Conductor
Daniel Hege
featuring
Nicola
Benedetti, Violin
FAURÉ: Pelléas at Mélisande
Suite
BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1
SCHUMANN: Symphony No. 3
November 11, 12, 13, 2006
Wells Fargo Center
$27 - $50
19-year-old Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti
was named BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2004, and has stunned
audiences in her appearances at the Ravinia Rising Stars Series.
She demonstrates her prowess in Saint-Saëns’ Introduction
and Rondo Capriccioso and in the graceful and charming Poème
by Chausson. We commemorate the 150th anniversary of Robert
Schumann’s death by presenting his Third Symphony, one
of the most colorful and beloved of his orchestral compositions.
Guest maestro Daniel Hege, now in his seventh season as music
director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, conducts this
program with his characteristically fresh, polished style.
GABRIEL FAURÉ Pelléas
et Mélisande, Suite for Orchestra, Opus 80
Gabriel Fauré was born in Pamiers,
Ariège, on May 12, 1845, and died in Paris on November
4, 1924. He composed incidental music for an English production
of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande between
May 16 and June 5, 1898; this was premiered at the Prince of
Wales Theatre, London, on June 21, 1898, with Fauré conducting.
Three movements, the Prélude, Fileuse, and the Molto
Adagio, were published in 1901, with a dedication to the Princess
Edmond de Polignac, as the Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande,
Opus 80. He added the Sicilienne for a new edition in 1909;
it had been composed in 1895 as a work for cello and piano
and was orchestrated in 1898 for the incidental music. The
three movement Suite received its first performance on February
3, 1902 at a Lamoureux Concert in Paris under the direction
of Camille Chevillard; André Messager conducted the
premiere of the four movement Suite on December 1, 1912. The
Suite is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp, and strings.
Fauré was a long time coming into
his own as a composer who could draw an audience. Even in his
fifties, though he was highly regarded by cognoscenti as a
creator and teacher, he was in no sense a “popular” composer.
Much of his music gained a hearing only in the salons of cultivated
aristocrats like the Princess Edmonde de Polignac, whose activities
as a patron of advanced composers lasted for decades (Stravinsky
dedicated works to her in the ‘20s). Fauré also
had a group of devoted English friends who sponsored performances
of his music in London, so he spent a substantial part of every
year from 1892 to 1900 in the British capital. Thus it was
that when he met the famous actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell,
at the home of a mutual friend, Frank Schuster, in 1898, she
commissioned him to write incidental music for a production
she was planning of Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama
Pelléas et Mélisande at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
There had been only one performance of
the original French text of the play, on May 17, 1893, but
that had resulted in general incomprehension. Claude Debussy
was in the audience, though, and he began at once to work on
an opera, which was not to be performed until 1902. Several
other composers have been attracted to Pelléas—Schoenberg
and Cyril Scott for orchestral tone poems, Sibelius for incidental
music—but Fauré is the only one not to have written
his score in the shadow of Debussy’s great opera, and,
ironically, he wrote it for a production not in the original
French but in an English translation.
Fauré was notoriously uninterested
in the process of orchestration. Preferring to devote his attention
to the creation of the abstract musical concepts, he left the
scoring to his student Charles Koechlin. He scored the seventeen
numbers of the incidental music in May 1898 and prepared a
fair copy for Fauré to use at the London performances.
Koechlin scored for a pit orchestra of modest proportions;
when arranging the Opus 80 suite, Fauré added extra
parts for second oboe, second bassoon, and third and fourth
horns. He also made a number of subtle changes in the orchestration
throughout and substantially rescored the climaxes for the
larger ensemble, so that we may fairly speak of a Koechlin
Fauré orchestration. The resulting score, dedicated
to the Princess de Polignac, has turned out to be Fauré’s
most important symphonic work.
The air of charming reticence that runs
through much of Fauré’s music is equally to be
found in his incidental music for Maeterlinck; it is an appropriate
mood for a play in which virtually nothing happens, in which
every effort to do anything leads to tragedy. The first movement
serves as the prelude for the play, painting its misty colors
with a few dramatic outbursts that may hint at the impetuous
Golaud. The movement ends with a transition to the opening
scene of the play (in which Golaud, lost while hunting, comes
across the mysterious Mélisande by a fountain deep in
the woods); even before the overture ends, we hear Golaud’s
hunting horn signaling his arrival.
The second movement, sometimes called
La Fileuse (The Spinner) served as the entr’acte before
Act III; its nearly constant triplet turn provides the background
hum of the spinning wheel. The Sicilienne, heard before Act
II, is characterized by the rocking rhythm of that delicate
Italian dance known as the siciliano. All is grace and gentle
reflection, entirely appropriate to the mysterious world of
the play even though this movement was composed independently
five years earlier!
The final Molto Adagio—which introduced
Act V—is a quiet, touching depiction of the death of
Mélisande. Though Fauré certainly never thought
of the Suite as a symphony, it remains his best known and most
frequently performed symphonic composition and all we are likely
to hear of the seventeen selections composed as incidental
music, unless someone should undertake a complete revival of
the play with Fauré’s gentle, fragile, mysterious
score.
MAX BRUCH Concerto No. 1 in G minor
for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 26
Max Karl August Bruch was born in Cologne,
Germany, on January 6, 1838, and died in Friedenau, near Berlin,
on October 20, 1920. He composed the violin concerto in G minor
during the years 1864 and 1867, revising it several times before
giving the work its final state in October 1867. There was
apparently a performance of a preliminary version in Koblenz
on April 24, 1866, with a soloist named O. von Königslöw
and Bruch conducting; the definitive version was first performed
by Joseph Joachim (to whom it is dedicated) in Bremen on January
7, 1868, with Karl Reinthaler conducting. In addition to the
solo violin, the score calls for flutes, oboes, clarinets,
and bassoons in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and
strings.
Max Bruch was a child prodigy who grew
into a gifted composer of extraordinary taste and refinement,
a composer who could always be relied on to turn out works
of professional finish and often of great beauty. He composed
in virtually every medium and was highly successful in most.
His cantata Frithjof, Opus 23 (1864), was extraordinarily popular
for the rest of the century. Similarly his Odysseus (a cantata
built on scenes from Homer), Achilleus, and a setting of Schiller’s
Das Lied von der Glocke were long popular in the heyday of
the cantata and oratorio market that was fueled by annual choral
festivals in just about every town of any size or cultural
pretension in Europe or America. He also wrote three operas,
three symphonies, songs, choral pieces, and chamber music.
He was active as a conductor in Germany and England and eventually
became a professor of composition at the Berlin Academy.
Yet today he is remembered primarily
for a few concertos. There can be little doubt that the violin
was his preferred solo instrument. The great majority of his
compositions for soloist with orchestra—three concertos,
the Scottish Fantasy, a Serenade, and a Konzertstück—feature
the violin. The absence of other media in his concerto output
was not for lack of opportunity or invitation. But Bruch felt
a strong disinclination to compose for the piano, and he specifically
turned down opportunities to compose a piano concerto or a
cello concerto. (His Kol nidre for cello and orchestra, which
has become very familiar, is too short and too introspective
to count as a concerto.)
Bruch’s music was immediately “accessible,”
comprehensible to the bulk of the audience on first hearing,
and this may explain why we hear so little of it today. He
was certainly never embroiled in the kind of controversy
that followed Brahms or Wagner or most of the other great
innovators. In many respects he resembled the earlier Spohr
and Mendelssohn, both of whom wrote a great deal of merely
ingratiating music (though Mendelssohn, to be sure, also
composed music that was much more than that); it might be
well made, but it did not speak to audiences across the decades,
though every now and then someone would trot out one piece
or another, having discovered that it was undeniably
“effective.”
One of the few Bruch works that has not
fallen into that rather patronizing category is his earliest
published large scale piece, the present concerto. And it is,
of course, the violinists who have kept it before the world,
since it is melodious throughout and ingratiatingly written.
The G minor concerto is so popular, in fact, that it is often
simply referred to as “the Bruch concerto,” though
he wrote two others for violin, both in D minor.
Bruch worked on the piece over a period
of four years, including even a public performance of a preliminary
version. In the end, many of the details of the solo part came
about as the result of suggestions from many violinists. The
man who had the greatest hand in it was Joseph Joachim (who
was, of course, also to serve the same function for the violin
concerto of Johannes Brahms); Joachim’s contribution
to the score fully justifies the placing of his name on the
title page as dedicatee. He worked out the bowings as well
as many of the virtuoso passages; he also made suggestions
concerning the formal structure of the work. Finally, he insisted
that Bruch call it a “concerto”
rather than a “fantasy,” as the composer had originally
intended.
Bruch’s original title “Fantasy” helps
to explain the first movement, which is something of an oddity.
Rather than being the largest and most elaborate movement formally,
Bruch labels it a “prelude” and designs it as such.
The opening timpani roll and woodwind phrase bring in the soloist
in a dialogue that grows progressively more dramatic. The modulations
hint vaguely at formal structures and new themes, but the atmosphere
remains preparatory. Following a big orchestral climax and
a brief restatement of the opening idea, Bruch modulates to
E flat for the slow movement, which is directly linked to the
Prelude. This is a wonderfully lyrical passage; the soloist
sings the main theme and an important transitional idea before
a modulation to the dominant introduces the secondary theme
(in the bass, under violin triplets).
Though the slow movement ends with a full
stop (unlike the Prelude), it is directly linked with the finale
by key. The last movement begins with a hushed whisper in E
flat, but an exciting crescendo engineers a modulation to G
major for the first statement (by the soloist) of the main
rondo theme. This is a lively and rhythmic idea that contrasts
wonderfully with the soaring, singing second theme, which remains
in the ear as the most striking idea of the work, a passage
of great nobility in the midst of the finale’s energy.
ROBERT SCHUMANN Symphony No.
3 in E flat major,
Opus 97, Rhenish
Robert Alexander Schumann was born in
Zwickau, Saxony, on June 8, 1810, and died in Endenich, near
Bonn, on July 29, 1856. He composed the E flat symphony (published
as the Third, though it was fourth in order of conception)
in Düsseldorf between November 2 and December 9, 1850,
and conducted the first performance in Düsseldorf on February
6, 1851. The nickname Rhenish was used by Schumann in casual
reference to the work, though he did not attach it to the published
score. The symphony received its first American performance
in New York on February 2, 1869, with Theodor Eisfeld conducting
the Philharmonic Society. The score calls for flutes, oboes,
clarinets, and bassoons in pairs, four horns, two trumpets,
three trombones, timpani, and strings.
Schumann’s biography has many pages
detailing periods of mental instability, attempted suicide,
and eventual madness. But the picture was never entirely devoid
of a bright side, and when Schumann was feeling well, he composed
with an energy, a richness of imagination, and a sheer speed
that is little short of astonishing. The Rhenish Symphony is
a case in point. The Schumann family had spent the last half
of the 1840s in Dresden, a city that was musically conservative
and rather dull (the golden years of the Dresden opera and
its series of Richard Strauss premieres were a half century
in the future). After five years there, Schumann had few real
friends and no official recognition. Despite a prolific spell
now and then during that period, composition was often difficult,
and he nearly gave up work on large scale instrumental forms.
In November 1849 he was approached with the suggestion that
he apply for the soon-to-be-vacant directorship of the municipal
orchestra in Düsseldorf. After temporizing for a time
and looking for something closer to Dresden, Schumann finally
accepted the post and moved to Düsseldorf with his family
at the beginning of September 1850.
Almost immediately he returned to composing
for orchestra. His mood must have been brighter than it had
been for a long time, since his work preceded smoothly and
with almost effortless ease. He began a cello concerto on October
10, completed a sketch before the week was out, and finished
the full score in another week! On November 2, barely a week
after finishing the concerto, he began work on his Third Symphony.
Again progress was rapid. Despite the interruption of a visit
to Cologne, he completed the sketch of the first movement in
a week, had worked out the scherzo by November 29, and completed
the entire score by December 9! The character of the music,
too, bespeaks a new warmth and positive outlook in Schumann’s
life. It is brimming with energy and color.
The familiar nickname of the symphony
invites the listener to imagine all sorts of images of the
mighty Rhine, its scenery, its legends, and its history. But
Schumann himself never specified a program, and in the fourth
movement, which originally bore a hint as to its inspiration,
Schumann suppressed even that hint from publication. More important,
though, is the fact that this symphony finds Schumann at the
height of his powers, producing a first movement that is quite
likely his finest single symphonic achievement. The whole work
suggests vast open spaces and stretches of time, though, oddly
enough, the Rhenish actually feels to be about the same length
as Schumann’s other symphonies—and this despite
the fact that it consists of five movements rather than four.
The very opening has a magnificent
breadth brought about by presenting what sounds like a theme
in a slow 3/2 meter, though by the end of the first phrase the
3/2 melts into a whirling waltz apparently at double speed. The
extension of the opening sentence develops that characteristic
broad rhythm with a new, faster idea, in a carefully planned
dialogue that cadences finally in a tender contrasting theme.
More than one commentator has noted the wonderful continuity
of Schumann’s thought in this movement, more logical and
inevitable than ever before, and compared it to the similar character
of Beethoven’s symphony in E flat, the Eroica, which evidently
stands godfather to this Romantic offspring. The development
section of the first movement draws upon all the material that
has been heard before, worked out in a grand harmonic arc. Eventually
Schumann begins a dominant pedal for the extended build up to
the thrilling moment of recapitulation, in full orchestral splendor,
with the four horns sounding the theme in unison along with the
flutes and violins. A new idea enlivens the energetic coda.
The second movement is called a “scherzo,” but
the tempo marking Sehr mässig (“Very moderate”)
belies that title. It suggests rather a slow country dance
of the Ländler type, and the tunes just might be drawn
from the wealth of German folk song, though they are really
Schumann’s own, composed in homage to that rich body
of song that was such a fundamental part of his musical heritage.
In its formal pattern, too, the movement is not a simple scherzo,
which usually followed a simple ABA design. This one seems
to combine that basic pattern with elements of variation form
and of sonata development.
The third movement is a rather short
slow movement, though it is filled with intimate musical poetry
in gentle melodic ideas that run throughout, a vein of Schumann’s
musical thought that is especially characteristic in certain
of the songs and selected pages of the piano works. Here Schumann’s
innermost warmth fills the entire movement from beginning to
end.
Shortly after arriving in Düsseldorf,
Robert and Clara Schumann traveled down the Rhine to Cologne,
where they witnessed the enthronement of the Cardinal Archbishop
Geissel on September 30, 1850, and where Robert was especially
impressed by the gigantic Gothic cathedral, then still unfinished
after centuries of construction. When writing his E flat symphony,
Schumann recalled the experience musically in the fourth movement
(really a self sufficient introduction to the finale), which
he labeled In the character of a solemn ceremony, though he
later withdrew even this much of a programmatic hint. It is
rich with the sounds of trombones in elaborate contrapuntal
lines, using devices learned during Schumann’s lifelong
study of Bach but distilled through his own Romantic personality
into something utterly individual and bearing no trace of the
academy about it. The polyphonic edifice, with its learned
techniques of canon, augmentation, and diminution, provides
a splendid foil to the bustle and energy of the real finale,
in which, before the end, palpable references to the polyphonic
theme of the fourth movement—now in the major mode—and
the very opening of the symphony sum up the musical world of
Schumann’s Rhine valley.
© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) |
 |
 
Daniel Hege [full
bio]
"…competent
and fearless…a hardworking and demanding maestro."
—Syracuse Post-Standard
Nicola Benedetti [full
bio]
"…a
prodigious, incandescent talent with unswerving self-belief."
—London Sunday Times
|
