notes | opening night with joshua bell | september 12 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS George Gershwin (1898-1937) In a Tweet. Gershwin evokes the French capital’s glitter and rowdiness, as well as a touch of homesickness a tourist might feel. The Back Story. Musical titans came face-to-face in March 1928, when Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin met at a New York City soiree. Gershwin regaled partygoers with his music, whose tunes and rhythms dazzled the French guest. The next month, Rice University brought Ravel to Houston, where he said he hoped American composers’ take on classical music would “embody a great deal of the rich and diverting rhythm of your jazz, and… the sentiment and spirit characteristic of your popular melodies and songs.” As he spoke, Gershwin was in France helping fulfill Ravel’s wish. France’s vivacious capital inspired him as he wrote in An American in Paris. The Instruments. 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 3 saxophones, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, celesta, timpani, percussion (including 4 automobile horns), celesta and strings What to Listen For: Gershwin meant the work “to portray the impressions of an American visitor to Paris as he strolls about the city.” For the opening, a jaunty stroll along a Parisian boulevard, Gershwin scoured the city’s auto-parts stores to find four horns whose sounds he liked, and he worked their beeps into the score. A slow, bluesy trumpet solo changes the mood: “Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a bout of homesickness,” Gershwin said. But Paris’ nighttime excitement works its magic, and “at the conclusion, the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant.” ©2015 Steven Brown
SUITE FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA FROM WEST SIDE STORY Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), arr. William David Brohn In a Tweet. A violinist takes center stage in a tone poem inspired by Bernstein’s passionate and dramatic music. The Back Story. West Side Story revolutionized Broadway by transplanting the star-crossed romance of Romeo and Juliet into the brutal world of New York gangs, and Bernstein packed the score with his brand of the American jazziness and lyricism. In the 1980s, Sid Ramin, who helped orchestrate Bernstein’s musicals, and William David Brohn, another veteran orchestrator, proposed creating a West Side Story suite. Bernstein gave his OK. But the suite only took shape after his death, when Ramin entrusted the job to Brohn. Violinist Joshua Bell premiered and recorded the suite in 2001, and the frequent Houston Symphony soloist now plays it for the orchestra’s Opening Night Gala. The Instruments. 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (1 doubling E-flat clarinet), bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, alto saxophone, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, tuba, percussion, harp, celesta (doubling piano) and strings 22
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What to Listen For. Brohn has built a one-movement tone poem from Bernstein’s themes. “The solo violin becomes a kind of traveler through the turbulent West Side Story landscape, commenting on all that it sees,” wrote Jamie Bernstein Thomas, Bernstein’s daughter, in the notes for Bell’s recording. In “Something’s Coming,” the violin translates the young people’s excitement into its own virtuoso flourishes. “Somewhere” and “Maria” let the soloist show that the violin can sing as ardently as the human voice. The climactic violin cadenza, composed by Bell, sums up the drama. ©2015 Steven Brown
SUITE FROM L’OISEAU DE FEU (THE FIREBIRD) Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) In a Tweet. Stravinsky’s first masterwork looks backward to Romantic music’s luxury and forward to modern music’s bombshells. The Back Story. The 27-year-old Stravinsky was unknown outside his native Russia when Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes company, hired him to compose a work for performances in Paris. Stravinsky doubted he was up to the task, but encouragement from Diaghilev won him over—as did the chance to debut in Paris. Based on Russian folk tales, the ballet tells the story of a magical firebird that helps a nobleman vanquish a sorcerer and free 12 captive maidens. At the 1910 premiere, the score was a hit: original enough to be fresh, traditional enough to be engaging. The Instruments. 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta (doubling piano) and strings What to Listen For. Stravinsky built this 1919 concert suite from some of the score’s most colorful sections. The introduction sets the scene in the sorcerer Kastchei’s garden; listen for the eerie, stratospheric violins. In “Dance of the Firebird,” the swirl and flash of woodwinds evoke the magic creature’s iridescent plumage. “Dance of the Princesses” harks back to Stravinsky’s teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with glowing string textures that could come from Scheherazade. “Kastchei’s Infernal Dance” sets off the explosiveness Stravinsky would unleash in The Rite of Spring. After the tender “Lullaby,” danced by the Firebird to bewitch Kastchei’s henchmen, the suite jumps to the ballet’s grand, glowing finale. ©2015 Steven Brown The printed music from Stravinsky’s L’oiseau de feu was donated by Mr. Terence Barr. The scores to Stravinsky’s L’oiseau de feu were donated by Ms. Marilyn Holtz.