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Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809 – 1847) “Ruy Blas” Overture
Mendelssohn’s genius declared itself early and
before he was 15 years of age he had written as many
symphonies as well as an opera. From 20 to 24 he
travelled to see the world, becoming a great favourite
in England. He was one of the first composers to write
independent concert-overtures (e.g. “Fingal’s Cave”)
which are like miniature symphonic poems.
One of the most brilliant and attractive of these
concert-overtures is “Ruy Blas”, which was
commissioned for a performance of Victor Hugo’s
heart-rending drama, the receipts of which were to help
widows of the Leipzig Opera House Orchestra. It appears
that Mendelssohn disliked the play so much that he
disparagingly referred to his composition as “The
Overture to the Widows’ Fund” and he dashed off the
piece in under three days. The music does not suffer in
the least from Mendelssohn’s hostility towards the play
and it is a jolly, slightly melodramatic, but agreeably
tuneful piece.
Peter Il’yich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 –1893) “Swan Lake”
Ballet – Suite
At the age of 23 Tchaikovsky gave up his job as a
civil servant and, despite poverty, devoted himself to
music. He studied at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg
under Anton Rubinstein and later was influenced by
Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Despite his melodic gift, brilliant skills of
orchestration and the ability to express strong emotion
in musical terms, Tchaikovsky confessed that he was a
poor symphonist: “All my life I have been much
troubled by my inability to grasp and manipulate form in
music. What I write has always a mountain of padding”.
However, classical ballet, with its small, clearly
defined units and emphasis on melody and strong rhythmic
variety, was ideally suited to Tchaikovsky’s talents.
The first production of “Swan Lake” at the
Bolshoi Theatre on 4th March 1877 did the music no
service and was a huge failure. It was not until two
years after Tchaikovsky’s death that a lavish revival
set the work on its way to becoming the most popular of
all ballets.
The Suite from the ballet comprises the following
numbers:
1. Scene – On a moonlit lake a flight of swans appears
led by Princess Odette who has been turned into a swan
by a wicked magician.
2. Waltz – Prince Siegfried is celebrating his 21st
birthday with his friends.
3. Dance of the Cygnets
4. Hungarian Dance – Siegfried has invited Odette to a
ball at the castle which includes dances from Spain,
Italy and Hungary.
Gabriel FAURE (1845 – 1924) Pavane, Op. 50
After studying with Saint-Saens, Faure was a
professional church organist for thirty years. At the
age of sixty he became Director of the Paris
Conservatory, a position he held for fifteen years.
Faure’s delicate music, with its clear orchestration, is
representative of human feeling at its most private and
civilised. His style is a mixture of classical restraint
and superficial beauty with an intense expression of
romanticism through long melodic lines and luscious
harmony.
The pavane is a slow, majestic dance of Italian origin
which was frequently played at weddings and solemn
feasts. The dance became so popular in Spain, that it
was long assumed to be of Spanish origin.
Faure’s Pavane, one of his best known pieces, has been
used as ballet music on several occasions. In 1901 it
was furnished with an atmospheric choral part.
Jean SIBELIUS (1865 – 1957) Symphony No. 2 in D major
– 1st and 4th movements
The music of Sibelius was undoubtedly influenced by
Tchaikovsky and the Second symphony with its wonderful
orchestration has a clear affinity with the Russian
composer. Although a success when the composer conducted
its first performance in Helsinki in 1902, its
popularity was slow to spread abroad. Nowadays, however,
it is probably the best loved of the composer’s seven
symphonies.
I Allegretto –
The first movement gradually integrates a number of
disjointed thematic fragments into an organic whole.
This led early commentators to credit Sibelius with
“the introduction of an entirely new principle of
symphonic form”, although, nearly 40 years
previously, Borodin had employed the same method in his
First Symphony.
The various ideas come together at the moment of highest
emotional tension, after which the music returns to the
pastoral mood in which it began.
IV Finale –
The resplendently heroic Fourth movement (its first
subject punctuated by a stirring brass fanfare) may
suggest Finland’s hopes for independence from Russian
domination but Sibelius vehemently denied any such
nationalist bias in the finale.
What is more certain is that the elegiac repeated phrase
on the woodwind over endlessly surging and sighing
violas and cellos (interrupting the broad main theme on
two occasions) was inspired by the suicide of his
sister-in-law, which deeply affected Sibelius.
Ralph VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS (1872 – 1958) “The Wasps”
Overture
Vaughan-Williams was one of the most successful of
English composers, writing on a large scale in a
harmonic style that he made completely his own.
Aristophanes’ play “The Wasps” is a comedy that
brilliantly satirises the legal system of the time, in
particular the lucrative business of bringing law suits.
(The play was written c. 425 B.C. - “Plus ça change,
plus c’est la meme chose”.) The play includes one
character who is so obsessed by litigation that he
brings his own dog to trial for stealing cheese!
Vaughan -Williams wrote his incidental music for a
production of the play in Cambridge in 1909, providing
18 separate vocal and instrumental numbers. The famous
overture begins with the angry buzzing of the wasps (in
reality the clamouring of the litigants) and uses three
of the play’s choruses for its main melodic material.
The glorious melody that functions as a second subject
in the overture is a splendid example of the composer’s
life-long interest in English folk music.
Leo DELIBES (1836 – 1891) “Coppelia” Ballet – Suite
Delibes studied at the Paris Conservatory and then
at once appeared before the public as a composer of
successful operettas, operas, and ballets. Of the
ballets, “Sylvia” and “Coppelia” are
favourite specimens.
“Coppelia” is the story of Swanilda, a peasant
girl from Galicia. Swanilda loves Frantz, but he is
intrigued by a beautiful young woman whom he glimpsed
inside the house of Dr. Coppelius, an old scientist. The
“beautiful young woman” later turns out to be an
automaton - a life-sized doll. The ballet ends happily
with Frantz becoming betrothed to his “living doll”
after he decides she is preferable to the clockwork
version.
Within a couple of months of the first performance of
“Coppelia” in May 1870, the 16 year old ballerina
who had created the role of Swanilda died of smallpox,
St. Leon, the choreographer, had already died of
exhaustion and shortly afterwards, Dauty, the original
Dr. Coppelius, also died.
After such a catalogue of woe, it is cheering to note
that Delibes wrote a marvellous score for “Coppelia”.
There is never a dull bar, and the sparkling succession
of tunes, delicately orchestrated with consistent flair
and imagination, provide superb entertainment - even
without the dancing!
Charles Louis Ambroise THOMAS (1811 – 1896) “Raymond”
– Overture
Ambroise Thomas was the son of a musician, and an
infant prodigy. At the Paris Conservatory he carried off
high honours culminating in the Rome Prize at the age of
21. Returning to Paris he achieved success as a
melodious but essentially light-weight composer.
Emmanuel Chabrier unkindly remarked, “There are three
kinds of music: good, bad and the music of Ambroise
Thomas”.
Of his works only “Mignon” and “Raymond”,
and that only for its overture, are remembered today.
The latter, a favourite with brass bands, starts
daintily and ends with an appealing heart-on-the-sleeve
theme which introduces a melodramatic opera based on the
17th century legend of the man in the iron mask.
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