Program Note

Overture to Candide

Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) Leonard Bernstein, highly successful in so many musical endeavors, always told his friends that he wanted to write “the Great American Opera,” and many feel he came closest with Candide, which he described as “a comic operetta.” In 1759 Voltaire wrote a satire about the misadventures of the naive and purehearted Candide and his sweetheart, Cunégonde. In it, Voltaire takes a jab at the optimistic philosophy of his times, when his contemporary Gottfried Leibniz said that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” The story chronicles a host of man-made and natural disasters that make it difficult to believe that all is for the best. Bernstein and the much-admired playwright Lillian Hellman collaborated on a work that was based on the Voltaire story and made pointed reference to the artificially happy post-war attitude in America in 1956. It was clearly meant to be a political statement. Bernstein felt that Voltaire’s description of his own society with its snobbery, false morality and attacks on individuals was identical to the American society of the times, with the McCarthy witch-hunts being an example. Bernstein and Hellman worked on the play for two years and it opened in 1956 on Broadway. But Candide failed, closing after 73 performances. The Overture, however, took on a life of its own and made steady gains as an orchestral work. Loved for its scintillating and crackling rhythms, it incorporates tunes from the show, including “The Best of All Possible Worlds”, “Battle Music”, “Oh Happy We” and “Glitter and Be Gay”, a memorable soprano piece. It was meant to reflect the fast-paced adventures in Voltaire’s work, its comedy and its tender moments. Bernstein was very disappointed with the less-than-enthusiastic reception of Candide. He cared deeply about the work, of which he said, “There’s more of me in that piece than anything else I’ve done.” He kept tinkering with it over the years, and each time he revived it, the audiences were larger. In 1974, with a new libretto that emphasized humor and diluted the political and social themes, Candide was again introduced to Broadway, where it saw 741 performances. But in 1989, one year before his death, Bernstein sought to restore the integrity of his original work, and he gave Candide one more overhaul. A full-length recording of that final revision preserves Bernstein’s last thoughts on his favorite composition.

Rhapsody in Blue In the early twentieth century, American composers began to experiment with incorporating popular music into their classical compositions. While George Gershwin got his start as a Broadway songwriter, by the 1920s and 1930s he had also made a reputation for himself as a classical composer. Gershwin’s contribution to American music was the addition of jazz and blues to art music, resulting in a distinctly American, modernist style. In early 1924, Gershwin was surprised to learn that American jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman had advertised a concert in the New York Tribune that would include a jazz concerto composed by Gershwin (which he had not begun writing because he did not know about it). After he contacted Whiteman, the two men agreed on a jazz concerto for piano that Gershwin, an accomplished pianist, would perform with Whiteman’s band. Working on a tight deadline, Gershwin feverishly composed the concerto in only five short weeks! The result was Rhapsody in Blue, one of the most frequently performed pieces in American musical history. The iconic opening clarinet glissando (a slide from a low pitch to a high one) has been used in countless commercials, films and radio programs since the 1920s. Gershwin originally did not include the glissando in the piece, but he heard Whiteman’s clarinetist Ross Gorman play one during a rehearsal and decided to add it. The glissando has since become one of the most recognizable sounds in the world. The word “rhapsody” in the title means that the piece was freeform (a musical exploration of a variety of contrasting moods), and the solo piano part gives the false impression of spontaneous improvisation. “Blue” refers to the elements of blues and jazz that Gershwin incorporated. The result is an exciting, fast-paced and “American” sounding piece.