th SEASON PROGRAM NOTES 46 Week 3 July 29 – August 4, 2018 Sunday, July 29, 6 pm two violins. Elegant, graceful, and melodic, had simultaneous premieres in Hamburg and Monday, July 30, 6 pm they are at some moments very difficult (in Cologne on December 4, 1920, when the fact, Leclair’s violin music is in many places composer was all of 23, and in the 1920s JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR (1697 – 1764) so difficult that there is an old legend in Korngold was one of the most admired Sonata in E Minor for Two Violins, musical circles that his real murderer was composers in Europe. Op. 3, No. 5 (1730) a violinist who had become enraged by his And then his career took an unexpected inability to play Leclair’s music). turn. Invited to Hollywood to help score a Jean-Marie Leclair was one of those Writing for two unaccompanied violins film, Korngold found his Romantic idiom endlessly fascinating figures whose lives brings particular challenges for a composer, ideally suited to film music, and when stand apart from the generally quiet who must do without the harmonic Hitler came to power Korngold moved his accounts of composers’ careers. Born in resources of the keyboard. Leclair treats family to Hollywood, where he achieved his Lyon, France, to a family of musicians and the two violins as equals and as melodic greatest success with swashbuckling music lacemakers, Jean-Marie was one of the most instruments here, though occasionally he for Errol Flynn movies like Captain Blood, talented members of that impressive family. will have one supply a double-stopped Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. As soon as As a young man, he mastered the art of accompaniment as the other takes the the war was over, Korngold put films behind lacemaking and also became a dancer and a melodic line. The Sonata in E Minor is in him to return to “serious” music but could ballet master, but he found his true calling three movements, all of them in binary never escape his Hollywood reputation, as a violinist and composer. At age 26, he form. The opening Allegro ma poco is full particularly since he used themes from many moved to Paris and made his career there, of complex counterpoint (the violins are of his film scores in his classical works. The though he found time to make tours of Italy, often in close canon), and it bristles with most successful of these is the 1945 Violin Germany, England, and the Netherlands, energetic trills, swirls of triplets, and dense Concerto, championed by Jascha Heifetz. where his playing was much admired for chording. By contrast, the second movement Korngold composed his String Sextet the beauty of his sound and his impressive is all grace (Leclair’s marking is, in fact, between 1914 and 1916, and it was first technique. Leclair’s career in Paris remains, Andante grazioso). The first violin sings the performed in Vienna on May 2, 1917, a few to some extent, shrouded in mystery. He was, disarmingly lovely melodic line of this gentle weeks before his 20th birthday. The string for a time, in service to the royal family (the gavotte as the second violin provides steady sextet (two violins, two violas, and two king at this time was Louis XV), but while accompaniment. The last movement is cellos) is a challenging form for composers, he was said to have played “like an angel,” brilliant. Marked Presto, it goes like a rocket, who must balance six instruments of Leclair was also a difficult man—he had a with the violins racing along a breathless uneven strength, keep textures clear, treat quick temper and a sour disposition—and his rush of 16th-notes, sometimes in thirds, all six instruments as equals, and avoid career was marked by a number of disputes. sometimes taking the lead, and sometimes writing music that becomes “symphonic” If his life was spectacular, its end was accompanying each other. It makes a in its power. Korngold had great examples fully worthy of it: Leclair is one of the few satisfying conclusion to a very engaging before him, both by Viennese composers— composers to have been murdered. Late one piece of music. Brahms’s two sextets and Schoenberg’s evening, he stepped through the door of his —Eric Bromberger Verklärte Nacht—yet his Sextet in D Major home in what has been described as “a seedy does not sound at all like the work of those part of Paris” and was stabbed to death. The ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD earlier masters, and the teenaged composer murder was never solved, though Leclair’s (1897 – 1957) manages to speak in a voice all his own. estranged wife, nephew, and gardener were String Sextet in D Major, Op. 10 (1916) His Sextet is in a late-Romantic idiom. all suspects (modern musicologists favor Harmonies are chromatic to the point where the nephew). Few child composers have been as any sense of a home key is often obscured, Leclair composed chamber music, some precocious as Erich Wolfgang Korngold. His tempos are fluid, the meter sometimes ballet and stage works, and one opera, but cantata Gold, composed when he was 10, changes by the measure, and the writing can he is remembered today for his 49 sonatas amazed Mahler, who pronounced the boy be dramatic and virtuosic: only the very best for violin and keyboard. In addition to these a “genius.” Those impressed by his talents ensembles should consider attempting to accompanied sonatas, Leclair published a set included Richard Strauss and Puccini, who perform this music. of six sonatas for two unaccompanied violins said: “That boy’s talent is so great, he could The Sextet is a large-scale work in four in 1730, and these sonatas have remained easily give us half and still have enough left movements. Korngold builds the opening one of the cornerstones of the literature for for himself!” Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt movement on three separate theme-groups, Program notes for Music at Noon Concerts are sponsored by Barbara & Ronald Balser with thanks to the gifted Festival musicians who inspire us all. each at a different tempo, and the music This is an unusual composition, in many an entire movement on one theme was glides smoothly between these sharply ways representative of the increasingly nothing new–Haydn had written many such contrasted ideas. Moments of calm alternate rarefied musical language of Mozart’s final movements—but what makes this movement with dramatic episodes that feature thick years. Unlike his earlier viola quintets, the remarkable is the concentrated polyphonic chording and double-stroked notes: at Quintet in E-flat Major does not play groups writing. Mozart treats his amiable opening one moment the music can be subdued of different instruments off against each theme to some complex fugal development, (Korngold asks the players to bow out over other, nor does it exploit the characteristic and—pushed along by more brilliant writing the fingerboard here to dampen their sound) “middle” sonority of the viola quintet. Rather, for the first violin—his final piece of chamber and the next can erupt in full-throated this music is remarkable for the brilliance of music flies to its energetic close. climaxes. The first violin’s opening melody the first violin part in its outer movements, —Eric Bromberger dominates this movement and finally helps where that instrument sails above the other propel it to a near-symphonic close. four with a concerto-like virtuosity. And as The slow movement brings little relief. The we shall see, it incorporates some unusual cello’s jagged opening statement sets the formal features. unsettled mood, and its melodic line quickly The Allegro di molto opens with a passage moves among the various instruments. for the two violas that sounds exactly like Korngold writes long passages here where a pair of hunting horns. That effect was the meter changes from 3/4 to 4/4 to 5/4 by clearly intentional, and that fanfare returns the measure. The Intermezzo has proven the throughout the movement, giving the movement most immediately attractive to music a somewhat festive air and thrusting audiences. It has a distinctly Viennese flavor, it forward on the energy of its trills. These and while the basic meter is 6/8 rather than “horn calls” dominate the opening measures, 3/4, this music waltzes throughout. To be but quickly the first violin breaks free with a sure, this is an unusual waltz, with the violin series of runs, difficult string crossings, and singing a most angular waltz tune and writing high in the instrument’s register (at the whole ensemble participating in great one point Mozart sends the first violin up to swooping glissandos. a high D, almost at the upper extreme of its The finale is a lot of fun. Korngold fingerboard). At the end, the horn fanfare specifies that it should be “As fast as and its trills drive this movement to its possible” and also that it should be played energetic close. “With fire and humor.” It goes like a rocket, The real glory of this Quintet is the and as the Sextet nears its conclusion Andante. Its form is simple enough on Korngold recalls the first violin’s melody the surface—a theme with variations— from the beginning of the first movement. but what is unusual here is what Mozart Now that theme—gentle then but powerful does in the course of varying his opening now—helps propel the Sextet to its melody. That melody, sung initially by the emphatic conclusion.