Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique | Program Notes

MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971): Symphony of Psalms for Chorus and Orchestra Igor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum, Russia, and died on April 6, 1971 in New York City. He composed the Symphony of Psalms in 1930 on a commission celebrating the Golden Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Boston premiere of the work was delayed because of the illness of the Orchestra’s conductor, Sergei Koussevitzky, so the first performance was given by Ernest Ansermet and the Brussels Philharmonic Society on December 13, 1930. A performance in Boston followed six days later. The score calls for piccolo, five flutes (fifth doubling piccolo), four oboes, English horn, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, five trumpets (fifth on piccolo trumpet), three trombones, tuba, harp, two pianos, bass drum, cellos and double basses.

Duration is about 22 minutes. Last performed by the orchestra on January 29-31, 1987, with Philippe Entremont conducting.

Igor Stravinsky was raised in the Orthodox Church in the best traditions of Old Russia, but he left the religion as a young man with some harsh remarks about the rites and feasts of the ancient dogma. Several years later, however (in 1926 at the age of 44), he returned to the faith and became a regular communicant in the Church. To celebrate the revitalization of his belief he composed the Pater noster (“Our Father”) in the ancient Slavonic tongue for unaccompanied choir.

(Mass; Abraham and Isaac; Babel; Canticum Sacrum; Credo; The Flood; Requiem Canticles; A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer; Threni [Lamentations of Jeremiah]; and Ave Maria followed in later years.)

It seems likely that the conception of a symphonic work based on Psalm texts also was born at that time. In 1929, when he was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to write a work celebrating its 50th anniversary, he admitted that a symphony with Biblical texts had been on his mind “for a long time. I therefore gladly accepted a proposal so thoroughly in accord with my wishes.... I sought for my words among those that had been written for singing. And quite naturally my first idea was to have recourse to the Psalms.”

For the work, Stravinsky chose three Psalms from the Vulgate version of the Bible, and retained them in the original Latin. This is one of a number of techniques that he employed to raise the Symphony of Psalms to an elevated, almost mystical plain, as free as possible from any Romantic passion. To reinforce the emotional distancing indicated by the Latin text, Stravinsky chose not to use any solo voices, preferring instead to call on the implied universality of the chorus. The orchestra complementing the vocal forces is one of the few in the repertory not to include violins or violas. Stravinsky felt the bright sound of those instruments was not in keeping with the dark, burnished orchestral sonority he sought as backdrop to the sacred words.

To further encourage objectivity on the executant’s part, even the performance indications at the beginning of the movements are given only as simple metronome markings without other descriptive amplification. The British conductor Sir Eugene Goossens wrote, “There is much scope for real expression in a performance of the Symphony of Psalms, but there is absolutely no room for sentimentality.”

The three movements of the work, directed to be played without pause, do not follow traditional symphonic forms but rather employ a formal technique similar to the episodic construction seen in many of Stravinsky’s other compositions. These episodes are usually defined by a single rhythmic ostinato, and there are several such in the opening movement.

The second movement is a weaving of two separate, interlocking fugues, one for instruments, one for voices. The opening instrumental fugue, scored for high woodwinds, seems to hover in some unimagined, transcendent universe. The mundane world is introduced with the vocal fugue, which expands, for the first time in this movement, into the bass register. The two fugues co-exist until the beginning of a section for choir alone, after which various melodic bits and harmonic constructions derived from them are used first to build a strong climax and then to provide a quiet ending.

SOUNDINGS 2015-2016 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 5