Tchaikovsky's Fifth

Program Notes Tchaikovsky’s Fifth by Tom Strini ©2019 KENJI BUNCH (b. 1973) angst and social etiquette of the capitals of Europe. He didn’t Groovebox Fantasy for Orchestra (2016) need the real Scotland to write this piece. Bruch had the novels Portland-based Kenji Bunch is a superb violist, orchestra of Sir Walter Scott to fire his imagination and he had a copy of player and chamber musician, in addition to being prolific and The Scots Musical Museum, published in six volumes between highly skilled composer. 1787 and 1803, as source material. Originally written for piano trio, the orchestra version was James Johnson, an Edinburgh printer and music seller, loved premiered by the Seattle Symphony in 2016. This infectious, old Scottish songs and launched the anthology as a labor of love raucous mash-up of boogie, swing, and heavy metal is a to collect and preserve them. The project took off after Robert brilliant tribute to one of the musical legends of 20th century Burns, already famous as a Scottish nationalist poet, took an popular music, Quincy Jones. For Music Director & Conductor interest as an editor and contributor. Francesco Lecce-Chong, Groovebox Fantasy is just an LOOK for violin soloist Bella Hristova introduction to a season full of new music that will surprise you with its exuberance, humor, and delightful fusion of diverse playing a series of increasingly fiendish musical styles. double-stops (two notes at once) toward Groovebox Fantasy is a blast. Do not be self-conscious the end of Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. about movin’ and groovin’ in your seat during this piece. That’s the whole point. For nine minutes, the concert hall will be transformed into a wild rave at a nightclub. Various Scot poets sometimes wrote new lyrics to old songs, and some songwriters contributed new material to the SCORED: For two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two anthology over the years. (Burns wrote about 200 of the 600 bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, songs in the Museum.) Despite the modern amendments and timpani, percussion, and strings. additions, German Romantics regarded the songs as primal HISTORY: First performed by the Eugene Symphony at SymFest and authentic. Haydn loved them and arranged hundreds. in June 2019 under the direction of Francesco Lecce-Chong. Beethoven, among others, arranged some. Bruch arranged 12 as art songs, published in 1864. So he knew these songs well long DURATION: Approximately nine minutes. before he started work on the violin fantasy. Each movement of the free wheeling Scottish Fantasy focuses MAX BRUCH (1838–1920) on a particular song: The opener features the tear-jerking “Thro’ Scottish Fantasy, for Violin and Orchestra (1880) the Wood, Laddie,” first heard in the solo violin in double stops Max Bruch came close, but never set foot in Scotland. after nearly five minutes of atmospheric introduction. “The Dusty Bruch composed the Scottish Fantasy in Liverpool, a mere Miller,” a rustic fiddle dance, occupies the antic second. A reprise 150 miles from the Scottish border, where he was unhappily of “Thro’ the Wood” connects the second movement to the third, ensconced as music director of the Liverpool Symphony built around the lament “I’m a Doun for Lack o’ Johnnie.” The Orchestra. Edinburgh music patrons knew he wanted out, and solo violin, heretofore busy with virtuoso flights around the folk they approached him about heading a start-up conservatory and tunes, plays it straight, at least in the first statement of the tune. conducting the local orchestra. Bruch was eager, but the Scots’ The variations grow more elaborate. plans fell through. The finale’s tender moments rise from recurrences of “Thro’ No matter. Bruch, like many German Romantics, imagined the Wood.” But they’re the exceptions. Mendelssohn suggested Scotland as a raw, misty, Romantic place free of the existential ”We start off with a celebratory along with the music! Our program orchestral ‘jam session’ by Portland continues with the beautiful folk composer Kenji Bunch. An ode to melodies of Scotland presented Quincy Jones, its pulsing dance in the form of the breathtakingly rhythms fly madly around the virtuosic violin concerto, Bruch’s orchestra. It’s okay to tap your toes Scottish Fantasy. We finish our EUGENE SYMPHONY PROGRAM NOTES — SEPT 26 the tempo marking Allegro guerriero—fast and warlike, and Bruch took him up on that. The main source tune is “Scots Wha He,” which Robert the Bruce allegedly sang to rally Scot troops to victory over the invading English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. SCORED: In addition to the solo violin, this work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings. HISTORY: First performed by the Eugene Symphony in December 2012 under the direction of Robert Moody and with Jennifer Koh as soloist. DURATION: Approximately 30 minutes. PIOTR TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893) Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Opus 64 Years ago, the composer David Lang, contemplating what various composers broadly had to say to the world through their music, said this about Tchaikovsky: “I love to cry, and I want you to cry, too.” Tchaikovsky was not a happy man. Self-doubt about his talent and accomplishment, about his place in music and in Russian society, about his sexuality, and a morbid fascination with mortality all tortured him. He lived in a sustained state of existential crisis. Perhaps that is why he so loved composing for ballet, where the dance prescribed the music and he could get out of his own head. When left to his own devices in “pure” music, thoughts of fate and mortality permeate his scores, especially in his Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, and 6. In these three works, he wrestles himself and his demons to exhaustion. The Fifth Symphony is an astonishing, deeply moving document that builds on the emotional, moral, and musical complexity of his Fourth Symphony. Like the Fourth and Sixth symphonies, the Fifth turns on a recurring “motto” theme widely understood to stand for Fate. program with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony—a deeply moving journey into the composer’s own struggles Quincy Jones (at top), for whom Portland-based composer and triumphs.” Kenji Bunch wrote his Groovebox Fantasy as a tribute; a depiction of Robert the Bruce rallying Scottish troops at the — Francesco Lecce-Chong Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 (at middle); a rare photograph of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, c.1890 (at bottom). SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2019 PROGRAM NOTES — SEPT 26 Tchaikovsky’s Fifth It growls low in the clarinet and strings at the outset and, like a In the third movement, the motto slithers in among a series villain waiting in the wings for his cues, re-emerges at critical of three waltzes, as a chilling presence in an otherwise delightful junctures throughout the four movements to counter the and rhythmically playful ballroom scene. abundant joy, serenity, nobility, and beauty in this symphony. The motto theme opens the finale in kingly grandeur, as if transformed, smiling nobly and waving to the crowd. Has fate LISTEN for two stunningly blunt, almost turned? Is it on our side, suddenly? brutal interruptions by the ‘Fate’ theme No. At least, not yet. in the otherwise rhapsodic second After that promising start, Tchaikovsky hits us with a savage, slashing, brutal dance—perhaps Tchaikovsky’s most movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony violent stretch of music. The woodwinds open an urgent chase. No. 5. The timpani pound the breakneck pace to—where? Oblivion? Salvation? Life is up for grabs as Tchaikovsky traverses a A principal theme, in two parts, arises after the motto bewildering number of battling themes and keys. drifts away like a dark cloud. The first part, march-like though After an avalanche of a climax and clarion calls from the in 6/8 time, advances with a determined tread toward a more brasses, the composer hands down judgment: Courage has lyrical second phrase. Next comes a dreamy, gliding second prevailed, and fate has, indeed, turned. The motto theme has theme that could serve as a ballet waltz. The waltz transitions broken our hearts so often that Tchaikovsky must devote the last into a bounding dance that bursts with youthful energy. In the three-and-a-half minutes to driving home its shining nobility in development, Tchaikovsky dwells on the first part of the first no uncertain terms. theme, but weaves in all his ideas. The recapitulation peaks in How desperately did Tchaikovsky want to believe in a brilliant climax, but exhaustion follows, and the music slides triumph at the end of the battle? How desperately do we? inevitably to the depths from whence it came. The body of the Please judge for yourself. motto does not return here, but its spirit welcomes us back into SCORED: For three flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, the gloom. two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, The gloom persists, in the form of low, B-minor chords to timpani, and strings. open the second movement. But dawn breaks in the form of one of the most beautiful horn solos in all of music, a high- HISTORY: First performed by the Eugene Symphony in minded love song in D Major. A hotter, more carnal love song February 1972 under the direction of Lawrence Maves, and last blossoms from it. A still more sensual tune, in a snake-charmer performed in September 2007 under the direction of Giancarlo scale, builds the passion in the middle section. At the crowning Guerrero. Additionally, the Baltimore Symphony performed the moment, the motto barges in with brassy, brutal authority to work at Silva Concert Hall while on tour in April 2012 under disrupt the reverie.

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