PROGRAM NOTES
Three Preludes
GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
George Gershwin is inarguably one of the most well-known and beloved composers in American music today. Gershwin wrote music for both Broadway and the classical concert hall in addition to popular songs, and his unique ability to fuse the classical and jazz genres has put his works in a class by itself. His compositions have been used in an extensive number of films and on television, with many becoming jazz standards recorded in numerous variations and countless musicians and singers having recorded his songs—all attesting to Gershwin's universal appeal and notoriety. 
The three short piano pieces that make up his Three Preludes epitomize his "classical" output, using harmonies and intervals from popular music and treating them with the tight melodic rigor of his songs. The work opens with a fast, rhythmic excursion leading to a languorous blues for the second piece, and ends with another dashing jaunt that is based on one of his earlier piano rags. 
 
Appalachian Spring (chamber version)
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Aaron Copland was an American composer of concert and film music. Instrumental in forging a uniquely American style of composition, he was known by and large as “the dean of American composers.” Copland’s music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and comprised an ingenious mastery of evoking the vast American landscape with the open, slowly changing harmonies that characterized many of his works. 
Commissioned by choreographer and dancer Martha Graham, Appalachian Spring is a ballet score composed by Aaron Copland that premiered in 1944 as a chamber work for thirteen instruments before it garnered widespread and long-lasting popularity as an orchestral suite. Originally entitled "Ballet for Martha," Graham revised the name to Appalachian Spring shortly before the premiere, adapted from several lines of a poem by American poet Hart Crane called, "The Dance." Depicting various symbolic scenes from American pioneer life, the music is often idyllic and infused with tenderness, passion, religious sentiment, folk elements and feelings of joy and wonder. The essence of the work comes in the introduction and subsequent variations of "Simple Gifts," a hymn-like Shaker song, or spiritual, which wondrously intones an atmosphere of simple wonder, humility and faith.
 
Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 Waldstein, I. Allegro con brio
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Born in Germany between the Classical and Romantic eras, Ludwig van Beethoven was not only a predominant musical figure of his day, but has come to be regarded as perhaps the greatest composer who ever lived. Basing his art in the Classical conventions of Joseph Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven’s bold harmonic and structural explorations launched the Romantic era in music, where personal feelings were no longer repressed beneath conventional form. He masterfully relays the power of music to stir human emotions unlike anyone else before him. 
Nicknamed, "Waldstein," Beethoven's Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 was inspired by and dedicated to 
his friend and patron, Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, from whom Beethoven received a piano as a gift. The sonata is regarded as a masterwork in the piano literature and one of Beethoven's greatest outputs from his middle period representing the height of his creation. The ingeniously simplistic work opens with an Allegro con brio movement showcasing a restless and propelling introductory theme replete with scales, then yields to a sweet and tranquil, albeit brief, second theme before scurrying to a dazzling finish with the bustling rhythmic drive of the principal theme. 
 
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
The C Minor Concerto is considered to be the work in which Beethoven fully mastered the "symphonic concerto," blending the concept of alternate solo and orchestral statements typical of the Baroque period with the tonal and thematic principles of 18th century symphonic composers. It is also in this work where the beginnings of his "heroic" style is developed, breaking free from compositional norms and displaying the composer's renegade spirit. The opening theme of the first movement is presented in Beethoven's quintessential style: pure and unhindered, strongly rhythmic and easily memorable to follow its transformations as the movement unfolds. A serene and elegant second theme appears in the violins and flutes before the protracted introduction finally gives way to the soloist whose bold entrance is unmistakable: three dynamic and fervent scales are followed by a valiant exhortation of the main theme in double-fisted octaves. In the closing coda, Beethoven incorporates an unorthodox duet between the soloist and the timpanist as they tap out the short-long rhythm of the primary theme. 
The languid elegy found in the second movement bestows stark contrast in both mood and tonality. Here the soloist delineates a long, flowingly decorated melody in the key of E major that is improvisatory in quality, and foreshadows the Romantic language of composers far into the future such as Schumann and Chopin. A muted middle section features a somber dialogue between the solo flute and bassoon. 
The pianist propels the rondo finale returning to the original key of C minor, but the core sentiment is anything but plaintive in this lighthearted and whimsical movement. A poignant middle passage asserts warmth and tenderness with a beguiling theme for the clarinet and bassoon before leading to the concluding Presto coda, now in a brilliant C major, where all the heroism of the first movement and the pensive dolefulness of the second are whisked away in a sparkling and exuberant finish.

~Notes by Alice Park
 

PROGRAM NOTES: CONCERT OCTOBER 23, 2011


Overture from Der Freischütz
CARL MARIA VON WEBER (1786-1826)
Regarded as one of the most important composers in the history of Classical music, Carl Maria von Weber is deemed as the father of German Romantic opera, having had an extraordinary impact on the entire history of opera in Germany and Europe as a whole. His opera Der Freischütz was a landmark success in musical history, quickly becoming the best-loved opera in all Germany and changing forever the development of German art form. Der Freischütz is one of the cornerstones of romantic opera and a precursor of German nationalism in music—as it was inspired by German folk song, based on a German legend, and set in a German forest. The opera, titled “The free-shooter,” is a twisted tale of magic bullets, invisible spirits and pacts with the devil. Today the opera is rarely staged except in Germany, but its overture endures as one of Weber’s most popular orchestral works. Although the overture quotes music from the opera itself, it essentially foreshadows, in symphonic terms, the drama to come. The main material is based on the tenor aria from Act I—which is filled with apprehension—and the soprano’s exuberant melodies from Act II.

Funeral March of a Marionette
CHARLES GOUNOD (1818-1893)
Born in Paris as the son of a concert pianist mother and artist father, pianist and composer Charles Gounod won the coveted Prix de Rome after having studied at the Paris Conservatory. He then became enchanted with early church music, and though he wrote many songs and much liturgical music, he is best known for his opera Faust. One of his short pieces, Funeral March of a Marionette, has become well-known as the theme song for the TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” The music tells the story of two members of a marionette troupe having a duel and one getting killed. A party of pall bearers is organized and the procession sets out toward the cemetery. The music soon takes on a more cheerful spirit, for some of the troupe, wearied with the march, seek consolation at a wayside inn where they refresh themselves and reflect upon the many virtues of their late companion. At last they resume the march and enter the cemetery. The closing measures are intended to reflect upon the briefness and weariness of life--including that of marionettes. 

Danse Macabre, Op.40
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
A celebrated French musical icon of the late Romantic era, Camille Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy who developed into a versatile composer, teacher, pianist and critic. In the 1870s, Saint-Saëns composed a group of orchestral tone poems in which he experimented with orchestration, thematic transformation and programmatic description. His most frequently performed orchestral work, Danse Macabre, was originally a song for voice and piano, setting a poem by French poet Henri Cazalis, before he created the purely orchestral version. The work begins with the orchestral clock striking midnight at a church graveyard on a cold winter night. The Devil tunes up his mistuned violin and begins playing a waltz. Skeletons are summoned from their coffins and they begin dancing to the eerie tune he scratches across his fiddle. The festivities continue throughout the night, finally coming to a sudden halt when the rooster (an oboe) announces the dawn. The dead scurry back underground and the Devil plays a last mournful fiddle solo before slinking back to the underground for another year.

Pavane
GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845-1924)

As the leading French composer of his generation, Gabriel Fauré was born in the south of France and trained as an organ master and choir director at a Parisian music school during his youth. He went on to study composition with Saint-Saëns, who became his lifelong friend and mentor and to whom he credited as owing everything. The subtlety of Fauré’s music, and his fixation on the small-scale, led many to criticize him for lacking depth, a judgment based on the prevalent notion that the bigger and bolder a composer’s music the higher it is held in esteem. Fauré intentionally avoided dramatic flair in his orchestral music that could easily have brought him fame and fortune. He preferred instead to appropriate an elegant and subtle musical language that has won him increasing numbers of admirers, particularly as a composer of songs, a genre in which he is now recognized as a master. In his Pavane, Fauré conjures up a rhythmical theme in the style of a Spanish Renaissance dance that develops and modulates throughout the course of the work. The hauntingly beautiful and alluring melody begins in the opening solo flute line against pizzicato strings and is then taken up by other instruments in turn.

Vltava (“The Moldau”)
BEDŘICH SMETANA (1824-1884)
Born in the Czech Republic, Bedřich Smetana was a composer, pianist and conductor revered as a brilliant figure of his homeland next to his contemporary, Antonin Dvořák. He was the leader of the Czech nationalist music movement and is regarded as the founder of modern Czech music. Though he was stricken with deafness which he endured for the last ten years of his life, it did not crush his spirit nor hinder his compositional output. It was during this time when Smetana wrote Vltava—or in German, “the Moldau”—which evolved into a magnificent series of symphonic poems entitled Má Vlast (“My Country”) celebrating the Czech nation and establishing his place in musical history. Representing the longest Czech river, the Moldau is a rapturous and lush work depicting the course of the river and its surrounding countryside through episodic structure and the creative mastery of motifs and the orchestral sound palette. The opening rippling passage passed back and forth by the two flutes represents the two brooks that rise from the Bohemian highlands and soon merge together to become the Moldau. The river builds momentum and soon reaches majestic proportions, with the rise and fall of its waves reflected in the swell and ebb that accompanies the work’s most famous melody. Passing through the Bohemian forest and onward through Prague, we hear the sounds of a royal hunt, a peasant wedding, water-nymphs in the moonlight, the swirling St. John rapids and finally, the river’s fullest splendor as it passes the Vyšehrad—displayed by all the brass in its richest grandeur—before it dies down and merges with the tranquil and slow-flowing Elbe river.  

Blaník
BEDŘICH SMETANA (1824-1884)
As the final symphonic poem in the cycle Má Vlast, Blaník is inspired by Czech history and legend and specifically involves the early 15th-century Hussite movement symbolizing the country’s religious freedom. Overpowered and banished, the Hussites take refuge in the heart of the mountain, Blaník, where they fall into a deep slumber to anticipate the day when they can arise to save their country in its hour of need. During the interlude a young shepherd boy is heard playing his pipe and hearing the echo against the mountainside. A long quiet chord in the strings alludes to the sleeping warriors within. Despite mounting tensions, the returning warriors are met with triumph on the appointed day. Celebration revolves around the Hussite hymn along with the Vyšehrad themes, resplendently interlaced together, and adorned with the buoyant rhythms of folk dancing true to Smetana’s national dialect.    

By Alice Park