36

Autumn Gold

NOVEMBER 16, 2019 • 8:00 PM Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center

NOVEMBER 17, 2019 • 3:00 PM George Washington Masonic Memorial

James Ross, conductor Wolfgang Schmidt, cello

PROGRAM

Vieille prière bouddhique

Li i Bou anger

Alexandria Choral Society and Fairfax Choral Society

Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85

Wolfgang Schmidt, cello

E gar

- INTERMISSION -

Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88

Dvořák

Old Buddhist Prayer

Marie-Juliette Olga “Lili” Boulanger (1893-1918)

The short, tragic life of Lili Boulanger, the forgotten sibling of her well-known sister Nadia Boulanger, came to an end in 1918 when Lili was just 24. A prodigy in every sense of the word, Lili’s gifts were noted by Gabriel Fauré when the youngster was just two years of age.

Lili’s brief time on earth was split between recovering from chronic illness and composing with devotion and passion. Her mother was a Russian princess, her father a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. At age 19, Lili became the first woman to win the esteemed Prix de Rome for her cantata Faust et Hélène.

Older sister Nadia was so overwhelmed by Lili’s talent for composition that she gave up her own dream of becoming a composer; Nadia instead became one of the most influential pedagogues of the 20th century, with noteworthy students Aaron Copland and Quincy Jones. She turned down George Gershwin, fearing her rigorous approach would diminish his original jazz style. Perhaps we have Lili to thank for Nadia’s enormous impact on today’s music.

32 Lili’s work for tenor, chorus and orchestra, Old Buddhist Prayer, resulted from her fascination with the exotic. Sliding open fifths create a mystic atmosphere; the chorus seems to shimmer, hovering just above the orchestra, often mixing its heavenly tones with the earthier colors of the instrumentation. The prayer yearns for peaceful coexistence among all creatures of the earth.

An Old Buddhist Prayer

Let everything that breathes -- let all creatures everywhere, all the spirits and all those who are born, all the women, all the men, Aryans, and non-Aryans, all the Gods and all the people and those who are fallen in the East and in the West, of the North and the South, Let all those beings which exist -- without enemies, without obstacles, overcoming their grief and attaining happiness, be able to move freely, each in the path destined for them.

Concerto for Cello in E minor, Opus 85

Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

When Johannes Brahms reflected on his life and how the “classical” musical style to which he considered himself an heir had been set aside, even “destroyed” by the hyper-romanticism of Richard Wagner, the aging Brahms penned his final symphonic work, his fourth symphony, as an ode of mourning for a lost age. Brahms chose E minor as the most profoundly sad of keys.

Hardly more than a generation later, at the close of World War I, Sir Edward Elgar composed his final major work—the cello concerto—with a similar yearning for days gone by. He also chose E minor as his key, that is perhaps a coincidence—or perhaps a subconscious effort to build a connection between generations.

The melody that became the basis of the entire work came to the composer as he awoke from sedation following an operation in 1918. Events of the preceding four years had turned Britain and Europe upside down. An entire generation of British men had been decimated; Elgar’s world had been changed forever.

The harmonic language of the cello concerto is a throwback to an earlier time. This, coupled with the unusual form of the work and its profound melancholy, made it difficult for early audiences to embrace. Elgar’s First Symphony had received 100 performances in its first year; by contrast, after its premiere the cello concerto went a full year without a second performance. The work became a staple in the mid-20th century when Jacqueline du Pré, the beautiful young British cellist, brought it to life with her artistry.

The first movement, marked adagio, lays out Elgar’s initial creative vision. The brief second movement, allegro molto, brings movement and excitement. The third, again marked adagio, reflects on fond but distant memories. The finale begins with an allegro tempo, concluding in a contemplative atmosphere.

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88

Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony has a special place in the hearts of orchestra musicians everywhere—it is a work often learned as a youngster that remains dear throughout one’s career.

Nestled between the darkness of the Seventh and the profundity of the Ninth (“From the New World”), the Eighth is unrelenting in its joyful expression of all things Czech. G major is a brilliant key for the strings; the instruments ring with sympathetic vibrations from their open strings, the passages lie comfortably under the fingers, and the melodies seem to soar.

The summer of 1889 found Dvořák in good spirits; he had reached a point in his career where he was well known throughout Europe, and he enjoyed enough financial security to allow himself to relax. He secluded himself in a small cottage in a tiny Bohemian village— much as composers like Mahler and Brahms and Grieg loved to do—and set about writing what is arguably his most richly melodious work.

“The melodies are just pouring out of me,” Dvořák said to friends that summer. Indeed, the entire symphony was completed in a matter of weeks, the orchestration shortly thereafter.

Almost ironically, this cheerful G major symphony begins with a haunting melody in the dark key of G minor, a melody which is brought back at important structural moments as if to remind the listener of the earth below his feet. The darkness gives way to a catchy tune, introduced in the flute in the softest tones as if to whisper “Come join me, let’s have some fun!” The rest of the orchestra catches on, and joyous raucousness ensues.

The second movement is unlike any the composer had heretofore envisioned. Soft tones, gentle gestures, at first almost formless, gradually taking shape; then a violent crash, a sudden thunderstorm interrupting a walk through the woods, leading back to the tranquility of the composer’s idyllic scene.

The third movement is a waltz, rich and dark in color, with a “trio” section that seems to smile with nostalgia. A brilliant trumpet call starts the finale, introducing a simple melody reminiscent of the first movement, which is developed in a series of variations. Dvořák concludes his cheerful symphony with a thrilling coda designed to bring audiences to their feet.

Lili Boulanger was one of the most fragile and elegiac figures among twentieth-century composers. She was here and gone like a wisp at the age of 24, but you wouldn’t know it from her music itself. Timeless and essential, the Old Buddhist Prayer which opens our program lays out a philosophy that will sound familiar even to non-Buddhists—a kind of live-and-let-live maxim that has had many followers over human history and that is not even so far from the theoretical principles on which our country was built, as well as, ironically, the Native American culture we decimated. But the power of Boulanger’s setting of this prayer is both its poignancy and its sinew…like a great tree growing where no one sees it.

Boulanger’s prayer has a startling kinship with the tone of the Elgar Cello Concerto which follows that was made vitally personal by another elegiac figure who left too soon—the cellist Jacqueline Du Pré. Our soloist, Wolfgang Schmidt, is a big German bundle of joyous musical sensitivity who loves his family and soccer and his students as much as he does the cello, he but also finds himself deeply attracted to musical expressions of personal nostalgia and inwardness. In this concerto, Elgar does his best to let his positive convictions speak, but in the end the underpinning of sadness just prevails.

Dvořák’s G major symphony, on the other hand, can’t even come close to suppressing its bedrock of rustic optimism. It’s full of sunshine and parables and folk dance and forest and perfectly-orchestrated storytelling. One of the trees in the forest is in fact the great unseen Buddhist tree out of which someday someone will carve a cello to play a sad song.

For more than 45 years, Alexandria Choral Society (ACS) performances have enriched the community with a broad spectrum of choral works, from the Renaissance to modern American composers, from small chamber pieces to major works for chorus and orchestra, and from a great variety of musical cultures. The roster of distinguished music directors includes Francisco de Araujo, Martin Piecuch, Robert Shafer, Douglas Major, Kerry Krebill, Keith Reas, Philip Cave, Neil Weston, Janet Davis, and Brian Gendron. Now under the direction of Brian J. Isaac, who began his tenure as Artistic Director in 2017, ACS looks forward to many more years of bringing great choral performances to the city of Alexandria.

Alexandria Choral Society

37 The Fairfax Choral Society has enriched lives through the performance, education and appreciation of choral music for over 58 years. With two adult ensembles and more than 10 youth ensembles, the Fairfax Choral Society is one of the largest choral groups in Northern Virginia and the only organization providing singing opportunities to more than 400 choral singers from ages five through adult. The Symphonic Chorus is FCS’s founding choir with over 80 adult members, under the direction of FCS’s Artistic Director, Thomas Colohan. The chorus has received rave reviews for its performances of choral masterworks in collaboration with numerous area arts organizations, as well as internationally-renowned composers and conductors. The chorus has sung at Carnegie Hall, performed with the NSO at the Kennedy Center, participated in A Capital Fourth on the National Mall, performed in England and France, and produced several commercial recordings.

Fairfax Choral Society