7 minute read
Bizet’s Carmen Suite
Friday, May 14, 2021 at 1:00 PM Saturday, May 15, 2021 at 7:30 PM Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 7:00 PM
BPO Classics Series
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JoAnn Falletta, conductor
RODION Carmen Suite (after Georges Bizet) SHCHEDRIN I. Introduction II. Dance III. Intermezzo No. 1 IV. Changing of the Guard V. Carmen’s Entrance and Habañera VI. Scene VII. Intermezzo No. 2 VIII. Bolero IX. Torero X. Torero and Carmen XI. Adagio XII. Fortune Telling XIII. Finale
You can learn more about this program from JoAnn Falletta’s introduction at bpo.org/musically-speaking
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
We present two pieces that both looked to the past for their inspiration. Ralph Vaughan Williams adored the music of early English composers, and he borrowed a theme of the Renaissance genius, Thomas Tallis, to create a glowing and unforgettable work for strings, his Fantasia. Twentieth century Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin looked back to Bizet’s 1875 hit opera Carmen, and ‘re-imagined’ the work in a creative and highly imaginative version for strings and percussion. We are especially pleased to feature the percussion section of the Buffalo Philharmonic in this virtuoso showpiece for them.
PROGRAM NOTES
Ralph Vaughan Williams
(English; 1872-1958)
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas
Tallis (1910)
Thomas Tallis is considered the most important composer to come from the English Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century. Working as a musician and composer of sacred music for England’s monarchs, the development of his music mirrored the religious and political changes that occurred during his life. First composing florid Latin-language music for the Roman Catholic Church, as the political pendulum swung to Protestantism, Tallis pivoted to simpler, English-language music. In 1567, Tallis composed nine settings for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, which was a collection of metered, vernacular psalm settings. Three-and-a-half centuries later, the third setting “Why fum’th in sight,” based on Psalm 2, caught the eye of the up-and-comer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Ralph Vaughan Williams had a thoroughly English education, studying with the top English composers of the day, and a deep reverence for England’s formidable choral tradition and its centuries of composers. His interests and education culminated into a heavy, English orchestral voice, but in 1907/8, a few weeks spent working in the studio of French modernist Maurice Ravel seemed to change his path for the better. Rather than copying Ravel’s style, Vaughan Williams benefitted from a reimagining of what the orchestra could do.
In 1910, Vaughan Williams was in his late thirties and his career was only just seeing a glimmer of life when one of Britain’s prestigious festivals, the Three Choirs Festival, commissioned him for a new orchestral work. Some years earlier, Vaughan Williams was assisting the editing process for the English Hymnal when he came across Tallis’ Psalm 2 setting, which he would revisit for his new commission. The result was the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, which was first performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vaughan Williams. A “fantasia” in modern terms is most often a freely composed work, but the term was also used by 16th English composers to describe music for string consorts that mimicked the imitative counterpoint of choral
music. Vaughan Williams’ own Fantasia blends these two ideas, relying on Renaissance choral music techniques for his work, which is scored for double string orchestra and string quartet.
The lush and detailed orchestration shows the influence Ravel had on Vaughan Williams, evident immediately with a hushed, ethereal opening that hints at Tallis’ melody. The work explores numerous possibilities with the separate ensembles mimicking the spacing of distanced choirs and fabricating eerie echoes. In the center of the work, soloists from the quartet present animated, decorated melodies that overlap in counterpoint. Through the work’s development, the orchestra builds intensity with widely spaced harmonies that shift surprisingly, and dynamics that range from silent intimacy to the monumental. Vaughan Williams’ cunning orchestration turns an ensemble of strings into a massive cathedral organ, or an ancient choir. In many ways, the Fantasia was Vaughan Williams’ homage to the English music tradition, but it would also become one of his most memorable works, helping to establish him as an integral figure in England’s musical tradition.
Rodion Shchedrin
(Russian; b.1932-)
Carmen Suite (1967) (After Georges Bizet (French; 18381875)—Carmen (1875))
I. Introduction II. Dance III. Intermezzo No. 1 IV. Changing of the Guard V. Carmen’s Entrance and
Habañera VI. Scene VII. Intermezzo No. 2 VIII. Bolero IX. Torero X. Torero and Carmen XI. Adagio XII. Fortune Telling
XIII. Finale
Carmen Suite began as the brainchild of Bolshoi Theatre ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who dreamed of a ballet based on the story of Georges Bizet’s massively popular opera Carmen. In 1964, she approached two of the most famous Soviet composers of the day for the project, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian, with both turning down the project. Shostakovich, with uncanny foresight, understood the baggage that came with revisiting such a well-known subject, while Khachaturian pointed out the most obvious point of all: Plisetkaya was married to a fully capable composer in Rodion Shchedrin. Perhaps Plisetskaya wanted a big name for her project, as Shchedrin was a gifted pianist but littleknown as a composer; the opportunity for a prominent stage would prove invaluable for launching his nascent career.
Plisetskaya’s Carmen project picked back up in 1966 when Ballet Nacional de Cuba performed in Moscow. The company’s choreographer, Alberto Alonso. was interested in Plisetkaya’s concept, and created a libretto and committed his company to the project. 25
All that was left was the score. Shchedrin found that a completely original score was a dead end, and instead recognized the importance of Bizet’s original score, replete with melodies inseparable from the story. But the task was not to create a reduction typical of suites, in which a large score is reduced to its most recognizable and important music, but a wholly new score that recycled Bizet’s most integral materials in what Shchedrin referred to as a “meeting of minds.”
Even though he composed more than a dozen operas, it was not until his final one that French composer George Bizet assured his memorable melodies would be known for generations with his bold 1875 masterpiece Carmen. Bizet spent most of his life struggling to find success, so his death during the first run of Carmen was tragic. Set in Seville, the work’s appealing Spanish exoticism tells of the soldier Don José, who is lured from his love and his post by the beautiful gypsy girl Carmen. When she declares her love for bull-fighter Escamillo, jealous love comes to a climax when Don José kills Carmen. The opera’s initial reception was scandalous, but nearly a century later it was beloved, and the tragic figure in Carmen was the centerpiece of Plisetskaya’s reimagined ballet that heightened the work’s initial eroticism with a vibrant reimagined scoring. Shchedrin’s score was a modern resetting of Bizet’s music for string orchestra and percussion. The abundance of such musicians made the choice obvious, but it was important to Shchedrin to juxtapose Bizet’s use of full orchestra, so as to make the difference between the two scores as explicit as possible. Orchestration was not the only change, as the suite included new rhythms, new melodic combinations, harmonic diversions, with the occasional note change, all in reverent homage to Bizet. From the Habañero to the Toreador Song, the music is entirely recognizable, although filtered through Shchedrin’s excitingly creative kaleidoscope. Carmen Suite remains one of Shchedrin’s most popular contributions to music, and helped launch a productive and celebrated career, which includes several operas, ballets, symphonies, concertos, and numerous prizes such as the USSR State Prize and the Lenin Prize. This would all come later though. Artists working under the watchful eyes of Soviet regimes were always at risk of upsetting the apple cart, known to carry dire consequences. The beloved nature of Bizet’s melodies made their use in Carmen Suite especially egregious to the authorities, interpreted as a bastardization of Bizet’s masterpiece, and the work’s eroticism was entirely unacceptable. Such an official ban could have damaging ramifications for Shchedrin, but Shostakovich was sympathetic and had high-reaching connections. Avoiding the controversy in the work’s early stages, he became integral to the project by leveraging his position to end the work’s ban. His effort, and Plisetskaya’s threat to leave the Bolshoi, would prove invaluable to the work’s eventual acceptance.
