National Festival Orchestra Brahms' Second Symphony
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
NATIONAL FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA BRAHMS’ SECOND SYMPHONY ROSSEN MILANOV, conductor SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015 . 8PM ELSIE & MARVIN DEKELBOUM CONCERT HALL PROGRAM Henri Dutilleux Métaboles Incantatoire — Linéaire — Obsessionnel — Torpide — Flamboyant — Richard Strauss Suite from Der Rosenkavalier - intermission - Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 Allegro non troppo Adagio non troppo Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino) Allegro con spirito 19 Métaboles Métaboles, by now the most Suite from Der Rosenkavalier HENRI DUTILLEUX frequently performed of Dutilleux’s RICHARD STRAUSS orchestral works, was commissioned Born January 22, 1916, Angers, France and introduced by another American Born June 11, 1864, Munich Died May 22, 2013, Paris orchestra, in this case the Cleveland Died September 8, 1949, Garmisch- Orchestra, on the occasion of its Partenkirchen Dutilleux composed Métaboles under fortieth anniversary. The anniversary a commission from the Cleveland season was 1957–58, but Dutilleux Strauss composed his opera Der Orchestra, which gave the premiere on did not complete his score until 1964, Rosenkavalier (“The Cavalier of January 14, 1965, with George Szell and, as already noted, the premiere the Rose”), to a libretto by Hugo von conducting. The work is scored for a was given in Severance Hall early the Hofmannsthal, in 1910; the premiere large orchestra: 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 3 following year. was given at the Dresden Court Opera oboes, English horn, 2 B-flat clarinets, The title Dutilleux chose for this on January 26, 1911, with Ernst von E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, work comes from classical rhetoric: Schuch conducting. The suite performed contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 it signifies “transition,” or “a passing this evening was put together by Artur trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, from one thing to another” — as the Rodzinski, who conducted its first celesta, harp and strings. In the battery, five contrasting moods reflected in performance in a concert of the New which requires five players in addition this music pass from one to another. York Philharmonic on October 5, 1944. to the timpanist, are xylophones, The composer advised, “This term The score for the suite, published in glockenspiel, triangle, cow-bell, 2 temple of rhetoric, adopted with regard to 1945, calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English blocks, snare drum, 3 tom-toms, bass musical forms, unveils the thought horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass drum, crash cymbals, suspended cymbal, of the author of these five pieces clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 Chinese cymbal and both medium and to present one or several ideas in a horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, large tam-tams. Duration, 16 minutes. different order or under different timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, aspects, until they undergo, by tambourine, glockenspiel, celesta, 2 harps Like his illustrious musical compatriots successive stages, a true change of and strings. Duration, 22 minutes. Maurice Ravel and Paul Dukas, nature. The process of métabole occurs Henri Dutilleux early on developed within each of the pieces, while The Bavarian Richard Strauss was the demanding self-criticism that applying at the same time to the work not related to Johann Strauss, the led him to work painstakingly and as a whole. … In conceiving this work Viennese Waltz King, but he admired unhurriedly in creating and refining the composer did not cease to muse him profoundly, and their careers each composition — and to reject or upon the mysterious and fascinating overlapped for a dozen years or so at discard several scores he never brought world of eternal metamorphosis.” the end of the 19th century. Johann to completion. He thus became While Dutilleux specified that Strauss was at the height of his fame known for producing about a dozen the “music is not dictated by any at the time the young Richard began major works in some six decades, literary programme,” he did affix to make a name for himself (Don Juan, each of them exemplifying his solid descriptive subtitles to the five pieces, the first of his great tone poems, was craftsmanship and rich imaginativeness. which are linked together, the main given its premiere in the same year as His music was championed in our theme undergoing (again in the Johann’s Emperor Waltz, 1889), and Der area by the famous cellist Mstislav composer’s own words) “successive Rosenkavalier would not have come Rostropovich, during his years as transformations, as in … the domain into being if its composer had not conductor of the National Symphony of variations.” The first piece known and loved the waltzes of the Orchestra. Slava, for whom Dutilleux INCANTATORY (Largamente), is in the Viennese Strausses. composed his cello concerto Tout nature of a rondo, with woodwinds There are some intriguing parallels, und monde lointain, commissioned the predominating. The second, LINEAR or near-parallels, to be noted in the orchestral Timbres, espace, movuement (Lento moderato), “represents the aspects careers of Richard Strauss and Johann for his first season as music director of a Lied … sovereignty of the strings, Strauss. Both turned to writing for the of the NSO, and that work actually with more and more numerous stage only after establishing themselves had three premieres in Washington: divisions of the string quartet.” The in the orchestral realm — Johann Rostropovich conducted the first of its third, OBSESSIVE (Scherzando), “follows after being crowned the Waltz King, three sections in January 1978; he gave strictly the pattern of a passacaglia,” Richard after producing his remarkable the premiere of the complete work the with the brass in the forefront. The chain of symphonic poems. Both were following November, and introduced fourth, TORPID (Andantino), features also conspicuously active as conductors. the revised version in September the “almost exclusive employment of Johann Strauss did not confine himself 1991. Dutilleux’s Correspondances, an the percussion, with added touches of exclusively to dance music in that role, orchestral song cycle with texts drawn brass, harp, celesta, clarinet and bass but conducted his orchestra in the from letters (one of them from the clarinet, and the double basses treated Viennese premieres of works by Liszt famous writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in harmonics.” The concluding section, and Wagner when the Establishment to Rostropovich himself and his wife, FLAMBOYANT (Presto), is a scherzo either lacked the courage to do the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya) was exhibiting “dialogues, opposition or so or reneged on a commitment. performed in Slava’s last appearances blending of these different groups.” Richard, too, went far beyond his with the NSO, in April 2006, with own compositions in his conducting Dawn Upshaw, the soprano who had repertory; he was especially admired introduced the work in Berlin three for his Mozart, in both the concert hall years earlier. and the opera house, and it is to that 20 composer, perhaps even more than the Such connections and allusions Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Waltz King, that Der Rosenkavalier is an more than intimate that Der Op. 73 affectionate tribute, with The Marriage Rosenkavalier was a labor of love on its of Figaro as the most likely model. It is composer’s part, and Strauss indeed JOHANNES BRAHMS significant that Strauss set his opera in had a special place in his heart for this Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg the city associated with both Mozart work to the end of his life. When a Died April 3, 1897, Vienna and the Johann Strauss dynasty, and group of American soldiers came to where he himself was to serve for a his door in Garmisch at the end of Brahms began work on his Second time as director of the Vienna Opera. the European war in 1945, he greeted Symphony in the summer of 1877 By a happy coincidence, the premiere, them with the simple statement, “I am and completed the score in time for the in Dresden, fell on the eve of Mozart’s Dr. Richard Strauss, the composer of illustrious conductor Hans Richter to 155th birthday. Der Rosenkavalier.” introduce the work with the Vienna Such a work, in any event, was There have been several orchestral Philharmonic Orchestra on December 30 just what Strauss needed to reassure suites drawn from Der Rosenkavalier. of that year. The orchestra specified in the his public in the wake of the minor One was prepared by Strauss himself, score comprises flutes, oboes, clarinets and scandals generated by his Salome based on a curious film version of bassoons in pairs; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, and the fierce drama of his Elektra. the opera, a silent film made in 1926 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings. The latter was his first collaboration and shown with recorded music. Duration, 40 minutes. with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the Another suite was created by the librettist who was to him the kind of brilliant conductor Antal Doráti After working off and on for some collaborator Lorenzo da Ponte had (Rostropovich’s predecessor on the 20 years to produce what eventually been to Mozart; Der Rosenkavalier was podium of the National Symphony became his First Symphony in 1876, their second joint effort, set not in Orchestra), whose own enthusiasm for Brahms was so heartened by the huge bleak antiquity but in the Vienna of the Viennese Strausses is documented success of that work that he was able Maria Theresia, the empress who died in the form of his score for the ballet to compose his Second swiftly and in 1780, a year before Mozart settled Graduation Ball, based entirely on their almost effortlessly in the following year. there. The chief character is not the dance pieces. The very successful suite Where the First had been laboriously title role but the Marschallin, who is performed in the present concerts hewn from granite, the Second seemed herself named Marie-Thérèse, and who was arranged by another celebrated to bloom as spontaneously as a spring in some respects may remind us of the conductor, Artur Rodzinski, whose blossom in a forest glade.