To the Hiroshima Symphony
LEONARD SLATKIN Schubertiade
PERUSALCOPY COPYINGIS ILLEGAL
An Orchestral Fantasy
Duration: ca. 13–15 minutes
Program Notes
In April of 2022, when we were all starting to come out of hiding from the global pandemic, I had the privilege of conducting the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra in a concert honoring the 50th anniversary of their becoming a professional orchestra. When we had concluded the Sixth Symphony by Gustav Mahler, I sat, somewhat exhausted, in the dressing room.
Several administrators of the orchestra came to greet me, and during the course of our chat, they asked my wife, composer Cindy McTee, if she would be interested in writing a work to honor Franz Schubert. She was flattered but declined. However, I became quite intrigued by the idea and suggested that the piece be written by me. Our concert is actually on his birthday, January 31.
Almost immediately, ideas started swirling around in my head. Should it be a totally original composition, with no musical reference to the Austrian master? Or might it be a hybrid, where various strains of Schubert fragments are heard alongside new material? I decided on the latter and used the composer’s final composition, the Symphony in B minor, as a starting point.
Schubert himself was rather poor for most of his brief life.
To get his music heard, he would organize soirées at his apartment, where friends would gather to play and sing his works. These events were known as Schubertiaden. The composer was usually at the piano. When I began to write this piece, I wondered what it might be like if this tradition could be extended well past the composer’s lifetime.
The work is basically in three parts, with descriptive moments placed before each. It begins with Schubert, not seen, at the piano playing the opening of his monumental B b Sonata. This is rudely interrupted by the orchestra, representing the guests, who arrive rather vociferously with a series of fanfares and flourishes by the trumpets, horns and flutes.
The initial section is taken from the first six bars of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony and is cast as a passacaglia. This is a set of variations over the bass line which opens the symphony. Other elements of the first movement are introduced, but those become more and more distorted as the guests indulge in some glühwein.
Schubert is playing one of his impromptus when several more friends arrive, and they are introduced by the same instruments who greeted the earlier visitors. When they settle down, some more recent composers, perhaps Phillip Glass or Steve Reich, proceed to take Schubert’s main themes from the slow movement of his final work and alter them into a mash-up of harmonic and rhythmic glee. This becomes the second part of Schubertiade.
The guests are anxious to get home, and the music becomes more and more deafening as well as fast, with dancing turned into a frenzy. The music stops and once more, the flourishes are played, but this time, they are done more quietly. It is a signal for everyone to leave. But they do not make their way to the door until several have honored their host by performing fragments of some of his other compositions. This becomes the third and final section of the piece, a quodlibet, if you will. Sometimes these are not played exactly as the composer wrote them, but we are in a 21st-century version of a Schubertiade
It is raining as the guests depart into the evening. A final reference to the fanfares is heard, but this time the notes are played in reverse. The composer is left at his piano, trying to complete the sonata melody that began the evening. And which, at least in this version, will remain “Unfinished.”
—Leonard Slatkin
Instrumentation
The work calls for a typical 20th-century-sized orchestra, with a few embellishments
4 Flutes
2 Oboes
1 English Horn
PERUSALCOPY COPYINGIS ILLEGAL
2 B-flat Clarinets
1 B-flat Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
1 Contrabassoon
4 Horns in F
4 Trumpets in C
3 Trombones
1 Tuba
Timpani
Percussion: 4 players
1: Tubular Bells, Marimba I, Rain Stick
2: Marimba II, Glass Wind Chimes
3: Tam-Tam, High Bongo, Snare Drum, Wood Wind Chimes
4: Sizzle Cymbal, Medium and Low Wood Blocks, Set of High Triangles (Several small triangles suspended horizontally on a stick and struck by the hand)
2 Harps (Harp 1 is placed far sage right and Harp 2 is far stage left)
1 Piano offstage
1 Celesta played by the pianist onstage
Strings (minimum strength)
12 First Violins
12 Second Violins
8 Violas
8 Violoncelli
6 Contrabasses
Schubertiade
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will be necessary for the Piano/Celesta player to
Leonard Slatkin
PERUSALCOPY COPYINGIS ILLEGAL
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cresc. (last time)
cresc. (last time)
cresc. (last time)
cresc. (last time)
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Percussion, Harps,and Celesta may improvise on the provided notes, in rhythm.
PERUSALCOPY
Percussionists should gently set their instruments in motion so that they resonate against each other softly. Performed randomly with no fixed rhythm