Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60

Pictures at an Exhibition contains some of the most exciting brass section playing in the repertoire. I spent a pretty sizable chunk of time during high school and college listening to every recording of the major orchestras playing this piece that I could get my hands on. SETH HORNER, NCS PRINCIPAL TUBA

Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN BORN December 16, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in Vienna PREMIERE Composed 1806; first performance March 1807, in Vienna OVERVIEW On November 13, 1805, Napoleon’s army entered Vienna. A week later, Beethoven gave the first performance of Fidelio before an audience largely comprising French officers. It failed. The French forces withdrew early the next year, and the local aristocrats, who had fled Vienna before the invasion, returned to their city palaces. Fidelio, extensively revised, was presented again on March 29, 1806, but its reception was still cool. Beethoven spent the summer of 1806 away from Vienna. His first visit was to the ancestral Hungarian estate of his friend Count Brunsvick at Martonvásár, where the Count’s sisters, Thérèse, Joséphine, and Caroline, were also in residence. Journalist and Harvard librarian Alexander Wheelock Thayer, in his pioneering biography of the composer, spread the rumor that Beethoven and Thérèse got engaged that May, and that it was under the spell of that love affair that the Fourth Symphony was conceived. In 1890, a book appeared titled Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved, from Personal Reminiscences, purporting to be from Thérèse’s hand, that recounted the relationship. It was a hoax. (“The Immortal Beloved,” to whom Beethoven wrote three letters, was convincingly identified in Maynard Solomon’s 1977 biography of the composer as Antonie Brentano, a married Viennese noblewoman. Solomon also showed the letters to have been written in 1812, not 1806.) The Fourth Symphony was therefore apparently not a musical lovechild — though the country calm of that summer, perhaps the most halcyon time of Beethoven’s life, may have influenced the character of the work. After visiting with the Brunsvicks, Beethoven moved to the summer castle of Prince Lichnowsky at Grätz in Silesia. Lichnowsky introduced him to his neighbor in Ober-Glogau, Count Franz von Oppersdorf, a moneyed aristocrat who placed such importance on his household musical establishment that he would not hire a servant unable to play an instrument. Oppersdorf, an admirer of Beethoven’s music, arranged a performance by his private orchestra of the Second Symphony for the composer’s visit, and, further, commissioned him to write a new symphony. Beethoven put aside the C-minor symphony (No. 5), already well advanced, to work on the commission, and most of the B-flat symphony was completed during September and October 1806 at Lichnowsky’s castle.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR It is sweetness, subtly tinged with Romantic pathos, that opens the Fourth Symphony. The main theme is a buoyant tune given by the violins. The complementary melody is a snappy theme discussed by bassoon, oboe, and flute. Inventive elaborations of the main theme occupy the movement’s development before a heightened recall of the earlier melodies and a vigorous coda close the movement. Of the second movement, little needs to be added to the words of Hector Berlioz: “It seems to elude analysis. Its form is so pure and the expression of its melody so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness that the prodigious art by which this perfection is attained disappears completely. From the very first bars we are overtaken by an emotion which, towards the close, becomes so overpowering in its intensity that only amongst the giants of poetic art can we find anything to compare with this sublime page of the giant of music.” Though Beethoven called the third movement a minuet, it is really one of his most boisterous scherzos. The outer sections of the movement, with their rugged syncopations, sudden harmonic and dynamic shifts, and tossing-about of melodic fragments among the orchestral participants, stand in strong contrast to the suave central trio. The finale is a whirlwind sonata form with occasional moments of strong expression in its development section.

INSTRUMENTATION Flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings

Pictures at an Exhibition

MODEST MUSSORGSKY BORN March 21, 1839, in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia; died March 28, 1881, in St. Petersburg PREMIERE Composed 1874; transcribed for orchestra in 1923 by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937); orchestral version first performed May 3, 1923, in Paris, conducted by Sergei Koussevitzky

OVERVIEW In the years around 1850, with the spirit of nationalism sweeping through Europe, several young Russian artists banded together to rid their native art of foreign influences and establish a distinctive character for their works. At the front of this movement was a group of composers known as “The Five,” whose members included Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, César Cui, and Mily Balakirev. Among the allies that The Five found was the artist and architect Victor Hartmann, with whom Mussorgsky became close personal friends. Hartmann’s premature death at 39 stunned the composer and the entire Russian artistic community. The noted critic Vladimir Stassov organized a memorial exhibit of Hartmann’s work in February 1874, and it was under the inspiration of that showing of his late friend’s works that Mussorgsky conceived his Pictures at an Exhibition for piano. Maurice Ravel made his masterful orchestration of the score for Sergei Koussevitzky’s Paris concerts in 1923.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Promenade. According to Stassov, this recurring section depicts Mussorgsky “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly, and, at times sadly, thinking of his friend.” The Gnome. Hartmann’s drawing is for a fantastic wooden nutcracker representing a gnome who gives off savage shrieks as he waddles about. The Old Castle. A troubadour sings a doleful lament before a foreboding, ruined ancient fortress. Tuileries. Mussorgsky’s subtitle is “Dispute of the Children After Play.” Hartmann’s picture shows a corner of the famous Parisian garden filled with nursemaids and their youthful charges. Bydlo. Hartmann’s painting depicts a rugged wagon drawn by oxen. The peasant driver sings a plaintive melody (solo tuba) heard first from afar, then closeby, before the cart passes away into the distance. Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells. Hartmann’s costume design for the 1871 fantasy ballet Trilby shows dancers enclosed in enormous egg shells. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle was inspired by a pair of pictures depicting two residents of the Warsaw ghetto, one rich and pompous (a weighty unison for strings and winds), the other poor and complaining (muted trumpet). Mussorgsky based both themes on incantations he had heard on visits to Jewish synagogues. The Marketplace at Limoges. A lively sketch of a bustling market. Catacombs: Roman Tombs, Cum mortuis in lingua mortua. Hartmann’s drawing shows him being led by a guide with a lantern through cavernous underground tombs. The movement’s second section, titled “With the Dead in a Dead Language,” is a mysterious transformation of the Promenade theme. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs. Hartmann’s sketch is a design for an elaborate clock suggested by Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch of Russian folklore who flies through the air. Mussorgsky’s music suggests a wild, midnight ride. The Great Gate of Kiev was inspired by Hartmann’s plan for a gateway for the city of Kiev in the massive old Russian style, crowned with a cupola in the shape of a Slavic warrior’s helmet. The majestic music suggests both the imposing bulk of the edifice (never built) and a brilliant procession passing through its arches. The work ends with a heroic statement of the Promenade theme and a jubilant pealing of the great bells of the city.

INSTRUMENTATION Two piccolos, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, celeste, strings