13 minute read
Masterworks 4: Enigma · April 9, 2022
Dramatic works encircle one of Mozart’s most beloved works for piano: Brahms’s darkest overture composed in response to one of his liveliest and the mysterious Enigma Variations, said to be inspired by Elgar’s friends, family, and an unknown lost love. Embrace the drama, delve into the mystery, delight in the darkness. MASTERWORKS 4 Thomas Wolfe Auditorium Saturday, April 9, 2022, 8:00 p.m.
Darko Butorac, Conductor Lisa Smirnova, Piano
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Tragic Overture, Op. 81
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
When in 1879, the University of Breslau awarded Brahms the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy, he took a few swipes at academic pomposity with the rollicking Academic Festival Overture. Soon thereafter he felt the need to complete the comic/tragic duo with The Tragic Overture. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: “I could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture to a tragedy.” He had no particular play or book in mind for the work; however, the second subject is a reworking of a sketch from ten years earlier, found on the back of sketches for the Alto Rhapsody, the setting of Goethe’s dramatic and somber poem.
The Overture is intensely atmospheric rather than narrative, even though the two terse chords that open the work sound like hammer blows of fate. Brahms enhances the mood by immediately developing the threatening first theme and holding off the warmer second theme – the one scribbled on the back of the Alto Rhapsody. The respite, however, doesn’t last long; by the time Brahms returns to it in the development section, it has also become dark.
About halfway through he inserts a completely new idea in a slower tempo: a funeral march in everything but name that brings to mind the end of Hamlet. And, indeed, Shakespeare was much beloved in Germany during the nineteenth century. Thanks to a magnificent translation of the complete works by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, the Germans used to refer to The Bard as “unser Shakespeare” (our Shakespeare). One might expect the march to end the Overture, but Brahms returns to the Allegro as if to emphasize that the Overture is about tragedy in the abstract.
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart composed a total of 28 solo keyboard concertos, most of them for his own use in subscription concerts in Vienna. Consequently, the timing of their composition was influenced by the artistic fashion and the economic wellbeing of the city. For five years after Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781, he was a hot commodity, both as composer and virtuoso performer. There was a veritable deluge of commissions, which enabled him to live quite high off the hog. Thus, in the short period between 1782 and 1786, with a booming economy creating a heyday for musical life in Vienna, Mozart composed 17 of these concertos, including this one in D minor. During those years, aristocratic families vied with one another to underwrite and sponsor concerts of the latest in musical fashion. “Concertos,” Mozart wrote his father, “are a happy medium between what is too hard and too easy...pleasing to the ear...without being vapid.”
But occasionally darker moods prevailed. This Concerto is one of only two he wrote in a minor key. It is full of stormy outbursts and is probably the most emotionally charged of all of Mozart’s concerti. Not surprisingly, the young Beethoven was particularly taken with this work, wrote two cadenzas for it, and performed it as the intermission feature during a performance of Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito at a concert organized by Mozart’s widow, Constanza, on March 31, 1795.
The composition and part copying of the concerto were not completed until the afternoon of the premiere on February 11, 1785, and thus performed without a complete rehearsal and at sight! According to a letter of Leopold Mozart, the composer’s father, the orchestra nevertheless played splendidly.
Marla Woeckener John and Zuzie Donahoe Amanda Durst & Elizabeth McCorvey
Lisa Smirnova, Piano
I. Allegro II. Romanze III. Rondo, Allegro assai
Music Sponsors
Gary & BA Schenk Dr. Bolling Farmer Gail Jolley
INTERMISSION
Edward Elgar Enigma Variations, Op. 36
Theme (Enigma: Andante) Variation I (L’istesso tempo) “C.A.E.”) Variation II (Allegro) “H.D.S-P.” Variation III (Allegretto) “R.B.T.” Variation IV (Allegro di molto) “W.M.B.” Variation V (Moderato) “R.P.A.” Variation VI (Andantino) “Ysobel” Variation VII (Presto) “Troyte” Variation VIII (Allegretto) “W.N.” Variation IX (Adagio) “Nimrod” Variation X (Intermezzo: Allegretto) “Dorabella” Variation XI (Allegro di molto) “G.R.S.” Variation XII (Andante) “B.G.N.” Variation XIII (Romanza: Moderato) “ *** ” Variation XIV (Finale: Allegro) “E.D.U.”
Music Sponsors
Carol & Hugh McCollum Maurice & Bonnie Stone Lynne & John Eramo
CONCERT CO-SPONSORS
Dr. & Mrs. Marcus Grimes Olivia & Gary Zahler
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This performance will be recorded for broadcast on Blue Ridge Public Radio on May 10, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. and May 12, 2022 at 9:00 a.m.
Right from the growling syncopated opening measures we know we’re in for a wild ride. After the orchestra’s exposition, Mozart has the piano enter on a completely new theme instead of having the soloist slavishly repeat the exposition. Rapid variations in orchestral dynamics suggest a Haydn symphony, and the movement has many of the erratic and stormy characteristics that Mozart was later to use in the Overture to Don Giovanni. To intensify the mood, Mozart makes an uncharacteristically abundant use of the timpani (another characteristic more likely to be found in Haydn).
In the second movement, titled “Romance,” the emotional temperature suddenly falls far below the level Mozart normally invests in the slow movements of his concerti. Only the middle section, now back in G minor, his chosen key for pathos and tragedy, recalls the mood of the opening movement. Of course, the ABA song form so common in slow movements requires the return to the mood of the opening.
The rondo finale, with its almost shrieking theme from the piano, takes up where the first movement left off. Mozart plays here with numerous swings between minor and major. In the end, he both obeys and thumbs his nose at the convention against ending large works in the minor mode. Although he ends the coda in D major, he inserts an ominous timpani roll into the final bars.
Enigma Variations, Op. 36, “Variations on An Original Theme”
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
If you look at photographs of Edward Elgar, read about his tastes or listen to his music, he projects the stereotype of Imperial Britain’s aristocracy or, as composer Constant Lambert described Elgar, “[the image of]... an almost intolerable air of smugness, self-assurance and autocratic benevolence...” His military bearing, walrus moustache, country gentleman’s dress – all very proper and Edwardian – matched his conservative, violently anti-Liberal ideas. His style appeared to have been fostered and fully sanctioned by the equally conservative Royal College of Music. The reality was very different: Elgar was born to a lower middle class family and never served in the army. Worst of all, his father was a music store owner, or as the British used to say, “in trade.” And he was a Catholic. He was nervous, insecure, and prone to depression and hypochondria; he always carried a chip on his shoulder for not being “fully accepted.” Musically, he was completely self-taught. But to the chagrin of Britain’s music establishment, Elgar – an “outsider” – was the first English composer since Henry Purcell (16591695) to achieve world fame. It was the Enigma Variations, composed in 1899 when he was 42 that propelled him out of his parochial obscurity to worldwide recognition.
Elgar had begun the Variations as a private amusement for his wife, Alice, whom he adored. He created musical portraits of their friends, later turning them into a proper orchestral composition at her suggestion. The expressive and stately theme was his own, but Elgar claimed that he had employed a second, hidden theme along with the main obvious one. This second theme has remained a mystery to this day, although in later years Elgar said that it was derived from a melody “...so well-known that it is strange no one has discovered it.”
The Elgar friends and their peculiarities are portrayed in the 14 variations, each of which is headed by a nickname or initials, making some of the identities a puzzle as well – although by now scholars have figured out the lot:
1. CAE: Elgar’s wife Caroline Alice, whose inspiration contributed to a romantic and delicate touch to the theme. 2. HDSP: H.D. Steuart-Powell, amateur pianist and chamber music partner of Elgar. The detached, rapid staccato note replicates the sound of the piano. 3. RBT: R.B. Townshend, author, eccentric and actor with a “funny voice.” 4. WMB: William M. Baker, a country squire and neighbor. The variation suggests that the man fancied the hunt. 5. RPA: Richard Arnold, son of poet
Matthew Arnold, music lover, conversationalist and party wit.
The contrast in the two parts of the variation suggests Arnold was eloquent on both serious and frivolous topics. 6. Ysobel: Isabel Fitton, an amateur violist with hopeless fingering difficulties. 7. Troyte: Arthur Troyte Griffin, well-known architect and terrible amateur pianist. The pounding of the timpani says it all. 8. WN: Miss Winifred Norbury, owner of an eighteenth-century house with a nervous laugh, both of which Elgar loved. It leads without pause to: 9. Nimrod (the Bible’s great hunter):
A.J. Jaeger (“hunter” in German), an editor at Novello, Elgar’s publisher. Jaeger’s encouragement and support were crucial for Elgar in his major debut. His love for
Beethoven is hinted at in a quote from the Pathétique sonata. This, the second longest of the variations, is traditionally performed as a separate piece to memorialize the death of an orchestra musician. 10. Dorabella: Dora Penny, a frequent visitor with hesitant speech, whose nickname derived from Mozart’s
Cosi fan tutte. 11. GRS: George R. Sinclair, organist; actually the variation is a musical description of Dan, Sinclair’s bulldog, falling into the river, paddling out and barking. 12. BGN: Basil G. Nevinson, amateur cellist and close friend. 13. ***: Lady Mary Lygon and a second, earlier, younger flame who had left
Elgar heartbroken; one went to
Australia, the other to New Zealand, hence the steamer engine thump and the quote from Mendelssohn’s
Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.
The second part of the variation, a clarinet solo, suggests a wrenching farewell. 14. EDU: Edoo, the nickname for Elgar himself, known only to his closest friends; his self-portrait sounds quite heroic.
Program Notes by Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn (www.wordprosmusic.com)
Lisa Smirnova, Piano
“…a great Mozart pianist as one has to look hard for in the younger generation“ (RNZ, October 2016)
Pianist Lisa Smirnova is one of the most remarkable artistic personalities performing today. Deeply rooted in the music of the baroque and classical period, she is recognised as a renowned Mozart specialist, and as an outstanding interpreter of J. S. Bach, Händel and Scarlatti.
Lisa Smirnova made her debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of 20, followed by performances at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Salzburg Festival in the summer of 1996. Since then, she has regularly appeared in the US, Europe and Asia and has performed with renowned conductors such as Manfred Honeck, Ivor Bolton, Carlos Kalmar, Andrey Boreyko and Andres Mustonen.
A passionate champion of contemporary music, she regularly collaborates with renowned composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Rodion Schedrin, Giya Kancheli and Valentin Silvestrov.
From a growing desire to be able to design a comprehensive, historically informed sound of the Baroque and Classical repertoire on a modern grand piano, and within a formation of other musicians, Lisa Smirnova founded the New Classic Ensemble Wien in 2007, with whom she now realizes many of her artistic projects.
Born in Moscow, Lisa Smirnova left the former Soviet Union in 1991 for an opportunity to study with the renowned piano pedagogue Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and later with Maria Curcio and Robert Levin in London.
A new, essential component of Lisa Smirnova’s artistic activities is concert design: she creates new performance formats for classical music with the goal of setting them in contemporary contexts with other artistic disciplines, thus creating access for a new and courageous audience with an interest in culture. The premiere of the work by Lisa Smirnova and Alexander Borowski, “Visual Interpretation without Performer”, based on Fantasy in C Minor, KV 396/385f by W. A. Mozart took place on 22 October 2020 at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf.
Lisa Smirnova lives in Vienna and Düsseldorf where she is Professor at the Robert Schumann University of Music.
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