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PROGRAMME NOTES
May 19th 2007
by
Michael Bell
Franz
(von) SUPPÉ Pique Dame
‘Queen of Spades’
Overture
Francesco
Ezecchiele Cavaliere Suppé-Demelli
to give him his proper name, was a distant relative of
Gaetano Donizetti. He was born in Dalmatia in 1819 and
died in Vienna in 1895. As a boy Suppé was taken to
Vienna where he was given music lessons by Mozart’s
pupil Ignaz von Seyfried. He must also have been
an accomplished singer, for in 1842 he made his debut in
the role of Dulcamara in Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir
d’Amore.
Suppé wrote
about 30 operettas as well as farces, ballet and other
light-hearted works for the theatre. Though the bulk of
this output is now almost totally forgotten, the
overtures are still played today and Poet and Peasant
may be considered one of the most famous overtures ever
written.
It was
through the influence of Offenbach that true
Viennese operetta was created, an early example of which
was Suppé’s Die Kartenschlagerin(1862) which,
after revision, reappeared as Pique Dame 22 years
later. Tchaikovsky wrote an opera on the same
subject (The Queen of Spades) based on a tragic
novel by Pushkin. The Queen of Spades is, of course, the
playing card which foretells bad luck and in the Russian
opera there is a generous helping of it – an old lady
dies of fright, a young girl drowns herself in the
freezing water of the river Neva and her lover completes
the hat-trick by stabbing himself.
It is
difficult to see how Suppé managed to transform this
material into a comic opera, but the sparkling Overture,
“overflowing with melodious élan”, suggests a less
serious approach to the subject – and, like Tchaikovsky,
he knew how to write a good tune. This enviable and
sometimes undervalued gift, allied with his sureness of
touch and command of orchestral resources enabled Suppé
to rival the verve and gaiety of Johann Strauss
and Offenbach. He was rarely wholly serious, but
Suppé could be, and invariably was, entertaining. A
great art.
Antonin DVORÁK (1841 – 1904)
Concerto for Violoncello and orchestra in B minor, Op.
104
Soloist:
NICK BYRNE
Antonin
Dvorák
was lucky enough to be born in Bohemia, once described
as “the most musical nation in Europe”. And if this was
not enough, the country was noted for its dances and the
excellence of its beer - Dvorák’s father was the local
innkeeper. He also was the village butcher and a
competent musician - a singer, fiddler and zither
player.
As a boy Dvorák learnt to play the violin, piano and
organ. Aged sixteen he went to Prague to study organ and
composition. He earned his keep by playing the viola and
teaching piano. It was not until he reached his
mid-thirties that he achieved real success, partly due
to encouragement and advice from Brahms and
Liszt.
In 1892, at
the age of 50, Dvorák was invited to become Director of
the American National Conservatory of Music in New York.
The three years that he spent there were musically very
productive, resulting in the New World Symphony,
a string quartet – the so called American and
preliminary work on his Cello Concerto. Although
Dvorák had written a long-winded cello concerto during
his youth he never
thought
particularly highly of the cello as a solo instrument.
High up it sound nasal and low down it growls, he
declared. It sounds better in orchestral and chamber
music than as a soloist. However, whilst in New
York, Dvorák had been inspired by a performance of a
cello concerto by his friend Victor Herbert (who
can forget “Ah! sweet mystery of life” from Naughty
Marietta). One of the aspects of Herbert’s concerto
that particularly attracted Dvorák was the way, in the
slow movement, the soloist was delicately accompanied by
three trombones. This excellent idea was adopted by
Dvorák in his concerto and, not to be outdone, he
added a piccolo, tuba and triangle. So sensitively does
Dvorák employ his large forces that the soloist’s tone
can always shine through the rich orchestral texture.
The work has often been described as Dvorák’s Tenth
Symphony.
When he
returned to his homeland in 1895 the sketches for the
concerto were in his luggage. It has long been
recognized that the works which Dvorák composed in
America are coloured more by his feeling of homesickness
than by impressions for the New World – the rich, warm
hearted melodic material of the Cello Concerto is
influenced above all by Czech folk music.
The first
performance was given in London on 29th March
1896 with Dvorák conducting and it was the beginning of
its triumphant progress through the concert halls of the
world.
I.
Allegro
The first
movement of the concerto opens in B minor like a
full-scale symphony, with the soloist sitting idly. At
the very beginning a dark marching theme announced by
the clarinets leads to a broad, lyrical melody for horn,
followed by a powerful orchestral statement of the march
tune that paves the way for the entry of the soloist.
When the soloist finally joins in he takes gives his own
version of both themes in succession. In dialogue with
the orchestra, the cello comments on the material in a
wide range of keys and moods, contributing a variety of
new ideas along the way. After a reprise of some of the
earlier material there is an exciting conclusion in
which the horn melody emerges in majestic glory on the
full orchestra.
II. Adagio
ma non troppo
The slow
movement opens with a gentle, decorated theme, played by
a woodwind quintet. The soloist repeats it and joins the
clarinets in elaborating upon it. This tranquil mood is
shattered by the arrival of the middle section, which
starts with a brief orchestral outburst in the minor,
followed by the appearance of a Dvorák song by (Leave
me alone) played molto espressivo by the
soloist. (When Dvorák was making the final revision of
the concerto his sister-in-law, with whom he had been at
one time in love, became seriously ill and, in tribute
to her, he used this disguised version of this song
which had been one of her favourites). Later the
tranquil opening theme returns, now given to the horns,
the cello plays a poetic “cadenza” which has an airy
flute obbligato, after which the movement comes
to a peaceful and unhurried conclusion.
III. Finale
(Allegro moderato)
The finale
opens with the wind players softly sounding a march
rhythm over a persistent beat from the lower strings.
After a brief orchestral climax this march theme is
brought crisply into focus by the soloist and leads to a
series of other themes, including one that is so
beautiful Dvorák cannot resist awarding it to a solo
violin as well as to the solo cello.
In May 1895
Dvorák’s beloved sister-in-law died and he was moved to
compose a new and longer ending to this movement. The
pace of the music slows to Andante for a dreamily
nostalgic idyll (again referring, “like a sigh” as
Dvorák said, to the melody of the favourite song) before
the full orchestra grandly rounds off the concerto.
The stunning
success of this work led Brahms to remark, “Why
didn’t I know one could write a cello concerto like
this?”
INTERVAL
Camille SAINT-SAENS Danse Macabre, Op. 40
Born in
Paris in 1835 and died at Algiers in 1921, aged
eighty-six, Saint-Saens studied at the Paris
Conservatory, and privately under Gounod. For
about twenty years he was organist of the Madeleine.
An eminent
French critic exclaimed, after the performance of a
piece of Saint-Saens’ chamber music, That’s certainly
bad music – but it’s well written. But Saint-Saens
was an exceedingly clever and cultivated man. He was
hardly less precocious than Mozart, both as a
composer and pianist. He was not interested in
expressing deep feeling through his art; but he was also
a natural maker of music (I produce music as an
apple-tree produces apples, he once remarked).
Under
Liszt’s influence Saint-Saens wrote a series of
symphonic poems in which myths and legends are evoked in
musical terms. Danse macabre (1874), based on the
mediaeval imagery of the Dance of Death, bears the
motto:
Zig et Zig et Zig, la
Mort en cadence
Frappant une tombe avec son talon,
La Mort a minuit joue un air de danse,
Zig et Zig et Zig, sur son violon.
(Henri
Cazalis 1840-1909)
A sinister
dance introduced by the striking of midnight (horns and
harp) and Death tuning his fiddle:
The winter
wind blows, the night is dark. The lime trees groan
aloud.
the waltz,
which has the usual trio section, becomes increasingly
hectic:
White
skeletons flit across the gloom, running and leaping
beneath their huge shrouds
their
rattling of bones are suggested by the xylophone.
But suddenly
the dance is ended. The circles of corpses holding hands
and the dancing skeletons take flight
as the cock crows at daybreak.
Bedrich SMETANA Má Vlast – symphonic poems No.2
Vltava
The “father
of Bohemian music” was born in Bohemia in 1824 and died
at Prague in 1884, aged sixty. His father was the
manager of as brewery and a keen amateur musician. The
child showed unusually early ability, playing in a
Haydn String Quartet at the age of five and later
showing remarkable ability as a pianist. His further
studies were carried out at Prague where he established
himself as a fashionable teacher. The Czech National
Theatre was founded in 1862 and four years later he
became its first musical director.
At a time
when his country was still dominated by the Austrian
Empire and national morale was low, Smetana vividly
expressed patriotic feelings, no more so than in My
Fatherland - a cycle of six symphonic poems
celebrating the rich history of Bohemia. Despite
financial difficulties, lack of critical recognition and
the onset of deafness, between 1874 and 1879 Smetana
produced this remarkable work, which is performed at the
Prague Spring festival every year.
The second
of the symphonic poems follows the course of the River
Vltava. It is written in distinct sections which,
although played without a break, are readily
identifiable:
1. The
source of the river is two streams, one cold, the other
warm.
2. The river
passes through fields and woods. The horns of a hunting
party are heard.
3. Village
festivals – a wedding party dance a polka.
4. Water
nymphs are dancing by moonlight.
5. Great
houses and ruins are seen on the cliffs above the rapids
of St. John.
6. The river
passes through Prague overlooked by the castle of
Vysehrad.
7. The river
Vltava disappears in the distance as it joins the River
Elbe.
Smetana’s end was sad. He never heard the last four
symphonic poems of the Ma Vlást for he became
completely deaf. He lost his reason and died in an
asylum and was buried in a cemetery on the legendary
site of the castle Vysehrad, the title of the first
piece in this cycle.
Gioacchino
Antonio ROSSINI William Tell (1829) – ballet music
Rossini was
born at Pesaro in 1792 and died near Paris in 1868, aged
seventy-six. His father was a town trumpeter and
inspector of slaughter-houses, who supported the
appearance of Napoleon’s troops in Northern Italy and
was consequently thrown into jail. His mother took her
young son to Bologna where she earned a living as a
singer in comic opera. He studied cello and composition
at Bologna Conservatory, where he developed a life-long
admiration for the music of Mozart. He quickly
made a name as an opera composer, his popularity being
largely due to a sense of melody and a sense of humour.
At the age
of thirty-seven Rossini wrote William Tell, which
was his thirty-sixth opera in nineteen years. Then, for
the remaining forty years of his life, he virtually
retired from composing. He spent the rest of his days
enjoying himself – living in Bologna and Paris,
entertaining his friends lavishly and having a mistress.
William
Tell
is one of the longest operas in existence. The uncut
version was performed in Paris in 1856, and it is said
that it ran from 7p.m. until one in the morning. Being
Rossini’s last opera he probably intended it to be his
masterpiece, however long. The overture is an eternal
favourite and a fine piece. The delectable Ballet
Music, which this evening should finish well before
midnight, is made up as follows:
1.
Act 1 Pas de six Allegretto (the
bridal couples dance).
2.
Maestoso - Allegretto
3.
Act 3 Tyrolean dance Allegretto (Chorus:
Dancing light as a feather).
4.
Act 3 Dance Allegro vivace
5.
Act 3 Dance Allegretto
6.
Act 3 Pas de Soldats Allegro brillante
And to
finish with
– a puzzle to take away with you:
The tune of
the third piece in the ballet music is, of course, well
known. The Scottish entertainer Andy Stewart wrote some
words and used the tune for his song A Scottish
Soldier. Presumably he was familiar with the
Scottish pipe tune, The Green Hills of Tyrol.
But did the
tune originate in Switzerland? Is that where Rossini got
it from and is that why he used it as a Tyrolean dance
in William Tell? Did the Swiss tune “emigrate”
to Scotland where it was converted for use by the
bagpipes? Or did it go the other way? – the Scots get
everywhere! Did a homesick Scotsman sing it after
settling in the Tyrol? Were the locals dancing it when
Rossini passed by?
Our
principal trumpeter is Scottish – he may know the
answers. Do you? Answers on a postcard, please… |
