, a fact which I have never doubted.”

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony had created a powerful musical structure moving from tragedy to triumph. Tchaikovsky was neither the first nor the last composer to take it as a model. Using the basic ground plan of Beethoven’s work, Tchaikovsky created a symphony of rich expressive force, one with a an effective architecture, moving from the thunderous blows of “fate” to a kind of triumph, though a triumph less complete than Beethoven’s. Certainly the character of the symphony owes something to the composer’s emotional state while working on it, but it is worth remembering that it is also an homage to a great predecessor and master of symphonic writing.

It is easy to hear “fate” in the opening fanfare, particularly when it returns later on, interrupting the proceedings more than once with unusual violence. And it is easy to hear “frustration” in Cont. next pg.
the first movement’s waltz-like main theme, which keeps circling around in a limited space, extending itself but never really changing. But the careful listener will also hear in the first movement an almost organic growth of the melodic ideas and an original formal and harmonic shape. The thematic ideas grow from parts of earlier themes, constantly intertwining, commenting on one another. And the movement is unique in its architecture, with an original but entirely logical harmonic layout. Periodically its course is violently interrupted by the “fate” motif.

Throughout the course of this extraordinary movement, Tchaikovsky gauges with wonderful finesse the ebb and flow of expressive tension.
The two middle movements function essentially as relief from the power, tension, and complexity of the first. At the same time, they are superb examples of Tchaikovsky’s inventiveness in dressing charming lyrical ideas with striking orchestral color. Both movements are in a simple ternary (ABA) form. The slow movement sings its plaintive song, but with progressive, delightful embellishments. The scherzo offers a delightful game between the orchestral sections—pizzicato strings, then woodwinds, then brass.

The finale is a kind of brilliant rondo made up of a fiery outburst that leads to a Russian folk song on which Tchaikovsky rings many changes. Less passionate in character than the opening, it nonetheless builds a wonderfully sonorous conclusion when the “fate” motive intervenes again—at precisely the point comparable to a similar gesture in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. “Fate” is put to rout through a final outburst of high energy and orchestral virtuosity.

© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com)