PROGRAM NOTES Music & Movement

Home , Gioachino Rossini, Pierre Beaumarchais

SAT Nov 19 at 7:30pm SUN Nov 20 at 2:00pm Five Flags Theater Downtown Dubuque PROGRAM NOTES Music & Movement WILLIAM INTRILIGATOR, Music Director GIANNA FRATTA, Guest Conductor

The Barber of Seville Overture The Silken Ladder Overture - Gioachino Rossini

With all the gloriously elaborate arias Rossini gave us in his operas, we tend to think of him first and foremost as the master of the voice. But he was also the master of the orchestra, as the con- tinuing popularity of his overtures attests. By age 37, he’d written his canon of 38 operas, and of these, the brilliant comedy The Barber of Seville remains the most popular of all. Yet tonight in addition to its overture, we will discover yet another one, equally fine, whose opera The Silken Ladder (La scala di seta) has been completely forgotten. Once the perfect curtain raiser for the theatre, Rossini’s overtures are now the perfect warm up for an evening of symphonic music. Gioachino Rossini b. 1792, Pesaro, Italy; In addition to his effortless musical gifts, Rossini was a wit and bon vivant (his love of fine food d. 1868, Passy, near Paris, France ballooned him from a trim young man to a very obese one during his long retirement), and when a younger composer once inquired what was the best way to write an overture, he replied as Instrumentation for follows. “Wait till the evening of the day the opera is scheduled for performance. Nothing excites The Barber of Seville the imagination more than necessity, the presence of a copyist waiting for the music, and the Overture: pressing of an impresario in despair tearing out his hair. In my day in Italy, all impresarios were Flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, bald by the age of 30!” 2 trumpets, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, strings Sometimes Rossini didn’t even bother to compose a new overture at all, but simply borrowed one he’d used for a previous opera until it became attached to a hit and could not be recycled Instrumentation for anymore. Such was the case with The Barber, which premiered in Rome on February 20, 1816; The Silken Ladder its overture had been previously used for both Aureliano in Palmira (1813) and Elisabetta, regina Overture: Flute (doubling piccolo), d’Inghiletta (1814). But Rossini was facing a pressing deadline for this opera and wrote it, as he 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bassoon, remembered, in just 13 days. Despite his haste, the score was a superb treatment of the French 2 French horns, strings dramatist Pierre Beaumarchais’ prequel to Le Mariage de Figaro, the source of Mozart’s beloved opera. In it, we meet the wily title character, Figaro, who manages to spirit away the equally clever Rosina from the clutches of her pompous old guardian Dr. Bartolo and into the arms of Figaro’s handsome patron, the young Count Almaviva.

Rossini was only 20 years old in 1812 when he composed the one-act comic opera The Silken Ladder for the opera house in Venice; it too was based on a French play, Planard’s farce of the same name. The plot is extremely flimsy with a pair of secretly married lovers trying to foil the plans of another aspirant for the lady’s hand. However, the Overture is perhaps even greater than The Barber’s with especially superb writing for all the woodwind instruments (Rossini was the first Italian composer to prominently feature them in his operas).

Both overtures follow the surefire formula Rossini had invented for himself. First we hear a slow, rather moody introductory section that builds anticipation for the drama. However, in the Barber’s Overture, this quieter music is full of suppressed energy, previewing the continuous plotting of all the characters to determine who will win the beautiful Rosina. This leads into a fast-tempo main section featuring a beguiling clarinet theme for Barber and bevy of melodies adding striking variety and drama for The Silken Ladder. This section culminates in the composer’s most delicious innovation: the famous slow-building Rossini crescendo. To give us our money’s worth, both overtures repeat this whole section with different scoring and another adrenaline-pumping crescendo ride. As Rossini later told the composer Saint-Saëns, “They criticize me for the crescendo in my overtures, but forget that if I had dared leave it out, the opera would never be performed!” Variations on One String on a Theme from “Moses” by Rossini - Nicolò Paganini

So astounding were the feats Nicolò Paganini performed on his violin that people whispered he had made a Faustian pact with the devil to obtain his skills. These rumors seemed to be confirmed by his strange appearance and the uncanny spell he cast over his listeners. Wracked by ill health all his life, Paganini was as thin as a cadaver, with a ghostly pale complexion and long stringy hair. Not only did he introduce virtuoso techniques never used before on the violin, he inspired other musicians—notably Franz Liszt—to contrive ear-popping feats on their own instruments. However, Paganini was much more than a stuntman on the violin, and his many compositions for the instrument — both solo, in chamber ensembles, and with the orchestra — show a fine creative musician at work. He especially loved the music of Nicolò Paganini b. 1782, Genoa, Italy; his Italian contemporary Rossini, and we will hear the Introduction and Variations he wrote d. 1840, Nice, France in 1819 on “Dal tuo stellate soglio” from Rossini’s biblical opera Mosè in Egitto (“Moses in Egypt”), premiered the year before in Naples. Rossini’s beautiful, soulful melody is sung by Instrumentation: Moses and the chorus in Act III as he and the Israelites pause at the Red Sea and pray for a Solo violin, strings miracle to allow them to cross.

Paganini being Paganini, however, there is a technical trick involved in this piece. It was created to be played on just one of the violin’s four strings, G, which gives the instrument the rich, dark sound of a viola, imitating Moses’ bass voice. However, as it is also the lowest string, it makes the playing of the very high notes in Paganini’s third and fourth variations on the theme fantastically difficult to play. Only a complete virtuoso on the instrument can tackle this extraordinary work.

Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, op. 28 - Camille Saint-Saëns

Over the course of his long (he lived to be 86) and prolific life, Camille Saint-Saëns became the dominant figure in French musical life during the late Romantic age and developed a conservative style that made success harder for more progressive composers like Debussy. But when he composed his Introduction and Rondo capriccioso for violin and orchestra in 1863, he was only 27 and still struggling to win his own place in Parisian concert life.

The extraordinary young Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate (1844–1908) was a friend of Saint-Saëns, and his special qualities as a virtuoso shaped the way the composer would write Camille Saint-Saëns for this instrument. Sarasate’s tone was not large, but it was pure and brilliant, and his intona- b. 1835, Paris, France; tion was unerring. None other than George Bernard Shaw (a music critic in his early career) d. 1921, Algiers, Algeria described him thus: “He never interprets anything: he plays it beautifully, and that is all. He is always alert, swift, clear, refined, certain, scrupulously attentive, and quite unaffected.” Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, Therefore, in composing the Introduction and Rondo for Sarasate, Saint-Saëns emphasized 2 trumpets, timpani, clarity of sound and de-emphasized the orchestral part to allow the violinist’s smallish tone solo violin, strings to dominate. He also concocted melodies and rhythms with a slightly Spanish flavor to salute the violinist’s homeland. Years later as their friendship continued, Saint-Saëns created a full- length concerto for the Spaniard: the sumptuously beautiful Third Violin Concerto.

Not initially a success with French audiences, the Introduction and Rondo has now become one of the most beloved of all virtuoso violin showpieces. Scholar Michael Stegemann suggests that it is actually an instrumental adaptation of the standard formula for a French operatic aria in the middle 19th century: a slow-tempo arioso or recitative followed by a fast, brilliant aria. In the slow introductory section, the violinist unfurls a soulful melody in A minor. Then the music snaps into a lively Allegro for the rondo itself. Linked together by the puckish rondo theme the soloist introduces at the beginning, it boasts a variety of infectiously tuneful episodes, some suggesting Spanish dance, others exploiting the violin’s capacity for tender, heart-on-sleeve singing. The faster closing section finally carries the music into the brighter key of A Major. Symphony No. 7 in A Major, op. 92 - Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is one of the most extraordinary expressions of physical energy and joy in symphonic music. Completed in 1812, the Seventh, in the words of Beethoven bi- ographer Maynard Solomon, “transports us into a sphere of laughter, play, and the exuberant release of bound energy.” This is a work without a shadow or a solemn thought or even a true slow movement. In any other hands, such unrelieved happiness might produce a feeling of trivi- ality or monotony, but Beethoven instead shows us the dynamic variety of joy.

In an off-quoted aphorism, Wagner has called the Seventh “the apotheosis of the dance,” but it Ludwig van Beethoven could more accurately be characterized as “the apotheosis of rhythm.” Throughout Beethoven’s b. 1770, Bonn, Germany; music, themes are as much characterized by their rhythmic patterns as by their melodic shapes d. 1827, Vienna, Austria or harmonic coloring. Here rhythm is the primary building block: the first, second, and fourth movements are all generated by one obsessive rhythmic figure announced at the opening; the Instrumentation: scherzo has two such figures. 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings The Seventh was introduced to the world at a spectacular celebrity-studded concert on Decem- ber 8, 1813 at the University of Vienna that was the most successful of Beethoven’s career. Or- ganized by Beethoven’s friend Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome, it was a benefit concert to raise money for soldiers wounded at the recent Napoleonic battle of Hanau. Both performers and audience were in high spirits for by this time it was clear that Napoleon’s days were numbered. For the occasion, Beethoven had written one of his most notorious compositions Wellington’s Victory: a military extravaganza calling for vast troops of musicians and a huge percussion battery. In one of his last appearances as a conductor, he led the proceedings, but his deafness severely hampered his effectiveness. It is amazing the Seventh Symphony was even noticed in this circus atmosphere, but indeed it was warmly received and the audience demanded an encore of the second movement.

The first movement begins with a slow introduction, the biggest Beethoven ever wrote. Its expan- sive dimensions, accentuated by majestic rising scales, allows for two lyrical interludes — led first by oboes, then by the flute — which carry the music to keys remote from the A-Major home base. It is linked to the main Vivace section by the playful evolution of the galloping rhythm that drives the rest of the movement. Late in the course of the faster section, listen for the remarkable passage in which the low strings mutter a twisting dissonant motive — like an evil worm corrupt- ing the tranquil, sustained harmony above.

Another persistent rhythmic pattern propels the beloved second movement: a gentle march beat of long-short-short-long-long. Beethoven lets its wonderful theme gradually unfurl: first the bare-bones harmonic tune in low strings, then the stately march melody above, accompanied by graceful countermelodies. The form is one of Beethoven’s own devising: part rondo, part theme- and-variations. And in a later return of the march theme, it evolves into a cunning fugue as well.

Movement three is Beethoven’s most ebullient and propulsive scherzo, powered by the relentless chugging of quarter notes in a frenzied Presto tempo. Providing complete contrast, the middle trio section, dominated by woodwinds, is smoothly lyrical over a sustained pedal note. In a fa- vorite trick also used in his Fourth Symphony, Beethoven runs around the scherzo-trio track three times, though as the trio begins its third reprise, it falters harmonically and is roughly dismissed.

The finale is a fierce dance of triumph. Again, a rhythmic motive starts the action: a cannon- boom followed by a three-note rat-ta-tat rifle response. This wild and surging music has a pronounced military flavor suited to its era. In fact, we hear a theme of swaggering martial gait early on, and in the coda, the trumpets carry it to a ringing affirmation. Here Beethoven joyfully trounces Napoleon and all the enemies of humankind.