Richmond Symphony Orchestra the Grand Tour, March 16, 2019 NOTES on the MUSIC by Dr

Richmond Symphony Orchestra The Grand Tour, March 16, 2019 NOTES ON THE MUSIC by Dr. Robert M. Johnstone Prelude to Act I of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” Richard Wagner born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1813; died in Venice, Italy, in 1883 Premiere: Munich, June 21, 1868 Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; timpani, percussion, harp; strings Duration: 10 minutes The great Polish pianist and patriot Paderewski described Die Meistersinger as “the greatest work of genius ever achieved by any artist in any field of human endeavor.” A debatable point---even among the staunchest of Wagnerians---but it is nonetheless a work of genius. Wagner’s only “comic” opera, its creation was to occupy a span of twenty-two years, from its inception in 1845 to its completion on October 24, 1867. Meistersinger was conceived as a humorous companion to his early success, Tannhäuser, yet comic writing did not come easily to Wagner; or perhaps it was just that other, more profound ideas intervened---Lohengrin, the Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde---to push Meistersinger aside. He returned to it, in part, as a diversion from a sea of troubles, both musical and personal, that plagued him in the early 1860s. A story has it that one of his great loves, Mathilda Wesendonck, prompted him to return to Meistersinger in order to show his critics that he could smile in the teeth of adversity. He certainly seized the chance in his new opera to skewer some of his most implacable enemies, among them the critic Eduard Hanslick, who is deliciously dissected as the villainous rascal, “Beckmesser.” Meistersinger is not only Wagner’s sole comic opera, it is the only one to deal with ordinary historical figures. Wagner had become fascinated with the career of one Hans Sachs (1494-1576), a German poet-cobbler in the small German city of Nüremberg, noted for its architectural beauty and its many craft and art guilds. One such was a group of amateur folk minstrels known as the “master singers.” Wagner steeped himself in the culture and manners of this medieval age. By the winter of 1861 he had completed a libretto. Then his money ran out. He was forced to move from expensive (then as now) Paris to the Rhineland and finally to Switzerland where, thanks to the sudden largesse of the “Mad” King Ludwig II of Bavaria, he finished the opera. Die Meistersinger’s story centers around a song competition to be held at Nüremberg. The contestant with the “best” song will win the hand in marriage of Eva, the daughter of the goldsmith, a prize of inestimable worth. A passing knight, Walther von Stolzing, has fallen in love with Eva and seeks to enter the contest. Together the two confide their love to Hans Sachs who, although he too is in love with Eva, agrees to help them. Charmed by Walther’s song, Sachs writes it down, only to have it stolen by Beckmesser, the evil town clerk who is also a contestant. At the song competition, Beckmesser is made to look a fool as he attempts to pass the song off as his own. Walther wins the contest and Sachs hangs around his neck the collar of the guild of master singers. Eva weds Walther as the townspeople hail their “beloved Hans Sachs!” In the justly famous Prelude to Act I---arguably the most popular of all of Wagner’s orchestral music--- the composer weaves together a number of the themes from each setting in the opera, including the noble tune associated with the master singers, the “Banner” motif that represents the guild insignia of David strumming upon his harp, Walther’s “Prize Song,” and the music that evokes the romance between Eva and Walther. As Wagner put it, “the melodies of the master singers give rise to a love song---pedantry and poetry are reconciled.” The Richmond Symphony has performed this Prelude four times earlier: under Manfred Blum in 1960, 1969, and 1975, and under guest conductor Paul Gambill in 1997. 1 Dessin No. 1 Kathryn Salfelder born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1987 Premiere: Boston, October 31, 2009 Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; strings Duration: 9 minutes A native of New Jersey, Kathryn Salfelder has made her base in and around Boston. She earned bachelor’s and doctora; degrees in music from the New England Conservatory and, in between, a master’s from the Yale School of Music. Her teachers have included Michael Gandolfi, Aaron Jay Kernis, and David Lang. She presently teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An award-winning composer (among them the 2012 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award), she has been actively composing for over a decade, much of her music for chamber groups and wind ensembles. Her orchestral works include Lux Perpetua (2011) for soprano, saxophone, and orchestra, a Requiem for chorus, organ, and strings (2017) and Dessin No. 1 (2008). She seems to enjoy writing for unusual combinations of instruments; among her works are pieces for trombone quartet, saxophone quartet and, intriguingly, an arrangement of a Palestrina piece for 6 trumpets and 6 trombones. Dessin No. 1 was inspired by the novel, Le Petit Prince (“The Little Prince”) by Antoine de St. Exupéry, a popular children’s favorite. The music, writes Salfelder, “is the incarnation of the quote, ‘One only sees with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.’” The French word “dessin” means “drawing,” and the reference is to the opening chapter of The Little Prince, in which six-year old St. Exupéry draws his first piece of art: an elephant inside a snake. “Every adult,” writes Salfelder, “misinterprets it, dismissing it as only a hat. Only the prince, with his innocent creativity, intuition, and perception, is able to correctly identify the image, imagining it in his mind’s eye.” Dessin No. 1 was premiered by the New England Philharmonic in Boston. The composer writes that it “is a single unit, an organic whole, one extended phrase derived from the opening violin solo.” It bears a haunting quality, with long lines for solo woodwinds and brass, The central section features a three=note descending motif that appears in varied combinations of instruments. The music doesn’t so much conclude as it expires into silence. This is the first music of Kathryn Salfelder to be performed by the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. Three Dances from “The Bartered Bride” Bedrich Smetana born in Litomysl, Bohemia, in 1824; died in Prague in 1884 Premiere: Prague, May 30, 1866 Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones; timpani, percussion; strings Duration: 12 minutes In 1848 a series of revolutions broke out across Europe, mostly in search of more liberal and nationalistic governments. The young Czech composer, Bedrich Smetana, was 24 years old at the time. Swept up in the nationalist fervor of his native Bohemia, Smetana began to lace his music with references to the culture of his homeland. This enthusiasm was focused, as it often is, by time spent abroad, in his case in Sweden where he had found work as a conductor. Upon his return to Prague his nationalism was stoked by the opening of a Czech national theatre, for which he began to compose operas on Czech themes. The second of these was to prove his most popular, the comic opera, The Bartered Bride. A literal translation from the Czech offers the rather callous reading, “The Fiancée Who Was Sold,” but the opera’s early translation into German, as Die verkaufte Braut, led to its more euphonious English title. Some years later Smetana explained that the opera was composed not so much out of a yearning for a Czech nation state as from “a scornful defiance” of those who “accused me…of being a Wagnerite, one that could do nothing in a light and popular style.” This also implied, as one disdainfu critic put it, that Czechs were “simply reproductive artists” with no originality or inspiration for creativity. 2 One clear source of the opera’s popularity was its embrace of Bohemian peasant traditions, both in the story line (which is simple to the point of being simplistic) and also in its pointed use of Czech folk dances, especially in the interludes between scenes. Three of these have become staples of the concert hall, played together as “Three Dances.” The first is a staple of central European culture, a “polka,” that appears in Act I, scene 5. Said by legend to have been invented by a Bohemian serving maid, it was considered by Smetana to be the Czech “national” dance form. The second dance, from Act II, scene 1, is a “furiant” which, as the name would imply, is a fast-paced, frenetic peasant dance. The set concludes with “the Dance of the Comedians” from scene 2 of the Third Act. The RSO played the Three Dances from “The Bartered Bride” in 1976, with Manfred Blum conducting. A Somerset Rhapsody Gustav Holst born in Cheltenham, England, in 1874; died in London in 1934 Premiere: London, June 4, 1910 Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; timpani, percussion; strings Duration: 10 minutes Born in the market town of Cheltenham in the Cotswolds, the young Holst bore the name “Gustavus Theodor von Holst” before softening its Teutonic associations at the dawn of the Great War in 1914. A student of Sir Charles Stanford, his best friend was Ralph Vaughan Williams who stimulated in Holst a love of English folk music.

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