Dec. 10-11, 2016, page 1 Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda Blumine (“Little Flowers”), Symphonic Movement Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Suite from the Incidental Music to Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 Composed in 1884. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Premiered in Budapest on November 20, 1889, conducted by the com- poser. Composed in 1898. Premiered June 21, 1898 in London, conducted by the composer. When Mahler conducted the early performances of his Symphony No. 1, in Budapest, Hamburg, Weimar and Berlin between 1889 and 1896, the work Gabriel Fauré was one of the great figures of French music at the turn of the was fitted with both a descriptive literary program and a fifth movement. twentieth century. A student of Saint-Saëns, a master organist, the teacher The program, derived principally from the novel Titan by Jean Paul, one of Ravel, Enesco, Koechlin and Nadia Boulanger, director of the Paris of Mahler’s favorite writers, divided the work’s five movements into two Conservatoire, and a composer of immense skill and refinement, Fauré was parts: Part I (“From the Days of Youth”): Spring and No End, Blumine best suited to composing in the small forms of song and chamber music. (“Little Flowers”), Under Full Sail; Part II (“Commedia Humana”): The Among the most successful of his handful of works for orchestra is the Hunter’s Funeral Procession, From the Inferno to Paradise. The program, beautiful suite he drew from his incidental music to Maeterlinck’s symbolist which Mahler fleshed out with details about “the awakening of nature ... play Pelléas et Mélisande, which he created for a production of the drama animals of the forest escorting the coffin of the dead hunter ... a deeply at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London in 1898. (Fauré generally disliked wounded heart” and so forth, was criticized as confused and unintelligible, writing for large ensembles, and often entrusted his most talented students a view with which he sufficiently agreed to first condense it, then delete it, with the orchestration of his pieces. Charles Koechlin was assigned the and finally instruct that it not be associated with the music at all, though original theatrical version of Pelléas; Fauré based his 1901 suite upon the the name “Titan” is still often attached to the Symphony. A similar process orchestration of his pupil.) of excision led to the eventual deletion of the work’s added movement, Blumine (whose title apparently refers to Jean Paul’s essay Herbst Blumine This haunting and haunted drama, which premiered in Paris in 1893, em- — “Little Autumn Flowers”), which Mahler seems to have considered too bodied the Symbolists’ philosophy that mood is more important than plot. sentimental for its symphonic context. Such dramatic incidents as occur often defy logical continuity, seeming rather to be isolated events intended to suggest associations and feelings Blumine originated as one of seven pieces of incidental music that Mahler to the audience through the use of language and setting. Robert Layton wrote for a dramatization of Joseph Viktor von Scheffel’s popular narra- summarized the drama’s plot: “Pelléas is set in mythical Allemonde, the tive poem Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (“The Trumpeter of Sachingen”) protagonists in the drama remain shadowy and we are left knowing little in June 1884 at the Court Theater in Kassel, where he was then assistant or nothing of their background. Prince Golaud out riding one day discovers conductor. Blumine, the only item from the incidental music that Mahler Mélisande, weeping and lost in the forest, and takes her under his protec- saved, accompanied the scene in which the trumpeter Werner plays a tion. Maeterlinck’s play charts her growing infatuation for his younger serenade “in the moonlit night to the castle across the Rhine where [his half-brother, Pelléas, and Golaud’s ensuing jealousy.” The play inspired beloved] Margareta lives,” hence the prominence given to the solo trumpet incidental music from Jean Sibelius for a 1905 production in Helsinki (in throughout the piece. Finnish!), a concert overture from Cyril Scott in 1912, and a vast symphonic poem from Arnold Schoenberg in 1903. It also proved to be the perfect Concert pour petit orchestre, Op. 34 subject for the wispy, Impressionistic idiom of Debussy, and was equally Albert Roussel (1869-1937) well suited to the art of Fauré, whose incidental music preceded Debussy’s opera by four years. Composed in 1926-1927. Premiered on May 5, 1927 at the Concerts Straram in Paris, conducted Fauré’s musical style, though looking forward in some of its techniques by Walther Straram. to Impressionism, is more refined, classical and understated than that of Debussy, concerning itself with purity of line and precise formal balance Albert Roussel, a leading figure in French music during the years between rather than with mood-painting through unconventional harmonies and the two world wars, was orphaned at an early age and raised first by his indistinct structures. Julien Teirsot described the elegant essence of Fauré’s grandfather, the mayor of his native town of Tourcoing, at the Belgian music in these words: “It is the spirit of Hellenism that is reborn in him.... border thirty miles from the North Sea, and later by a maternal aunt. He thrusts himself beyond the spheres to bring back pure beauty.” Such Though he showed musical promise as a boy, Roussel decided upon a terms as “taste,” “unerring judgment,” “delicacy,” “impeccable workman- naval career, and he was admitted to the École Navale as a cadet in 1887. ship” and “sensibility” attach themselves easily and appropriately to the The duty and travels of military life did nothing to diminish his interest in music of Fauré, and they certainly apply to this lovely Suite from Pelléas et music, however, and in 1894, he resigned his naval commission to devote Mélisande. The Prélude was intended to be played before the curtain rises himself to the study of composition. After several years of private tuition on Pelléas to evoke the play’s aura of melancholy and mystery. There is a and some tentative creative undertakings, he enrolled in 1898 in Vincent meditative quality about this music, a deep stillness that rises only briefly to d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum, recently formed as a rival to the venerable Paris peaks of tension before again subsiding. The horn-calls near the end invest Conservatoire, to begin an imposing ten-year curriculum that he saw to the music with a suggestion of the antique, sylvan setting of the drama. The completion. Roussel was appointed to teach the counterpoint class at the second movement (Fileuse) depicts Mélisande at her spinning wheel. The Schola beginning in 1902, and he remained in that post for the next dozen whirring of the wheel is portrayed by the steady rhythmic filigree in the years; Eric Satie and Edgar Varèse were among his pupils. By the time he strings, which serves as background for the heroine’s plaintive song, intoned finally completed his studies at the Schola, in 1908, Roussel had already by the oboe. The third movement, Sicilienne, is one of Fauré’s most famous written several large works, including his First Symphony. inspirations, though it was not originally composed for the incidental music for the play. Pressed for time during his preparations for the opening night In 1909, Roussel went on an extended tour of India and Southeast Asia. His of the London Pelléas, the composer borrowed this work from a chamber music was deeply affected by that exotic experience, and two of the works piece first written for cello and piano. In the London production, its qual- that first brought him wide attention (the orchestral suite Evocations and ity of bittersweet nostalgia was used to underline the touching love scene the opéra-ballet Padmâvatî) were based on Hindu legends and employed between Pelléas and Mélisande. The finale, The Death of Mélisande, is a Indian musical motifs. With the outbreak of World War I, Roussel sought mournful elegy of quiet intensity. re-admission to the armed forces, and after a period as an ambulance driver he was taken into the artillery corps. Following the war, he lived on the coast in Brittany and later in Normandy, where, despite persistent health Dec. 10-11, 2016, page 2 problems, he produced a succession of major scores. His eminent position in wrote to his brother Modeste from his sister’s country home in Kamenka French cultural life was recognized by a week-long festival of his music in on October 22, 1879. “I experienced a certain vague dissatisfaction with Paris in 1929 to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. He visited the United States myself, an over-frequent and almost irresistible desire to sleep, a certain the following year for the premiere of his Third Symphony, commissioned emptiness and ultimately boredom.... Finally yesterday it became fully for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Roussel’s apparent to me what was the matter. I had to get on with something: I find life-long interest in music education was reflected in the composition that myself absolutely incapable of living long without work. Today I began to he left unfinished at his death, in 1937: a large theatrical piece involving create something, and the boredom vanished as if by magic. I have begun to workers’ choral groups. compose a piano concerto. I will work without hurrying, straining or tiring myself in any way.” Though he admitted to working on the new piece only Roussel’s earliest compositions reflect the academic style and cyclical forms in the mornings, devoting the rest of the day to reading and long walks, he advocated by d’Indy and the Schola Cantorum. His later works, from the finished the sketch of the large first movement by November 1st. years immediately before World War I, including the ballet The Spider’s Feast, show the influence of the Impressionists, especially Ravel, in mat- On November 5th, Tchaikovsky went to Moscow to transact some busi- ters of scoring, harmony and melodic construction. The Hindu-inspired ness with his publisher, and there heard Nikolai Rubinstein give a splendid pieces and those that followed the pre-war compositions are marked by performance of his (Tchaikovsky’s) Piano Sonata, which Rubinstein had visceral energy, a more dissonant harmonic palette and an angular rhythmic premiered only a week before. Despite Rubinstein’s scathing criticism of the structure. By 1926, Roussel had created a unique idiom that shared several First Piano Concerto five years earlier (of which he had by 1879 recanted techniques with the neoclassicism of Stravinsky and others, but which to the point of taking the work into his repertory), Tchaikovsky decided was distinctly his own. French musicologist Harry Halbreich summarized to dedicate the score of the new Concerto to him. Following a brief stop the most important characteristics of Roussel’s mature style: “Long and in St. Petersburg, he arrived in Paris on November 25th and immediately winding melodic curves, harsh but refined and often polytonal harmony, a resumed work on the piece. The finale was finished first, then theAndante , rhythmic drive of enormous energy, and finally a richly colored and bril- and on December 15th he wrote to Mme von Meck, “My Concerto is ready liant orchestral writing, with those purple and golden brasses that are quite in the rough, and I am very pleased with it.” He moved on to Rome soon unmatched by any other composer.” thereafter, where he made a transcription of the work for two pianos before undertaking the orchestration in February. Back in St. Petersburg in March, Roussel composed his Concert pour petit orchestre between October 1926 with the Concerto nearing completion, he wrote to his publisher, Jurgenson, and February 1927 for the concert series founded by London-born Walther “I tremble at the thought of the criticisms I may hear from Nikolai Rubin- Straram, who had carved out a significant career as a conductor at the stein, to whom this Concerto is dedicated. Still, even if once more he does Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique before founding his own orchestra criticize yet nevertheless goes on to perform it brilliantly as with the First in 1925 to perform the contemporary pieces that were largely ignored by Concerto, I won’t mind.” the tradition-laden Orchestre de la Sociéte des Concerts du Conservatoire. (The Concert pour petit orchestre is not a “concerto” in the usual sense but As soon as the orchestration was completed, on May 10th, he sent a copy of a piece for integrated chamber orchestra. The title probably derives from the Concerto to Rubinstein, asking for his comments. Rubinstein responded the French Baroque practice of Couperin and Rameau, who called certain that he thought the solo part was somewhat episodic and probably over- of their large chamber pieces “concerts,” in the sense of accord among whelmed by the orchestra in certain dialogue passages, but Tchaikovsky the instruments. English, Italian and French all use the word “concerto” decided to wait for a performance before making changes. Jurgenson issued for works for soloist and orchestra.) After Straram premiered the Concert Tchaikovsky’s two-piano transcription in October and the orchestral score on May 5, 1927, Roussel’s student Paul Le Flem described it as “one of and parts in February 1881 in anticipation of the premiere, but on March the most original of Roussel’s works in which he succeeds in combining 23rd Tchaikovsky suffered a bitter loss when Rubinstein died in Paris. The lightness of timbre with density of line.” The opening Allegro trots along performance was postponed, the solo part entrusted to Sergei Taneyev, with a carefree boulevardier insouciance, cycling through several perky Tchaikovsky’s favorite pupil, and the work was not heard in Moscow until melodic ideas without choosing a favorite before coming to a hesitant, heard the first concert of the Industrial and Cultural Exhibition on May 18, quizzical halt. The Andante considers more serious matters, with mysteri- 1882; Anton Rubinstein, Nikolai’s brother, conducted. The delay allowed ous, intertwining lines winding through flutes, bassoons and violins that are the world premiere of the Second Concerto to take place in New York City, ornamented with delicate arabesques from flute and oboe in the movement’s where the Philharmonic Society played it under the direction of Theodore central passage. The finale is a playful mélange of two thematic types — Thomas on November 12, 1881 with Madeleine Schiller as soloist. (Re- one rambunctious, picaresque and bracingly harmonized; the other lyrical, markably, the First Piano Concerto was also premiered in this country, by sunny and almost a waltz. Hans von Bülow in Boston on October 25, 1875.) Tchaikovsky had some misgivings about the work, especially concerning the length of the first two movements, and he authorized three short cuts for a performance in 1888. Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. 44 Both Taneyev and Alexander Siloti, a distinguished pianist and conductor Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) and another former student of Tchaikovsky, advocated more radical revi- sions, which the composer rejected, though this did not stop Jurgenson Composed in 1879-1880. from reissuing the score in 1897, four years after Tchaikovsky’s death, in Premiered on November 12, 1881 in New York, conducted by Theodore Siloti’s edition. The Concerto today, however, is usually performed in the Thomas with Madeleine Schiller as soloist. composer’s original complete version.

During the last decade of his long life, Richard Strauss kept in composi- The Concerto’s opening movement is a vast sonata structure on three sub- tional practice by undertaking what he called “wrist exercises,” an activity jects: a martial first theme, a lyrical contrasting melody initiated by clarinet that produced such delightful works as the Second Horn Concerto, Duet- and horn, and a melancholy strain comprising short orchestral fragments Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon and Oboe Concerto. Following his heavily decorated by the piano. The movement contains two solo cadenzas, first retirement from opera, afterAida , Giuseppe Verdi insisted on writing both placed, most unusually, in the development section. The second one, a few measures every morning, counterpoint exercises mostly, to keep his as in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, also serves as the bridge to the reca- musical thoughts flowing, and ended up in 1873 composing his only String pitulation. The Andante is a large three-part form (A–B–A) which, with its Quartet. Tchaikovsky, too, during a lull in his creative schedule in 1879 prominent solos for violin and cello, is a virtual triple concerto. The finale following the completion of the Fourth Symphony and the Violin Concerto, is a rousing virtuoso display piece disposed in a loose sonata structure. found the need to compose without external cause. “These last few days ©2016 Dr. Richard E. Rodda I’ve begun to observe in myself things that at first I didn’t understand,” he The IRIS Orchestra 2016-2017 Season

December 10-11, 2016

Michael Stern, Conductor Yefim Bronfman, Piano

FAURÉ Suite from the Incidental Music to Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 Prélude: Quasi adagio Fileuse: Andantino quasi Allegretto Sicilienne de Pelléas et Mélisande: Allegretto molto moderato Mort de Mélisande: Molto adagio

MAHLER Blumine, Symphonic Movement

ROUSSEL Concert pour petit orchestre, Op. 34 Allegro Andante Presto

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TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. 44 Allegro brilliante Andante non troppo Allegro con fuoco