Concerts of May 8, 9 and 10, 2015
Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer
Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra in D minor, Opus 30 (1909)
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Semyonovo, Russia, on April 1, 1873, and died in Beverly Hills, California, on March 28, 1943. The first performance of the Third Piano Concerto took place at the New Theater in New York City on November 28, 1909, with the composer as soloist, and Walter Damrosch conducting the Symphony Society of New York.
From the Archives:
The first performance of this work by the Charlotte Symphony took place on February 5, 1957 with James Christian Pfohl conducting at Ovens Auditorium. The fifth and most recent performance set took place on September 18 & 19, 1998 with Peter McCoppin conducting in Belk Theater.
In the summer of 1909, Sergei Rachmaninoff received an invitation to make his first concert tour of the United States. The Russian pianist/composer/conductor had grave misgivings about leaving his family and homeland for such an extended period of time. But Rachmaninoff, who had developed a passion for motorcars, was swayed by the generous fees offered. As he confessed to a friend: “I don’t want to go. But then perhaps after America I’ll be able to buy myself that automobile…It may not be so bad after all!”
The American concert tour featured Rachmaninoff as both pianist and conductor in performances of his compositions. During the summer of 1909, he authored a new work for that tour—his Third Piano Concerto. In October, Rachmaninoff began his voyage to the United States. During the voyage, Rachmaninoff practiced on a silent keyboard.
On November 28, 1909, at the New Theater in New York City, Rachmaninoff appeared as soloist in the world premiere of his Third Piano Concerto, with Walter Damrosch conducting the Symphony Society of New York. On January 16, 1910, an historic collaboration took place at Carnegie Hall, when Rachmaninoff again performed the work, this time with the New York Philharmonic. The conductor was the orchestra’s Music Director, the great Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler.
After that performance, the critic for the New York Herald offered this prophetic commentary about the Rachmaninoff Third:
The work grows in impressiveness upon acquaintance and will doubtless rank among the most interesting piano concertos of recent years, although its great length and extreme difficulties bar it from performances by any but pianists of exceptional technical powers. We are fortunate that there have been many artists willing to tackle the phenomenal technical demands imposed by Rachmaninoff. When the hurdles are overcome, the work emerges as a summit of the Romantic piano concerto—a masterful fusion of virtuoso pyrotechnics, unforgettable melody, and lush orchestration.
The Concerto No. 3 is in three movements: In the opening movement (Allegro ma non tanto) the soloist enters after two bars of orchestral introduction, playing the first of two principal themes. The opening movement is notable throughout for the soloist’s dazzling passagework. The slow second movement is a lyrical Intermezzo (Adagio), with a vivacious central scherzando passage. A dramatic passage, launched by the soloist, serves as a bridge to the Finale (Alla breve), which follows without pause. The soloist presents the fanfare-like opening theme. Later, a series of syncopated chords by the soloist develops into the flowing second theme. In the closing measures, a declaration of the second theme, capped by a cascade of notes by the soloist, brings the Concerto to a stunning close.
In addition to the solo piano, the score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, suspended cymbals, and strings.
Duration: ca. 39 minutes
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Opus 95 (“From the New World”) (1893)
Antonín Dvořák was born in Mühlhausen, Bohemia (now Nelahozeves, the Czech Republic), on September 8, 1841, and died in Prague on May 1, 1904. The first performance of the “New World” Symphony took place at Carnegie Hall in New York on December 16, 1893, with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Philharmonic.
From the Archives:
The first performance of this work by the Charlotte Symphony took place on October 23, 1947 with Guy S. Hutchins, Sr. conducting at Armory Auditorium. The tenth and most recent performance set took place on October 9 & 10, 2010 with Christopher Warren-Green conducting in Belk Theater of the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.
From the fall of 1892 through the summer of 1895, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák served as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. Dvořák came to New York at the invitation of Jeannette Meyer Thurber, who founded the Conservatory with the hope that it would foster the development of important American concert music.
Dvořák had always taken a keen interest in the folk music of his native Bohemia and acknowledged: “I myself have gone to the simple, half forgotten tunes of Bohemian peasants for hints in my most serious works. Only in this way can a musician express the true sentiment of his people. He gets into touch with the common humanity of his country.”
It’s not surprising that when Dvořák arrived in America, he began to study the musical heritage of the “New World.” Dvořák concluded that America’s great folk tradition was based in the music of African Americans (it should be noted that in May of 1893, the National Conservatory opened its doors to African-American students). Dvořák also acknowledged the importance of the folk music of Native Americans, which, the Czech composer felt, was “virtually identical” to “Negro melodies.”
On May 24, 1893, Dvořák completed his Symphony in E minor, begun the previous December. The work received its premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1893, with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Philharmonic. A month earlier, Dvořák gave the E-minor Symphony its famous nickname, “From the New World.”
In an article published in the New York Herald the day before the premiere, Dvořák offered this analysis of his “New World” Symphony:
Since I have been in this country I have been deeply interested in the national music of the Negroes and the Indians. The character, the very nature of a race is contained in its national music. For that reason my attention was at once turned in the direction of these native melodies...It is this spirit which I have tried to reproduce in my new Symphony (“The New World”). I have not actually used any of the melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the...music and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint and orchestral color.
The premiere of the “New World” Symphony was an unqualified success. Dvořák proudly informed his publisher, Simrock: “The papers say that no composer ever celebrated such a triumph. Carnegie Hall was crowded with the best people of New York, and the audience applauded so that, like visiting royalty, I had to take my bows repeatedly from the box in which I sat.”
The “New World” Symphony is in four movements: The first opens with a pensive slow introduction (Adagio), leading to the principal Allegro molto. Dvořák presents several themes, including one (introduced by the flute) that bears a kinship to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a spiritual especially favored by the Czech composer. The slow second movement (Largo) features one of Dvořák’s most beloved melodies. Sung by the English horn, this melody was later adapted by Dvořák’s pupil, William Arms Fisher, for the song “Goin’ Home.” The third-movement Scherzo (Molto vivace) was, according to Dvořák, inspired “by a scene at the feast in (Longfellow’s) ‘Hiawatha’ where the Indians dance, and is also an essay which I made in the direction of imparting the local color of Indian character to music.” The dramatic finale (Allegro con fuoco) is notable for the return of themes from the prior three movements.
The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, and strings.
Duration: ca. 40 minutes