Program Notes

NOTES BY CHARLES GREENWELL

Franz Schubert

Symphony No. 8 in b minor, “Unfinished,” D. 759 (1822)

Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797, in Vienna, Austria, and died on November 19, 1828, in Vienna. Symphony No. 8 is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximately 26 minutes.

This famous symphony was started by Schubert in 1822 but left with only two movements, even though he lived for another six years. To this day, musicologists and historians have no real answer as to why he failed to complete the symphony. As a result, this two movement torso has achieved almost mythical status, and is normally viewed as a one-off occurrence. In fact, Schubert was a chronic un-finisher of compositions, and these include symphonies, piano sonatas, string quartets, and even some songs. He was also notoriously absentminded, and it is well-established that he actually lost quite a number of movements and shorter pieces. As to this work and its incompletion, there have been a number of theories advanced, among them: He was distracted by the inspiration of his Wanderer Fantasy for solo piano, which occupied his time right after writing the two movements; the first two movements are both in triple meter (3/4 for the first and 3/8 for the second), and having the third movement also in triple meter, the usual rhythm for a scherzo, may have made him lose interest in the project; that year of 1822 was when he was diagnosed with the illness that would eventually take his life, and perhaps there were bad associations as a result; and the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt has stated, “I am convinced that Schubert found it impossible to continue after the second movement. There came a time when he thought this cannot be continued: The form is perfect, and there is simply nothing else to say.”

This probably makes the most sense: We know that he intended to finish the symphony, as there exists a virtually complete third movement in a piano sketch with about 20 bars of orchestration. However, the musical quality of the third movement is so far inferior to the two completed ones, that it is possible he just gave up, realizing that he had run out of inspiration. Some have argued that the b minor entr’acte in the Rosamunde music is the completed but discarded finale, but musically this holds little water. Another interesting idea, proposed in 1938 by the German musicologist Arnold Schering, is that the two completed movements form a musical setting of Schubert’s own 1822 fantasy-romance story entitled Mein Traum (My Dream), and that there was nothing more to say. Whatever the reasons might be, these two completed movements complement each other perfectly, and together form one of the supreme masterpieces in music history. A new world of sound is created here with harmony finely graded to the color of each instrument, melody shaded to an extraordinary degree, and the whole written in a style of vast range and tremendous power. There is as well a depth of feeling that had earlier appeared mainly in his songs. (For the record, in 1928, the Columbia Gramophone Company of England actually considered hosting a competition for the best completion of the symphony! Fortunately, this never happened.)

When the 25-year-old Schubert began writing this symphony, he was charting new musical terrain. His first six symphonies, wonderfully joyous works influenced by Haydn and Mozart, were in the past, and he simply was unable to return to that style. So instead of trying to compete with Beethoven on his own ground, Schubert found a new way of shaping time and tonality that no other

symphonic composer up to then had managed. In the history of the symphony, this music was unprecedented. There is also a fearlessness and directness about the symphony that might have come from his experience of a world of darkness and pain following the diagnosis in 1822 of the disease that would kill him six years later. One can say that the gulf between the Sixth Symphony and the “Unfinished” was to some extent bridged by the symphony sketches from 1818 and 1821 that he never completed. The story behind this symphony’s creation is just as fascinating. In 1823, the Graz Music Society gave Schubert an honorary diploma, and he felt obligated to dedicate a symphony to them in return. He then sent to his friend Anselm Huttenbrenner, a leading member of the Society, the two completed movements plus the first two pages of the beginning of the scherzo. The existence of this score was public knowledge from at least 1836, but the manuscript remained in the Huttenbrenner family until 1865—why is uncertain— when the conductor Johann von Herbeck retrieved it and subsequently gave the work its first performance in December of that year. On that occasion, the bubbly finale of Schubert’s Third Symphony was added as a totally incongruous finale. Nevertheless, the performance was received with great enthusiasm by the audience. In the final analysis, this extraordinary two-movement torso is one of the wonders of the music world, and we simply need to be grateful that it exists. As in much of Schubert’s instrumental music, this symphony’s melodic invention demonstrates his remarkable skills as a songwriter. Departing from models of Haydn and Beethoven, who often would thoroughly explore a few themes and then navigate long and ingenious paths between sections, Schubert keeps the focus concentrated on an exquisite succession of melodies. Moreover, the subdued ending after the two movements is certainly not the way one would normally end a symphony in that era, but right from the start this unique creation demonstrates a reluctance to conform to the Beethoven model of a symphony, and here, tacking on additional movements would have served no purpose. From an early age, its composer pursued his ambitious goals in the face of discouragements that would have deterred lesser men, and a close study of his life reveals a tenacity of purpose that is quite amazing. In the words of one of his close friends, “Schubert was a little man physically, but musically he was a giant.” ●

NOTES BY DAVID B. LEVY

Franz Schubert

Symphony No. 9 in C Major, “The Great,” D. 944 (1825–1826)

Schubert composed a wide variety of music, but his most enduring contributions were to the repertory of song for voice and piano. As best as can be determined, Schubert composed more than 600 accompanied songs in his brief life, as well as a large number of solo piano compositions, operas, sacred vocal works, and chamber music. His gift as a lyrical composer may also be heard in his purely instrumental music, including his chamber music and symphonies. The Symphony No. 9 remained unperformed during Schubert’s lifetime. The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximately 55 minutes.

Establishing an accurate chronology for Schubert’s symphonies has been difficult. The tedious and gruesome details for this need not be reviewed here, but for our purposes, it is safe to assert that the work before us is, indeed, Schubert’s Ninth Symphony. One also can report with certainty that Schubert worked on it from 1825–1826, with some possible revisions dating as late as 1827, and that this work is the very same one referred

to in some historical sources as the “Gastein” Symphony. It is intriguing that the library of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde contains a complete set of parts dating from that year, an indicator that a performance of the work was contemplated at that time. Performance conditions for orchestral music in Vienna at the time were woefully inadequate, as both Beethoven and Schubert were painfully aware. The first performance of the Ninth Symphony had to wait until Felix Mendelssohn conducted it at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Concert on March 21, 1839. The first Viennese performance of Schubert’s Ninth took place later that year. (Schubert’s more popular “Unfinished” Symphony No. 8 did not come to performance until 1865!)

It is fascinating to contemplate where Schubert stood as a composer of symphonies in relation to the career of his contemporary Ludwig van Beethoven. From our modern standpoint, we can now recognize that Schubert’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies are truly revolutionary works whose influence on the next generation of composers might nearly have been as wide-ranging as Beethoven’s towering masterpieces. In what ways was Schubert breaking new ground? How did he differ from his more famous contemporary? Without getting too technical, the answer lies in three principal areas: melody, harmony, and tone color. Schubert, the unchallenged master of the art song, or lied, brought a new kind of lyricism to instrumental music in which Beethoven seldom indulged. While Schubert’s fondness for using

close-formed melodies sometimes stood in opposition to the exigencies of classical structure, who even now would be willing to sacrifice their beauties at the altar of the necessities of sonataform development sections? Who, moreover, would want to live without the melodiousness of the Andante con moto (so reminiscent of the opening song of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise) or the intoxicating waltz theme that forms the trio section of the Ninth Symphony’s scherzo? Schubert’s melodic gifts meant that his instrumental movements would run at greater length than those by his peers. Robert Schumann, whose honor it was to discover the Ninth Symphony from among the composer’s affects left in the possession of Schubert’s brother, Ferdinand, acknowledged this fact and wrote of the Ninth Symphony’s “heavenly lengths.” In the realm of harmony, Schubert proved to be far more adventurous than Beethoven. Schubert loved, for example, to explore harmonic and tonal by-paths, on both the short-term and long-term levels. Passages in the exposition and recapitulation sections of the outer movements of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony demonstrate this splendidly. No less impressive is Schubert’s innovative use of orchestral color. Note, for example, the beautiful scoring of the opening theme for two unaccompanied horns and the pianissimo entrances of the trombones—instruments hitherto used to add volume and power to the orchestra. One must not be left with the impression, however, that Schubert could not rise to the occasion when he needed

to create Beethovenian drama in his Ninth Symphony. The passages in the first movement referred to earlier, with their strange harmonic excursions and soft trombone entrances, move inexorably toward triumphant climaxes that are no less exhilarating than those encountered in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. So, it is, too, with the shattering climax of the second movement. And speaking of Beethoven: Am I the only one who hears an echo of the “Ode to Joy” in the clarinets in the finale of Schubert’s own Ninth Symphony? ●

Ludwig van Beethoven

Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 (1801)

Ludwig van Beethoven, one of history’s pivotal composers, was born on December 15 or 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. His Overture to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus (Die Geschöpfe von Prometheus) was one of the composer’s early successes in the sphere of public performances after his move to Vienna from his native Bonn. Based upon a libretto by Salvatore Viganò, who was also a dancer, its premiere took place in the Burgtheater on March 28, 1801, and went on to enjoy more than twenty performances. The work is dedicated to Maria Christiane Fürstin von Lichnowsky. The Overture is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 3 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximately 5 minutes.

Beethoven wrote only one complete ballet score, the product of his early years in Vienna. The commission offered him the opportunity to try out orchestral effects that proved useful as he continued turning his attention to the composition of symphonies. The first chords we hear in the introduction to his Symphony No. 1, Op. 21, which had its premiere in 1800, are reused in the Adagio opening of the Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus. The music for the ballet itself includes a thunderstorm in its opening scene, and we can hear in this the origins of Beethoven’s even more effective storm in his “Pastoral” Symphony. The original scenario for Viganò’s ballet is lost, but a note in the program describes the title character as “an exalted spirit, who found the humans of his time in a condition of ignorance, refined them through science and art, and brought to them civilized manners, customs, and morals … Two statues have been brought to life and introduced into this ballet, and these, through the power of harmony, are made sensible to the passions of human life. Prometheus leads them to Parnassus so that Apollo, God of the arts, might enlighten them. Apollo gives them Amphion, Arion, and Orpheus to instruct them in music; Melpomene to teach them tragedy; Thalia, comedy; Terpsichore and Pan, the dance of shepherds; and Bacchus, the heroic dance.” The work, in short, reflects ideals consistent with those associated with the Enlightenment (Aufklärung), a movement with which Beethoven had great empathy. More specifically, the idea of the arts as a humanizing agent was one articulated most powerfully by Friedrich Schiller in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, published in 1794. As we know, Schiller again loomed large in Beethoven’s thinking in his setting of this poet’s “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”) in the finale of his Ninth Symphony. Indeed, Beethoven (along with many other composers) was drawn to Schiller’s poem soon after its publication in 1786, and Beethoven’s earliest ideas for his setting stem from the 1790s, even though they did not achieve fruition until 1824.

After the introduction of the Overture, with its surprising opening chord and noble oboe theme, the tempo shifts to an Allegro molto e con brio, which rushes along with tremendous energy, following the traditional structure of sonata form but filled with early signs of the audacity that form the hallmark of the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony, such as bold syncopations (off-beat accents). ●

Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 3 in c minor, Op. 37 (1800)

Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto is dated 1803, although the earliest concept sketch dates back as far as 1796. The score was published in 1804, with a dedication to the Prussian Prince Louis Ferdinand. It received its first performance at Beethoven’s Akademiekonzert on April 5, 1803, in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, sharing the program with Beethoven’s first two symphonies and his oratorio Christus am Oelberge. The composer wrote his own cadenza for the first movement of the work in 1809. The Concerto is scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximately 34 minutes.

The start to Beethoven’s career in Vienna was a good one. His reputation as continued on 16 a brilliant pianist was quickly established and commissions poured in steadily. His first two concertos for piano demonstrated clearly that he had learned well from the models offered by Mozart’s masterpieces of the 1780s. He also composed several sonatas and sets of variations during these early stages of his Viennese career.

The Piano Concerto No. 3 in c minor, Op. 37, is a work whose boldness was inspired in no small part to the availability of an instrument built by the French manufacturer Erard that boasted a wider range than the five-octave fortepiano heretofore at his disposal. Beethoven, upon hearing a performance of Mozart’s c minor Piano Concerto (K. 491) remarked to the English composer and pianist J.B. Cramer, “Ah, dear Cramer, we shall never be able to do anything like that.” Another influence may have been a sonata by Johann F.X. Sterkel, whose theme bears an uncanny similarity to the second theme in the first movement of Op. 37. Beethoven’s concerto in turn inspired subsequent piano concertos by Louis Spohr, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Frédéric Chopin, and the young Johannes Brahms.

The serious demeanor of Op. 37, Beethoven’s only concerto in a minor key, is its most distinguishing trait, making it kin to his other stormy c-minor compositions such as the Piano Sonatas Op. 10, No. 1, and Op. 13 (“Pathétique”); the String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 4; and the Symphony No. 5, to name but a few. The imposing first movement, marked Allegro con brio, signals a newer “symphonic” mode of expression not found in his first two concertos. Even when faced with a viable model, as was the case with this work, Beethoven had the rare gift of absorbing it and then turning it to his unique creative purpose. Among this movement’s several magical moments, the listener is advised to pay close attention to the return of the orchestra following the cadenza. Normally at this point in the structure of a concerto, the soloist stops playing. Mozart’s K. 491 is an exception to this rule. Beethoven, however, heightens the dramatic effect even more than his idol could ever imagine.

The opening of the second movement, Largo, still has the ability to take the listener by surprise, despite the tranquility of its principal theme. The reason is Beethoven’s choice of a remote tonality—E Major (four sharps)—inserted between two movements in c minor (three flats). But, as usual, Beethoven is thinking along the lines of long-term strategic planning. The final chord of the Largo is marked forte (meaning “loud” or “strong”), which is no small surprise in its own right given how the music had been winding down in dynamics. The highest pitch in the final chord is a G-sharp, which Beethoven ingeniously reinterprets enharmonically as A-flat, forming the apex of the Rondo’s Allegro opening theme. Even for those of us who know the piece well, the effect of this juxtaposition of G-sharp and A-flat strikes the ear as freshly today as it surely must have done for those in attendance at its premiere in 1804. ●

Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36 (1802)

The Symphony No. 2 is a relatively early work that consolidates Beethoven’s growing mastery of the genre. It received its first performance on April 5, 1803, at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. This historic venue still exists and is the home for concerts and operas. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximately 32 minutes.

Three years separate Beethoven’s First and Second Symphonies. The intervening period witnessed an impressive outpouring of new compositions, including important works such as the Third Piano Concerto, Op. 37, the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43, seven Piano Sonatas, Opp. 26, 27/1 & 2, 28, and 31/1–3, the String Quintet, Op. 29, the Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Opp. 23, 24 (“Spring”), and 30/1–3, the Bagatelles for Piano, Op. 33, and numerous smaller works for an astonishing variety of media. Clearly, the young Beethoven’s career was now in full sail. The composer spent the summer of 1802 in the village of Heiligenstadt, which at that time was far removed from the cramped squalor and noise of the city of Vienna. It was here that Beethoven worked on the Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Op. 30, a set of Bagatelles for piano, the first two (probably) of the Piano Sonatas, Op. 31, as well as putting the finishing touches on the Second Symphony, which he dedicated to one of his patrons, Prince Karl Lichnowsky.

The issue of Vienna’s noisiness is not irrelevant, as these months also marked the period when Beethoven came to the realization that his hearing, in a state of deterioration since 1796 (so scholars surmise, as the precise setting of the date when his hearing began to fail is impossible to determine), was incurable. Beethoven confided in only a few of his friends, notably his physician friend Dr. Franz Wegeler and Karl Amenda. The previous year’s agony was exacerbated by the rejection of Beethoven’s proposal of marriage to the 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The full force of Beethoven’s crisis is revealed in the famous “Heiligenstadt Testament,” penned in October 1802, in which Beethoven writes

to his brothers, [Caspar] Carl and Johann (whose name, perplexingly, is missing from the document). The “Heiligenstadt Testament” has been parsed in various ways, and it is clear that Beethoven’s despondency over his deafness was so deep that he had contemplated taking his own life. I quote the relevant excerpts:

Although born with a fiery and lively temperament, and even fond of the distractions of society, I soon had to cut myself off and live in solitude. When, occasionally, I decided to ignore my infirmity, ah, how cruelly I was then driven back by the doubly sad experience of my poor hearing, yet I could not find it in myself to say to people: “Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.” Ah, how could I possibly have referred to the weakening of a sense which ought to be more perfectly developed in me than in other people … What humiliation [I felt] when someone, standing beside me, heard a flute from afar off while I heard nothing, or when someone heard a shepherd singing, and again I heard nothing! Such experiences have brought me close to despair, and I came near to ending my own life—only my art held me back, as it seemed to me impossible to leave this world until I have produced everything I feel it has been granted to me to achieve.

—From Ludwig van Beethoven, ed. Joseph Schmidt-Görg & Hans Schmidt (1970)

Nothing in the Second Symphony reveals any of this despair, however. One could, I suppose, read defiance in this work’s audacious virtuosity. Note, for example, the length and complexity of its opening Adagio molto introduction and the lightning speed and brilliance with which the first violins play in the ensuing Allegro con brio! The closest precedent, and possible model for this might have been Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony, although Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 86 and 104 may also have proved influential (all of these predecessors are in D Major). Astute listeners also will not fail to take note of the introduction’s imposing descending d-minor arpeggio—a figure that will instantly be recognized by those familiar with the principal theme of the first movement of the Ninth Symphony. The development section reaches its climax on c-sharp major harmony (functionally, the dominant of f-sharp minor). Note how cleverly Beethoven surrounds the C-sharp with pitches needed to lead smoothly back to the home key of D Major.

The droll Scherzo: Allegro (no feigned Menuetto this time!) is easily distinguishable by its alternating loud and soft dynamics. The finale, Allegro molto, is an interesting case of Beethoven’s humor, filled with many surprises and false endings. Its opening theme, one of Beethoven’s most sharply chiseled motives, may be seen as kin to the “short-long” figuration (ta-dah!) that opens, and may be found throughout, the first movement. The overall scope of the work led one Leipzig critic writing for the Zeitung für die Elegante Welt to observe that “[the Second Symphony] is a gross enormity, an immense wounded snake, unwilling to die, but writhing in its last agonies, and (in the Finale) bleeding to death.” ●

Mikhail Glinka

Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila (1837–1842)

Russian composer Mikhail Glinka was born on June 1, 1804, in Novopasskoye (District of Smolensk) and died on February 15, 1857, in Berlin. His opera Ruslan and Lyudmila received its first performance on December 9, 1842, at Saint Petersburg’s Bolshoi Theater. The opera is set in Kiev (Kyyv, now the capital of Ukraine). While the opera is rarely performed in modern times, its overture remains a popular favorite. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximately 5 minutes.

Glinka’s second opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila, was composed in 1842. His first effort, A Life for the Tsar (1836), was based on a historical subject, but for Ruslan and Lyudmila he turned to a fairy tale-poem by Alexander Pushkin, a work recognized as a masterpiece of Russian literature. Unfortunately, the celebrated poet and playwright died before he could help Glinka develop the story into a satisfying opera libretto. The title characters are an ardent suitor and the daughter of the Grand Duke of Kiev. In the story, Ruslan is forced to vie not only with two other suitors, but evil wizards and fairies, too. In the end, however, he is victorious. Glinka’s librettists, not knowing how to weave the several episodes of Pushkin’s tale into a coherent dramatic unit, ended up creating an unwieldy text, which kept the opera from enjoying the success it might otherwise have had.

Stylistically, Glinka’s operas succeeded in synthesizing Italian bel canto qualities, the German Romantic style (exemplified by Carl Maria von Weber), and Russian folk material. He has been acknowledged as one of history’s first important Russian composers and is generally considered to be the founder of the Russian national style.

The musical style of the Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila, however, can hardly be deemed representative of indigenous Russian music, although this is the music by which Glinka is best known in the West. One may hope that the overture’s popularity might spark sufficient curiosity in Glinka’s music so that his “Russian” side will become better known. Whether this happens anytime soon or not, the Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila, with its sparkling Italianate energy and attractive melodies—the lyrical second theme is derived from Ruslan’s aria, “O Ludmilla, See, the Gods Smile Upon Us”—will continue to enjoy a secure place in the repertory of symphony orchestras. ●

Aram Khachaturian

Violin Concerto in d minor (1940) Spartacus Suite No. 2 (1950–1954)

Armenian-Soviet composer, conductor, and educator Aram Il’yich Khachaturian was born on June 6, 1903, in Tbilisi and died on May 1, 1978, in Moscow. He is best known internationally for his Piano Concerto (1936), the Violin Concerto (1940), and two of his ballet scores— Gayne (1942) and Spartacus (1950–4), excerpts of which have been used in numerous ways, including film scores such as in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Khachaturian was a leading figure during the Soviet Era. Although his music received a rebuke from the Stalinist regime, he suffered fewer consequences than his fellow composers. Unlike many of the works of his colleagues, Khachaturian’s most popular works made no pretense of hiding their folkloric origins in Georgian and Armenian soil, couched in colorful, and even exotic, orchestrations. The Violin Concerto is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine), harp, and strings. Approximately 35 minutes. The Spartacus Suite No. 2 is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. Approximately 21 minutes.

Dedicated to David Oistrakh, and first performed by him on November 16, 1940, Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto has become one of the most popular works of its kind composed in the twentieth century. This piece arises, as the case with so much of Khachaturian’s music, out of the folkloric soil of his native Armenia. But more than this, the Violin Concerto is unabashedly obedient to the tradition of its Romantic forerunners.

One need not listen very long before perceiving the influence of Mendelssohn, and, even more clearly, that of Tchaikovsky. Khachaturian’s eclecticism seems as much a virtue as a vice in his Violin Concerto. Who, after all, can argue with a successful mixture of virtuosity, dance-like qualities, and tunefulness such as one finds in the three movements of this work? Added to these features are its surety of form and colorful orchestration, and its popularity with violinists and audiences vouches for its success.

The first movement, Allegro con fermezza, skillfully balances two main themes. The first of these, introduced by the soloist after a bumptious orchestral introduction, combines a vigorous repeated rhythmic figure with a dance melody. The second theme is a reverie clearly inspired by the model of the nineteenth-century Russian master Aleksandr Borodin. One clear sign of Khachaturian’s debt to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto lies in the placement of the cadenza between the end of the development section and the recapitulation.

The second movement, marked Andante sostenuto, begins with a spectral introduction in the lower strings and bassoon. The main theme is a slow and mournful waltz that builds to climaxes of great intensity. The jovial finale, Allegro vivace, is a rondo whose principal theme in D Major evokes memories of the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius. The Borodinlike theme of the first movement makes a reprise in the finale, and the work ends with a contrapuntal joining of this melody and the main rondo idea.

The ballet Spartacus is based loosely on the deeds of the leader of the slave uprising against the Romans during the Third Servile (Gladiator) War (ca. 73 BCE) described by Plutarch. The score won Khachaturian the Lenin Prize for composition in 1954, and the ballet was first staged in Leningrad on December 27, 1956, with choreography by Leonid Yakobson. The ballet’s principal characters are the Roman consul Crassus, his concubine, Aegina, Spartacus, and his wife Phrygia. In 1955, Khachaturian arranged his music into four suites, the second of which will be performed this evening. ●

NOTES BY CHARLES GREENWELL

Ottorino Respighi

Pines of Rome, P. 141 (1924)

Ottorino Respighi was born on July 9, 1879, in Bologna, Italy, and died on April 18, 1936, in Rome, Italy. Pines of Rome is scored for 3 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, piano, organ, nightingale recording, and strings. Approximately 23 minutes.

In 1830, the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857, often referred to as the Father of Russian music) went to Milan, Italy, to absorb the musical culture of the day, and brought back to Russia elements of the bel canto (beautiful singing) style of vocal composition, a new kind of lyricism that would influence the writing of opera in Russia for most of the next 100 years. In 1900, Respighi did the reverse, traveling to Russia where he was to spend the next two years playing viola in the Imperial Theatre Orchestra and studying composition and orchestration with the great and influential Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. From this tenure, Respighi was able to put into his compositions a good deal of Rimsky’s kaleidoscopic sense of color and sonority and his amazing capacity for descriptive instrumentation. Respighi thus became one of the most imaginative masters of orchestration in the first half of the 20th century, while at the same time adhering to his late-Romantic roots with very little influence from the revolutionary changes and experimentation that were going on in European music at that time. To many observers during this time, Italian music meant opera, with such greats as Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini leading the way. Although Respighi did write operas, he became the first Italian composer of the period who achieved popularity, fame, and considerable financial rewards from writing purely orchestral works, the most famous of which, Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals, are emblematic of the colorful, powerful style that won him worldwide popularity. In this regard, one of the man’s hallmarks was an ability to go what many people consider “over the top” in his use of orchestral color and power— consider the endings of Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals as prime examples. One other thing that set Respighi apart from his fellow countrymen was a great love of early Italian music, and to this end he set about trying to revive Italy’s musical heritage by, among other things, transcribing and arranging music of the 17th and 18th centuries. This spilled over into his compositions, among them the delightful works for chamber orchestra such as The Birds and the three suites of Ancient Airs and Dances. In 1913, Respighi settled in Rome, was appointed Professor of Composition at the prestigious Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and began a lifelong love/hate affair with The Eternal City. When he died, he was given a state funeral attended by Italy’s foremost musicians, the King, and Premier Mussolini.

In 1920, Respighi began writing down some ancient children’s songs that his wife used to sing and hum around their house. Imagine her surprise when some of these songs turned up in the first movement of Pines of Rome, the second work in the Roman trilogy. It was written in 1923, and once again it was the Augusteo in Rome that housed its premiere the following year. Again, to quote Respighi, “While in Fountains of Rome, the composer sought to reproduce by means of tone an impression of nature, in Pines of Rome, he uses nature as a point of departure, to recall memories and visions. The century-old trees that dominate so characteristically the Roman landscape become testimony for the principal events in Roman life.” Pines was a huge success at its premiere, and performances all over the world followed rapidly. This is still the most popular and often-performed work of the trilogy, and contains in the third section something that was a remarkable innovation in its day: the use of a recording of the song of a nightingale as a part of the orchestral fabric. ●