PROGRAM NOTES Peter and the Wolf Downtown Dubuque LISTEN HERE

SAT Feb 22 at 7:30pm SUN Feb 23 at 2:00pm WILLIAM INTRILIGATOR, Music Director & Conductor Five Flags Theater PROGRAM NOTES Peter and the Wolf Downtown Dubuque LISTEN HERE https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HqPiXkbEwFJXIrbJziYcq

Overture to Egmont In the story of the Dutch Count Lamoral van Egmont, executed by the Spanish in 1568 for leading a movement to free the Netherlands from Spanish rule, Beethoven found the kind of hero he always idealized, and could have happily honored in his “Eroica” Symphony. The history of Egmont and the aspirations of the 16th-century Netherlanders to break the yoke of Spanish Hapsburg tyranny — a story which also figures in Schiller’s famous playDon Carlos and Verdi’s opera Don Carlo — was very much in the air in Vienna at this time. Goethe had seized on it as an appropriate subject for a theatrical drama, and in turn Schiller touched up Goethe’s play for its Viennese premiere on May 14, 1810. It was customary then for composers to create overtures and incidental music to enhance spoken Ludwig van Beethoven dramas. When Beethoven was asked to participate in the production of Egmont, he readily assented. b. 1770, Bonn, Germany He even waived any fee for his work (though he later sold the music to a publisher) and wrote that he d. 1827, Vienna, Austria took on the assignment “only out of devotion to [Goethe].” In addition to the famous overture, Beethoven created several other numbers, including a final Siegessymphonie or Victory Symphony, as Egmont goes triumphantly to his death on the scaffold, confident his cause will win in the end. (In actuality, the Dutch had to wait nearly a century for their freedom from Spain.) Beyond his generalized admiration for men like Egmont who lived and died for their ideals, the composer found contemporary relevance in this story. In 1809, Napoleon had invaded Austria and even bombarded and occupied Vienna. By 1810, this foreign conqueror — and Beethoven’s fallen idol — had been driven from Austrian soil, but the bitter memories of that occupation were still fresh for the composer. A virile, martial portrait of the play’s protagonist, the Overture touches on Egmont’s tragic fate in the dark, ominous chords of its F-minor slow introduction. Egmont’s heroic struggle against oppression is sketched in the Allegro main section. Then, after a quiet bridge passage comes the exhilarating coda, now in F Major. This is the music of the Victory Symphony, the play’s finale, with Egmont’s triumph-in-death shouted out by the entire orchestra, dominated by the brass and those famous exuberant flourishes of the piccolo.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major By 1802, Beethoven’s deafness was beginning to trouble him greatly, even though it was not yet noticed by most around him. His doctor suggested a summer in the country, in the village of Heiligenstadt outside Vienna, might prove helpful. Helpful it was for his creativity, but not his deafness. By October, Beethoven was pouring out his anguish at the ailment he feared would destroy all his musical hopes in a letter written to his two brothers, but never sent (it was found among his papers after his death): the famous Heiligenstadt Testament. “Yes, that fond hope — which I brought here with me, to be cured to a degree at least — this I must now wholly abandon. As the leaves of autumn fall and are withered — so likewise has my hope been blighted — I leave here — almost as I came — even the high courage — which often inspired me in the beautiful days of summer — has disappeared.” Ludwig van Beethoven b. 1770, Bonn, Germany A significant advance over his First Symphony, which strongly showed the influence of his teacher d. 1827, Vienna, Austria Haydn, Symphony No. 2 was composed during those “beautiful days of summer” in 1802 and shines not only with courage but with high spirits, daring, and wit. Now the bold voice was unmistakably Beethoven’s throughout, and the scope and ambition of the symphony was beginning to expand toward the revolutionary “Eroica” Symphony, just one year in the future. But unlike the “Eroica,” the Second is a predominantly light-hearted work, rich in musical humor. Yet at its Viennese premiere on April 5, 1803, it was disturbing enough to prompt one critic to write: “Beethoven’s Second Symphony is a crass monster, a hideously writhing wounded dragon that refuses to expire, and though bleeding in the Finale, furiously beats about with its tail erect.” The Allegro section of the sonata-form opening movement flows directly out of a beautiful, rather lengthy slow introduction. Its first theme emerges quietly in the cellos and violas under a measured violin tremolo or shake — a prominent musical device throughout this movement and others as well. In fact, it is the hyperactive violins that power the intense nervous energy pervading this work. The second major theme is as energetic as the first: a brisk, military-sounding tune for the woodwinds above chugging string tremolos. The second movement (Larghetto) in A Major is an early example of Beethoven’s beautiful slow movements. Donald Francis Tovey called it “one of the most luxurious slow movements in the world.” Also in sonata form, it is a peaceful pastorale that brings needed repose from the dynamism of the other movements. Here Beethoven plays off the lushness of the strings, which introduce the gracious two-part theme, against the plangency of the woodwinds. The development section moves into a world of gentle pathos in the minor mode. The sudden alternation of loud and soft is the basis for the scherzo movement’s humor. Witty, too, are the seasick chromatic swells in the low strings. The trio section pits bright, well-mannered woodwinds against unruly strings that melodramatically insist on a wrong key. But they are soon brought to heel and end decorously with the woodwinds. The very fast finale is that “hideously writhing dragon that refuses to expire,” probably because Beethoven appended here the first of his gloriously expanded closing codas. Rather than a dragon, the little two-note motive that launches the humorously gruff opening phrase — which Beethoven plays with throughout the movement — sounds like the tail-flicking of a very small lizard indeed. The extraordinary closing coda begins with a magical harmonic progression: a loud chord in the D Major home key moving unexpectedly to a hushed chord in B minor that seems to open vistas of a new world. And the whole coda looks to new worlds, which Beethoven explored more deeply in his next symphony, the mighty “Eroica.”

Siegfried Idyll The Siegfried Idyll was perhaps the most sublime present a composer-husband ever gave his wife. And it was also a surprising creation: a love gift of the utmost intimacy of mood and delicacy of scoring coming from the master of the musical epic and a man who carried monomania to unsurpassed heights. Yet in this case Richard Wagner was actually thinking of others besides himself: of Cosima Liszt von Bülow, who had become his wife only the previous August, and their infant son, born a year earlier and whom they had named Siegfried after the hero of Wagner’s Ring tetralogy. Cosima had been born the day before Christmas, and so the Siegfried Idyll was a combined birthday and Christmas present for December 25, 1870, her 33rd birthday. The couple was then living at Richard Wagner Tribschen, a spacious villa poised on a bluff jutting into Lake Lucerne in Switzerland that had been b. 1813, Leipzig, Germany rented for them by Wagner’s patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Early that morning, Wagner and 13 d. 1883, Venice, Italy musicians crept up the staircase leading to the Wagner bedroom and roused Cosima with their music. “When I woke up I heard a sound,” she recalled in her diary. “It grew ever louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it had died away, R. came in to me with the five children and put into my hands the score of his ‘symphonic birthday present.’ I was in tears, but so, too, was the whole household.” Wagner initially called the score the Tribschen Idyll and intended to keep it a private piece for the family. Only years later when he was once again buried in debt, did he reluctantly agree to publish it under its present name. Significantly, the principal themes are drawn from the Act III love duet in Siegfried (the third of the Ring operas, completed in 1869) after Siegfried has awakened Brünnhilde from her enchanted sleep atop the fire-encircled rock. Here the tenderness of the music obviously evoked Wagner’s love for the woman who had left her first husband and devoted her life solely to the needs of his genius. The downward-tiptoeing melody introduced by the solo oboe is a lullaby Wagner wrote into the family’s “Brown Book” when he knew little Siegfried was on the way. Midway through, we also hear a soft version of Siegfried’s hunting call in the horn and a snatch of the Forest Bird’s Act II song in clarinet and flute.

Peter and the Wolf, opus 67 To the world, Sergei Prokofiev appeared to be a cosmopolitan sophisticate, but his family glimpsed a different side of his personality. According to his first wife, Lina, he always remained a child in spirit, adored fairy tales, and never lost his ability to understand how children think and what amuses them. And he had two young sons of his own, whom he was missing terribly in April 1936 when he created Peter and the Wolf, A Symphonic Fairy Tale for Children. Just months before, Prokofiev had made the fateful decision to return permanently to the Soviet Union after years of living in Western Europe. By April, he was living alone in a hotel room across the street from the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow; his wife and sons remained for a few more months in Paris until Sergei Prokofiev the boys finished their school year. Perhaps because he was missing his family, he paid another visit to b. 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine the Moscow Children’s Musical Theater, which had delighted all the Prokofievs the year before. When d. 1953, Moscow, U.S.S.R. he expressed his enthusiasm over the performance to the director Natalia Satz, she asked him if he would be willing to compose something for them and received a prompt “yes.” Within a few days, Prokofiev contacted her, full of ideas. “We must start with something specific, something full of contrasts, something that makes a strong impression,” he said. “The most important thing is to find a common language with the kids.” They decided on a story that would focus on both animal and human characters. Each character would be represented by an instrument of the orchestra, which would help children learn the sounds of the various instruments. And each character would have its own identifying leitmotive. Originally, a poet attached to the Children’s Theater was engaged to write a text in verse, but Prokofiev was horrified by the silly rhymes and decided to write his own in prose. He completed the text and music for Peter and the Wolf in less than two weeks, and the work was premiered at the Children’s Theater on May 2, 1936 with Satz as narrator and Prokofiev conducting. This tale of plucky Peter and his animal friends has been adored by children and their parents all over the world ever since and today probably ranks as Prokofiev’s most famous work. Happily, it has been liberated from the exclusive realm of children’s concerts so that older listeners can delight once again in its musical brilliance and charm.