Charles Dutoit Conductor Gil Shaham Violin Britten the Young Person's
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Program ONe huNdred TweNTy-SeCONd SeASON Chicago Symphony orchestra riccardo muti music director Pierre Boulez helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, November 8, 2012, at 8:00 Friday, November 9, 2012, at 1:30 Saturday, November 10, 2012, at 8:00 Sunday, November 11, 2012, at 3:00 Charles Dutoit Conductor gil Shaham Violin Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 Walton Violin Concerto Andante tranquillo Presto capriccioso alla napolitana Vivace Gil ShAhAm IntermISSIon Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 Poco sostenuto—vivace Allegretto Presto Allegro con brio These violin concerto performances have been enabled by the Paul Ricker Judy Fund. Thursday’s performance honors the memory of Elizabeth Hoffman. Saturday’s concert is sponsored by ITW. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommentsCommentS by PhilliDanielP J hAFFuscheré PhilliP huSCher Benjamin Britten Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, England. Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, England. The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on a theme of Henry Purcell, op. 34 y the time he composed The late in 1944 to compose a score BYoung Person’s Guide to the for an educational film: involving Orchestra in 1946, Benjamin Britten the popular English conductor was the internationally renowned Malcolm Sargent and the London composer of the opera Peter Grimes. Symphony Orchestra, this was Yet the commission to compose this to introduce schoolchildren to now popular concert-hall work did the instruments of a symphony not follow the phenomenal success orchestra, to be distributed by the of that landmark opera, but had in Ministry of Education. fact come even before rehearsals for Britten took a long time to Peter Grimes had started. This came get started; there was Grimes to from a former colleague of Britten’s, complete, followed by increas- Basil Wright, the film director who ingly fraught rehearsals, and then in the 1930s had introduced Britten the unexpected and phenomenal to the poet W.H. Auden, resulting success of that opera which placed in their collaborating on several increasing demands on his time. films including Night Mail. Now Even so, there was much plan- producer-in-charge at the Crown ning from early in 1945 over the Film Unit, Wright approached structure of what was then simply the thirty-one-year-old Britten The Instruments of the Orchestra. ComPoSeD moSt reCent CSo InStrumentatIon 1945 PerFormanCeS two flutes and piccolo, two december 10, 1978, oboes, two clarinets, two FIrSt PerFormanCe Orchestra hall. Sir Georg bassoons, four horns, two October 15, 1946; liverpool, Solti conducting trumpets, three trombones england and tuba, timpani, bass July 28, 1988, drum, cymbals, tambourine, ravinia Festival. yuri FIrSt CSo triangle, snare drum, wood Temirkanov conducting PerFormanCeS block, xylophone, castanets, July 13, 1956, tam-tam, whip, harp, strings aPProxImate ravinia Festival. igor PerFormanCe tIme markevitch conducting CSo reCorDIng 17 minutes 1967. Seiji Ozawa January 7, 1960, conducting. rCA Orchestra hall. igor markevitch conducting 2 A typescript scenario dated chief literary collaborator by 1946). February 24, 1945, already includes Britten finally began composing the what was to prove the score’s mas- work late in 1945, finishing on New terstroke: after the presentation of Year’s Eve and triumphantly phon- all the instruments of the orchestra ing Basil Wright at midnight with according to their families— New Year’s wishes and to announce woodwind and brass, percussion, its completion. The next morning, and strings—there was to be a Britten played the work to Wright, “fugue-form bringing in all the and as Slater reported, “Basil was instruments of the orchestra section very excited about the music.” by section until the whole orchestra Indeed, there is a charming report is playing the grand climax.” that during the recording sessions, On January 22, 1946, following held at Watford Town Hall in a meeting with Malcolm Sargent London, Britten himself, according at the Ministry of Information, to the sound engineer, “was sort of Britten drafted in his pocket diary jumping about and laughing with a more detailed synopsis and the pleasure at hearing what he’d done.” beginning of a spoken commentary, The Young Person’s Guide begins which suggests that he himself by presenting the entire orchestra was originally to be the author of playing a theme by the seventeenth- this as well as the music. However, century English composer Henry possibly because he was too busy to Purcell (the Rondeau from meet a deadline, the commentary Abdelazar), followed by the theme was finally written by the poet being played by each “family” of Montagu Slater, who had also been the orchestra in turn: woodwinds, the librettist of Peter Grimes. (For followed by brass, then strings, the work’s final concert version, and then percussion before a final Slater’s commentary as used in the restatement of the theme by the film was largely replaced by one full orchestra. Then follows varia- written by Eric Crozier, Britten’s tions on the theme by individual an outlIne For tHe Young PerSon’S guIDe to tHe orCHeStra Theme A (full orchestra): Variation D (bassoon): Variation J (horns): Allegro maestoso e Allegro alla marcia l’istesso tempo largamente Variation E (violins): Variation K (trumpets): Theme B (woodwind) brillante—alla polacca Vivace Theme C (brass) Variation F (violas): Variation L (trombones Theme D (strings) meno mosso and bass tuba): Theme E (percussion) Variation G (cellos) Allegro pomposo Theme F (full orchestra) Variation H (double basses): Variation M (percussion): Variation A (flute and Comminciando lento moderato piccolo): Presto ma poco a poco accel. Fugue Variation B (oboe): lento al allegro Variation C (clarinet): Variation I (harp): maestoso moderato 3 instruments of the orchestra, start- In teasing contrast comes the harp, ing with members of the woodwind effortlessly light and ornate even in family beginning with flutes and processional style. piccolo, and working down through The brass family is introduced by each family of the orchestra the horns, their fanfares dream- (though, curiously, the families like and seeming to call for blissful appear in a slightly different order slumber rather than action. Not from that in which they appeared so the brilliant trumpet variation, when presenting the theme). driven by galloping side drum Twittering flutes and piccolo are and apparently heralding the followed by a soulful pair of oboes. variation featuring far grander Then a pair of clarinets alternates trombones accompanied by the with an arabesque figure, each leap- portly sounding bass tuba. The final ing higher than the other—rather variation is effectively a parade for like a playful pair of dolphins— the percussion department: starting until one of them triumphantly with timpani, followed by bass reaches a proudly held top E-flat drum and cymbals; then tambou- before tumbling back down to its rine and triangle (given a magical lowest tessitura. Then come the glitter by violin harmonics); a sharp gruff bassoons, clearly of a (retired?) attack by side drum and wood military type strutting to a stiff block; a touch of mock danse maca- march rhythm accompanied by side bre from xylophone; then castanets drum; one of them briefly turns to and gong; a threatening whip; then sentimental reminiscence before a reprise by the preceding seven reverting to characteristic bluster. percussion instruments. By contrast, the violins are given Then, the work’s crowning a dashingly energetic and carefree moment, the final fugue in which variation, most charmingly in its the orchestra is reassembled section central section as the two groups of by section starting from the piccolo. violins (a characteristic division in a The actor David Hemmings, who symphony orchestra), as if airborne, as a child had premiered the role of seem to swoop and climb high in Miles in Britten’s opera The Turn of the treble stave, calling and reply- the Screw, could not contain himself ing to one another. They are fol- during an interview near the end of lowed by the more earthbound and his life, and began to sing and hum reflective violas, and then the cellos, through the fugue; on reaching the who elaborate on their predecessors’ climax when the brass enter playing thoughtful vein in a manner close Purcell’s original theme in coun- to that of Britten’s eerie Rimbaud terpoint with Britten’s fugue—like setting “Being Beauteous.” This a great ship plowing through a bil- poetic atmosphere is dissipated lowing sea—Hemmings cried out: by the entry of the double basses, “That’s the champagne moment!”— whose galumphing character is an opinion we can readily share. only the more accentuated by their would-be light-footed balleticism. —Daniel Jaffé 4 William Walton Born March 29, 1902, Oldham, England Died March 8, 1983, Ischia, Italy. Violin Concerto t was partly thanks to the English Wishing to commission a concerto Ijazz musician Spike Hughes that for himself, Heifetz subsequently Walton’s Violin Concerto came asked Spike Hughes to arrange a into existence. Hughes and Walton meeting. Walton and Heifetz duly first met at a concert in the late met in 1936 at the Berkeley Hotel 1920s, Hughes being in the habit of in London, where, over a lunch following a score by the light of an of smoked salmon and tournedos, exit sign: Walton, seeing Hughes they agreed Walton would compose with his score, asked to share a concerto for Heifetz’s exclusive during a performance of Elgar’s use for two years. Walton had been Second Symphony. The occasion of hesitant, but the commissioning fee that meeting seems highly sym- of $1,500 and the prestige of writ- bolic, as the melancholy wistfulness ing a concerto for Heifetz proved of Elgar’s music and the rhythmic too strong a pull.