Notes on the Program

When the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg commissioned an opera from Verdi, his first suggestion was one based on Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas. But the theatre rejected the proposal, and Verdi turned to a Spanish play, Don Alvaro or the Force of Destiny, by Don Angel Pérez de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas. The opera was produced with great success on November 10, 1862. The composer, however, was not entirely satisfied with the opera, and for a later production at La Scala, on February 27, 1869, he revised it, changing the order of scenes, rewriting the finale with a major change of plot, and replacing the prelude with the full-scale overture.

Set in 18th century Spain and Italy against a background of war, the opera tells a far-fetched story of love and revenge. On the point of eloping with his beloved, Leonora, Don Alvaro is surprised by her father, whom is accidentally shot dead when Alvaro throws his pistol to the floor. The lovers are then remorselessly pursued by Leonora's brother, Don Carlo, who is intent on killing them both to avenge the family's honor.

The overture begins with three repeated notes for unison brass, a menacing call to attention that is followed immediately by the agitated destiny theme. The latter maintains a dangerous presence as the overture continues with other themes from the opera. First of these is the melody of Alvaro's last act plea to Carlo to desist from taking revenge on one who was only unfortunate. This breaks off for the soaring theme of Leonora's second act prayer: "God, do not forsake me. Have mercy on me, Lord." After a tutti passage, and a reminder of Alvaro's plea, a tune from the end of the second act duet in which the Father Superior of a monastery agrees to shelter Leonora in a hermit's cave appears. Another tutti and a chorale-like passage follow, and the overture builds to an exciting climax.
©1998 Columbia Artists Management Inc.

In the Steppes of Central Asia
ALEXANDER BORODIN
Born November 12, 1833 in St. Petersburg
Died February 27, 1887 in St. Petersburg

As part of the Russian "Mighty Five," a group of Russian composers who shaped the perspective of Russian music, Borodin actually made his living as a medical doctor and professor of chemistry. Having developed a passion for music that was nearly equal to his passion for chemistry, Borodin chose chemistry for his vocation all the while keeping music as his avocation. While studying chemistry in Germany, he was exposed to a great deal of German, French and Italian music. He made many friends in the musical world during his time there, eventually meeting Liszt, who championed his music, on a later trip.

Encouraged by his fellow musicians, especially Glazanov and Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin played chamber music and continued to compose throughout his life. In a rare commission, in 1880 he composed a piece for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Czar Alexander II. It was to be part of a grand tableau of scenes from the Czar's reign. The score is captioned "Composed 1880 for a Representation of Tableaux Vivants at the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Accession of Tsar Alexander II." Grateful that Liszt had championed his music when others criticized it; Borodin dedicated the work to Liszt. The composition is heavily influenced by Liszt, even borrowing the distinctive scoring from his Two Episodes from Lenau's Faust in which the pizzicato low and high strings are on the on then off-beats.

The score also provides the following program for the composition:
"In the silence of the monotonous steppes of Central Asia is heard the unfamiliar sound of a peaceful Russian song. From the distance we hear the approach of horses and camels and the bizarre and melancholy notes of an oriental melody. A caravan approaches, escorted by Russian soldiers and continues safely on its long way through the immense desert. It disappears slowly. The notes of the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony, which dies away as the caravan disappears in the distance."

© Columbia Artists Management Inc.
- Elizabeth E. Torres

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19
SERGEI PROKOFIEV
Born April 23, 1891, in Sontsovka, Ukraine
Died March 5, 1953, in Moscow

During his student days at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where Rimsky-Korsakov declared him to be "gifted but immature," Prokofiev was known as the enfant terrible of the composition department; he had established early on a reputation as the composer of "shocking" music. Most of his early works are marked by their bold experimentalism; for example, the piano work Sarcasms (1912-14), to pick just one, may be described as astringent and full of cutting rhythmic edges, while the Piano Concerto No. 2 (1912-13) is still considered audacious in its dense complexity. Alongside these works, however, he also wrote compositions influenced by the Romantic and Post-romantic styles; works like the symphonic poems Dreams (1910) and Autumnal Sketch (1910), and the Ballade (1912) for cello and piano exhibit varying degrees of mellifluousness, mellowness and a feeling of relaxation. Such is also the case of the First Violin Concerto.

The broad opening melody that opens the concerto was conceived in 1915; at the time, Prokofiev intended to use this as the basis for a "modest concertino." Work on the opera The Gambler and on the ballets Ala and Lolli and Chout kept Prokofiev from the projected concertino; by the time he finally started to work on this score, it had evolved into a full-scale concerto. Commencing work in earnest on this piece in 1916, Prokofiev was busy with it until the following year; he orchestrated the concerto while already at work on the "Classical" Symphony. The premiere of the concerto did not take place, however, until 1923, when it was played by Marcel Darrieux, with Serge Koussevitsky conducting his Parisian orchestra on the 18th of October. Elaborating on this performance, the composer wrote in his unfinished autobiography: "[Bronislaw] Huberman and some other violinists flatly refused to learn 'that music' and the solo part had to be given to the concertmaster, who did quite well with it. The critics were divided; some of them commented, not without malice, on its 'Mendelssohnism'." Not only were most of the critics dissatisfied with the concerto, but the audience did not respond warmly to the "newness" of the piece either. It was not until the virtuoso violinist Joseph Szigeti started playing it in 1924, that the concerto was finally to become established in the repertoire.

The highly individual First Violin Concerto is a work of youthful fantasy, marked by a strong influence from the Romantic Russian nationalist school. The concerto is quite untraditional in the way that the soloist and the orchestra are given equal importance; the virtuoso character of the violin is down-played, there being no cadenzas or bravura passages, and the orchestra is never relegated to a subsidiary accompanying role. Instead, both orchestra and soloist are treated as a symphonic unit as they share in the development of musical ideas.

The first movement is unusual in that it is not built upon the expected sonata structure, nor does it conform to the norm of being an allegro; instead, it consists of a chain of episodes, with the marking of Andantino. The concerto (sometimes played without interruption) begins in a contemplative mood with the soloist playing a gently lyrical and plaintive melody over a light accompaniment provided by a clarinet and the strings. Although the movement gathers some momentum as the proceedings for the soloist become more energetic through passages of rhythmic intricacy, the general mood of repose is never completely abandoned. The succession of episodes is brought to its conclusion with a return of the opening theme; this time the theme is played very softly by a solo flute, accompanied by the harp and muted strings, while the solo violin lightly weaves ornamentation over the melody.

The second movement is a swift, energetic Scherzo - in 4/4 and marked Vivacissimo - where the most salient features are the characteristically Prokofievian whimsical melody of long-leaped intervals and the abundance of nervously accented rhythmic figures. Built upon a rondo structure, this movement achieves variety through the soloist's use of intriguing effects, such as glissandos on double stops resulting in double harmonics, pizzicato notes played with the left hand, and sul ponticello passages.

For the concluding movement, once again, the emphasis is on music of subdued contemplation and broad lyricism. A short theme is heard on the bassoon, before the soloist introduces the movement's main theme, one which combines staccato and sustained phrases. The development section is marked by the sharp orchestral comments to the soloist's discourse. Once the climax is reached, the gentle, plaintive theme of the first movement makes a last appearance; the violins play this theme, with the soloist trilling each note an octave higher, while the flute and clarinet play part of the finale's main theme against this. As the texture becomes lighter and shimmering, the closing bars practically mirror those of the first movement, as the soloist sustains a high D.
©1994 Columbia Artists Management Inc.

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Born August 22, 1862 in St. Germain-en-Laye
Died March 25, 1918 in Paris

Debussy's symphonic poem, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, is one of the most significant works of its genre. In spite of its programmatic orientation, it remains a landmark in the history of western music, strictly on the basis of its specific musical qualities.

Debussy was only thirty years old when he began working on Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. He had originally planned for it to consist of three sections, explaining the designation as a prelude. The primary inspiration for the work came from Stéphane Mallarmé's poem of the same name. Mallarmé was one of the leaders of the French symbolist literature, which had a tremendous influence on Debussy, along with other contemporary artistic movements, including Impressionism. Debussy used the ideas of these artists and writers and managed to transfer their basic sentiments into musical terms, thereby producing music that opened up completely new worlds of sound.

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was given its world premiere in 1894 at the National Society of Music in Paris, and was introduced to the United States in 1902 in Boston. In 1895 Debussy arranged the Prelude into the two-piano version you will hear tonight.

In Edward Lockspeiser's book on the composer (1936), he summarizes the orchestral music using Alexander Cohen's English translation of Mallarmé's poem:

"A faun awakens from a dream. He has seen two nymphs, one with 'Eyes cold as tearful spring,' the other like 'Breath in the fire of noon.' He meditates awhile, playing the flute. He remembers cutting the reeds that his lips now caress and bathing in the fountains of the Naiads. But now he is alone,
'Standing as once, alone in light's full stream
A lily, innocent as one of you.'

Suddenly his passion is aroused by the 'bite of love's mysteries.' He would live for rapturous pleasure alone.
And when I've drain'd the grape of living light
By fancy's shift Regret is driven to flight
And breathing swell its lustrous wherethro'
Smiling I lift the void skin heaven to
I gaze till eve, with passion's wine aglow.'

He returns to memories of the nymphs playing among the reeds. In the fever of his imagination, he grasps two Naiads:
'I seize them, severing not, and swiftly hie
To rose-bed that the wanton shadows fly __
Its perfume all outpoured to the skies __
Rosy our frolic be as day that dies.'

But they are frightened by his burning kisses and they struggle away ... As twilight falls over the forests he pursues a vision of Venus on Etna's summit. That means chastisment.
'Ah, No!
My body slumber-weigh'd, my soul voice-numb
At last to midday's silent pride succumb.'

And he stretches himself out on the sand to sleep.
"What does Mallarmé wish to convey in his highly symbolical language? The core of the poem is in these lines, which the faun says in praise of animal voluptuousness:
'Passion, thou know'st at purple's ripening
the granate bursts for bee's fierce murmuring;
Our blood, ere caught to be encaptured fain
Flows too vibrant swarming of love's pain.'

"... Mallarmé spoke of the music as an 'illustration ... which would present no dissonance with my text. Rather does it go much further into the nostalgia and light with subtlety, malaise and richness. Those words are well chosen, but he omitted to mention one important difference. Whereas the poem is clotted and obscure, the music is lucidity itself ... With Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune we come suddenly upon the wonder of Debussy's orchestra, as different from the orchestra of Wagner as a running brook from a waterfall. It remains today one of the subtlest examples of orchestral writing in existence."
©1997 Columbia Artists Management Inc.

Pictures at an Exhibition
(orch. Maurice Ravel)
MODEST PETROVICH MUSSORGSKY
Born March 21, 1839, in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia
Died March 28, 1881, in St. Petersburg, Russia

Following the style established by Mikhail Glinka, Mussorgsky united with composers Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Cesar Cui, to create a nationalist school of Russian music. This group of composers, with Balakirev as the mentor of the other four younger composers, was known as "The Mighty Five." Later, along with Glinka and Alexander Dargomïzhsky, they became known as Moguchaya kuchka ("The Mighty Handful") in recognition of their nationalistic efforts to maintain musical "independence" from the basically conservative Germanic/Western European approach to composition. In his aim to foster Russian nationalism, Mussorgsky's interests did not confine themselves to music alone. The composer actively pursued associations and encounters with some of Russia's most stimulating thinkers and artists; as a result, he established a close friendship with the painter and architect, Victor Alexandrovich Hartmann. Their friendship however, was cut short when Hartmann died in July of 1873, five years after they had first met.

In February of the following year, Vladimir Stassov - a writer and art critic, as well as a friend to both Mussorgsky and Hartmann - organized a memorial exhibition of the latter's paintings, sketches, stage designs and architectural drawings. A few months later, in June, Mussorgsky composed his piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition. The suite bears a dedication to Stassov, "in memory of our dear Victor."

Although Mussorgsky prepared the work for publication, Pictures at an Exhibition was not published until five years after the composer's death. The work was later orchestrated by several composers and conductors, the first one being the English conductor, Sir Henry Wood. However, upon hearing Ravel's orchestral arrangement of 1922, Sir Henry withdrew his own transcription, recognizing the infinitely finer quality of Ravel's treatment. Others who have written orchestral versions of this work include Walter Goehr, Leopold Stokowski, and most recently Vladimir Ashkenazy. Nonetheless, it is Ravel's version which has endured in the repertoire; in this form the work received its first performance in May of 1923, in Paris, conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, who had asked Ravel to undertake the orchestration of Mussorgsky's piano masterpiece. Ravel's arrangement requires a large modern orchestra, including triple woodwinds and an extensive array of percussion instruments; however, save for the very end and a few other short passages, the French composer refrained from employing the massive orchestra in full force, choosing his instrumental palette carefully to create an exquisite and sensitive sense of tonal coloration, all of which seems to grow naturally from Mussorgsky's original piano work.

The suite comprises ten episodes based on ten of Hartmann's pictures included in Stassov's exhibit. It is interesting to note that, perhaps driven by the love for his friend, Mussorgsky tended to aggrandize the content of Hartmann's works, for none of the paintings and sketches really exhibit the power and grandeur of their corresponding musical portraits. On the other hand, the music does reflect the variety encompassed in the exhibit; furthermore, it reveals a combination of the lyrical and the grotesquesly comical that is so characteristic of the composer.

Mussorgsky's work is introduced by a Promenade - a self-portrait of the composer walking about the exhibition; the alternation of meters between 5/4 and 6/4 suggests the composer's indecision as to which picture should be viewed next. In varied form, the Promenade theme also serves to link five of the episodes, and occasionally appears within the musical pictures themselves. In its initial appearance, the melody is performed by a solo trumpet, followed by the entire brass section, before it is restated climactically by the whole orchestral complement save for percussion instruments.

After the introductory walk through the art gallery, the first picture is presented. For the original piano suite, Stassov provided the following commentary: "Gnomus is a child's plaything, fashioned after Hartmann's design in wood for a Christmas tree. It is something in the style of the fabled nutcracker, the nuts being inserted in the gnome's mouth. The gnome accompanies his droll movements with savage shrieks." Marked Vivo, the music halts and stammers for the first theme; the chordal second theme is presented in Ravel's treatment by the celesta, the harp playing harmonics, and the strings bowing glissandos over the fingerboard, all supported by a bass- clarinet.

A shortened version of the Promenade - now meditative with a solo horn providing the melody - leads to the second picture, Il vecchio castello ("The Old Castle"). In this Andante, with a brilliant stroke of imagination, Ravel entrusts the troubador's song to a solo saxophone. Next, the Promenade leads to the Tuileries (Allegretto non troppo, capriccioso). This sequence, is described by Stassov as "children's dispute after play. An avenue in the garden of the Tuileries with a group of children and nurses." The children's plaintive tone is suggested by the high woodwinds.

There is no promenade before Bydlo, the fourth picture, which is that of a Polish cart on enormous wheels drawn by oxen. Marked Sempre moderato pesante, bassoons, contra-bassoon, cellos, and basses establish the rhythm of the slowly-turning wheels and the pace of the oxen over which the tuba introduces the main theme; the movement concludes as the full orchestra takes over the theme.

Now scored for woodwinds and marked Tranquillo, the Promenade reappears to bring us to the fifth picture. Chicks Dancing in their Shells, takes the form of a Scherzino bearing the tempo marking of Vivo leggiero, and featuring the high woodwinds. This was inspired by Hartmann's costume designs for the ballet Trilby, in which child-dancers play incipient hatchlings trying to break out of their shells.

This is directly followed by an Andante depiction of two Polish Jews. The musical characterization is vivid; one man is rich and is represented by a pompous theme on low woodwinds and muted strings, while the other is poor and is portrayed by a whining motif of repeated notes on the trumpet. Here the musical characterization is especially vivid. Although Hartmann's painting was titled Rich Mr. Goldenburg and Poor Mr. Schmuyle, Mussorgsky's corresponding picture has come to be known as Samuel Goldenburg and Shmuyle.

Omitting the next Promenade printed in the original piano score, Ravel instead brings forth the seventh picture, which is that of Limoges-The Market Place - an Allegreto vivo where the lively chatter of the market can be heard. In this sempre scherzando episode, Mussorgsky portrays the noisy chattering of housewives shopping; Ravel begins the lively dialogue with the horns, but these are promptly contradicted by shrill flutes and clarinets.

"French women, haggling furiously, give way to the sinister gloom of the Catacombs, which is the title of the next picture." This two-part episode begins with a Largo series of solemn echoing chords alternating between low woodwinds and brass, occasionally supported by the string basses. The appended Andante non troppo, con lamento section consists of a sorrowful transformation of the Promenade played in a minor key over an eerie chromatic descending figure in the strings; it bears the curious title Con mortuis in lingua mortua, a mixture of Italian and Latin meaning "With the Dead in a Dead Language." It is at this point that Mussorgsky seems to acknowledge the fact that his friend Hartmann has passed away; the score bears the following inscription by the composer: "the creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me to the skulls and calls to them [as] they begin to glow faintly." Incidentally, Hartmann's picture is a depiction of himself along with a fellow architect examining skulls under the light of a lantern in the Roman catacombs in Paris.

The ninth picture is The Hut on Fowl's Legs, Hartmann's design for a bronze and enamel clock in the aforementioned shape. The hut is that of Baba-Yaga, the terrifying witch of Russian folklore. However, rather than concentrating on the hag's lair, Mussorgsky depicts the witch's wild drive through the wind-swept sky on a stormy night, pursuing her prey as she flies on a huge wooden mortar, propelled by her large pestle.

The final picture is based on Hartmann's sketch for The Great Gate of Kiev in the ancient Russian style. The gate was to commemorate Tsar Alexander II's escape from assassination in 1866; the structure would consist of a domed bell tower and an imposing archway supported by massive granite columns, crowned by the Russian imperial eagle. Although the gate was never built, its sketch inspired Mussorgsky to write one of the most majestic finales in the history of music; Ravel's brilliant orchestration makes it even more thrillingly resplendent. The music is in the form of a great processional hymn, followed by the tolling of the bells, and a return of the Promenade to conclude the suite in a blaze of glory.

©1995 Columbia Artists Management Inc.