Morning Concert Commentary 2002

WELCOME TO THE ACADEMIC DECATHLON CONCERT 2002.

The AcDec theme this year is "Understanding the Natural World," and the music selected represents the Romantic Era. What do we mean by the Romantic Era?

It began in the early 19th century, say around 1815, and in many respects continues to this day, although we usually say it ended around 1910. This is an appropriate choice because in the 19th century, more than ever before, musicians concerned themselves with music that made a statement about their time and the world in which they lived.

It was lot like our time, it was an age of dreams and aspirations, great technological advances, emerging nationalistic feelings and worship of natural beauty. Musicians and artists and writers each struggled to find a unique voice for expressing ideas and emotions. These are ideas that have endured in our time; images we see all around us every day in our lives. Anything idealistic or adventuresome, anything imaginative or strangely attractive or exotic fulfills some aspect of Romanticism. Everyone is a romantic to some degree about something.

This morning we are going to hear the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra perform some musical examples that serve as milestones in the path of Romanticism that wound through the 19th century and led to the 20th century - the century that defines all of our lives.
 

1. R. Strauss

You no doubt are aware of the opening bars of Richard Strauss’ tone poem he titled "Also Sprach Zarathustra" - or "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (1st pt. 1883;1896), which has been used on television to sell us everything from Swanson frozen breakfasts to SUVs, and we’ve heard it numerous times in films.

Neitzsche used poetry to describe the life and the preaching of this prophet, including the philosophy of what he called the "Superman," that is, the state of excellence into which he thought Humankind would eventually evolve. (Darwin’s On the Origin of Species - 1859)

Rather than write philosophical music though, Strauss instead used some of Nietzsche’s chapter headings ("Of the Backworldsmen", "Of the Great Longing", "Of Joys and Passions", "The Song of the Grave", "Of Science", "The Convalescent", "The Dance Song", and "The Night Wanderer") in a 40-minute musical exploration of the emotions these ideas represented.

This morning we hear the opening bars, often referred to as "Sunrise" - where Zarathustra steps out of his cave on the side of a mountain to greet the rising sun. Musically, its first three notes present an idea that will infuse the next forty minutes of music - if we were to hear it whole. Here it offers a grand affirmation of C-major.

Here is "Sunrise" from Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss.

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2. Beethoven Fifth



To many in our time the name of Beethoven refers to a couple of movies about a dog, but to the broader world civilization, "Beethoven" rouses inspiring images of artistic greatness and rugged individuality. The composer may be thought of as the godfather of the entire Romantic movement since he inspired virtually every 19th-century musician who came after him.

Instead of "The Sopranos," if HBO produced a series called "The Romantics," James Gandolfini would be playing Beethoven.

The Symphony No. 5 is undoubtedly Beethoven’s most renowned work. It’s opening bars are familiar even to those who have never attended a concert of symphonic music. [MOTTO?]

This was a symphony which so intimidated later composers, that at least two of those who were spiritual descendants of Beethoven, namely Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, couldn’t bring themselves to write a fifth symphony. Gustav Mahler (whose music we will sample later in the program), when he did produce a fifth symphony, felt compelled to set it in nearly the same key and open it with the same four note rhythmic motive which has immortalized the work of Beethoven.



Few compositions rank beside this symphony in historical importance. The idea that a simple rhythm could permeate themes from all four movements initiated a trend in symphonic composition that carries down to the present. Further influences include the turbulent setting in the minor key which appealed to the moody Romantic temperament in the early nineteenth century. The fact that the final movement arrives without break following the third, and with a fanfare announcing a glorious change to the major key is of considerable importance. To the Romantic symphonic composer the change to the major key in the finale became a requirement, symbolizing heroic triumph over adversity. The glorious conclusion in a triumphant C major begins with a fanfare for full orchestra (including trombones, for the first time liberated from exclusive use in the opera house and church).

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3. Beethoven Sixth - Had Beethoven lived in our time, and produced a hit of the magnitude of his Symphony No. 5, his managers would have insisted that he immediately produce another one just like it, and they would see to it that it made it to the top of the charts ASAP. But Beethoven was not that shallow or unimaginative (music also was not a mass-marketed commodity then as it is now); B’s next symphony took music in an entirely new direction (actually, to be truthful, he was working on both the Fifth and Sixth symphonies at the same time - which is even more amazing).



The Sixth Symphony, like the Fifth, deeply affected music to follow, but for different reasons. It became a flash-point for composers who wished to write descriptive music, "program music" it is called, that is, music that suggests a scene or a dramatic idea. Program music seldom resorts to sound effects or literal depictions of things; instead it attempts to suggest the human emotions drawn from an experience or dramatic idea.

In B’s case he drew inspiration from the natural world around him, particularly the countryside surrounding the city of Vienna where he lived. His relaxation was to take long walks in the country, take in the beauty of nature, and delight in the simple pleasures of the countryfolk. Just as sunshine and fleecy clouds are part of nature, so are sudden storms, and here Beethoven draws us into his day in the country. In his Symphony No. 6 he includes a stormy passage which adds to the element of program music in this symphony. (Several composers on our program, particularly Berlioz, Rossini, Verdi and Wagner could point to this moment of Beethoven as inspiration for various storms they each concocted in their own music.)

Beethoven begins with some anticipatory rain drops in the violins, but soon the storm breaks out in its fury of thunder and lightening.

A picture in musical sound.

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4. Berlioz - telling a story in music, without a spoken or sung text, was very important to composers of the Romantic Era. They often used recurring melodies (you are familiar with that idea from movies), melodies and themes that represented a person, object or emotion. In the case of French composer Hector Berlioz, personal involvement in the story made it even better. As a young man he fell madly in love with an actress, Harriet Smithson, a woman who did not know he existed. Berlioz characterized her in a lovely melody which reappears in each of the five movements of his Fantastic Symphony. He called it an Idée fixe (or obsession). It is a graceful and delicate tune, which when we first hear it sounds like this:

[orchestra]

That melody will reappear in the clarinet as the last thought of a condemned man.

More about that in a moment, but let me point out that Berlioz was one of the truly innovative and creative orchestrators of the 19th century. This is doubly remarkable since he didn’t really play any of the instruments, but he was ingenious at finding new uses and combinations of instruments that influenced virtually every composer of symphonic music who came after him.

Just to cite one example, everyone knows that timpani are very good at playing a single note effectively - be it loud or soft. Notice how the piece we are about to hear begins with softly rolling timpani, but they are doing something you may never have heard timpani do before - they are softly playing not one note, but a 3-note chord - the most important chord of the piece

(tonic (demonstrate)).

But there are also colorful combinations of brass and strings. (At one point, in another movement we’ll not hear this morning, he asks the string players to turn their bows upside down and strike the strings with the wood part of the bow.)

The composer's description of the program for this movement is as follows:

He (the artist) dreams he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to the scaffold. The procession moves forward to the sounds of a march that is now somber and fierce, now brilliant and solemn, in which the muffled sound of heavy steps gives way without transition to the noisiest clamor. At the end, the Idée fixe returns for a moment, like a last thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

So the March to the Scaffold is essentially a macabre procession through the streets of Paris to an open square where the guillotine awaits. The March ends with one of the most lurid moments in all orchestral music. When the prisoner has been placed in the blocks with the blade suspended above his head, and the morbid crowd is shouting for his demise, the solo clarinet is heard playing the melody that represents his beloved. But the clarinet melody is suddenly cut off in mid-phrase, when a powerful orchestral chord is heard, portraying the slam of the blade as it drops, severing his head from his shoulders. But listen carefully, because Berlioz in two softly dropping pizzicato string notes, Berlioz depicts the head dropping in the basket. Then the music changes from minor to a triumphant major key, as the crowd cheers the execution of this tormented man.

Here is the "March to the Scaffold" from the Fantastic Symphony of Hector Berlioz.

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5. Rossini - William Tell Overture:

Next we hear a favorite orchestral moment from the opera house, the familiar Overture to the opera William Tell by Gioacchino Rossini, which dates from 1829. Rossini’s William Tell is a truly international opera: the composer Rossini was Italian, the author of the story (Friedrich Schiller) was German, the action takes place in Switzerland, and the opera was written for the Paris Opera House. Remember, the 19th century was a turbulent time in Europe with a number of revolutions and nationalistic movements, so the theme of the opera was a familiar one - the challenge and ultimate triumph for the political ideals of a conservative people who sought independence with peace. The international nature of the story made it popular in France, Germany, and Italy, and even in the U.S. where it first was heard in NY in 1831.

Rossini wrote about 40 operas before he took early retirement in 1830, and spent the next 38 years enjoying the good life of Paris. William Tell was his last and most complex opera. Its most familiar moment is the overture, a remarkable musical painting for orchestra which consists of four separate scenic movements: first, a very unusual cello quintet was heard in what the composer Berlioz described as "the calm of profound solitude, the solemn silence of nature when the elements and human passions are at rest;" this was followed by a pastorale scene which in time gives way to an orchestral storm; the final section, - and this is where we come in - begins with the famous brass fanfare, which is an invention on one rhythm. The music has no direct connection to the opera, but in spirit it represents the revolt of the Swiss against the tyrannical Austrian oppressors.

Here is the final section of the William Tell overture; the familiar Cavalry charge which represents the heroic triumph of William Tell himself.

Someone once said the definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and NOT think of the Lone Ranger.

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6. Mendelssohn (1809-1847) - Felix Mendelssohn was one of those composers who deftly combined the spirit and clarity of music by Mozart and Haydn with the harmonic and pictorial ideas of Romanticism. As a child he was as prodigiously gifted as the young Mozart, but unlike Mozart, Mendelssohn grew up privileged circumstances and never had to worry about money. He was highly educated and well read, a talented visual artist, and well traveled.

Romantic composers were fond of composing musical travelogues. Mendelssohn’s journeys of 1829-31 took him to Scotland and the major cities of Italy - where he reportedly fashioned some of the melodies. Someone (not Mendelssohn) called his Symphony No. 4 "Italian," although there is little about it that is overtly Italian. The sunny and high-spirited life of Italy is clearly evident, although the composer’s trip to Italy was not particularly pleasant - as Mendelssohn said, it was "costing him the bitterest moments he ever endured."

The singing principal melody (Allegro vivace ) in the violins has all the immediacy and appeal of an Italian street singer. Each succeeding melody in turn is based on a vocal model and almost defies the listener to keep from humming along. The texture of the music remains crystal clear as the melodies are worked out.

Here is music from the first movement of Mendelssohn"s Symphony #4 "Italian."

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7. Verdi - V, of course, is known as the most important musical figure in Italy during the 19th century. Though Verdi has been gone for over a century now, opera houses around the world today largely depend on his works to stay afloat. Moreover, without Verdi there would have been no Puccini, and w/o Puccini there would be no Andrew Lloyd-Webber, and I don’t know where we go from there.

The story is told of an irritable music critic (is there any other kind?) visiting Verdi as the composer was putting the finishing touches on his opera Il Trovatore (trans. "The Troubadour"). "What do you think of this?" Verdi asked him as he went to piano and played the "Anvil Chorus." "Utter trash!", announced the critic, for he loved only the finer things. Verdi rose from the piano and enthusiastically embraced the Critic in momentous joy. "What is the meaning of this?" asked the critic. "My dear friend," Verdi told him, "I have been writing a popular opera - an opera for the public, not for purists such as you. If you liked this music, no one else would. But your distaste assures me of its success. In three months, this music will be sung, whistled, and played all over Italy!" And indeed it was.

Verdi’s Il Trovatore has the reputation of being the archetype of the silly operatic plot that is set to music so irresistible that the audience forgives everything. The dramatic background is as colorful as the orchestration. Set in the darkness of medieval Spain, it is a tawdry tale of babies kidnapped by gypsies, individuals burned at the stake, and in the end the tenor and baritone, competitors for the affections of the soprano, fight a duel. Only after the loser is beheaded does the winner learn he has killed his own brother. It is grisly stuff, but this dramatic confusion is tempered by musical moments that are among Verdi’s most memorable, including the famous "Anvil Chorus." The setting is late at night in a ruined hovel on the lower slopes of a mountain in Biscay, where the gypsies celebrate their lives and labor in song. As they work, their hammers serve as rhythmic punctuation to their song.

[The part of the gypsy chorus is sung by students from Liberty High School under the direction of Michael McQuerry.]

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8. Mussorgsky (1839-1881) - We move to the country of Russia and the year is 1867, and a civil servant who writes music in his spare time has just composed an orchestral picture called "St. John’s Night on Bald Mountain." It was destined to be ignored during his lifetime, and was finally heard in 1886, five years after the composer had passed on. (BTW, it is another trait of Romanticism for artists, poets, and musicians to be largely unappreciated in their lifetime, only to have their works discovered and fully treasured long after the creator was gone. Rather like the Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur scenarios.)

June 24 is the feast day celebrating the birth of St. John the Baptist. In folklore, the night before, that is St. John’s Eve, is thought to be a time of magic. On June 23 many cultures in Europe celebrate the summer solstice, known as Midsummer's Eve. The celebrations in several countries include bonfires and dancing through the night. According to Russian folklore, on St. John's Eve, Satan and his witches, sorcerers, and evil spirits gather on a mountain outside the ancient city of Kiev for a night of revelry.

Night on Bald Mountain depicts flying witches and other satanic creatures, attempting to celebrate a black sabbath, who are dispelled at midnight by the sound of church bells.

The change of harmony from minor to major following the church bells is important. This signifies the dispelling of the witches, followed by a solemn and reverant close.

Here is the conclusion of Modest Mussorgsky’s "Night on Bald Mountain."

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9. Wagner - descriptive music.


If Beethoven was the dawn of Romantic music, Richard Wagner was high noon.

Gone now nearly 120 years, Wagner remains to this day the most controversial musical figure who ever lived. His revolutionary concepts of harmony and musical form, and the place of music in drama are yet fundamental as we move toward another new century. So far-reaching were his ideas that new vocal classifications were devised (the Wagnerian tenor or soprano), and new instruments were developed for the orchestra to support the tremendous demands of his operas; his art even demanded a new architectural design for theatre buildings in which they were heard.

Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (something like the 19th-century version of the Star Wars trilogy, but with a fourth episode that lasts for nearly five hours), is a cycle of four operas which he intended to be viewed within the time span of one week, and for which he wrote all the music (over 16 hours of it), he wrote all the text, and designed everything else connected with the production including the theatre in which it was staged. Wagner’s Ring Cycle represents, frankly, the most complex artistic creation ever to come from the mind of one person.

The Ring Cycle is a huge morality play about the destructive nature of greed, involving various gods and semi-gods, all with human emotions and failings. It takes place before the inception of our civilization, ending in calamity.

One of Wagner’s many innovations was the extent to which he combined musical themes, called "leitmotives," in multiple groups. Each leitmotive represented a person, or an object, or an emotion, or event. There are about 80 leitmotives in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Our musical selection is from the opera Die Walküre (in Norse mythology, Valkyries were the warrior maidens of the god Odin, who swept from the clouds over the battlefields on their chargers to gather up the souls of slain heroes and conducted them to the Great Hall of Valhalla where they would be enshrined). Wagner introduces us to these warrior maidens in the orchestral prelude [MOTTO in brass]. [FF Coppolla Apocalypse Now - the connection there being the music is used to accompany warriors from the air]

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10. Bizet: Prelude to the opera Carmen:

French composer George Bizet is one of those composers known largely for one opera, and that opera is Carmen, although he produced six others. Carmen is one of those operas with universal appeal; I don’t believe I have ever encountered a true opera fan who did not love this opera. The story was a bit scandalous for French audiences of the 1870s who expected soft, traditionally romantic stories. But here was a tale glorifying a lead character, a gypsy no less, who flitted from lover to lover without remorse, consorted with thieves and outlaws, and was herself constantly on the edges of polite society. To make matters worse, the opera was intended for the Opera Comique in Paris - a family-type theatre where parents took their children for wholesome entertainment. At the premiere, the audience was shocked by groups of scantily-clad women on stage, openly smoking cigarettes, and also by the brazenly sexual content of the story, particularly by the character of the untamed gypsy woman who seemed to mock their family values. To make matters worse, the opera concluded with her murder on stage in full view of the audience - perhaps the first such incident in public theatres.

In spite of these seeming shortcomings, it did not take long for the opera Carmen to find a place in the affections of the public, and it remains one of the two or three most popular operas ever written. One of the reasons for its popularity is the irresistible qualities of Bizet’s music. The music we are about to hear is a case in point. This is the Prelude to the opera, which captures the color and excitement of the bull ring in Seville. Along the way we hear the Toreador Song, arguably the most widely known melody from any opera, and one of the most commonly recognized melodies in all the world.

We go now to the festive corrida, as BSO plays the Prelude from Bizet’s opera Carmen.

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11. Brahms Sym. #1

A shy man by nature, Johannes Brahms had the strength of character and conviction to be the principal composer of absolute (non-descriptive) music in an age when it had passed from public favor. His music is romantic in its sweeping emotions, but classical in its form and restraint. Brahms was the leading proponent of the formalistic, classical esthetic in the 19th century.

Brahms completed his C-minor symphony in 1876, when he was 43 years old, an advanced age for one to produce such a first effort. (By contrast, Mozart wrote his first symphony at age 8, Mendelssohn at 15, Beethoven at 29, Schubert at 14, Schumann at 30, and Berlioz at 27.)

This is music, not about nature, executions, storms or bull fights - but about music itself - the inherent drama and competition among musical ideas.

We come in near the end of the fourth movement where a prominent melody, one thought to be modeled on that of the grand finale in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony ["Beethoven’s Tenth" - von Bülow). But the genius of Brahms is to take this simple tune and spread it by bits and pieces throughout the orchestra - everyone gets a shot at it - before he puts it back together in a thrilling conclusion.

Here is the conclusion of the Symphony No. 1, by Johannes Brahms.

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12. Tchaikovsky

The full title is Solemn Overture 1812. The piece was written in 1882 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Russia’s victory over the invading French forces of Napoleon. It was originally performed outdoors in a location which allowed the use of carillon bells, military band, and also military cannons which could be discharged electronically, thus allowing the reports to be coordinated more or less in time with the music.

We are going to jump in on Tchaikovsky’s musical description of the battle between the Russians and the French. What you may not know is that the composer was, in a way, thumbing his nose at the French since he prominently used the revolutionary French national anthem, The Marseillaise, to represent the French forces. Tchaikovsky knew Napoleon had banned that anthem when he proclaimed himself emperor of France - so the composer had his little joke.

Let’s hear Tchaikovsky’s battle music: [orchestra]

* * * *

In the conclusion of the overture, the French are vanquished and two great Russian melodies come to the fore - one of them being "God Save the Tsar."

[Orchestra]

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13. Dvorak Slavonic Dance in G-minor, Op. 46, no. 8.

Someone once said "It is easier to understand a nation by listening to its music than by learning its language." To the extent that statement is true is probably nowhere more clear than in the music of Antonin Dvorák and his native Bohemia, particularly as it honored the traditions of the Czech people.

Dvorak composed his first set of eight Slavonic dances in 1878, when the folk music of the Czech people was becoming internationally popular. He originally wrote these dances for piano duet, and their success made him an international celebrity over night. He took the next step and orchestrated them and they appeared on concert programs around the world in a matter of months.

The typical Slavonic Dance presents an idealized vision of Czech folk dance, with their quickly changing rhythms and memorable tunes. The harmony of the one we’re about to hear is noteworthy: the dance is ostensibly written in G-minor, but notice how often and how quickly the recurring refrain changes from minor to major, and how the intervening melodies spend most of their time in the major key.

Here now is the vigorous Slavonic Dance in G-minor, Op. 46 of Antonin Dvorak.

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14. Mahler

If Beethoven was the dawn of Romantic music, and Wagner was high noon, Gustav Mahler was the glorious sunset of Romantic music.

(If you like music that’s a little crazy and extreme, you’ll love Mahler.)

Gustav Mahler has been called a musical child of the 19th century and father of the 20th. In 1911 he died in Vienna at age 51 following a stormy career as a conductor, chiefly of opera. During the off-seasons, he would retreat to his composing hut by a beautiful Alpine lake and produce sprawling scores which elicited greater invective than enthusiasm. Undaunted, he persevered to produce nine complete symphonies which serve as the ultimate extreme of the Romantic symphonic tradition. His works reflect the influences of both Beethoven and Wagner and folk traditions of the Austrian countryside. His melodic and harmonic style, while rooted firmly in the late 19th century, may move quickly from sweeping Romantic gestures to characterizations of ethnic tunes or the musically grotesque.

The first movement, which is by turns either sunny or morbid, he entitled "Spring Without End." The second movement, a lovely serenade, was derived from Mahler’s incidental music for the play "The Trumpeter of Saekkingen". It was later deleted by the composer and the manuscript subsequently lost, only to be rediscovered in the 1960s. Set in the manner of a heavy-footed Austrian folk dance, the third (?) movement was titled "Under Full Sail". The fourth movement was a bizarre funeral procession that included what sounds like some Jewish Klezmer (ghetto) music.

The composer labeled the finale "From Inferno to Paradise," calling the initial outburst "a sudden cry from a deeply wounded heart". It presents a fantasy amalgamating typically serene melodies, the familiar brass episodes, and reprises of the awakening of Nature from the first movement. Its boisterous and stormy conclusion provides a thrilling preview of those to come in most of the eight symphonies to follow.

Here is the conclusion of the Symphony No. 1 in D by Gustav Mahler.

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