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Home , Claude Debussy, Jeux

SAN DIEGO A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT Christian Măcelaru, conductor

April 6 and 7, 2018

CLAUDE ; poème dansé

EDWARD ELGAR in E Minor, Op. 85 Adagio Lento Adagio Allegro Andrei Ioniţă, cello

INTERMISSION

ZOLTÁN KODÁLY Concerto for Orchestra Allegro risoluto Largo primo Largo Tempo primo

GEORGES ENESCO Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, Op. 11

Jeux; poème dansé Born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye Died March 25, 1918,

As part of the visits of the to Paris early in the last century, the impresario Serge Diaghilev arranged for the famed dancer Vaclav Nijinsky to choreograph a ballet based on Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Its premiere in May 1912 was not a success: Debussy was outraged by the way Nijinsky’s choreography ignored his music, and a rather-too-graphic erotic gesture by that dancer caused a scandal. Nevertheless, when Diaghilev and Nijinsky proposed a new collaboration with Debussy, the composer accepted, perhaps in part because of the extremely generous fee of 10,000 francs. Diaghilev and Nijinsky came up with a curious scenario for the new ballet: they wished it to have a modern setting and to be “a plastic vindication of the man of 1913.” This modern subject took the form of a game of tennis played on a court lit by electric lights, and for the premiere they prepared a summary of the action: The scene is a garden at dusk: a tennis ball has been lost; a young man and two girls are searching for it. The artificial light of the large electric lamps shedding fantastic rays about them suggests the idea of childish games: they play hide and seek, they try to catch one another, they quarrel, they sulk without cause. The night is warm; the sky is bathed in a pale light; they embrace. The spell is broken by another tennis ball thrown in mischievously by an unknown hand. Surprised and alarmed, the young man and the girls disappear into the nocturnal depths of the garden. This may seem an unlikely scenario for a ballet, but Debussy wrote an impressive score for it. He began work immediately, sketching the ballet in Paris during the hot summer of 1912. When Diaghilev and Nijinsky showed up unexpectedly one day to see how the music was coming along, he refused to play any of it for them and threw them out, “not wishing these barbarians to poke their noses into my experiments in personal chemistry.” He completed the the following spring, and the premiere took place on May 15, 1913 in Paris. It fell flat. Audiences were mystified by the story, and Debussy was once again angry about the way Nijinsky’s choreography bore no relation to his music and its rhythms. Exactly two weeks after the first performance of Jeux; poème dansé, Stravinsky’s was premiered in Paris, and the ballet about a tennis game essentially vanished in the resulting explosion. The score that Debussy wrote for that rather slight scenario, however, has gone on to a successful life in the concert hall, for it is remarkable in many ways: for its harmonic daring (some of heard premonitions of Schoenberg here), for its rhythmic subtlety and fluidity (Debussy changes over 50 times in this 17-minute score) and for its continuous evolution of a series of simple thematic motifs. Just as striking is the palette of orchestral color. Debussy writes for a large orchestra, but then uses that orchestra with extreme subtlety. To a friend he wrote: “I must find an orchestra ‘without feet’ for this music. Don’t believe that I am considering an orchestra made up exclusively of legless cripples! No! I am thinking of that orchestral color which seems to be illuminated from behind, of which there are such marvelous examples in !” Some have claimed to be able to make out the details of the ballet in this music (the ball being hit back and forth and so on), but it may be more useful to set aside the rather slight ballet story and instead listen to Jeux simply as music. That title implies both the game of tennis and the game of love, and this is a very sensual score. Debussy called it a “poème dansé” and his “danced poem” moves from its eerie whole-tone beginning to build up to the great waltz at the climax, then dissolves into an ending that seems to flicker out in front of us. This music is not well known, and the ballet that inspired it has vanished (perhaps deservedly), but Jeux itself survives as one of the most subtle, colorful and original scores Debussy ever wrote.

Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 SIR EDWARD ELGAR Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath Died February 23, 1934, Worcester

The period of was extremely difficult for Elgar. The war was demoralizing, and Elgar – who turned 60 during its course – was further downcast by poor health and his own declining productivity. The war might seem the sort of occasion that should have roused his creative spirits, but Elgar had no appetite for “war” music. After three years of war, he wrote to a friend while on a conducting tour: “I am not well and the place is so noisy & I do not sleep. The guns are the quietest things here. I long for the country…Everything good & nice & clean & fresh & sweet is far away – never to return.” In the fall of 1917 he resolved to get away from London, and – after an operation to remove his tonsils – he rented a thatched two-story cottage outside Fittleworth, in the rolling countryside north of Chichester. The house had belonged to a painter, and now Elgar took over the painter’s old studio in the garden. Delighted by the quiet and the surrounding woods, he felt his creative powers return. From the waning months of the war came a sudden surge of creativity: he wrote three chamber pieces – the Violin , and Piano Quintet – in 1918, and that August he set to work on a Cello Concerto, completing it in the early summer of 1919. It would be his final significant work. Though he planned several major compositions over the final 15 years of his life, he was unable to complete any of them. The Cello Concerto is a work of great beauty and great contradiction. Some of these contradictions rise from the sharp differences of style within the music: Elgar scores the concerto for a large orchestra, but then uses it with restraint – much of this music has a chamber-like delicacy. These contrasts point to sharp differences of mood within the music, which can move from a touching intimacy one moment to extroverted concerto style the next. We almost sense two completely different composers behind the concerto. One is the public Elgar – strong, confident, declarative – while the other is the private Elgar, torn by age, doubt and the awful comprehension that all the certainties he had known – artistic, political and social – had been obliterated. This strange division of mood lies at the heart of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, which remains one of the most important written for the instrument. We seem to hear the old confident Elgar in the cello’s sturdy opening , marked nobilmente, yet at the main body of the movement things change completely. Without any accompaniment, lay out the movement’s haunting main theme, which rocks along wistfully on its 9/8 meter. This somber idea sets the mood for the entire opening movement – even the second subject, announced by pairs of woodwinds, is derived from this theme. Throughout, Elgar reminds the soloist to play dolcissimo and espressivo. The first movement is joined to the second by a brief reminiscence of the opening recitative, and the solo cello tentatively outlines what will become the main theme of the second movement, a marked Allegro molto. Once this movement takes wing, it really flies. It is a sort of perpetual-motion movement, and Elgar marks the cello’s part leggierisimo: “as light as possible.” Tuneful interludes intrude momentarily on the busy progress, but the cello’s breathless rush always returns, and the movement races to a sudden – and pleasing – close. The Adagio returns to the mood of the opening movement. Metric units are short here (the marking is 3/8), but Elgar writes long, lyric lines for the soloist, who plays virtually without pause. There is a dreamy, almost disembodied quality to this music, and Donald Francis Tovey caught its mood perfectly when he described the Adagio as “a fairy tale.” The finale has an extended introduction, combining orchestral flourishes, bits of the opening recitative, and a cadenza for the soloist, before plunging into the main part of the movement, marked Allegro, ma non troppo. This is launched with some of the old Elgarian swagger, and the music at first seems full of enough confidence to knit up the troubled edges of what has gone before. But this is only a first impression. Beneath the jaunty surface of this music, another mood – dark and uneasy – begins to intrude and finds its clearest expression in the extended Poco più lento section near the end of the music. Gone is the swagger, gone is the confident energy, and we sense that in place of the music Elgar wanted to write he is giving us the music he had to write. Wandering, pained, dis-eased, this music seems to speak directly from the heart, and even the vigorous concluding flourish does little to dispel the somber mood that has touched so much of this concerto.

Concerto for Orchestra ZOLTÁN KODÁLY Born December 16, 1882, Kecskemet Died March 6, 1967, Budapest

Zoltán Kodály turned 50 in 1932, and his growing reputation as a composer brought some welcome rewards: several major commissioned new works from him to help them celebrate important anniversaries. Kodály composed his Dances of Galanta in 1933 for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society, his Peacock Variations for the 50th anniversary of the Orchestra in 1939 and his Concerto for Orchestra in 1939-40 for the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Frederick Stock led the Chicago Symphony in the premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra on February 6, 1941, as part of that orchestra’s season-long celebration. The title “Concerto for Orchestra” refers not to a work in which a soloist is accompanied by an orchestra but to a composition in which the entire orchestra is treated soloistically. We think of the “Concerto for Orchestra” as a modern form, but the concept goes back to the baroque concerto grosso: a work for orchestra in which individual members or sections would be given occasional solo passages that contrasted with the sound of the full ensemble. In our own day the term has come to denote a brilliant composition that shows off the abilities of a virtuoso orchestra. The outstanding examples are those of Bartók and Lutosławski, but there have been many others. A further influence shaped Kodály’s Concerto for Orchestra. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Kodály and Bartók (who were good friends) had fallen in love with the folk music of Eastern Europe, and they went on long trips to collect, record and catalogue the folk music of Hungary and surrounding countries. The impact of these trips on their own music was profound: both Bartók and Kodály so fully assimilated the idiom of Eastern European folk music that it became part of their own musical language, and Kodály’s Concerto for Orchestra is to some extent shaped by the rhythms, intervals and themes of the folk music he loved so much. Kodály’s Concerto is a compact work: it is in five interconnected sections that span just over a quarter-hour. The Concerto bears some relation to rondo form: its vigorous first movement introduces Kodály’s fundamental material, and this returns in the third and fifth sections. The second and fourth sections, both marked Largo, develop this material in quite different ways. The Concerto for Orchestra bursts to life on a propulsive opening theme that Kodály marks Allegro risoluto, and resolute it certainly is, rocking along powerfully on the interval of a fourth. A second theme, sharply syncopated, arrives in the horn section, and soon we hear solo passages for violin, trumpet and oboe, but neither theme is developed here, and the principal effect of this brief section is to bring the Concerto for Orchestra to vibrant life with a festive opening fanfare. A moment of repose leads to the first Largo, by far the longest of movements. This takes the form of a slow fugato, performed at first as : the steady opening melody is taken up in turn by , cello, clarinet and flute. Gradually textures thicken, and a noble brass chorale helps drive this movement to a climax for full orchestra. After a brief pause, the Tempo primo takes us back to the powerful opening. This section treats primarily that opening theme, now embellished with solos from diverse instruments, but we do hear – very briefly – a reprise of the syncopated horn theme. Solo woodwinds lead to the second Largo, this time much shorter, and Kodály drives the Concerto for Orchestra to its firm close with a brief recall of the opening theme. NOTE: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra commissioned pieces from ten different composers to celebrate its 50th anniversary. As with most sets of commissions, almost all of these have been forgotten, but three of those commissions continue to be performed and recorded: Kodály’s Concerto, Stravinsky’s Symphony in C and Walton’s Scapino Overture.

Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, Op. 11 GEORGES ENESCO Born August 19, 1881, Liveni Virnav, Romania Died May 3/4, 1955, Paris

Georges Enesco was one of those Promethean musical talents who could do virtually anything. He left Romania at age 7, studied at the Vienna and Paris Conservatories, then launched an international career as a violin virtuoso – his recordings make clear that he was one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. But Enesco was also a composer, , cellist, conductor and teacher: among his students were Yehudi Menuhin and Arthur Grumiaux. Though he was based in Paris, Enesco remained devoted to his Rumanian homeland. He maintained a residence in Rumania, and he became a driving force in revitalizing Rumanian musical life. (That country continues to regard Enesco as a national hero: the small town where he was born has been renamed “George Enescu” [the Rumanian form of his name] in his honor.) The most famous examples of his devotion to his native land are his two Rumanian Rhapsodies, both composed shortly after his 20th birthday. Enesco led the premiere of both Rhapsodies in Bucharest on February 23, 1903, and the First Rhapsody quickly became his most popular composition; when it was premiered at in London, the audience demanded that it be repeated. As he tried to define a Rumanian national idiom, Enesco was adamant that Rumania was not a Slavic country, despite its location. Instead, he insisted, it was a Latin country that had been founded by the Roman legions (hence its name), and he traced the roots of its folk-music to the music of India and Egypt, believing that slaves brought by the Romans had left their imprint on Rumania’s own music. Enesco’s Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 is in the tradition of national rhapsodies that were much in fashion in this era. (Other examples include Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, Dvorak’s Slavonic Rhapsodies, Alfven’s Swedish Rhapsodies, Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsodies and many more). It is built on a number of Rumanian folk-tunes and dances, primarily the old drinking song Am un leu si vrau sa: “I have a coin and I want to drink.” Enesco then strings these tunes and dances together: the structure of the Rumanian Rhapsody is episodic, and there is almost no development of these themes – Enescu simply repeats them in different tempos and instrumental colors. Those themes vary widely; some are redolent of mournful gypsy fiddling, some suggest the sound of a cimbalon, some dance with blazing energy. Enesco’s handling of the orchestra, even in his early twenties, was assured: there is a prominent role for the solo clarinet, as well as a prominent solo for viola, a flute duet and blazing passages for the trumpets. But mostly it is the wild fiddling that drives this music forward. Enesco reins in all this energy for a long moment of silence, then dashes the music to its shining close as the floodgates break wide open. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Performance History by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, San Diego Symphony Archivist Jacqueline du Pré was the soloist when the Elgar cello concerto was introduced to San Diego Symphony audiences in 1968. Zoltan Rozsnyai conducted. Ms. du Pré's famously protective husband, , was a definite presence in the Civic Theatre for the rehearsal and the performances, but his wife showed no obvious signs of her multiple sclerosis. Three more presentations of the concerto followed, most recently when Alban Gerhardt played it and Jahja Ling conducted in the 2006-07 season. Georges Enescu's popular favorite, the brilliant First Rumanian Rhapsody, was first played by the orchestra under Earl Bernard Murray in the 1963-64 season. Since then, it has been programmed here six more times, most recently when Jahja Ling conducted it in the 2011-12 season. Debussy's tone poem Jeux and the sparkling, very Hungarian Concerto for Orchestra by Zoltán Kodály are being heard here for the first time at these concerts.