PROGRAM NOTES by Daniel Maki Suite
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PROGRAM NOTES by Daniel Maki Suite No. 1 from Ancient Airs and Dances, P.109 by Ottorino Respighi (1879 -1936) The beginning of the twentieth century was a period marked by furious experiment as composers looked for new directions that would take them away from what had come before, namely nineteenth century Romanticism. One of the most important developments came near the end of the First World War as a number of composers began to explore pre-romantic music. These were styles which featured an emotionally restrained approach that offered a refreshing change from the melodramatic and sometimes bombastic style played by the gigantic ensembles of the late Romantic era. Sometimes called the “Back to Bach” movement when it alluded to baroque style, this style became more or less officially known by the vague term neo-classicism. Neo-classicism would eventually come to refer to a style that was unmistakably modern but influenced by various characteristics of baroque music such as the use of small performing groups and an increased use of counterpoint. Another aspect of the movement, though, was the borrowing of actual old music and then arranging it in modern style. One of the early examples of this old -wine-in-new- bottles approach were the three suites of Ancient Airs and Dances by Ottorino Respighi, the first of which, heard today, was written in 1917. Respighi was something that not all composers are, namely a trained musicologist with an extensive knowledge of baroque and pre-baroque music. In this case, Respighi borrowed lute music of the Italian Renaissance period that had been collected by a fellow musicologist and early music performer named Oscar Chilesotti. These “handshakes across the centuries”, as they have been called, offered various possibilities. A few years after Respighi had written his first suite, Igor Stravinsky, for example, produced his ballet Pulcinella, which borrowed baroque period melodies but made substantial changes in rhythms and harmonies. Respighi, on the other hand, remains closer to the originals, using primarily his remarkable skill at orchestration to bring 16th century lute music into a different context. Incidentally, Respighi acquired some of his knowledge of orchestration from one of the greatest masters of the art, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who wrote a well known text-book on the subject and served as Respighi’s teacher for a brief period while he was living in St. Petersburg and playing the viola in the Russian Imperial Theater. Respighi’s orchestrations are best known to the public through his large, colorful works such as Pines of Rome, but here he creates an intimate, chamber-music like atmosphere. The opening movement, entitled Balletto detto Il Conte Orlando, is based on a work dating from1599 by the Italian composer Simone Molinaro. The movement begins with full orchestra in a major key and then moves to a contrasting section in minor announced by the oboe. A brief return of the opening material closes the movement. The second movement, entitled Gagliarda, is a reworking of a piece written in the 1550’s by Vincenzo Galilei, father of the famous astronomer and an important musical figure of the time in his own right. The galliard, as it is spelled in English, was a popular dance of the renaissance and early baroque periods. This movement opens with full orchestra and then moves to a contrasting middle section featuring smaller groups of instruments. The drone bass in this section emphasizes the folk-like character of the dance, after which we hear a reprise of the opening portion. The third movement, Villanella, is based on a renaissance period lute piece by an anonymous composer. This poignant slow movement begins with a beautifully expressive oboe solo playing plaintively against pizzicato strings. A contrasting middle section is somewhat faster and then the opening portion returns, this time featuring a cello solo. The finale, Passo mezzo e mascherada, is also based on anonymous sources. The passo mezzo was a lively Italian folk dance while the mascherada was music intended for use at masquerade balls. A single trumpet is added here for the first time, helping to bring the work to a festive conclusion. * * * Concerto No.23 in A major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 488 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 -1791) The most famous kick-in-the-pants in music history occurred on June 6, 1781, when Count Arco, Master of the Kitchen of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo, Mozart’s detested employer in his hometown of Salzburg, quite literally booted the 25 year-old composer out the door. When he picked himself up and dusted himself off, Mozart became what he would remain for the rest of his tragically short life, a free-lance musician, a status that was then , as it is today, frequently precarious. After that rude dismissal Mozart set up residence in Vienna, where he would spend his remaining ten years. In Vienna he would earn a substantial part of his income as a performer and as one of the finest players of his time on that still relatively new-fangled instrument known then as the fortepiano, it was natural that he would turn to the genre of the piano concerto. If it is not true that Mozart invented the piano concerto it might be said that he almost invented it. His great predecessor J.S. Bach had invented the harpsichord concerto and left behind impressive examples. Subsequent composers had written piano concertos, but Mozart was the first composer to raise the genre to the highest artistic level, utilizing the full potential of this new instrument. He wrote his first piano concerto at the age of 11 and followed with others throughout early years but it is the 17 magnificent concertos written in those ten years in Vienna that have generally been considered to be Mozart’s highest achievement in instrumental music. They set a very high bar indeed and became an inspirational model for generations of composers. The Concerto No. 23 was, like so many of Mozart’s works, written under pressure of time. He entered it as finished in his catalogue on March 2, 1786, just two months before the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro. It is presumed that he played it himself and possibly two other new piano concertos on a series of Lenten subscription concerts, a practice that Mozart started and which became a Viennese tradition. Despite its creation under such hectic conditions, this A major concerto stands as a model of serene perfection which has long made it one of the most beloved of Mozart’s concertos. Keys had their own special significance for Mozart. A major seemed to be his cheerfully serene key, perhaps, as has been suggested, because it exploits the open A string of the string section. This particular concerto also has a feeling of chamber music with a mellow sounding orchestration that omits the brilliantly festive sound of trumpets and drums, substituting horns instead, as well as substituting clarinets for the more usual oboes. The concerto begins not with great fanfare but with a gentle opening theme played by the orchestra. This is the usual so-called double exposition, in which the orchestra first presents the main themes alone (usually two, the textbooks tell us) and then the soloist follows. At the end of the exposition ,however, Mozart gives us a surprise as he presents an entirely new theme, first in the orchestra and then in ornamented form in the piano. This theme acts both as the end of the exposition but also the beginning of the development where it serves as the basis for the entire section. It also reappears shortly before the cadenza .This movement, incidentally, is one of a number for which we have Mozart’s own cadenza written out. The slow movement occupies a special place in Mozart’s output. To begin with, it is, Mozart scholars tell us, the only movement that he ever wrote in the key of F# minor. Rather than the more usual andante tempo marking it is a slower adagio set in the lilting 6/8 rhythm of the siciliana, a style vaguely connected historically with Sicily which came to have pastoral associations, frequently suggesting melancholy emotion. Melancholy is an understatement for this movement which is one of the most poignant and anguished moments in all of Mozart. The movement has much of the character of an aria sung by a tragic operatic heroine, and features wide leaps of the sort virtuoso singers were given in opera. The movement also illustrates, as did the opening movement, one of Mozart’s important innovations, namely the expanded use of woodwinds in his concertos. Here the flute, clarinet, and bassoon are important participants in the drama. The mood changes suddenly in the ebullient finale, technically a sonata-rondo, combining elements of both those forms. The piano writing is the most virtuosic of the concerto and once again the wind section plays an important role. Mozart undoubtedly had tunes from Figaro running through his head at the time, and this movement has much of the delightful lightness and sparkle of that masterpiece. * * * Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The summer of 1788 was a grim one for Mozart, marked by financial problems and the death of his six year old daughter Theresia. In spite of these concerns, in the amazingly short period of two months he wrote, among other works, three symphonies which were to be his last and, by general consent, his greatest efforts in the genre. Despite the popular notion that artists simply pour the emotions of the moment into their work, this trio of masterpieces are by no means uniformly indicative of what might well have been a dark emotional state.