Program Notes
Suite No. 1 from Carmen Georges Bizet
(1838 – 1875)
The life of Georges Bizet is yet another example of a marvelously gifted composer cut down in the prime of life. We are less aware of his untimely death, perhaps because he had just achieved the beginnings of wide public recognition, unlike Mozart who died at 35. Nevertheless, Bizet is certainly famous today, most notably for his opera Carmen. Although he composed a total of four operas, a masterful symphony at age 17, an orchestral suite, incidental music to L’Arlesienne and a number of works for piano, it is Carmen that most remember.
Born in Paris, Bizet was quite precocious and managed to be admitted to the Paris Conservatory at age nine – something highly irregular. With the exception of some time studying in Italy (as a winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome) he spent most of his life in Paris. His primary composition teacher at the Conservatory was Jacques Halévy, whose daughter Geneviéve he later married. Upon his graduation, he began to make his way, with some initial hesitancy and seeming insecurity, in the genre he prized above all others – opera. The first three – The Pearl Fishers (set in Sri Lanka), The Fair Maid of Perth and Djamileh were not universally admired. However, with Carmen, he achieved fame, a fame he was not to live long enough to experience.
Carmen is a far cry from the more gentile and “civilized” operas of his contemporaries. In fact, the plot was considered somewhat scandalous, involving as it did a Gypsy woman who has many lovers and works in a cigarette factory, a philandering toreador and a love-besotted young military officer. Perhaps it was the gritty nature of the libretto, written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (his wife’s cousin) and based on a novella by Prosper Merimée, perhaps it was the use of spoken dialogue between arias (a trademark of opera comique) or the exciting rhythms and orchestral colors: the result was that the opera did not gain immediate acceptance. Later on, it would be praised by well known contemporaries as diverse as Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky and become one of the most popular operas of all time. Sadly, the composer died of a congenital heart malady a few months after the initial performances and on his third wedding anniversary. He was survived by his wife and a young son.
The First Suite was assembled from excerpts and includes the following: Prélude (Prelude to Act I), Aragonaise (Prelude to Act IV), Intermezzo (Prelude to Act III), Seguedille (from Act I), Les dragons d’Alcala (Prelude to Act II) and Les Toréadors (Introduction to Act I).
Romance for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 11 Antonin Dvořák
(1841 – 1904)
The Romance for Violin and Orchestra is a very early work of Dvořák, being completed just after his Symphony No. 3. Indeed, the Romance is a reworking of the second movement of his String Quartet in F Minor, Opus 9 for this setting. The appeal of the quartet movement must have been such as to move the composer to prepare a setting suitable for a wider audience.
The atmosphere is unmistakably Bohemian – pure Dvořák, even if a little self-conscious in small details of the solo line. There is the distinct impression that this is a small tone poem depicting the warm air of summer and the woodlands of his beloved land. Far from a mere solo showpiece, the violin and orchestra are mutually complimentary and enhancing, a trait he never lost.
If the maturity of works such as the slightly later Serenade for Strings and then the virtual explosion of the composer onto the European musical scene with the Slavonic Dances, the Romance is still one of the truly lovely and expressive small works for solo violin and orchestra. As such, it deserves more attention and public notice than it currently receives.
Symphony No. 1 in D Major (Titan) Gustav Mahler
(1860 – 1911)
“A symphony should be like the world; it must embrace everything.” This is what Gustav Mahler told his fellow composer Jean Sibelius in a 1905 conversation. And Mahler was true to his artistic credo. His nine complete symphonies, the tenth being unfinished at the time of his death, encompass an almost overpowering range of emotion and image. That this single man was able to accomplish this, in addition to writing five large song cycles and numerous individual Lieder, all the while engaged in what was considered by others to be his true calling – that of a conductor – is astonishing. His great ability and drive led him to a succession of positions culminating in the Vienna Stattsoper and the New York Philharmonic. Indeed, Mahler was only able to compose during the summer, when both orchestras and opera houses were shut down.
Born into a large Jewish family (eleven siblings) in Kaliste (Kalischt), Bohemia on July 7, 1861, Gustav Mahler was exposed to a kaleidoscopic variety of influences and impressions that would permeate his work as a composer. Both in Kaliste and Iglau, where his family moved when he was six, this son of an innkeeper and butcher, was familiar with both the folk music of Bohemia and the rich musical life of the Jewish minority. In addition, Iglau was the garrison of a regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army and the constant signaling of the minutiae of each military day by means of trumpet calls was well known to the young Mahler. Later influences would include folk-poetry, the writings of Nietzsche, Goethe, medieval Catholic mystics and Chinese literature. These impinged on a personality that was very tightly wound and given to bouts of depression, giving rise to music of an, at times, searing emotional character. Sarcasm, parody and irony are easily detected in his composition, along with yearnings for peace and love that are heart wrenching in their sincerity and tenderness.
From 1875 – 78, Mahler was a student at the Vienna Conservatory, studying piano, harmony and composition, as well as philosophy and history. In 1880 be assumed the first of numerous conducting posts in increasingly more important establishments. In 1883 he became music director at Kassel in Hessen, a post that was musically unsatisfactory and where an unhappy love affair led to the composition of his first master work, the Songs of a Wayfarer, and the beginnings of his closely related Symphony No. 1. The relationship is based on both the circumstances that inspired both works and the very important inclusion of material from the song cycle in the symphony. In fact, this tendency would permeate his first five symphonies – each one quoting from and being inspired by his compositions for voice.
The title “Titan” implies some sort of verbal/mental program behind the work. And, indeed there was a written program that Mahler created at the behest of his friends. Later, he rejected the program as being unnecessary. Yet, it lingered in his mind. From the musical instructions it seems clear that the first movement is inspired by the beauty of nature on a summer morning – the composer calls for “the sounds of nature.” . The song “Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld” (“As I walked early in the field”) is quoted and developed as the primary musical material, that is joyous and full of boisterous good humor. The composer dearly loved nature and did all his composition in remote mountain resorts where he could experience both the isolation that his work required, as well as the beauty he could see as he worked or took long walks. The second movement is based on an Upper Austrian folkdance, the Ländler, a predecessor of the waltz. In an ABA from, the A sections are full of great energy and gaiety. At one point Mahler instructs the musicians to play “wildly:” indeed, this may be a parody of the peasant dance as it sounds somewhat as if it were on steroids. The middle section is slower and lyrically reflective, with ravishingly beautiful melodies that form a perfect contrast to the more bumptious nature of the enclosing A sections.
Regarding the third movement (Funeral March), the composer wrote to his friend, Max Marschalk, “…I must admit that my inspiration came from the well known nursery picture (The Burial of the Huntsman). But at this point in the work it is irrelevant – what matters is only the mood that has to be expressed, the mood from which the fourth movement suddenly flashes like lightening out of a thundercloud.” The Funeral March is also in three parts. The outer sections being based on the folk song Bruder Martin, which sounds exactly like a minor key version of Frére Jacques. It is first heard in the solo string bass and then, like the songs themselves, taken up in the form of a round by other instruments and sections. Interjected in to the solemnity of the funeral procession is material that will remind anyone familiar with Klezmer of this Yiddish folk idiom. The scoring is primarily for winds, with the bass drum and attached cymbal providing a kind of “boom-chik” rhythmic accompaniment. The effect is rather incongruous and totally unexpected, perhaps a mocking reference to his own non-practicing Jewish status and the isolation many Jewish people felt in the world of Austria-Hungary. The middle section is taken from another song of the Wayfarer cycle – Der Lindenbaum – that brings a sense of intense release and great loss. At its conclusion, the funeral march resumes and surges to a raucous climax before fading away. Mahler wrote: “It is simply the outcry of a heart deeply wounded, a cry preceded by the uncannily and ironically brooding sultriness of the funeral march…”
And, like a thunderclap, the fourth movement bursts forth immediately at the end of the previous movement. The effect is likely to make listeners jump a little, as it is so violent and unexpected. Like the first movement, it is in sonata form, but one of sprawling and heroic proportions. A huge dominant pedal point, in the key of F minor, extends some for some 55 measures, filled with immense surges of sound of a most striking and almost violent character. The ensuing first thematic group has a determined, martial character – a march of a quite different sort than the preceding movement. In keeping with his idea of progressive tonality, the movement starts in a key other than the tonic (home) key. Its movement toward D Major further represents the musical journey under way. The second group arrives with a short bridge passage and is in the key of D-flat Major – quite remote from the nominal key of D Major. IT is stated first by the first violins and cellos and has a hauntingly lyrical quality that is deeply emotional. The groups is quite short compared to the overall length of the movement and is followed by a massive development section that also introduces new thematic material of a heroic and triumphal nature – this will recur in the coda at the end.
When the composer begins the recapitulation, he doesn’t merely go to the material from the opening of the movement, he reprises melodic material from the first movement – a practice known as cyclic composition. IN doing so he seems to want us to remember the anguish of earlier times before leading us to the triumphal ending. After the second theme group is reprised, another, secondary development takes place. Just when it seems that the musical tension in a remote key will be unbearable, Mahler gives us a release that is really an epiphany. The trumpets intone a stirring fanfare (now in D Major) and the composer directs the orchestra to play with “highest strength, always driving forward.” Now a new march appears – in a major key and with a quality of ultimate victory. The musical triumph grown in intensity and to press home the excitement, the sever horn players are directed to stand up and play with their bells raised in the air – a direction also given to the woodwinds, both here and in the second movement. The full weight of this immense sound structure is given primarily to the brass section and the result is a stunning climax that leaves listener and musician both exalted and also, perhaps, emotionally exhausted. It is a huge slice of life, delivered with intensity and deepest conviction by a man who knew the varied and contrasting emotions of a life lived to the fullest.