NATIONAL FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA WAGNER, BEETHOVEN AND BARTÓK ASHER FISCH, conductor SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 2015 . 8PM ELSIE & MARVIN DEKELBOUM CONCERT HALL PROGRAM Richard Wagner Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 Adagio – Allegro vivace Adagio Menuetto: Allegro vivace Allegro ma non troppo - intermission - Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra Introduzione Giuocco delle coppie Elegia Intermezzo interrotto Finale 23 Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin questions about his origin.” This was In the fall of 1805, when Beethoven RICHARD WAGNER Lohengrin, whose name has been received Count Oppersdorff’s traced to Loheran Garin, or Garin of commission for a new symphony, Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig Lorrain. his first thought was to present him Died February 13, 1883, Venice Wagner wrote of the Grail as “a with the Symphony in C minor symbol of the suprasensual … the whose first two movements he had Lohengrin, with text by the composer, precious vase from which the Saviour sketched the previous year. Instead, was completed in 1847, but was not once had pledged his farewell to His however, he set the C minor aside performed until August 28, 1850, when people, the vessel into which His and began this totally new and utterly it was presented at the Court Theater in blood had poured when he suffered different Symphony in B-flat, which Weimar, with Franz Liszt conducting. crucifixion for His brethren. … he completed within a few months. It The orchestra specified for the Act I Already had this cup of healing been is one of his very few major works for Prelude comprises 3 flutes, 2 oboes, reft from worthless Man, when once which no preliminary sketches seem to English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, a flight of angels brought it back from have been made. 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 Heaven’s height to lonely men athirst The reason Beethoven gave Count trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals and for love; committed it to the keeping Oppersdorff for this change of plans strings. Duration, 9 minutes. of these men, miraculously blest and was that he had been “compelled by strengthened by its presence.” want” to sell the C-minor Symphony In a period of three years, from At the same time, several of “with a second one to someone else.” October 1842 to 1845, Wagner enjoyed Wagner’s letters emphasize his (Nos. 5 and 6, introduced together at three huge successes in Dresden with indebtedness to the religions of the end of 1808, bear joint dedications the premieres there of his Rienzi, the East in creating this work. He to Prince Lobkowitz and Count The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser. sometimes referred to Lohengrin as Rasumovsky.) Sir George Grove His next work, Lohengrin, might “Ananda” and to Elsa as “Savitri,” suggested, however, in his book be regarded as the first 100 percent signing himself as “Your grateful Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies, that Wagnerian “music drama.” It was the Buddhist.” He made it clear that, the motivation had come from other last work to which Wagner affixed despite the particular symbolism he considerations than merely practical the label “Romantic Opera,” and the had chosen, his Lohengrin is not a ones: “Perhaps Beethoven’s instinct first to be really durchkomponiert, with specifically Christian work, but was showed him that it would be an artistic no semblance of recitative and with meant to be spiritual in the broadest, mistake to follow so very serious a every action carried forward by the most all-encompassing sense. He liked symphony as the Eroica by one equally music itself. Wagner completed his to speak of the “grand concordance” earnest and profound. … At any rate, text two years before the music and of all genuine myths, likening both the B-flat Symphony is a complete first read his poem in November 1845 his Dutchman and his Tannhäuser to contrast to both its predecessor and its to a gathering that included Robert Ulysses. successor, and is as gay and spontaneous Schumann, J.A. Hiller and a number Of the Prelude to Act I, Wagner as they are serious and lofty.” of painters and writers. Schumann wrote: “This wonder-working Coming The composer of the path-breaking wrote to Felix Mendelssohn that the of the Grail in escort of an angel-host, Eroica might not have been expected poem had impressed nearly everyone its committal to the care of chosen to make any further gesture toward favorably (“particularly the painters”), men, the composer of Lohengrin — a the Classical notion of the symphony, and that it had compelled him to Knight of the Grail — chose for his but in the Fourth Beethoven built abandon his own plans for an opera on subject a sketch in tone, as introduction on the Classical structure an edifice a somewhat similar Arthurian theme. to his drama.” The Prelude is built as distinguished by its originality as The now forgotten Hiller, however, on the simplest of motifs, repeated in by its grace. The suspenseful Adagio remarked that “Wagner’s talent as a subtle variants and building resolutely introduction may be more or less musician would by no means suffice to an inevitable yet unfailingly according to Haydn’s formula, but it for this subject; the fine verses would stunning climax whose power, like that could not possibly be mistaken for surely yearn for some other composer.” of the work’s hero, lies in its unfeigned Haydn, and the thrust and color of the The origin and significance of the simplicity and directness. first movement properly stamp this concept of Ideal Knighthood were music even more surely as Beethoven’s subsequently discussed in an essay Symphony No. 4 in B-flat and his alone. Here the delicious Wagner wrote in 1848, in which he Major, Op. 60 writing for the winds celebrates the recalled that the Holy Grail had been lyric impulse that is to illumine the the goal pursued by Barbarossa, who LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Pastoral Symphony (No. 6), and the met his end, after all, by plunging Born December 16, 1770, Bonn rhythmic assertiveness looks ahead still into a stream on horseback out of Died March 26, 1827, Vienna farther, to the Seventh. sheer impatience to get to the Grail. A side of the same character Beethoven composed his Fourth Since the time of Barbarossa, Wagner that is both softer and, in two quite Symphony in 1806 and conducted observed, there had been legends its first performance in March of the different senses, darker greets us in that “once the Keeper of the Grail following year, at Prince Lobkowitz’s the slow movement, a nobly flowing had really brought the Holy Relic to palace in Vienna. The score, dedicated to Adagio with nocturnal coloring, the Occident and performed great Count Franz von Oppersdorff, calls for caressing themes and an inspired use wonders here. … In the Netherlands flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 of the drums to set the lyric phrases … a Knight of the Grail had appeared, horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. in high relief. A more animated but vanished when asked forbidden Duration, 35 minutes. middle section brings an unexpected 24 touch of dramatic urgency, with the Concerto for Orchestra and urgency is one of the work’s drums providing both contrast to BÉLA BARTÓK conspicuous characteristics. When and continuity with the movement’s Koussevitzky conducted the premiere, opening section. Once this passes, the Born March 25, 1881, Nagyszentmiklós, in December 1944, he pronounced second half is even more intimate in Hungary the Concerto for Orchestra “the best feeling than the first, right up to the (now Sînnicolaul Mare, Romania) orchestral piece of the last 25 years.” ruminative passage for winds that Died September 26, 1945, Two months later, at Koussevitzky’s leads to the emphatic conclusion. This New York City suggestion, Bartók added a 22-bar is a device characteristic of Haydn’s coda to the original finale, and by the symphonic slow movements, but again Bartók composed his Concerto for end of the decade the Concerto was the language is so clearly Beethoven’s Orchestra between August 15 and a prominent part of the international that the similarity is noted only in October 8, 1943; the premiere was given repertory. passing. by the Boston Symphony Orchestra By the time this work was Beethoven did not label the third under Serge Koussevitzky on December introduced, Bartók had completed movement a scherzo; as with the 1, 1944. The score, dedicated to the his Sonata for unaccompanied violin, corresponding movement of his First memory of Natalie Koussevitzky, calls commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin; Symphony, he called it a minuet. for piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English he had undertaken the last of his three While it is clearly more of a Beethoven horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 concertos for piano and accepted a scherzo than a Classical minuet, a bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 commission for a concerto from the Classical sense of order seems to trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, violist William Primrose. He lived long provide a rein against boisterousness. snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, enough to complete the Third Piano The trio section is Beethoven at his tam-tam, 2 harps and strings. Duration, Concerto, except for the last 17 bars of most genial and ingratiating, but very 38 minutes. orchestration, which were eventually clearly on his own terms. The final filled in by his associate Tibor Serly movement, at once high-spirited and The Concerto for Orchestra, the last — who also managed, in a heroic four- elegant, begins with a sort of perpetuum work Bartók completed in his own year undertaking, to sort out the wildly mobile tune, which is contrasted almost hand and lived to hear performed, unorganized sketches for the Viola at once with a more lyrical and quickly established itself as his greatest Concerto so that it could be performed expansive one.