SoNA Continental Connections Program Notes

SoNA

Symphony of Northwest Arkansas

Continental Connections February 26, 2022 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor

Overture for Orchestra

Grażyna Bacewicz b 5 February 1909, Łódź, Poland d 17 January 1969, Warsaw, Poland Among life’s musical pleasures there are few as keen as first discovery, whether of a composer, or a performer, or a composition. Many people can well remember that initial encounter with, say, Tchaikovsky or Horowitz or the Beethoven Eroica; such experiences can foster a lifelong love for music, or perhaps rekindle a love that had been waning. That’s why our current interest in restoring the music of worthy but overlooked composers is such a blessing. We’re all making new friends.

That takes us to the 1930s and celebrated teacher Nadia Boulanger, whose studio was considered de rigueur for up-and-coming young musicians everywhere. That included Grażyna Bacewicz, an exceptionally talented triple-threat violinist, pianist, and composer. Raised by highly cultured Polish and Lithuanian parents, Bacewicz identified as Polish and was educated in Warsaw, then went on to teach in Łódź. While in Paris with Boulanger in the 1930s, she also studied violin with Carl Flesch. Her long-overlooked music has been coming into view of late, and it’s well worth exploring – beautifully crafted, vital, and passionate, it carves out a stylistic journey from

the Gallic influences of her youth to the dark complexities of her late years.

Bacewicz’s Overture for Orchestra is a wartime composition from 1943 and very much in her full ‘neoclassical’ mode, in which Baroque-style rhythms and transparent textures co-exist with harmonic practices à la Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

Cast in a solid three-part structure, it flanks a contemplative middle section with blazingly energetic opening and closing passages, making particular use of the timpani via a four-note motive reminiscent of the Beethoven Fifth, and also spotlights the trumpets in their best punchy, now-hear-this mode.

Tabla Concerto, Movements 1 and 2 Dinuk Wijeratne b 1978, Sri Lanka

First up: the tabla. Not one instrument but two, it’s a pair of tuned hand drums, made of hollowed out wood, clay or metal, found in the classical music of the Indian subcontinent including the island nation of Sri Lanka. The drums are of different size and shape; the larger baya is played

by the left hand and can change pitch during performance, while the right-hand dayan is smaller and is tuned to a specific pitch.

Dinuk Wijeratne brings a cosmopolitan consciousness to his work as a conductor, composer, and a pianist. Born in Sri Lanka, he grew up in Dubai, studied in both England and the United States, and eventually settled in Nova Scotia. While he may not have been the first composer to write a work that brings tabla to a Western symphony orchestra, his 2011 Tabla Concerto has enjoyed significant repertory traction, garnering both performances and reviews worldwide after its 2012 premiere in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “A vibrant, colourful piece that orchestras love to play, and audiences will never forget,” writes conductor JoAnn Falletta.

“Fantastic, complex, and brilliant,” exclaims composer John Corigliano.

Wijeratne tells us that the tabla “has shown its cultural versatility as an increasingly sought-after instrument in contemporary Western contexts such as Pop, Film Music, and World Music Fusion.” Accordingly, the concerto encompasses a wide variety of idioms and styles, from Baroque counterpoint, through the classical music of Northern India, through electronic music, to Indian folk song in which the tabla acts as accompanist. This innovative combination of instruments, East and West, hints at riches yet to come. “It is my hope to allow each entity to preserve its own aesthetic,” writes Wijeratne.

“Perhaps, at the same time, the stage will be set for some new discoveries.”

Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61 Robert Schumann b 8 June, 1810, Zwickau, Germany d 29 July, 1856, Endenich, Prussia The newly-married Robert Schumann of 1840 was an unlikely candidate as a symphonist. He was a miniaturist par excellence, conjuror of cycles of short piano pieces that abounded in allusion and were bound together by literaryphilosophical conceptual frameworks. Starting in 1839, his bailiwick had become song; in one remarkable year he produced two dozen song

cycles that stand at the pinnacle of the art form.

But there was a symphonist in there, and a whale of a symphonist at that. As of 1841 he was in high gear, producing three superb symphonies (counting the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale) in just that one year. A hiatus followed, but by 1845 he was back in full symphonic form.

Symphony No. 2 in C Major, written in 1846, Schumann’s fourth symphony, stands tall amongst the symphonic achievements of the Romantic era. It didn’t come about easily.

As of 1844 Schumann began experiencing a devastating multi-symptomatic illness that ravaged him both physically and mentally.

Recovery was slow, but as 1845 progressed he found solace and a path forward by an intensive study of counterpoint and in particular the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The study had a profound impact on his compositional methods, which had typically revolved around improvisation at the piano. Now he gave himself more time to think things through, stayed away from the piano while composing, and sought to fashion sustained structures in which motivic ideas were evolved and developed.

The C Major symphony clearly manifests Schumann’s new path. It is motivically integrated; just to take one example, the opening trumpet figure echoes and ricochets through the four movements. But it’s also Schumann, meaning that it is shot through with references to other works and composers (Bach in particular, also Haydn) and offers a fertile field for hunters of allusions, ciphers, and the like.

Among the many high points can be noted the whirling second movement, Scherzo, with its virtuoso violin writing, the glorious lyrical effusion of the third movement, and the sheer heady joy of the finale. But more importantly, it is a symphony that is all of a piece; that it is in four separate movements is relatively unimportant. What matters is the journey, the dramatic arc from the struggles of the first movement to the sunburst radiance of the conclusion. Robert Schumann was nothing if not autobiographical, and in the Second Symphony he gave us a look into his own heart as he emerged, healed, and rejuvenated from anguish and despair.

Program Notes by Scott Foglesong © 2022 First North American Serial Rights Only