print this pageOctober 2007
Monterey Symphony Program Notes Concert One
October 13, 2007 (3 pm Final
Rehearsal & 8 pm Concert) - Sherwood Hall, Salinas
October 14 (3 pm) & October 15,
2007 (8 pm) - Sunset Theater, Carmel
Max Bragado-Darman, conductor
Barbara Nissman, piano
Leonore Overture No. 1
*
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Composed 1805
Fidelio is based on an 18th century French play, Léonore, ou l’amour conjugal by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with the virtues of conjugal love–the deep devotion of a married couple as its principle theme. To add further depth to the drama, the characters are a mix of upper class characters (Fernando, Florestan, Leonore) and the newly emerging middle class (Rocco, Jacquino, Marcellina).
Three major re-writes of the German libretto took place between Leonore’s introduction in 1805 and Fidelio, the final version, in 1814 when it was performed brilliantly and met with great success. With each revision and production, Beethoven produced a new overture: thus, the creation of Leonore No.1, No.2, No.3, and Fidelio.
Beethoven was deeply moved by the imprisonment of Florestan, the hero, by a tyrant, and by the love and devotion of Leonore and Florestan, two married people. In his own life, he feared the former and sought, to no avail, the later.
Synopsis
Fidelio takes place inside a state prison on the edge of Seville, Spain in the 18th century. For political reasons, Pizarro, the region’s governor and overseer of the prison has confined in this fortress his enemy, a nobleman, Florestan. The prisoner has been held in great secrecy in an isolated dungeon without knowledge of who imprisoned him or for what reason. During the two years since Florestan’s abduction, it was rumored that he was dead. Pizarro, afraid of the repercussions from killing Florestan outright, has been slowly starving him to death.
After months of searching and refusing to believe that her husband was dead, Florestan’s wife, Leonore, has arrived at this prison. She suspects that her husband is here although she does not know that for certain. To find out, Leonore has disguised herself as a man and convinced the prison’s good natured jailer, Rocco, to employ her as his assistant. For herself, she has selected the name, “Fidelio.”
The first scene of the opera is set in the prison’s courtyard. Jacquino, a young man who works at the prison talks about his love for Marcellina–Rocco’s daughter. He has proposed marriage to her many times and now fears he is losing Marcellina’s attention to another man. The person who has so infatuated Marcellina is Fidelio. Oblivious to the truth, Rocco, the jailer, has convinced himself that the match between his sweet daughter and Fidelio would be a good one. Leonore is embarrassed by these events, but finding and saving her husband is her sole intention.
Pizarro enters with armed guards. By a secret letter, Pizarro has learned that the King’s prime minister Fernando will arrive today to inspect the prison. Pizarro suspects that his own misuse of power and his arbitrary rule have become known to the minister. Pizarro tells us that he has decided to kill Florestan immediately and hide all the evidence.
Pizarro orders trumpeters to signal him as soon as the carriage of the King’s emissary appears. Pizarro offers Rocco gold coins to murder Florestan. But, in spite of the jailer’s previous declarations about his need for money, Rocco refuses and agrees only to dig the grave. Pizarro then delights in the fact that he himself will end the life of his political adversary.
Leonore has been listening to this exchange from the shadows. She is increasingly agitated about the vileness of Pizarro and his murderous intentions. Leonore convinces Rocco to let her assist him in digging the grave for the secret prisoner.
It is the feast day of the King’s patron saint and in his honor Rocco allows the minor prisoners a chance to come outside in the courtyard and breathe fresh air. Saddened that Florestan is not among the prisoners, Leonore is now convinced that her husband must be the unfortunate man hidden in the dungeon. Pizarro returns to the courtyard and is furious at Rocco for letting the prisoners out of their confinement. Pizarro orders them to return to their cells and Act I concludes.
The first scene of Act II is set in the isolated dungeon, deep below the prison’s courtyard. A lone prisoner, visibly weak and distraught, is chained to a post. It is Florestan. He sings about the springtime of his life. He laments that he is innocent of any crime and that he has been condemned to this endless torment because of his love for liberty. Suddenly, he has a vision of his wife, Leonore, and calls out to her.
Rocco and Leonore enter the dungeon to dig Florestan’s grave. Leonore isn’t sure that this man is, in fact, her husband. He has changed so much. When Rocco tells her to give the prisoner some bread, Leonore has a chance to look at him closely. She recognizes his voice. It is Florestan. But he does not know her and continues his gentle song which touches her deeply.
Pizarro arrives in the dungeon to carry out the execution. He tells them that he is the one responsible for Florestan’s imprisonment. He draws a knife on Florestan, but at that moment, Leonore rushes between them and reveals her true identity. Pizarro goes into a rage and attempts to kill them both. Prepared for this, Leonore draws a gun on Pizarro, but a trumpet call heralding the arrival of Fernando, the King’s minister, interrupts them. Leonore realizes that they have been saved. After the second trumpet sounds, Jacquino and the guards enter and summon Pizarro and Rocco to the courtyard to meet Fernando.
Fernando recognizes his old friend Florestan, orders Pizarro arrested, releases all the prisoners. The townspeople arrive to welcome them to freedom. Fidelio’s identity has been revealed, Leonore unlocks Florestan’s chains, and husband and wife are rejoined. Marcellina consents to marry the persistent Jacquino and Pizarro is led away to the prison cell. All sing their praise of the courageous wife who would not give up hope.
Beethoven captures the mood of the drama by this work’s opening chords by the full orchestra and ascending and descending scales, interrupted by additional full chords. The changing dynamics and colors increase the intensity of the Overture until at its mid-point, a passage from the love duet between Florestan and Leonore releases the listener from the unsettled feeling at the opening. Further melodic quotes bring the Overture to a rousing conclusion.
Joseph Truskot
Symphony No. 4 in C minor, "Tragic" D.417
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Had Franz Schubert lived longer than his 31 years, imagine what compositions he would have produced and which direction classical music might have turned. Schubert was born in a suburb of Vienna and died, probably of syphilis, in that same great center of culture. Schubert’s father was a teacher and a member of the new emerging middle class. Franz sang in the Imperial Seminary Choir, most likely studied composition with Salieri, and produced his early compositions to help out the church and school. When he reached adulthood he tried his hand at teaching in his father’s school but found he had neither the ability nor the interest in that field. Instead, he began to live a Bohemian life, hanging out in the taverns during the evenings, sleeping in late, and composing all afternoon. His friends were fellow musicians, poets, actors and artists. Schubert composed original music to fill an entire evening in which he and his friends participated gleefully in these casual production which later came to be known as Schubertiads. What Franz Schubert enjoyed most was composing and for the remainder of his tragically brief life compose is what he did.
Schubert had a genius for creating melodies. He wrote more than 600 songs, 10 operas, 8 symphonies, several masses, and numerous works for various chamber ensembles and solo piano. He wrote in every musical type except, curiously, the concerto. This exception is not surprising. Schubert was the first great composer who was neither a conductor nor an instrumentalist. His piano playing was capable, but not virtuosic like Mozart and Beethoven. Schubert was also the first major composer who was not completely dependent on the upper class for his livelihood. He was a child of the newly expanding middle class and spent most of his time with members of that class.
The world owes a great debt to Schubert’s Bohemian friends for safekeeping the voluminous manuscripts he left behind. They recognized their friend’s unique gift and waited until musicians like Schumann and Mendelssohn could bring these works to the world’s attention. The idea that Schubert was an unrecognized genius during his lifetime isn’t quite factual. In Schubert’s final year of life, for instance, he had received positive responses from major publishers interested in distributing his compositions. Beethoven had met young Schubert, gave him encouragement, and accepted a visit from him while on his deathbed. Had Schubert lived only a little time longer, he would have had a more widely established reputation and a more secure income.
Schubert’s Symphony No.4 in C minor, heard at these concerts, was composed in 1816 when the composer was 19 years old. Schubert himself gave it the title, “Tragic,” and the mood of its four movements (Andante, Allegro Vivace, Allegro, Adagio Molto: Allegro Vivace ) is often somber. It was Schubert’s first symphony composed in a minor key and completed quite soon after the young composer had heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (also in C minor). Much of the attendant “restlessness”of the work is a result of Schubert’s unconventional changes in key, dynamics, and melodic content. Schubert’s ebullient personality, however, sails through even the work’s darkest moments. It is scored for double winds, four horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Although composed in 1816, the Symphony No.4 did not receive its first public performance until on November 19, 1849 in Leipzig—twenty years after the composer’s death.
Joseph Truskot
Concerto No.2 in B-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, Op.83
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Composed (1878-1881)
Brahms was one of the great virtuoso pianists of the 19th century, but so overwhelming is his legacy as a composer that his gifts as a performer are often overlooked. Despite his pianistic ability, Brahms composed a surprisingly meager number of large works for his chosen instrument, with only two concertos as compared, for example, with Beethoven's five or Mozart's twenty-odd. And in both Brahms' piano concertos the style is symphonic, with little of the concerted jousting between soloist and orchestra found in similar works of his predecessors; which is not to say that the piano line in either concerto is wanting in technical difficulty for they are filled with every combination of double octaves, sixths, and thirds as well as broken arpeggios -- a veritable orgy of pianistic legerdemain. But this virtuosity is never for mere display. Rather, it is intrinsic in the total majestic concept of the work.
Brahms made sketches for his Second Concerto in the spring of 1878 after he returned from his first Italian visit. Progress was interrupted, however, by work on several other large compositions including the Violin Concerto, so the Piano Concerto was not finished until 1881. The dedication, made a year later, was to Eduard Marxsen, the eminent Hamburg pianist and teacher, to whose inspired and devoted instruction Brahms owed his ultimate emergence as a great artist. The dedication, facing the first score page, reads "Seinem teuren Freunde und Lehrer Eduard Marxsen zuggeignet" (dedicated to his dear friend and teacher, Eduard Marxsen).
Several years earlier Brahms had developed a close acquaintance with Hans von Bülow, the famous pianist and conductor whose help and encouragement were of great importance to Brahms. Von Bülow had given performance to several of the younger master's works and had followed his development with interest. Thus in the summer of 1881, after trying out the new concerto with a second piano on the orchestral parts, Brahms dared to approach von Bülow with the new score which he had dubbed "the long terror." In November of 1881, von Bülow gave a performance with his Meiningen orchestra for an invited audience of musicians and connoisseurs. The composer played the solo piano part and the new work had an outstanding success. Today the Second Piano Concerto remains arguably the most powerful concerto in the piano repertoire.
As has been remarked, the style of the Second Concerto is symphonic and the four-movement form fortifies this impression, since the concerto had, by long tradition, been a three-movement type. The scheme of the key relationships among the four movements is strikingly simple, since the only deviation from B-flat major as a primary and final-cadencing key occurs in the second movement, a scherzo, which uses D minor. However, this tonal simplicity is deceiving since it proves to be a bland backdrop for the profuse modulation and chromatic embellishment found on every page. Comment on the four movements follows.
1. Allegro non troppo
This massive and heroic first movement acquires cohesiveness through a "motto motif" presented at the outset by a horn and echoed by the solo piano. This distinctive but simple motto permeates the complicated materials that emerge as the movement progresses, acting as a kind of amalgam among the other discrete elements. At the opening the motto is treated in dialogue, creating an impressive prelude that climaxes in a brilliant cadenza for the solo piano. This leads to the first or orchestral exposition in the sonata-allegro design. (It is possible that Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto was Brahms' model, since the first movement of that work also opens with a motto treated in dialogue that goes on to permeate the whole movement.) After the orchestral exposition, the piano enters alone in a bravura passage that leads to statement of the first principal theme, derived from the motto. From this point the movement progresses in the general shape of a gigantic sonata-allegro form, with a variety of fresh ideas and a splendidly virtuosic piano part to supplement the orchestral timbre.
2. Allegro appassionato
The second movement, the "extra" of the four, is something of an anomaly; the mood is that of a scherzo but the extensive development and total length point toward a kind of sonata-fantasia form. The solo piano enters first with a scherzo-like theme, variants of which occupy much of the design. The key is D minor until a fresh idea introduces the major mode in what would be considered the trio section in a scherzo of more modest dimensions. Eventually the first theme returns, greatly developed and enlarged. The solo piano part is distinguished by brilliant passages in double octaves and sixths.
3. Andante
The opening theme is stated by solo cello accompanied by other strings and, occasionally, woodwinds. The solo piano enters with an arpeggio covering the cadence of the cello and proceeds with a short cadenza. The portion which follows shows some of the loveliest filigree-like embellishment of the entire keyboard part and the solo cello returns to round out the tripartite design, this time sharing dialogue with the piano.
4. Allegretto grazioso
The finale is an enormous rondo design with the principal theme a jaunty air stated first by solo piano and recurring after each of the deviant thematic episodes. Like the finales of other Brahms concertos, this one has a kind of Gypsy flavor; and if Brahms, a North German, seems an unlikely Gypsy, we need but recall his extensive concert tours with Eduard Reményi, the famous Hungarian Gypsy violinist.