SoNA 2023-24 Defying Expectations Program Notes

SoNA

Symphony of Northwest Arkansas

Defying Expectations February 17, 2024 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor

Le Boeuf sur le toit (1919–20)

eventually amassing over 400 opus

Darius Milhaud

in the lot. Nor did composition absorb

b September 4, 1892 in Marseille, France

all of his time: from 1940 through 1971

d June 22, 1974 in Geneva, Switzerland

he trained a battalion of musicians at

numbers without a single unfinished piece

Oakland’s Mills College.

Milhaud’s original impetus for his droll Provençal-turned-global-citizen Darius

Brazilian-infused Le Boeuf sur le toit was

Milhaud combined astounding prolificity

as background music for any of Charlie

with a richly eclectic imagination. He got

Chaplin’s silent films. What that odd

started before the First World War and

title—literally “the ox on the roof”—actually

kept up the pace well into the 1970s,

means is anybody’s guess. Milhaud

folk dance, but that’s just kicking the can

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 (1868)

down the road.

Max Bruch

himself said it was the name of a Brazilian

b January 6, 1838 in Cologne, Prussia Le Boeuf sur le toit wound up as the

d October 2, 1920 in Berlin-Friedenau,

music for a 1920 ballet by Jean Cocteau

Germany

that features lower-class Parisians doing various unsavory things to each other. Its freewheeling Dada-ist bling made it into a big hit, so much so that a Paris cabaret

Our musical world would be a much poorer

called ‘Le Boeuf sur le toit’ opened in

place without the magisterial 19th-century

1921. Thus the common misconception

violinist Joseph Joachim. A violinist’s

that Milhaud’s composition is named after

violinist and a musician’s musician, there

the cabaret, instead of it being the other

was something Jovian about him, even at

way around. Confusion notwithstanding,

the age of 12 when he first performed the

it all makes a certain reciprocal sense:

Beethoven Violin Concerto and began the

Milhaud’s music has a distinct jazz

process of rehabilitating a work that most

vibe, and the cabaret became a popular

critics dismissed as an estimable failure.

Parisian jazz venue and late-night

But Joachim never had any difficulty telling

hangout where you might bump into

his hawks from his handsaws. It was his

Stravinsky, Cocteau, Picasso, Chaplin,

advocacy that ensured repertory status

or, yes, Milhaud.

for the violin concertos of Mendelssohn and Brahms, not to mention the Bach

Nota bene: you can visit ‘Le Boeuf sur le

solo violin partitas and the late Beethoven

toit’ today at 34 rue du Colisée, but be

string quartets. (He is also the patron saint

prepared to spend a bundle on a high-end,

of modern violin playing, but that’s a topic

chic meal. Le Boeuf’s Bohemian days are

for some other program note.)

long over.

Joachim contributed mightily to the success of the beloved G Minor Violin Concerto by the German Romantic Max Bruch, celebrated in his day as a leading choral composer but nowadays close

Joachim helped Bruch massage the piece

Symphony No. 3 in G Minor (1847)

into its final form, played the premiere,

Louise Farrenc

and always spoke fondly of the concerto’s

b May 31, 1804 in Paris, France

lovable richness.

d September 15, 1875 in Paris, France

to being forgotten save this one work.

That lovability is eminently palpable throughout, no more so than in the ravishing slow movement, surely one of

Isabelle Vengerova. Rosina Lhevinne.

the crown jewels of the concerto literature.

Adele Marcus. Yvonne Loriod. All major-

For those who might wonder if the theme

league piano teachers at major-league

of Bruch’s finale was influenced by the

conservatories, and all women. They

Brahms Violin Concerto—they are very

shared an unheralded pedagogical

close cousins indeed—be advised that

ancestor in 19th century composer

the Bruch is the earlier of the two works,

and pianist Louise Farrenc, mainstay

and in all likelihood the similarities

piano faculty at the Paris Conservatoire

are coincidental.

for decades. As we all know, European music outside of opera was mostly an exclusive men’s club well into the 1800s.

Even before Clara Schumann started hammering against those moldy old walls, Farrenc established herself at the highest levels of the profession. She studied with the best—Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel in piano, and Beethoven pupil Anton Reicha in composition. She concertized in prestigious venues. Her compositions were played by headliners such as Joseph Joachim.

As a composer she was of a distinctly conservative stripe, eschewing excess à la Liszt or bling à la Berlioz. Her catalog runs to the traditional genres: chamber music, symphonies, and (understandably)

lots of solo piano stuff. No opera, though.

music theoreticians: four movements, the

After her death in 1875 she, and her

first in sonata-allegro form, a three-part

music, fell into obscurity, and that’s a

slow movement in second place, then a

pity. She left a considerable legacy, well

quickstep scherzo with trio, and finally

worth resuscitating.

another sonata-allegro to wrap up. She follows the rules so carefully, in fact, that

Farrenc’s three symphonies date from

one could fashion quite a useful primer

the 1840s, a time when the symphony,

on minor-key sonata-allegro form from the

as a living genre, was in steep decline.

G Minor Symphony’s outer movements.

Amongst the Germans only Schumann and Mendelssohn could compete

But there’s a vivid personality thrashing

with Beethoven’s intimidating legacy;

around inside all those fastidious

everybody else churned out faux-

structures. Farrenc was a superb

Mendelssohn prestige pieces or dutiful

melodist with a well-trained harmonic

graduation exercises. The situation was

imagination. There’s fire and brimstone

even worse in France, where opera ruled.

here, albeit a bit subterranean. The slow

French audiences showed little interest in

movement offers up some exquisite

the Austro-Germanic symphonic tradition;

writing for the clarinet à la Carl Maria

instead, French symphonic practice, what

von Weber. And despite the symphony’s

little there was, followed programmatic

overall minor-mode rectitude, it’s imbued

works such as Berlioz’s Symphonie

with an overall optimism, ready to break

fantastique with its dramatic plot and

into sunny major-mode sensibility at

theatrical gestures.

every opportunity.

Given Farrenc’s overall Austro-Germanic orientation and innate conservatism, we should not expect the G Minor Symphony to topple any applecarts. Farrenc adheres closely to symphonic punctilio as established by post-Beethovenian

Program notes by Scott Foglesong, copyright 2024 First North American Serial Rights Only