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Richard Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 Duett-Concertino Serenade in E f lat major

ALEC FRANK-GEMMILL, MAXIMILIANO MARTÍN, PETER WHELAN SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA SCO WIND SOLOISTS ROBIN TICCIATI 1

Recorded in Caird Hall, Dundee, UK, on 18–20 December 2016

Post-production Julia Thomas

Recording Producer & Engineer Philip Hobbs

Design stoempstudio.com

Cover Image Richard Strauss by Max Liebermann (1847–1935) Lebrecht Music Arts, Bridgeman Images

Assistant Engineer Robert Cammidge 2

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

42:28 ROBIN TICCIATI conductor SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 11

Alec Frank-Gemmill horn 1 — Allegro 5:08 2 — Andante 5:06 3 — Allegro 4:56

Duett-Concertino, TrV293 Maximiliano Martín clarinet Peter Whelan bassoon 4 — Allegro moderato 6:08 5 — Andante 3:10 6 — Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo 9:19 7 — Serenade in E flat major, Op. 7 8:22

SCO Wind Soloists

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Richard Strauss

Horn Concerto No. 1, Duett-Concertino & Serenade in E f lat major

When Richard Strauss was growing up in Munich, the sound of the horn was a distinctive and persistent feature of the domestic household noise. His father, principal in the Munich court orchestra for nearly fifty years, practised in the background. Aged fourteen, Richard composed some variations for horn and piano, and a song with an extremely difficult horn obbligato. Throughout his future career he composed orchestral works and operas often including prominent, even heroic parts for horns. The first of his two concertos for the instrument (1882–3) is a remarkably assured work for a teenager. The work begins with a brief orchestral preliminary – a single chord of E flat major – before the soloist enters with a bold theme marked ‘energico’. Dispensing with sonata form, Strauss introduces two further

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themes, expansive and assertive respectively, both played by the soloist.

A brief, expressive phrase on the cellos assumes some importance, before a new triplet-based rhythm becomes pervasive. There is a final declamatory theme introduced by the orchestra (fortissimo, ‘patetico’), but it is the triplet rhythm which proves to be the basis of Strauss’s smooth transition – without a break – into the central Andante. Here the triplet is a unifying, mostly accompanying feature, against which the solo horn plays a deeply lyrical melody marked ‘dolce’. A woodwind crescendo heralds the middle section, in which the horn has a passionate melody against a robust accompaniment. In the slightly varied reprise of the opening section the original horn melody returns pianissimo. The 68 finale is prepared by an orchestral crescendo with insistent dotted rhythm, before the soloist enters with a rondo-theme of typical hunting-horn character. In the first of the contrasting episodes, Strauss introduces an expressive horn melody of narrow compass, which flows into a further idea accompanied by gracefully dovetailing triplets on two flutes. Eventually the solo horn quietly recalls the opening theme of the first movement, demonstrating its close relationship with the Rondo theme. Joyfully leaping upon this discovery, the orchestra completes the melody. Towards the end the horn recalls the broad, declamatory orchestral theme from the opening movement and, following two bars of ‘Lento’, the main Rondo tempo is slightly increased, further testing the soloist’s agility in the brilliant closing pages. The 1883 premiere, soon after the work’s completion, was given with piano accompaniment, Bruno Hoyer playing the solo part. On 4 March 1885 the orchestral version was first performed in Meiningen, conducted by Hans von Bülow with the soloist Gustav Leinhos.

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Strauss composed his Duett-Concertino in 1947, during what is often described as his Indian summer, a period in which he produced works on a relatively small scale, of a more Classical nature, and tempered with serenity. They include the Second Horn Concerto, the Oboe Concerto, the Metamorphosen for 23 strings and the Four Last Songs. One of Strauss’s closest friends was Hugo Burghauser, principal bassoon of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra before he settled in New York. Although the actual commission for the Duett-Concertino came from Otmar Nussio, conductor of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Strauss’s original idea had been to compose a piece for Burghauser. When the Duett-Concertino was complete (late 1947), Strauss wrote to Burghauser: ‘A dancing princess is alarmed by the grotesque cavorting of a bear in imitation of her. At last she is won over to the creature and dances with it, whereupon it turns into a prince.’ This narrative may be unsubtle but it is not untypical of much of the overtly programmatic content in Strauss’s orchestral works. The bassoon’s first entry creates a gauche, even startling contrast with the lyrical opening paragraph and is answered by the shrieking clarinet. Thereafter the bassoon’s principal material is often angular, even clumsy, only occasionally aspiring to the clarinet’s lyricism. However, in the final third of the movement the struggles of the bassoon give way to a more harmonious relationship with the clarinet. In the opening Allegro moderato Strauss uses six solo strings as a kind of concertino group. The very beginning is reminiscent of the richly textured string sextet from his opera Capriccio but, as in his late works generally, Strauss’s former opulence is reduced in favour of mellowness and urbanity. Against a shimmering tremolo on strings and harp, the central Andante is a romantic aria (solo bassoon, ‘molto tranquillo’) in which one

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may imagine the bear wooing the princess. From the entry of the solo clarinet (here playing a subsidiary role), a solo cello reinforces the bassoon in unison. A gentle quasi-cadenza leads to the pastoral Rondo, its main theme derived from the opening of the work – inverted, then right way up. In this finale the soloists play together much more than previously, sometimes in mellifluous thirds. The introduction of a dotted rhythm leads to further contrast as the 44 of the soloists (with harp in 4 2 ) is pitted against the 68 rhythm of the orchestra. Ever resourceful, Strauss effortlessly weaves into his fabric material from the previous movements, as princess and transformed bear cavort happily. The premiere, on 4 April 1948, was performed by clarinettist Armando Basile and bassoonist Bruno Bergamaschi, with Otmar Nussio and his Italian-Swiss orchestra.

In 1881 (or possibly 1882) the seventeen- or eighteen-yearold Strauss composed his Serenade in E flat major, Opus 7, for 13 wind instruments. Clearly, at this early stage of his creative life, Strauss had not yet developed his own voice. His description of the Serenade as ‘the respectable work of a music student’ suggests that he was well aware of his immaturity, yet he would compose the brilliantly accomplished First Horn Concerto within the next two years. Marked Andante, the single-movement Serenade begins with a broad, hymn-like melody. A playful transition leads to the slightly more animated second subject of this sonata-form structure, in the expected dominant key – an ideally contrasting melody scored for clarinet and horn. The exposition winds down to a peaceful close. In the development section Strauss begins by expanding on a fragment from the second subject (solo oboe, ‘con espressivo’), before introducing a sense of urgency (‘più animato’) and skilfully building to a fortissimo climax. Having 7

travelled, early in his development section, into the distant key of B minor, Strauss manages to arrive back in E flat major (Tempo I) for the nicely understated return of the first subject, now re-scored for horn quartet pianissimo.

The recall of the second theme is enhanced by a more soloistic horn part, before the relaxed coda and contented final bars. One of the most satisfying features of this early work is Strauss’s confident handling of his wind ensemble, obviously relishing the available variety of timbres and combinations.

However, one might consider Strauss’s astonishing progress in the next six years before writing the spectacular Don Juan.

The premiere of the Serenade was conducted by Franz Wüllner in Dresden on 27 November 1882. Soon the work was brought to the attention of the distinguished Hans von Bülow, who not only included it in his forthcoming concerts, but also encouraged Strauss to compose further works for wind ensemble.

© Philip Borg-Wheeler, 2019

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