University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra Program Notes

UGA Symphony Orchestra University of Georgia Program Notes Symphony Orchestra By Steven Ledbetter Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite of Thursday incidental music to Maeterlinck’s tragedy, Op. 80 March 8 2018 8:00 p.m. Fauré composed incidental music for an English production of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande between May 16 and June 5, conductor Mark Cedel 1898; this was premiered at the Prince of assistant conductor Jean Gómez Wales Theatre, London, on June 21, 1898, with Fauré conducting. Three movements, the Prélude, Fileuse, and the Molto Adagio, every year from 1892 to 1900 in the British PROGRAM were published in 1901, with a dedication capital. Thus it was that when he met the to the Princesse Edmond de Polignac, as the famous actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, at Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite Op. 80 Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80. the home of a mutual friend, Frank Schus- Prélude He added the Sicilienne for a new edition ter, in 1898, she commissioned him to write Entr’acte in 1909; it had been composed in 1895 as incidental music for a production she was a work for cello and piano and was orches- planning of Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbol- Fileuse trated in 1898 for the incidental music. The ist drama Pelléas et Mélisande at the Prince La mort de Mélisande three movement Suite received its first per- of Wales Theatre. formance on February 3, 1902 at a Lamou- There had been only one performance of the Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony No. 8, Op. 93, F Major reux Concert in Paris under the direction of Camille Chevillard; André Messager play in its original French, on May 17, 1893, Allegro vivace e conbrio conducted the premiere of the four move- and it had resulted in general incomprehen- Allegretto scherzando ment Suite on December 1, 1912. The Suite sion. Claude Debussy was in the audience, Tempo di minuetto is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clari- though, and he began at once to work on an Allegro vivace nets, and bassoons, four horns, two trum- opera, which was not to be performed un- pets, timpani, harp, and strings. Approxi- til 1902. Several other composers have been mate performance time is eighteen minutes. attracted to Pelléas – Schoenberg and Cyril INTERMISSION Scott for orchestral tone poems, Sibelius for Fauré was a long time coming into his own incidental music – but Fauré is the only one as a composer who could draw an audience. not to have written his score in the shadow Béla Bártok Concerto for Orchestra Even in his fifties, though he was highly of Debussy’s great opera, and, ironically, he regarded by cognoscenti as a creator and wrote it for a production not in the original Introduzione (Andante non troppo – Allegro vivace) teacher, he was in no sense a “popular” com- French but in an English translation. Giuoco delle coppie (Allegro scherzando) poser. Much of his music gained a hearing Elegia (Andante, non troppo) only in the salons of cultivated aristocrats Fauré was notoriously uninterested in the like the Princess Edmonde de Polignac, process of orchestration. Preferring to de- Intermezzo interrotto (Allegretto) whose activities as a patron of advanced vote his attention to the creation of the Finale (Presto) composers lasted for decades. (Stravinsky abstract musical concepts, he left the scor- dedicated works to her in the ‘20s.) Fauré ing to his student Charles Koechlin, who also had a group of devoted English friends scored the seventeen numbers of the inci- who sponsored performances of his music dental music in May, 1898, and prepared HODGSON CONCERT HALL in London, so he spent a substantial part of a fair copy for Fauré to use at the London 52 Performance UGA February March 2018 53 UGA Symphony Orchestra performances. Koechlin scored for a pit or- someone should undertake a complete re- the dominant, C) for the secondary theme. chestra of modest proportions. Later, when vival of the play with Fauré’s gentle, fragile, But scarcely has the theme started before it arranging the movements to be included in mysterious score. falters, suddenly aware of its faux pas, and the Op. 80 suite, Fauré added extra parts for swings around to the expected dominant. second oboe, second bassoon, and third and fourth horns. He also made a number of Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) The development is one of Beethoven’s most subtle changes in the orchestration through- masterful demonstrations of musical tim- out and substantially rescored the climaxes Symphony No. 8 in F Major, ing. At first he simply marks time with a for the larger ensemble, so that we may fairly Op. 93 rhythmic vamp in the violas, jumping up speak of a Koechlin Fauré orchestration. The and down an octave. The basic melodic idea resulting score, dedicated to the Princess de Beethoven composed the Eighth Symphony turns out to be the very first measure of the Polignac, has turned out to be Fauré’s most in 1812; it was first performed, in Vienna, he describes them as “a grand symphony in symphony, unheard since its single earlier important symphonic work. on February 27, 1814. The score calls for A major (one of my most excellent works) appearance. Now it dominates the discus- pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and a smaller symphony in F major.” But sion. The development is a long crescendo The air of charming reticence that runs horns, and trumpets, plus timpani and size alone is not the central factor here. If over its entire length. The volume increases through much of Fauré’s music is equally to strings. Approximate performance time is Beethoven could call the Eighth a smaller gradually; at the same time phrase lengths be found in his incidental music for Maeter- twenty-six minutes. work, he surely meant so only in the objective become progressively shorter, so that things linck; it is an appropriate mood for a play in sense of the number of measures contained appear to be moving faster and faster, un- which virtually nothing happens, in which Beethoven composed his Eighth Symphony within it. When Czerny once remarked that til the movement culminates in the blaz- every effort to do anything leads to tragedy. in tandem with the Seventh. Some of the the Eighth was much less popular than the ing return to the home key, while the bass The first movement serves as the prelude sketches for both works appear together in Seventh, Beethoven replied gruffly, “That’s instruments proclaim the principal theme. for the play, painting its misty colors with a manuscript known as the Petter sketch- because it’s so much better.” The recapitulation is quite straightforward a few dramatic outbursts that may hint at book. He apparently liked the challenge and until the Coda, when a bassoon (recalling the impetuous Golaud. The movement ends the change of pace that comes with work- Surprisingly enough this jovial symphony the leaping octaves heard at the beginning with a transition to the opening scene of the ing on two very different pieces at the same was composed in large part during a pe- of the development) leads into a new har- play (in which Golaud, lost while hunting, time. Indeed, he had already done the same riod of family strife, when Beethoven went monic world, another crescendo, and a new comes across the mysterious Mélisande by thing with the Fifth and Sixth symphonies. to Linz to interfere in the private life of his version of the main theme in the wrong key. a fountain deep in the woods); even before But though the two new symphonies were thirty five year old brother Johann, who had After a solid return to the tonic, the orches- the overture ends, we hear Golaud’s hunting finished almost together, the Seventh was recently allowed his young housekeeper to tra fades out delightfully, leaving one final horn signaling his arrival. premiered on December 8, 1813, about two move in with him. Beethoven, a complete salute to the first measure in the bass at the months before the Eighth, which was not puritan in matters sexual (and possibly very last instant. The second movement, sometimes called La heard until February 27 following (unlike jealous, since he never had a woman in his Fileuse (The Spinner) served as the entr’acte the Fifth and Sixth, which had been pre- life), was outraged by the situation and ob- The second movement is a humorous hom- before Act III; its nearly constant triplet turn miered on the same concert in 1808). tained a police order that the girl return to age to Beethoven’s friend Mälzel, the inventor provides the background hum of the spin- Vienna by a certain date. Johann evaded the of the metronome, a device that Beethoven ning wheel. The Sicilienne, heard before Act The premiere of the Seventh had been one of issue by marrying her, but not before there found invaluable in giving composers, for II, is characterized by the rocking rhythm of the most successful concerts of Beethoven’s had been an ugly confrontation between the first time, a way to specify precise tem- that delicate Italian dance known as the si- life, establishing him without question as the two brothers. During this tense period, pos for their music. The cheerful, jesting ciliano. All is grace and gentle reflection, en- the greatest living composer – though the Beethoven was finishing the jovial Eighth! movement is filled with humorous touches tirely appropriate to the mysterious world of work that truly ignited the audience’s en- (including a suggestion at the end that the the play – even though this movement was thusiasm on that occasion was the potboiler The opening movement is small in length mechanical marvel has broken down).

Load more