UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY LONDON CLASSICAL PLAYERS Roger Norrington, Conductor Thursday Evening, October 25, 1990, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan PROGRAM Overture: The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 ... Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 Beethoven Adagio, allegro vivace Adagio Allegro vivace Allegro ma non troppo INTERMISSION Symphony No. 3 in A minor, "Scottish" . , Mendelssohn Andante con moto, allegro un poco agitato Vivace non troppo Adagio Allegro vivacissimo, allegro maestoso assai The London Classical Players are represented by Byers, Schwalbe & Associates, Inc., New York. For the convenience of our patrons, the box office in the outer lobby will be open during intermission for purchase of tickets to upcoming Musical Society concerts. To Better Serve Our Patrons Visit the UMS/Encore Information Table in the lobby, where volunteers and staff members are on hand to provide a myriad of details about events, restaurants, etc., and register any concerns or suggestions. Open thirty minutes before each concert and during intermission. Fifth Concert of the 112th Season 112th Annual Choral Union Series Program Notes Overture, Op. 43, Count. The composer had already embarked The Creatures of Prometheus on the Fifth, but laid it aside to compose in or four months, this VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) the matter of three LUDWIG symphony, No. 4 in B-flat. Beethoven re­ ceived 500 gulden and, in turn, dedicated the hile working on his Sec­ work to Oppersdorff. ond Symphony, Beetho­ Oppersdorff was also involved in dis­ ven received an unex­ cussions about the Fifth Symphony, and it is pected commission from possible that this work, too, was at one stage the Court Theatre to com­ intended for the Count. Perhaps Beethoven ballet on the legend of Wpose music for a felt that its more ambitious scope made it Ballet had established itself as a Prometheus. impracticable for the Count's orchestra; more Vienna at the turn of the major art form in likely, is that Beethoven welcomed the op­ thirty-year-old Beetho­ century, and for the portunity to compose a less demanding work represented a major step ven, the commission after the epochal Eroica. It was to be a In terms of his stylistic forward in his career. recurring feature of his symphonic output that it was to have long term con­ development, an ambitious work be succeeded by a more signaling that remarkable broad­ sequences, relaxed one, the Pastoral after the Fifth, and horizons that ening of expressive the Eighth after the Seventh. It was not a theatre music of all types acquaintance with question of spent intellectual energy, merely encouraged. searching after a different tone. Certainly, the Beethoven composed an overture and Fourth Symphony is not a lightweight work. numbers, music that is character­ 17 further Like the Second Symphony, the work of the vivid and the ized by a ready sense opens with an expansive slow introduction, typical of the time, the charming. As was the slowest music in the symphony and fea­ of expectation rather overture arouses a sense turing several magical changes of key. The summary of the action to than providing a ensuing Allegro vivace wills a new energy and and sudden bursts follow. The syncopations direction to the music. suggest the powers of fortissimo do, however, The slow movement returns to the who created two of the Titan, Prometheus, warm lyricism of the Largo of the Second help of fire stolen from beings with the Symphony, including .the prominent use of Olympus. the clarinet, but there is also a prophetic David Wyn Jones, 1989 feature. Shortly before the close, the flow of the movement is halted briefly so that the Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60 horn, violins, clarinet, and flute can interject LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN arpeggios. Beethoven was to return to this idea of an interruption in the slow movement n the late summer of 1806, Beethoven of the Pastoral, the celebrated depiction of the was introduced to Count Franz von nightingale, quail, and cuckoo. Oppersdorff by a mutual friend, Prince The Scherzo is the first in Beethoven's Lichnowsky, and spent some time as a symphonies in which the Trio is heard twice, guest in his house near Ober-Glogau in a section of relaxed dialogue that contrasts Silesia.I Oppersdorff was one of the few with the abruptness of the main section. artistocratic patrons of the time who, despite The finale is a moto perpetuo of relent­ inflation and increasing taxation, had man­ less and precarious energy, occasionally re­ aged to retain a court orchestra. Beethoven lieved by snatches of melody the musical was greeted with a performance of the four- equivalent of being in a bob-sleigh steered by year-old Second Symphony and agreed to Eddie Edwards. compose a new symphony specifically for the David Wyn Jones Symphony No. 3 in A minor, those of the carefree years of travel. He was "Scottish" deeply embroiled in an attempt, undertaken FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) at the request of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, to revitalize Berlin's musical life, but it had become increasingly apparent that bureau­ endelssohn's parents were cratic inertia and the conservative Prussian firmly convinced that for­ society of the time would doom his efforts to eign travel was essential to failure. The consequent stress and frustration complete their son's educa­ that he experienced tion and broaden his hori­ seem to be reflected in the Scottish Symphony's passionate and, to zons.M Thus, shortly after his twentieth some extent, somber mood. birthday, he began a series of European travels Mendelssohn did not reveal a specific that were to occupy much of the next five program for the symphony, but he headed the years and would provide him with consider­ score with the instruction: "The individual able creative inspiration. His first journey, in movements of this symphony must follow 1829, was to Britain. In London, he was straight on from one another and not be introduced into society and laid the founda­ separated from each other by the usual long tions of his future musical activities there. break. The content of the individual move­ Then, in July, he traveled north to Scotland, ments can be given to the listener on the where the mysterious beauty of the country concert program as follows: Introduction and and its Romantic historical associations Allegro agitato-Scherzo assai vivace-Adagio stirred his imagination, giving rise, ulti­ cantabile-Allegro guerriero and Finale maes­ mately, to the Hebrides overture and the toso." Scottish Symphony. The first ideas for the Like symphony came to him in Edinburgh when his concert overtures, the Sym­ phony No. 3 is a series of mood pictures he visited the ruined chapel of Holyrood intended to stimulate the imagination of the House. On July 30, he described his feelings audience rather than a distinct narrative. The in a letter home: "grass and ivy grow there first and last movements, with their rich and and at the broken altar where Mary was virile orchestration, evoke the atmosphere of crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything Sir Walter Scott's historical romances. The around is broken and mouldering, and the second movement introduces dancelike me­ bright sky shines in. I believe I found today lodic and rhythmical material with a dis­ in that old chapel the beginnings of my tinctly Scottish flavor, while the recitative 'Scottish' symphony." opening of the beautiful slow movement But work on the symphony progressed reinforces the impression of a hidden narra­ slowly. Mendelssohn's letters mentioned the tive to which individual listeners can respond projected A-minor symphony several times in their own way. during 1830, and he was certainly working After the first performance of the Scot­ on it during his Italian journey the following tish Symphony at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on year. The bright Italian skies, however, were March 3, 1842, Mendelssohn made a few not conducive to the composition of a sym­ alterations to the score before taking it with phony conceived in Scotland. As he wrote him to London. Bearing a dedication to to his family in March 1831: "The finest Queen Victoria, the Scottish Symphony re­ season of the year in Italy is from the 15th ceived its English premiere under the April to the 15th May. Who can wonder that composer's baton at the Philharmonic Society I find it impossible to return to my misty on June 13, 1843. Scottish mood? I have therefore laid aside the Dr. Clive Brown symphony for the present." In any event, he was not to return to it seriously for another ten years. When he finally began work again on the Scottish Symphony in 1841, the circum­ stances of his life were radically different from London Classical Players he London Classical Players have earned a reputation for being one of the most talked-about orchestras throughout the musical world as a result of its pioneering work with Roger Norrington. In its London concerts, at festivals in Britain and abroad, on recordings, and in several television programs, the group has developed a series of classical recreations and a whole new style of historical playing. TThe orchestra was the first to give historic performances of almost all the major eighteenth-century masterpieces, including Handel's Messiah, Bach's St. John Passion, Mozart's Requiem, and Haydn's Creation and Seasons. It has also moved ahead into the nineteenth century with Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet and Fantastic Symphony, and symphonies by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Mendelssohn. The London Classical Players have made a number of programs for radio and TV, including the Beethoven Symphony cycle for BBC TV in 1989, and earlier this year, a documentary on authentic performance practice.