8 minute read
Program Notes
ANNA CLYNE
born: March 9, 1980 in London, England
PIVOT, for String Quintet & Orchestra
(2013)
premiere: August 7, 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland
PIVOT is inspired by my experiences at the Edinburgh Festival where I enjoyed an array of fantastic performances across the arts. It is this variety that I have tried to capture in PIVOT which, as the title suggests, pivots from one experience to another. The Pivot is also a former name of the 200-year-old folk music venue and pub in Edinburgh, The Royal Oak.
PIVOT quotes fragments of The Flowers of Edinburgh, a traditional fiddle tune of eighteenth century Scottish lineage that is also prominent in American fiddle music and thus bridges between Edinburgh and St. Louis, where this music was premiered. Thank you to Aidan O’Rourke for his guidance on folk fiddle bowings and ornaments, which are incorporated into PIVOT.
—Anna Clyne
Anna Clyne
EDWARD ELGAR
born: June 2, 1857 in Broadheath, England died: February 23, 1934 in Worcester, England
Cello Concerto in E minor
Opus 85 (1919)
premiere: October 27, 1919 in London, England
In the spring of 1918, following a long and painful illness finally diagnosed as tonsillitis, Edward Elgar underwent surgery. The composer’s daughter, Carice, recalled: “He was in a great deal of pain for several days; (there) were not anything like the sedatives that we have now, but nevertheless he woke up one morning and asked for pencil and paper.” Elgar then composed the first music he had written in nine months — a beautiful melody in 9/8 time. That fall, Alice Elgar noted that her husband was at work orchestrating the melody.
By the spring of the following year, Elgar devoted much time and attention to this music, which now took form as his Cello Concerto in E minor. On June 26, 1919, Elgar wrote to his friend, Sidney Colvin: “I am frantically busy writing & have nearly completed a Concerto for Violoncello — a real large work & I think good & alive.” Elgar later dedicated the Concerto to Sidney Colvin and his wife, Frances.
Cellist Felix Salmond assisted Elgar in the composition of the solo part. In August, Elgar offered Salmond the opportunity to be the soloist in the Concerto’s world premiere, which took place at the Queen’s Hall in London on October 27, 1919. It was the opening of the London Symphony Orchestra’s first concert season following World War I. Albert Coates, the Orchestra’s new conductor, was scheduled to lead music by Wagner, Scriabin, and Borodin. Elgar would take the podium for the premiere of his Cello Concerto. Coates decided to devote virtually all of the allotted rehearsal time to the music he was conducting. As a result, the Concerto received a woefully inadequate performance.
In a review of the premiere of the Elgar Cello Concerto, the eminent British music critic, Ernest Newman, wrote: “never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable a public exhibition of itself.” Still, Newman was able to discern the considerable qualities of Elgar’s newest composition:
In time, the Elgar Concerto has become recognized as one of the 20th century’s finest works for cello and orchestra. Many have recognized the “profound wisdom” cited by Newman — however, they often attribute that wisdom to far less genial circumstances. Elgar composed the concerto after the devastation of World War I, and was all too aware of the effect “The War to End All Wars” had upon the world he knew and loved. As the composer wrote in 1917: “Everything good & nice & clean & sweet is far away—never to return.” And perhaps Elgar sensed that his own life — at least as a composer — was reaching its final stages. In his catalogue of works, Elgar wrote the following next to the listing of his Cello Concerto: “FINIS R.I.P.” And after his beloved Alice’s death in 1920, Elgar was never the same. The Cello Concerto proved to be his last major work.
The Concerto is in four movements. After a slow-tempo introduction (Adagio), the violas introduce the melody Elgar composed during his recuperative period (Moderato). The second movement also opens with a slow-tempo introduction (Lento), resolving to music whose filigree orchestration and furtive energy are worthy of the finest Mendelssohn scherzos (Allegro molto). The third movement (Adagio) features an elegiac, wide-ranging melody, played molto espressivo by the soloist. The finale (Allegro; Moderato; Allegro, ma non troppo) ensues without pause. The music’s lively gait slows for a lengthy episode of extraordinary introspection and pathos. Echoes of the preceding Adagio add to the mood of resignation, as the music seems to fade to a conclusion. But a reprise of the Concerto’s formidable opening measures, followed by a brief restatement of the principal theme, leads to the terse resolution.
Sir Edward Elgar
RICHARD STRAUSS
born: June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany died: September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Aus Italien (From Italy)
Symphonic Fantasy (1886)
premiere: March 2, 1887 in Munich, Germany
From 1885 to the spring of 1886, Richard Strauss served as a conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Strauss’s next conducting appointment, at the Munich Court Opera, was scheduled to begin in August of 1886. Strauss, in part at the encouragement of Brahms, seized the opportunity to take a long-coveted journey to Italy. During the months of April and May, Strauss traveled throughout Italy, stopping in Bologna, Florence, Naples, Rome, Verona, and many other smaller cities.
Along the way, Strauss fell victim to petty theft, with losses including a leather suitcase (Naples), laundry (Rome), and his Baedeker travel guide (in a theater). Strauss wrote to his mentor, Hans von Bülow: “Such a bumbling German as I, not knowing a world of Italian and very little French, along and for the first time in Italy, quite overwhelmed by the magnificent landscape and art — such a fellow is an easy prey for the Italians…”
Still, the young Richard Strauss was captivated by the magic of Italy. In 1830, German composer Felix Mendelssohn, then 21 years old, begin his own journey to Italy. One of the products of that trip was Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, the “Italian” (1833). And in the tradition and spirit of his predecessor, Strauss (also 21 at the time of his Italian sojourn) offered his musical impressions of Italy in the fourmovement “Symphonic Fantasy” Aus Italien (From Italy).
Strauss conducted the premiere of Aus Italien in Munich on March 2, 1887. Strauss reported to friend: “Some applauded furiously. Others hissed energetically…I felt enormous pride: the first work which aroused the opposition of the multitude; it cannot be insignificant.” Aus Italien would soon be eclipsed by such Strauss orchestral masterpieces as Don Juan (1888), Death and Transfiguration (1889), and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1895).
Nevertheless, Strauss’s mastery of atmosphere and orchestral forces in Aus Italien anticipates those famous tone poems.
Auf der Campagna (On the Campagna), Aus Italien’s magical opening movement depicts, according to Strauss, the mood he experienced when viewing the sundrenched Roman Campagna from the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. The second movement, In Roms Ruinen (In the Ruins of Rome), evokes: “Fantastic pictures of past splendor, feelings of nostalgia and pain in the midst of the sunniest present!” Am Strande von Sorrent (On the Beach at Sorrento) suggests various sounds of nature (leaves rustling in the wind, bird songs, the ocean’s roar), a distant song, and human reaction to it all. For the principal theme of the finale, Neapolitanisches Volksleben (Neapolitan Folk Life), Strauss quotes what he believed to be “a well-known Neapolitan folk song.” The melody is, in fact, Luigi Denza’s popular song Funiculì, Funiculà (1880). Denza sued Strauss for incorporating his song without permission, and prevailed. In any event, Strauss’s music recreates “the colorful hustle and bustle in a merry confusion of themes,” bringing Aus Italien to a rousing close.
Even as a young man, Richard Strauss achieved fame as a conductor as well as a composer. (photo diptych from The Orchestra and ItsInstruments, 1917)
