PROGRAM NOTES by Daniel Maki
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PROGRAM NOTES by Daniel Maki Overture to La forza del destino by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) As Giuseppe Verdi approached his fiftieth birthday, he could look back on a career of amazing productivity that had resulted in some twenty operas in a period of twenty years. (It would be difficult to find another activity that the male of the species could possibly perform that would more closely resemble the travails of twenty consecutive years of child –bearing.) Understandably, Verdi felt that he deserved some time off, spending enjoyable time on his farm, and even contemplating retirement from composition altogether. Another claim on his time was politics. The eminence that he had achieved as Italy’s most important musician had won him the status of a national hero as well as a symbol of the Risorgimento, the movement that would finally lead to the unification of the Italian states into a single, independent Kingdom of Italy. Accordingly, he was elected a member of Italy’s first Parliament, a position that he held for several years. Eventually however, the call of the stage became too strong, and after turning down several foreign commissions he received an offer that he couldn’t refuse, a commission from Russia for an opera to be performed at the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg. Having completed what would be his twenty- second opera, La forza del destino (The Power of Destiny), he set off for the first of two trips to the barbaric, frigid north, accompanied of course by his favorite pastas and wines, carefully packed by his wife. The opera was premiered in November of 1862, and although it met with moderate success, failed to satisfy the composer. As the opera was performed throughout Europe he continued to make revisions until finally, for a performance at La Scala in Milan, he achieved the version that is now a staple of the operatic repertory. Among the changes in this final version was the replacement of what had been a brief introduction by a full- fledged overture. That overture has come to be considered his finest and has long been a standard part of the orchestral repertoire, proving it to be as effective an opener for a symphony concert as it is for the opera itself. One possible approach for an overture is to introduce themes from the opera itself and it is this potpourri technique that Verdi uses here. After a starkly dramatic opening of three notes played twice in octaves by the brass, we are immediately introduced to the “fate” theme, an agitated, stormy passage in a dark minor key. We then hear several tunes from arias taken from the opera. The first, heard after another statement of those ominous six brass chords, is a melancholy theme played over pizzicato accompaniment with menacing rumbles of the fate theme underneath. Then we hear a soaring melody sung as a prayer in the opera by the leading lady Leonora, again with fragments of the fate theme heard in the background. Finally, one more theme is introduced in the clarinet, a theme in a major key that is far more cheerfully tuneful than any heard thus far. La forza has, even by operatic standards, an usually high number of melodramatic deaths, as Leonora and both her father and brother are killed. (In the original version even the leading man Don Alvaro commits suicide as he sees his beloved Leonora die but that seems to have been too much for Russian audiences. In the final version he prays with his companion Padre Guardiano that her soul will rise to heaven.) The exuberant major key ending of the overture seems to suggest that, as cruel as the forces of destiny can be, they can be met with faith and courage. * * * Concerto in D major for Oboe and Orchestra, TrV292 (AV 144) by Richard Strauss (1864 -1949) On April 30, 1945, American tanks approached the villa of Richard Strauss in the Bavarian town of Garmisch. After soldiers had come to the house and informed other family members that the villa would need to be evacuated, the composer himself came out and said,”I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome.” As it happened, several officers were musically literate and ordered their men to show respect to Strauss. Strauss invited the soldiers inside, provided lunch, and by the end of the day an “Off limits “sign had been posted, freeing the family from immediate further harassment. Over the following weeks Strauss would entertain a number of Americans, including John de Lancie, a corporal in that United States army unit that was tasked with securing the area of Garmisch as the war came to end. In civilian life de Lancie was the principal oboist of the Pittsburgh Symphony and had the opportunity to hold lengthy discussions with the composer about music and other matters. At one point he asked Strauss if he had ever considered writing an oboe concerto, to which the composer answered a simple “no”, and the matter seemed to end there. Strauss would change his mind. The late blossoming of Strauss’s career has been called a kind of “Indian Summer”. Though he was a world renowned figure he suffered during the war as did all Germans. Essentially apolitical, he had been dragged into politics and was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, a charge that was officially dropped by a de-Nazification board. (Much of Strauss’s cooperation with Nazi authorities was motivated by the desire to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and her children as well as to help other musicians.) He suffered shortages of food and fuel as did other Germans and at war’s end his assets were frozen, limiting royalties from his works. Despite all these concerns, he was able to bring himself into a period of extraordinary creativity (he was in his 80’s ), producing such works as his Second Horn Concerto, Metamorphosen for string orchestra, the Four Last Songs, and, yes, a delightful Oboe Concerto that has proven to be one of the most important twentieth century additions to that instrument’s repertoire. Strauss completed the concerto in September of 1945 and it was premiered in Zürich in February of 1946. Strauss had promised the rights for the American premiere to de Lancie, but in the meantime de Lancie had become a section player in the Philadelphia Orchestra and was forced to defer to the principal player for opportunities to perform solos. He therefore offered the premiere to his friend Mitch Miller, a name best known to millions as a record producer and the leader of a television sing-along show of popular music. Miller played the Strauss Concerto on a radio broadcast in 1948. John de Lancie, incidentally, would eventually become the principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, serving in that capacity for 23 years and then becoming the Director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Like other works of this period, the Oboe Concerto harks back to an earlier time in Strauss’s career. He had produced his own brand of “modernist” music but now seemed to be the time to turn back to the classic forms and procedures of his early works. Although the concerto certainly sounds like Strauss, it is not far-fetched to think that his early idol Mozart lurked in the back of his mind, prompting one commentator to call it “an essay in rococo chromaticism”. The concerto is laid out in the usual three movement, fast-slow-fast form typical of concertos, but here the movements are joined together. The work opens with a curiously tentative 4 note figure in the cellos. The soloist then launches into a cheerful and charming movement of much continuous playing, giving the player little rest but showing that the oboe is capable of considerable agility. The movement ends quietly as the opening trill - like figure leads into the slow movement, where it also appears as an accompaniment. Here the oboe sings a soaring melody, showing why it had for several centuries been one of the most important lyrical voices of the orchestra. A cadenza closes the movement and leads into the finale, a rollicking Vivace which again calls for considerable virtuosity from the soloist. Another brief cadenza prepares us for a final surprise: a coda with its own distinctive dance-like character that brings the work to a graceful conclusion. * * * Siegfried Idyll , WWV 103 by Richard Wagner (1813 -1883) On December 24, 1870, Cosima Wagner turned 33 years old. Because it apparently was her custom to defer to a Higher Power and celebrate her birthday on the 25th, on Christmas morning her husband presented her with an extraordinary birthday/Christmas present. Frau Wagner described the event in her diary:” As I awoke, my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming; music was sounding and such music! When it died away Richard came into my room with the children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was in tears but so was all the rest of the household. Richard had arranged his orchestra on the staircase, and thus was our Triebschen [the Wagners’ new villa on Lake Lucerne] consecrated forever. “ It should be said that the serenely beautiful new work was also a belated wedding gift as well as a celebration of the couple’s infant son Siegfried. Not to disillusion anyone about this charming scene of domestic bliss, but the Wagners were not exactly Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Cosima was of exotic parentage, being the second illegitimate child of Franz Liszt and his mistress, the Countess Marie d’Agoult.