PROGRAM NOTES

Composed 1858 | Premiered December 18, 1858

B. December 22, 1821, Crema, Italy

D. July 7, 1889, Parma, Italy

Scored for flute, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 7 minutes)

Theera of 19th century virtuosi did not fail to include performers on the double bass. Its two most famous exponents were the Italians Domenico Dragonetti (1763–1846) and Luigi Bottesini (1821–93), though their accomplishments were built upon the work of several 18th century composers and performers, some extending back even to the late 17th century.

Bottesini, the son of a clarinetist, played several instruments in his northern Italian town before seeking professional training at the Milan Conservatory. Alas, the only scholarships available were for bassoon or double bass, according to biographer Rodney Slatney, writing in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. The 14-year-old Bottesini mastered the cumbersome instrument sufficiently to garner one of them, and within four years, he won a major prize and began an important solo career. His career took him throughout Europe and as far away as St. Petersburg, Mexico, and Havana, where he conducted the premiere of his opera, Christopher Columbus, in 1848.

Bottesini’s well-rounded musical training, his interest in opera, and his conducting skills gained him the respect and long-term friendship of Giuseppe Verdi. He earned the privilege of conducting the 1871 premiere of Verdi’s Aida, inaugurating a new opera house in Cairo.

In contrast to the gruff, noisy style of Dragonetti’s playing, Bottesini cultivated a light, lyrical, tonally-pleasant manner of playing the double bass. Bottesini’s overture comes from his opera Il diavolo della notte, “The Devil of the Night.”

This performance marks the DSO premiere of Bottesini’s Overture to Il diavolo della notte.

Composed 1818 | Premiered March 31, 1819

B. October 27, 1782, Genoa, Italy

D. May 27, 1840, Nice, France

Scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bassoon, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 3 trumpets, timpani, percussion, and strings.

(Approx. 26 minutes)

Someof the greatest works for instrumental soloists were written, not surprisingly, by people who could play that instrument themselves. When it comes to the violin, there is one man who puts all others in shadow: the Italian genius and genre-changing virtuoso Niccolò Paganini. Paganini was not called the “devil’s fiddler” for nothing: he single-handedly revolutionized violin technique, performing feats which no one had previously thought possible, and his phenomenal facility in executing double-stops and the brilliance of his harmonics mystified even the best professional violinists of the early 19th century. During his lifetime, most of Paganini’s compositions could be played only by himself. But he was more than just a flashy player: critics always agreed that his work expressed great emotional depth in addition to jaw-dropping technical flair. Paganini’s first violin concerto was originally intended to be heard in E-flat Major. The orchestral parts were written in that key, but the solo part was written in D Major with instructions that the violin should be tuned a half-step higher so they would sound in E-flat. This was a practice known in the day as scordatura (Italian for mistuning), and it allowed the soloist to achieve effects sounding in E-flat that would not be possible in standard tuning—a “cheat” of sorts that helped Paganini maintain his how does he do that? reputation. Two hundred or so years later, however, both orchestra and soloist play the concerto in D Major.

The first movement is an almost uninterrupted display of virtuoso fireworks with only occasional stops to give the soloist a chance to catch their breath. The “weeping” second movement is a lyrical aria that tones down the special effects significantly and was supposedly an earnest attempt to render a famous actor of the day delivering an emotional speech. The last movement, with a memorable main theme, brings back the fireworks.

The DSO most recently performed Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in January 2020, conducted by Jader Bignamini and featuring violinist Augustin Hadelich. The DSO first performed the piece in April 1919, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch and featuring violinist Jules Lepske.

PYOTR

B. Votkinsk, May 7, 1840

D. St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893

Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo,

2 oboes, 2 clarinets,

2 bassoons, 4 horns,

2 trumpets, 2 cornets,

3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.

(Approx. 36 minutes)

The first performance of what is still considered to be the quintessential ballet was a disaster of such epic proportions that it took Tchaikovsky’s death and the subsequent renewal of interest in his life and works to bring about a second production. That premiere took place in Moscow at the celebrated Bolshoi Theater in March of 1877, and it was a failure for a number of reasons: the production overall was very shoddy; the choreography was uninspired and uninteresting; the prima ballerina was next to incompetent; the orchestra, inadequately rehearsed, simply could not handle the technical and musical demands of what was a very strong and inventive score; and that wonderful score was tampered with so as to include a number of dances by hack composers of the day.

The genesis of what is now the most popular of classical ballets is more mundane. In 1875, the director of one of the other theaters in Moscow asked Tchaikovsky to write music for a fulllength ballet inspired by a well-known German fairy tale. Mainly because of the financial reward, Tchaikovsky agreed, but he had also been wanting for some time to try his hand in this genre. He wrote at an uncommonly slow pace, and by the time the score was finished almost a year had gone by and he had actually become bored with writing the work. Then came the premiere, which, in spite of everything, actually did please a segment of the audience. The various folk legends on which the story was based were quite old, and usually had something to do with hunters finding swans, who beg the hunters not to shoot them, then at some point the swans are transformed into beautiful maidens who eventually marry the hunters.

Following the premiere, various revisions were made to the choreography—and even the music—by leading