SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT BACH, BLOCH AND DON QUIXOTE Rafael Payare, conductor November 15 and 17, 2019 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major, BWV 1069 Overture Bourrée I and II Gavotte Minuet I and II Réjouissance ERNEST BLOCH Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra Alisa Weilerstein, cello INTERMISSION JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Ricercar No. 2 from Musical Offering, BWV 1079 Orch. Anton Webern RICHARD STRAUSS Don Quixote, Op. 35 (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character) Introduction Theme: Don Quixote, the Knight of the Woeful Countenance Variation 1: The Adventure of the Windmills Variation 2: Battle with the Sheep Variation 3: Dialogue of Knight and Squire Variation 4: The Adventure with the Penitents Variation 5: The Knight’s Vigil Variation 6: The False Dulcinea Variation 7: The Ride through the Air Variation 8: The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat Variation 9: The Combat with the Two Magicians Variation 10: The Joust with the Knight of the White Moon Finale: The Death of Don Quixote Alisa Weilerstein, cello Chi-Yuan Chen, viola Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major, BWV 1069 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Born March 21, 1685, Eisenach Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig Among Bach’s orchestral works are four pieces that we know today as his Orchestral Suites, though Bach himself never heard or used that name. Bach referred to these pieces as “Overtures,” using the name of their powerful opening movement to refer to the entire piece. Each of these Suites (inevitably, we end up using the modern name) consists of the opening Overture followed by a series of dance movements, usually in binary form. The Orchestral Suite No. 4 is scored for a relatively large orchestra of three trumpets, three oboes, timpani, bassoon, strings, and bass continuo. Such an orchestra can make a resplendent sound, and Bach makes full use of those possibilities. The opening movement (which has no tempo marking) gets off to a grand beginning on the stately dotted rhythms typical of the French ouverture. The music races ahead at the main section (again without tempo indication), which Bach sets in 9/8. In the French ouverture this main section would usually be fugal in construction. Bach makes a nod in that direction here: much of the writing in this section is fugal, though it is not strictly a fugue. A surprising feature here is Bach’s use of the orchestra: sometimes only the woodwinds play, other moments feature the brass, and at times Bach will employ all his forces. The Overture concludes with a return to the grand opening section, and – enlivened by some resonant writing for the trumpets – the music drives to a ringing close on a D Major chord for full orchestra. There follows the sequence of dance movements. Bourrée I is animated by the sound of high trumpets, while Bourrée II moves to B minor and features a busy bassoon accompaniment; Bach rounds the movement off with a repeat of Bourrée I. The stately Gavotte is in binary form. Trumpets and timpani remain silent through the minuet movements: the dignified Minuet I frames Minuet II, which is chamber music – it is scored for string quartet. Bach rounds off the Suite No. 4 with a very fast movement titled Réjouissance: “rejoicing.” Trumpets and timpani return to help rush the Suite to its conclusion in a most festive mood. Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra ERNEST BLOCH Born July 24, 1880, Geneva Died July 15, 1959, Portland, Oregon Ernest Bloch composed Schelomo in Geneva in 1916, during a period when he was depressed. It was a difficult time for Bloch: he felt his career as a composer was going nowhere, a feeling intensified by the recent failure of an opera. For Europe in general, this was the middle of World War I, and even in neutral Switzerland Bloch was aware of the suffering and destruction around him. In fact, Bloch’s dissatisfaction with his prospects in Europe was so great that he would emigrate to America later in 1916 to try to find a new beginning for himself as a composer in a new land. During the winter of 1915-16 Bloch visited a couple who had recently fled to Geneva from Russia, Alexander and Charlotte Barzansky. Barzansky was a virtuoso cellist, and his wife was a sculptress. On display in their home was a wax sculpture of King Solomon which she had just made. Bloch enjoyed his visit enormously: not only did it lift his spirits, but the visit also became the inspiration for his next composition, a work for cello and orchestra he called Schelomo. Bloch took his inspiration from Alexander Barzansky’s virtuosity as a cellist and from Charlotte Barzansky’s statue of King Solomon. He worked quickly, completing the score in February 1916 and dedicating it to Alexander Barzansky. It is no surprise to find a work on such a subject from this period in Bloch’s career. From about 1915 to about 1928 Bloch was particularly concerned with his own Jewish heritage and with finding ways to express it in music. From this period came many works with a specifically Jewish character: Three Jewish Poems, his symphony Israel, settings of some of the psalms, and other works. Of his urge to write music on Jewish subjects, Bloch wrote in 1917: It is not my purpose, not my desire, to attempt a “reconstitution” of Jewish music or to base my works on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archaeologist. I hold it of first importance to write good, genuine music, my music. It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible: the freshness and naïveté of the Patriarchs; the violence that is evident in the prophetic books; the Jew’s savage love of justice; the despair of the Preacher of Jerusalem; the sorrow and the immensity of the Book of Job; the sensuality of the Song of Songs. All this is in us; all this is in me, and it is the better part of me. It is all that I endeavor to hear in myself and to transcribe in my music; the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers way down in our soul. Bloch was speaking specifically of Schelomo when he wrote this, and he said further that Schelomo was inspired by a specific passage from Ecclesiastes: “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit…Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” (According to older Jewish tradition, King Solomon himself – “Schelomo” in Hebrew – is the author of The Book of Ecclesiastes, though he himself is never mentioned there by name.) Schelomo has been called “a free-form cello concerto in one movement,” but that description is too vague. It is more accurately a tone poem for cello and orchestra, much like Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote heard later on this program. In each work the cello takes the part of the protagonist, while the orchestra plays the role of the world which the hero faces. Bloch himself made this clear when he said of Schelomo: “If one likes, one may imagine that the voice of the solo cello is the voice of King ‘Schelomo.’ The complex voice of the orchestra is the voice of his age…his world…his experience. There are times when the orchestra seems to reflect his thoughts as the solo cello voices his words.” The work is episodic, and each episode portrays a different feature of the world that surrounds Schelomo: there is an exotic portrait of Schelomo’s court and its pageantry, there are the voices of the crowd at its prayers, there is the sound of dancing. The cello observes each of these, broods over them, and finally rejects each as a vanity. Schelomo ends in what Bloch called “complete negation” because, as he said, his subject demanded so dark a close. Ricercar No. 2 from Musical Offering, BWV 1079 (Orch. Anton Webern) JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH In 1747 Bach – aging and going blind – was invited to Berlin by his son Carl Phillip Emanuel, who was harpsichordist to Frederick the Great. Bach was treated as an honored guest in Berlin – Frederick referred to him as “old Bach” to distinguish him from his son – and in Berlin “old Bach” got to play an instrument he had never seen before: a piano. (Frederick the Great had one of the first pianos ever made.) While they were in the music room, Frederick the Great wrote a theme and asked “old Bach” to extemporize a six-part fugue on it. Bach begged off so impossible a challenge and instead extemporized a three-part fugue on Frederick’s theme. But back home in Leipzig Bach kept working on Frederick’s theme and worked out all kinds of contrapuntal treatments of that “royal theme.” He had these copied and bound in leather and sent to Frederick the Great under the title A Musical Offering. One of these movements has haunted musicians ever since. The Ricercar à 6 appears to be Bach’s attempt to work out the six-part contrapuntal treatment that Frederick had originally asked for. In Italian, “ricercar” means “to search out,” and perhaps our task as listeners is “to search out” Bach’s complex treatment of Frederick’s theme. This music may be Bach’s greatest contrapuntal achievement. It is unbelievably complex: Bach scores it for six separate melodic lines and takes Frederick’s theme through twelve separate entrances. It is beautiful music – and it is supremely cerebral music.