Program Notes February 12 – 13, 2011

Dr. William Intriligator, Music Director & Conductor

Pulcinella Suite Igor Stravinsky (b. 1882, Oranienbaum, Russia; d. 1971, New York City)

After shocking the pre-World War I musical world with The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky, now a Russian emigré living in Switzerland and France, began to look back to the music of the 18th century to find inspiration for the future. Through a union of earlier artistic models and modern techniques would come the neo-classicism that dominated his music for three decades, from the Octet of 1922 to the opera The Rake's Progress of 1951.

But when in 1919 Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes and Stravinsky's discoverer, pointed the composer toward the music of Giovanni Pergolesi (1710–1736) for a new ballet based on the Italian commedia dell'arte, the idea seemed merely a bit of fashionable time-traveling, not the harbinger of a new style. At the turn of the century, a vogue for creating pastiches of 18th-century music had sprung up, possibly as a reaction to the over-heated mood of late-Romanticism. Tchaikovsky included a charming rococo scene in his opera The Queen of Spades. Richard Strauss weighed in with Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Ariadne auf Naxos, and Ravel wrote Le Tombeau de Couperin. Diaghilev himself had just had a great success with the ballet La Boutique fantasque, set to Respighi's arrangements of Rossini piano music. In using a Stravinsky reworking of Pergolesi for a ballet featuring the irrepressible commedia clown Pulcinella, he sniffed another hit.

And a hit it was at its premiere at the Paris Opéra on May 15, 1920. Diaghilev had again assembled a creative dream team: score by Stravinsky, choreography by the brilliant young Leonid Massine, and sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso. Stravinsky, who had once trained as a lawyer, was ever alert to reaping the full financial rewards of his music. Therefore, in 1922 he arranged his 40-minute ballet score into a concert suite for chamber orchestra lasting half as long; this was introduced by the Boston Symphony under Pierre Monteux that same year.

As we listen to this music, how much do we hear of Pergolesi and how much of Stravinsky? Or perhaps we should say of Pergolesi and others. Giovanni Pergolesi lived a brief 26 years, but his 15 operas, including the still- performed La serva padrona, and exquisite church music made him a legend in his time. In a period without copyright laws, lesser composers were happy to publish their works under Pergolesi's name to boost sales. Although Stravinsky was unaware of this, only three of the suite's movements are based on genuine Pergolesi—the Serenata, Vivo, and Minuet. The rest is derived from music by Domenico Gallo and other unknowns.

In Pulcinella, Stravinsky retained the graceful melodies and basic harmonies of Pergolesi et al. Yet within the first minute of listening, we are aware that we are not really in the 18th century. In the Overture, as the oboe and bassoon complete their charming duet, the composer telescopes the regular phrasing into a passage of pulsing syncopation that is pure Stravinsky in its rhythmic drive. Throughout, he plays with rhythm and altered phrasing, especially in the Finale which evokes the excitement of Petrouchka's carnival. He also continually spices the traditional harmonies with dissonant added notes.

Above all, the orchestration casts a new light on the baroque originals. Stravinsky elegantly scores the suite for a small ensemble of strings, including solo string quintet, and winds, with trumpet and trombone. In the concertante manner, solos by the quintet and various wind instruments contrast with the ensemble. It is some of these solo excursions that replace baroque sound with Stravinsky's biting, modern voice; notice the sassy trumpet solo in the Toccata and especially the grotesque duet between the trombone and double bass in the Vivo. Other special moments are the lovely woodwind scoring of the Gavotte, and the plucked harmonics in the throbbing accompaniment of the Serenata, sounding like a huge hollow guitar beneath the solo oboe and violin's Pergolesi aria.

Concierto de Aranjuez Joaquín Rodrigo (b. 1901, Sagunto, Spain; d. 1999, Madrid)

Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo, whose life spanned the 20th century, died in 1999 at the age of 97. His Concierto de Aranjuez has become one of the best-loved works of the 20th century, and this along with his 25 other compositions for classical guitar has contributed enormously to the instrument's prominence in concert halls today.

Blind since the age of three, Rodrigo in his twenties became a pupil of the Frenchman Paul Dukas, and a French refinement and sensitivity to color mingles with the more prominent Spanish influences in his music. He lived in exile in Paris during the Spanish Civil War, but soon returned to become the dean of Spanish composers. As scholar and creator, Rodrigo exerted a tremendous influence over his compatriots, although his conservative style was not to the taste of many younger composers. And his great mastery of melody and atmosphere made him very popular well beyond the boundaries of his native land.

In 1992 King Juan Carlos of Spain honored Rodrigo with the hereditary title "Marquesa de los Jardines de Aranjuez." The beautiful royal gardens of Aranjuez, a little south of Madrid, were the inspiration for Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, composed in 1939 during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War. Its serene evocation of such a pastoral setting must have seemed even more poignant when it was introduced in Madrid in 1940 so soon after the country's bloody convulsions.

But there is a profound mood of mourning in the ravishing second movement in B minor, which is the concerto's soul. Here the wailing English horn introduces a haunting Moorish-Spanish melody with Arabic ornaments winding around a central pitch, which grow more elaborate with each repetition. Rodrigo emphasizes that this is the most important movement not only by making it the longest but also by placing a major solo cadenza for the guitar here, rather than in the first movement where it is usually positioned.

The first and last movements are much lighter and briefer, and their sparkling orchestration shows Rodrigo's French training. In the opening movement, the guitar sets up the underlying rhythmic conflict between 6/8 meter (two beats to the measure) versus 3/4 (three beats)—a conflict heard often in flamenco music. The music is constantly punctuated by heavily accented chordal explosions from guitar and orchestra that suggest flamenco's stamping feet. Another rhythmic battle—between 2/4 and 3/4 time—animates the playful finale in rondo form. Here the delight comes from Rodrigo's ingenious treatments of the many returns of his whimsical theme, including a droll version for guitar and bassoon and another for pizzicato (plucked) strings.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major Ludwig van Beethoven (b. 1770, Bonn, Germany; d. 1827, Vienna, Austria)

By 1802, Beethoven's deafness was beginning to trouble him greatly, even though it was not yet noticed by most around him. His doctor suggested a summer in the country, in the village of Heiligenstadt outside Vienna, might prove helpful. Helpful it was for his creativity, but not his deafness. By October, Beethoven was pouring out his anguish at the ailment he feared would destroy all his musical hopes in a letter ostensibly written to his two brothers, but never sent (it was found among his papers after his death): the famous Heiligenstadt Testament. "Yes, that fond hope — which I brought here with me, to be cured to a degree at least — this I must now wholly abandon. As the leaves of autumn fall and are withered — so likewise has my hope been blighted — I leave here — almost as I came — even the high courage — which often inspired me in the beautiful days of summer — has disappeared."

A significant advance over his First Symphony, which strongly showed the influence of Haydn, Symphony No. 2 was composed during those "beautiful days of summer" in 1802 and shines not only with "high courage" but with high spirits, daring, and wit. Now the virile, bold voice was unmistakably Beethoven's throughout, and the scope and ambition of the symphony was beginning to expand toward the revolutionary "Eroica" Symphony, just one year in the future. But unlike the "Eroica," the Second is a predominantly light-hearted work, rich in musical humor. Yet at its Viennese premiere on April 5, 1803, it was disturbing enough to prompt one critic to write: "Beethoven's Second Symphony is a crass monster, a hideously writhing wounded dragon that refuses to expire, and though bleeding in the Finale, furiously beats about with its tail erect."

The Allegro section of the sonata-form opening movement flows directly out of a beautiful, rather lengthy slow introduction. Its first theme emerges quietly in the cellos and violas under a measured violin tremolo or shake: a prominent musical device throughout this movement and others as well. In fact, it is the hyperactive violins that power the intense nervous energy pervading this work. The second major theme is as energetic as the first: a brisk, military-sounding tune for the woodwinds above chugging string tremolos.

The second movement (Larghetto) in A major is an early example of Beethoven's beautiful slow movements; Donald Francis Tovey calls it "one of the most luxurious slow movements in the world." Also in sonata form, it is a peaceful pastorale that brings needed repose from the dynamism of the other movements. Here Beethoven plays off the lushness of the strings, which introduce the gracious two-part theme, against the astringent sound of the woodwinds. The development section moves into a world of gentle pathos in the minor mode.

The sudden alternation of loud and soft is the basis for the scherzo movement's humor. Witty, too, are the seasick chromatic swells in the low strings. The trio section pits bright, well-mannered woodwinds against unruly strings that melodramatically insist on a wrong key. But they are soon brought to heel and end decorously with the woodwinds.

The very fast finale is that "hideously writhing dragon that refuses to expire," probably because Beethoven appended here the first of his gloriously expanded codas. Rather than a dragon, the little two-note motive that launches the humorously gruff opening phrase — which Beethoven plays with throughout the movement — sounds like the tail-flicking of a very small lizard indeed. The extraordinary closing coda begins with a magical harmonic progression: a loud chord in the D-major home key moving unexpectedly to a hushed chord in B minor that seems to open vistas of a new world. And the whole coda looks to new worlds, which Beethoven explored more deeply in his next symphony, the mighty Eroica.