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Masterworks 5: Looking Glass · May 13 & 14, 2022
Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, “Classical”
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
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Prokofiev was a composer caught between two cultures. Born into an affluent musical family, he left the Soviet Union in the summer of 1918, shortly after the 1917 Revolution. For the next 17 years he lived in Paris and toured the United States, returning to his native country in the mid-1930s never to leave again.
The year 1917 was a traumatic one for Russia. The February Revolution had deposed the Tsar, and the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power. Meanwhile, on the international front, Russia was losing disastrously in its war against Germany and Austria. In the spring and summer of that year Prokofiev retired to a village not far from Petrograd (now and formerly St. Petersburg) and, as if oblivious to the earth-shattering turmoil around him, composed at a furious pace. Among the creations of that period was his sunny Symphony No. 1, which he subtitled “The Classical.”
The Symphony was an experiment. An accomplished pianist, Prokofiev routinely composed at the piano, although he noticed: “…thematic material composed without the piano was often better in quality…I was intrigued with the idea of writing an entire symphonic piece without the piano…So this was how the project of writing a symphony in the style of Haydn came about…it seemed it would be easier to dive into the deep waters of writing without the piano if I worked in a familiar setting.” This delicate, nostalgic Symphony premiered in Petrograd in April 1918 with the composer on the podium, amidst civil war and social upheaval.
The overall Classical style of the Symphony makes it easy to forget that it is a twentieth-century creation. The opening Allegro conforms to the standard first movement sonata allegro form, with occasional twentieth-century harmonies. The second theme is a caricature of the eighteenth-century Rococo style, played on the tips of the violin bows “con eleganza” like a mincing dancing master – but with a less than elegant surprise sforzando at the cadence. The graceful Larghetto theme in the second movement, introduced first by the violins then joined by a flute, shows what a little musical creativity can do with a simple descending scale.
The short Gavotte replaces a traditional minuet/trio movement. Prokofiev’s is a clumsy dance, whose melody contains awkward octave leaps and strange grace notes in the bassoon. The Trio is accompanied by a bagpipe-like drone. Prokofiev loved this movement, recycling and expanding it some 20 years later in the Capulets’ Ball for his ballet Romeo and Juliet.
The Molto vivace finale is a sonata form, rather than the usual rondo, but has the persistent dynamic drive of a Haydn finale. In composing it, Prokofiev played a game with himself, in which he attempted to eliminate all minor chords.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Camille Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy, who wrote his first piano compositions at age three. At ten he made his formal debut at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, playing Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos, and offered to play any one of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory as an encore. In his youth he was considered an innovator, but by the time he reached maturity he had become a conservative pillar of the establishment, trying to maintain the classical musical tradition in France and expressing open disdain for the new trends in music, including the “malaise” of Wagnerism. His visceral dislike of Debussy made frequent headlines in the tabloid press. As an accomplished organist and pianist, he premiered his five piano concertos
I. Allegro II. Larghetto III. Gavotte: Non troppo allegro IV. Finale: Molto vivace
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Dr. Bolling Farmer Noretta L. Taylor Anne Jarema & Cliff Albertson
Christine Lamprea, Cello
I. Allegro troppo II. Allegretto moto III. Allegro troppo
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Maurice & Bonnie Stone Ann & Jerry McLellan Lynne & John Eramo
INTERMISSION
I. Allegro vivace II. Andante cantabile III. Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio IV. Molto allegro
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Hank Young in memory of my wife, Nancy V. Young Fred & Cindy Groce
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Katie & Phil Osborn
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This performance will be recorded for broadcast on Blue Ridge Public Radio on May 31, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. and June 2, 2022 at 9:00 a.m.
himself with elegant, effortless grace. But neither his compositions nor his pianism were ever pinnacles of passion or emotion. Berlioz noted that SaintSaëns “...knows everything but lacks inexperience.”
The defeat of France at the hands of Prussia in 1871 shocked the country’s pride and spurred a revival of French arts and letters. One of the results was the founding by Saint-Saëns and his colleagues of the Société Nationale de Musique, whose motto and purpose was “Ars Gallica.” (French art). One of its offshoots was the establishment of three newly energized competing symphony orchestras in Paris by three great conductors – Édouard Colonne, Jules-Étienne Pasdeloup and Charles Lamoureux – who urgently looked for new works by French composers.
Saint-Saëns composed the Cello Concerto in 1872 in response to this demand. It is in three continuous movements without pause, in the manner of the Cello Concerto by Robert Schumann. Unlike the standard classic concerto, Saint-Saëns’s Concerto opens with only a single orchestral chord, after which the soloist introduces the principal themes. The first one is an assertive and virtuosic melody that will be revisited throughout the Concerto as a unifying device. The cello also introduces the standard contrasting second theme. There is virtually no development section in this movement, merely a varied restatement of the themes in order. The second theme gradually softens the mood and the music glides into the second movement, an understated minuet in the orchestra. When the cello enters, it plays a countermelody over the minuet and then a little waltz on its own. Once again, the end of the Minuet blends without pause into the Finale.
While many nineteenth century works bring back the opening theme at the end as a way of providing closure and an arch-like structure, Saint-Saëns expands greatly on this architectural concept. The Finale, the longest of the movements, continues the development of the opening theme of the Concerto but also includes a new more expansive second theme, as well as a burst of new thematic material, and, of course, rapid scales, arpeggios and high harmonics that permit the soloist to indulge in virtuosic brilliance. The Concerto concludes with a coda, accelerating the tempo for a dramatic finish.
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, “Jupiter”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart composed his three last symphonies – or at least finished them – in the short span of six weeks in JuneAugust 1788. In spite of the ceaseless flow of his musical output, he had composed no symphonies during the preceding two years, nor was he to write any in the following three, the last years of his life.
GUEST ARTIST
Christine Lamprea, Cello
Christine Lamprea, cellist and 2018 Sphinx Medal of Excellence Winner, is an artist known for her emotionally committed and intense performances. Upon her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist in 2013, she has since returned to Carnegie, as well as performed with orchestras such Costa Rica National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, National Symphony of Michoacan, New Jersey Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and toured with the Sphinx Virtuosi across the U.S. As a recitalist, Ms. Lamprea has appeared on prestigious series at Illinois’ Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Florida’s Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Pepperdine University, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Washington Performing Arts Society. In demand as a chamber musician, she performs regularly with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, and has performed with such musicians as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Sarah Chang, Itzhak Perlman, Roger Tapping, and Carol Wincenc.
Ms. Lamprea strives to expand her musical boundaries by exploring many genres of music and non-traditional venues for performance and teaching. Her Songs of Colombia Suite includes arrangements of traditional South American tunes for cello and piano or guitar, and have been performed at the Colombian Embassy and Supreme Court of the United States for Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She has worked with members of Baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants, and studied sonatas with fortepiano with Audrey Axinn. She has premiered several works by composers of today. In recent years, she commissioned cadenzas for the Haydn D Major Concerto by Jessie Montgomery, and premiered Jeffrey Mumford’s cello concerto “of fields unfolding...echoing depths of resonant light” with the San Antonio Symphony.
Ms. Lamprea is on the cello faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, serves as substitute faculty at the Juilliard School, and served as Lecturer of Cello at the Texas Christian University School of Music for the 2018-19 academic year. Ms. Lamprea has given masterclasses for the Vivac-e Festival, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, among others. She has worked with Ecuadorian youth in the cities of Quito and Guayaquil, as part of a residency between The Juilliard School and “Sinfonia Por La Vida,” a social inclusion program modeled after Venezuela’s El Sistema program. Christine Lamprea is the recipient of a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which supported her studies at the New England Conservatory, and a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, which supported her study with acclaimed cellist Matt Haimovitz. She studied with Bonnie Hampton at The Juilliard School and holds a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Natasha Brofsky. Additional influences were Lynn Harrell, Frans Helmerson, and Philippe Muller. Previous teachers include Ken Freudigman and Ken Ishii.
These three symphonies were not composed on commission but were probably written for a series of subscription concerts that Mozart planned for 1788-89 in Vienna but which apparently never materialized for lack of support. At this point, in Vienna at least, his star was already in decline despite the success of his two great operas in collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, Don Giovanni (premiered in Prague) and The Marriage of Figaro. He was desperately in need of money – in large part because he was constitutionally unable to curb his extravagant spending habit. However, the notion that Mozart never heard these symphonies performed is the creation of nineteenth-century romanticism; in fact, Mozart probably scheduled the C major symphony for a concert in Frankfurt in October 1790.
The three symphonies reflect very different moods, the darkest being No. 40. It is almost as if the tragedy of this symphony saw its resolution only the in triumph of No. 41. The nickname “Jupiter” is a late addition in an unknown hand, inspired probably by the majestic-sounding first movement. Olympian it may sound to us, but according to Eric Blom, Mozart borrowed the little auxiliary G major theme in the first movement from his comic bass arietta “Un bacio di mano” (K.541); the text that accompanies this theme runs, “Voi siete un po’ tondo, Mio caro Pompeo,” (You are a little chubby, my dear Pompeo).
Unlike No. 40, this symphony breaks no new ground either in form or content; its greatness lies not with its novelty but with its classic elegance. Despite the fact that Mozart composed 41 symphonies, this was not the vehicle he chose as an outlet for his greatest creative inspirations; many of the symphonies were among his earliest compositions. Haydn, on the other hand, was constantly tweaking the form throughout his long life to make each symphony different or innovative – often even quirky. Of particular interest in Symphony No. 41 is Mozart’s use of the four-note opening motive of the final movement, which he then develops into a complex fugue. Mozart was partial to this motive and had previously used it in two masses and his B-flat Symphony K. 319 (No. 33). Other composers, mostly notably Felix Mendelssohn, used the motive as well, either in imitation of or tribute to the composer who was valued more after his death than during his lifetime.
Program Notes by Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn (www.wordprosmusic.com)
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