Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Sunday Afternoon Classics Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony Sunda

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online

Sunday Afternoon Classics Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony Sunday 26 January 2020 2.30pm

GIOACHINO ROSSINI (1792-1868) William Tell Overture

The fortunes of William Tell, Rossini’s final opera, may have fluctuated over the years but its overture, a series of four musical scenes, is a perennial favourite. The peaceful opening represents dawn and features a gorgeous cello melody over a gentle plucked accompaniment. After raindrops and swirls of wind a violent storm ensues with blaring brass and thundering timpani. In the sunlit calm that follows a cor anglais, imitated by a flute, conjures up an enchanting rural scene complete with birdsong. Eventually a stirring trumpet fanfare breaks the spell and the Swiss cavalry (or, more famously, the Lone Ranger) gallop triumphantly into view. Hi ho, Silver!

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) The Lark Ascending Romance for violin and orchestra

On the eve of the First World War, Ralph Vaughan Williams read George Meredith’s poem The Lark Ascending and heard, in his mind’s ear, this “Romance for violin and orchestra”. Then, like thousands of others, he laid music aside to serve in France. The Lark Ascending was finally premiered in 1921 at Queen’s Hall, London by the violinist Marie Hall and the conductor Adrian Boult.

It’s something unique – a virtuoso showpiece without a trace of superficial display. Poetry, purity and expressive beauty are all. Against a serene orchestral landscape, the solo violin becomes the bird, its song, and the spirit of Meredith’s poem:

He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake…

It all sounds so simple – in those first calm orchestral chords you can almost see the “coloured counties” drowsing under a summer haze. As the 1920s wore on, he’d get back to grittier business. But for now, Vaughan Williams, like his whole generation, had earned his dream of timeless beauty on a perfect summer afternoon.

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Five Songs

Die Forelle (1817) arr. Timothy Jackson (2019) Du bist die Ruh’ (1823) arr. Anton Webern (1903) Geheimes (1821) arr. Johannes Brahms (1862) Am Tage aller Seelen (1816) arr. Max Reger (1914) Erlkönig (1815) arr. Franz Liszt (1860)

The form of the lieder offered Schubert far more than a compositional niche. As well as providing ample performance opportunities alongside accomplished singers, the simple combination of voice and piano seemed to present almost limitless possibilities for drama, expression, and storytelling. In response to the 600-plus texts he set, he was able to extend his own musical vocabulary in order to probe both the heights and the depths of the human psyche, in doing so immeasurably expanding the scope of the genre for those who would follow him. Indeed, the enduring popular fascination for these songs is evidenced by the sheer number of them that have been – and continue to be – transcribed for a diverse range of instruments and ensembles.

That so many celebrated composers have devoted their energies and skills to arranging Schubert’s songs is a testament to their musical qualities. However, it also indicates the precise nature of these qualities. One of the most impressive aspects of Schubert’s lieder writing is his ability to establish a seemingly tangible atmosphere within such a brief timespan, evoking vivid musical ‘scenes’ that then evaporate almost as quickly as they are conjured. These poignant songs often leave us wanting more with heartbreaking effect, and these orchestrations might even be seen as highly artistic attempts to scratch that itch.

Die Forelle (The Trout) Working more than two centuries after Schubert, Timothy Jackson – not just a composer but also the orchestra’s Principal Horn – has provided a reimagining of the glistening ‘Die Forelle’. Its jovial character lures both listener and titular fish into a false sense of security, and it is in the course of the quicksilver third verse of German polymath Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s poem that the wily fisherman gets his way.

Du bist die Ruh’ (You are repose) Schubert’s casting of Friedrich Rückert’s ‘Du bist die Ruh’’ numbers among his most tender outpourings; Webern utilises a soft bed of string undulations and gentle woodwind updrafts to support the vocalist’s confidences of devotion.

Geheimes (A secret) Intimations of affection also pervade the setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ‘Geheimes’, its gently pacing accompaniment rendered more dynamic through Brahms’ string writing.

Am Tage aller Seelen (The feast of All Souls) Reger’s glowing orchestration of Am Tage aller Seelen reinforces a majestic setting of Johann Georg Jacobi’s litany.

Erlkönig (The Erlking) And it falls to Liszt to provide the gripping IMAX equivalent of Schubert’s devastating ‘Erlkönig’, as a father and his afflicted son attempt to evade the eponymous spirit on a chilling night-time ride.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Symphony No.6 in F major, Op.68 ‘Pastoral’

Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande: allegro ma non troppo / Awakening of happy feelings upon arriving in the country: fast, but not too fast Szene am Bach: andante molto mosso / Scene by the brook: at a walking pace, but with much movement Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute: allegro – / Peasants’ merry-making: fast – Gewitter, Sturm: allegro – / Thunder, Storm: fast – Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm: allegretto / Shepherds’ song. Happiness and thanksgiving after the storm: quite fast

At the start of the 19th century, the city of Vienna was surrounded by villages, vineyards and spa-towns, nestling amidst the rolling hills of the Danube valley. The Viennese would escape each summer to Baden, Heiligenstadt and Döbling, and Ludwig van Beethoven took particular solace in these rural retreats. The peace and solitude he found amidst nature offered an escape from the worries and conflicts of his life in the city, from awareness of his declining hearing, and, of course, from the political turmoil of the time – Vienna was bombarded and captured by Napoleon in November 1805, and again in May 1809.

Beethoven seems to have seen in nature a revelation of a higher and better state of being, and numerous contemporaries have recorded how much the countryside meant to him. An innkeeper in Baden once had Beethoven reject a room because there were no trees nearby: “I love a tree more than a man”, explained the composer. Caught in a rainstorm, he once angrily refused an offered umbrella and simply strode on through the downpour. His servant Michael Krenn tells of him roaming the fields from 6am to 10pm “sketchbook in hand, waving his arms, completely carried away by inspiration”. One of his sketchbooks, from 1803, shows him trying to write down the sound of a stream near Heiligenstadt in musical notation, and the fragment of music that resulted bears an unmistakable resemblance to the rippling figure for two cellos that flows through the Andante of the Pastoral Symphony. “The broader the stream”, he observed, “the deeper the note”.

Beethoven’s feeling for the countryside finally blossomed into this Symphony between the summers of 1807 and 1808 – at exactly the same time as he was writing the Symphony No.5. Indeed, both works were premiered in the same marathon concert on 22 December 1808, the Pastoral actually being described as ‘Symphony No.5’, and the C minor ‘No.6’ on that occasion. Beethoven felt no reluctance in revealing the sources of his ideas; the title ‘Pastoral’ is one of the few titles that Beethoven himself is known actually to have given to one of his works. He even gave titles to the individual movements, possibly modelled on a forgotten work by the equally forgotten 18th-century composer, Justin Heinrich Knecht, though he also appended a subtitle to the Pastoral, now rarely printed: “More an expression of feeling than a painting (mälerey)”.

First movement The beginning is deceptively simple. Violas, cellos and bases lay down a quiet drone, like a hurdy-gurdy or bagpipe, and the violins try out a modest country-dance melody: you’d never guess that this will evolve into a powerful and tightly constructed sonata form movement built up from the shortest of themes and motifs. The lively rhythms and bright scoring of the themes give the character of folk music, while those long-held hurdy-gurdy notes give the whole movement a sense of tremendous space and freedom.

Second movement Nothing, meanwhile, disturbs the tranquillity of the Scene by the Brook, the music borne gently on by the flow of the stream (two muted cellos). At the very end of the movement, just where Beethoven would insert a cadenza were he writing a concerto, are solos for nightingale (flute), quail (oboe) and cuckoo (clarinet). Beethoven wrote the birds’ names in the score (his claim that he’d also incorporated the song of a yellowhammer elsewhere in the movement turned out to be a practical joke).

Third movement Now imagine a headlong Beethoven Scherzo played by a village band: the composer pokes gentle fun at the wind players (oboe and horn enter off the beat and the bassoonist is so sure he’s right that he belts out his plodding bass part at a ridiculous volume).

Fourth movement The dance is cut short by a sudden hush, a rumble of bass thunder and the shattering cloudburst of the Thunderstorm. Trombones and piccolo enter for the first time in the symphony. As the storm moves off, the sun re-emerges and a lovely phrase for oboe curves like a rainbow over the final rolls of thunder.

Fifth movement And now a shepherd’s call is heard, first on clarinet, then on horn, launching the Shepherds’ Song: an expansive and exultant rondo, moving, like the first movement, in such broad, leisurely paragraphs that every key-change seems like the opening-out of a new and more beautiful vista. Near the end the music grows hymn-like, with sotto voce (whispered) strings and wind answering each other like a prayer and response. But Beethoven never labours his point. The flow of the music resumes, and, with a final, muted horn-call, the symphony winds off into the blue distance.