UGA Symphony Orchestra Program Notes The University of Georgia By Steven Ledbetter Symphony Orchestra Karl Goldmark (1830-1915) Im Frühlling (In the Spring), Op. 36 Karl Goldmark was born in Keszthely, Hun- Thursday gary, on May 18, 1830, and died in Vienna 2017 on January 2, 1915. He composed Im Früh- March 30 ling in September 1888; it was premiered in 8:00 p.m. Budapest on November 28 that year, with the composer conducting. The score calls for three flutes (third doubling piccolo), oboes, theatres, an experience that–although ill- Mark Cedel clarinets, and bassoons in pairs, four horns, paid –gave him the opportunity to learn how conductor three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, tim- theatre music worked from the inside out. pani, and strings. Performance time is ap- assistant conductorClaudine Gamache proximately ten minutes. In 1858, he returned to Budapest and stud- ied composition through the traditional Goldmark was born into a large but not textbooks while he made his own living PROGRAM wealthy Jewish family. He lived through a as a violin teacher. In 1860, he returned to period of great musical change, having been Vienna, where he finally began to make a Goldmark Im Früling (In the Spring), Op. 36 born in the year that Berlioz produced the name for himself, as critic and composer. His Symphonie fantastique and lived until two overture Sakuntala established him at once Stravinsky Divertimento from Le Baiser de la fée years after Stravinsky produced The Rite of and marked the beginning of a period of ac- Spring. His life completely encompassed the Sinfonia tive composition, including seven operas, lives of Brahms and Mahler. He was an en- of which the first, The Queen of Sheba, was Danses Suisses thusiast for the new music of Wagner and Scherzo popular for a half century after its premiere Liszt, though he never adopted their styles. in 1875. Then came a “symphony” (really an Pas de deux Owing to the size of his family (twenty elaborate tone poem) called The Rustic Wed- children!), he had to acquire his education ding (1877), which was popular even longer INTERMISSION largely through his own devices. A choir and is still programmed from time to time. member in his town gave him his first violin That same year he composed the Violin Con- instruction at the age of eleven. By 1844, he certo, which has remained far and away his Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 had progressed to the point that his father most often-performed piece over the years. Allegro non troppo sent him to Vienna for more professional He composed In the Spring at his summer Andante moderato training, though this lasted only eighteen home in Gmunden, in the Salzburg region of Allegro giocoso months before financial difficulties forced Austria, completing it on September 27, 1888, Allegro energico e passionate his return home. Still he undertook careful and conducted the premiere just two months self-study to prepare for admission to the later. It has become his most popular overture. Vienna Technical School and later to the It is not a program overture in the sense of Conservatory as a violinist. telling any kind of story, but as the title sug- This evening’s performance of the Brahms Symphony, conducted by Claudine Gamache, Unfortunately, the unrest in the revolution- gests, it is filled with exuberant evocations of is in partial fulfillment of the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting. ary year of 1848 brought the closure of the spring, capturing the feelings normal to those Conservatory shortly after Goldmark ar- who live in a mountainous locale like Austria, rived. He played in theatre orchestras at where the winter climate is harsh and cold and the arrival of sunny warmer weather and bur- HODGSON CONCERT HALL home for a few years, then in 1851 returned to Vienna as a violinist in two of the leading geoning new life is a welcome annual event. 52 Performance UGA February March 2017 53 UGA Symphony Orchestra Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) The child is rescued by two chamois hunt- Working with the music of Tchaikovsky ers, but first he has been kissed by the Ice was a labor of love for Stravinsky, and the Le Baiser de la fée Maiden, who thus begins to exert a power final score is such a fusion of the hearts (The Fairy’s Kiss) over him. He grows up to become a herds- and minds of both composers that it is not man in the mountains, falls in love with always easy to tell which composer is re- Igor Stravinsky was born at Oranienbaum, Babette, and they plan to be married. The sponsible for what tune. Stravinsky himself Russia, on June 17, 1882, and died in New evening before their wedding they row out was inconsistent in some of his identifica- York on April 6, 1971. He composed his bal- to an island in Lake Geneva; while they are tions, and it is even possible that some pas- let Le Baiser de la Fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) on there, the boat breaks its moorings. Rudy sages that Stravinsky thought were original a commission from Ida Rubinstein between swims out to retrieve it, but drowns in the were really subconscious transmutations April and October 1928, completing the attempt. It is the Ice Maiden, come to re- of a Tchaikovsky passage that he knew by work in Nice at midnight on October 30. It claim him, saying, “I kissed you when you heart. But all of this is really irrelevant; what is dedicated to the memory of Tchaikovsky. were little, kissed you on your mouth. Now I counts is the final result, which is the prod- The first performance was given by the Bal- kiss your feet, and you are mine altogether.” uct of Stravinsky’s musical imagination, lets Ida Rubinstein at the Paris Opéra on however much it has been colored by his November 27, 1928. The score calls for two Stravinsky simplified the plot considerably, love of the older composer’s music. flutes and piccolo (doubling third flute), two dividing the story into three scenes with a oboes and English horn, two clarinets and brief epilogue. Indeed, he retained, as he ex- The motivic treatment, the frequent ostina- bass clarinet (doubling third clarinet), two plained, only “the skeleton of the story.” In tos, the carefully elaborated irregularities bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three the first scene, the mother – pursued by spir- of phrase structure, and the deft but spare trombones and tuba, timpani, bass drum, its in a storm – is separated from her child, orchestral treatment all bespeak Stravinsky. harp, and strings. Approximate performance who is found and kissed by a fairy. Arriv- Yet it would be idle to deny that there is an time is forty-four minutes. ing villagers discover the child and take him element of romanticism in this score that is home with them. The second scene takes almost never encountered elsewhere in the Tchaikovsky was always one of Stravinsky’s The idea was that I should compose place eighteen years later; the young man work of Stravinsky, and that must be Tchai- favorite composers; he represented, along something inspired by the music of and his fiancée are taking part in a village kovsky’s doing. with Glinka, all that was best in Russian Tchaikovsky. My well known fond- festival. When all but the young man have music. And in the case of Tchaikovsky, there ness for this composer, and, still left, the fairy enters, disguised as a gypsy, Stravinsky limited himself to choosing were family connections, too. Tchaikovsky more, the fact that November [1928], and offers to read his palm; she foretells from piano pieces and songs, mostly small gave an inscribed photograph to Stravin- the time fixed for the performance, great happiness in his future, and leads him and tuneful sources that he could develop sky’s father, a distinguished basso, as a me- would mark the thirty fifth anniversa- off to the mill. The third scene takes place and transmute as best served his needs. mento of his performance as the monk in ry of his death, induced me to accept inside the mill (the fiancée’s home), where Since Tchaikovsky’s songs and piano mu- Tchaikovsky’s opera The Sorceress. And the the offer. It would give me an oppor- the peasant girls dance. The young man and sic are little known here, few listeners will young Igor actually saw Tchaikovsky in per- tunity of paying my heartfelt homage the fiancée dance apas de deux, then her be able to identify the original sources of son, when both of them attended a special to Tchaikovsky’s wonderful talent. friends throw her bridal veil over her head, The Fairy’s Kiss, with one important excep- performance of Glinka’s Russlan and Lyud- and she retires with her friends to put on tion. At the climactic moment of the story, milla at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Peters- Stravinsky decided that he would base her bridal gown. Soon the young man ob- when the fairy, dressed in the wedding veil, burg in late 1893 – but that was the last op- his new work on non-orchestral music by serves a veiled, white clad form standing finally succeeds in completely winning the portunity he had for personal contact. Two Tchaikovsky (particularly songs and piano motionless. Thinking her to be his fiancée, young man, Stravinsky builds his climax – weeks later, Tchaikovsky was dead. pieces). In this respect, his new score would he draws near her; they dance.