Program notes by J.

Mark Baker

Anna Clyne

Born 9 March 1980; London, England

This Midnight Hour

Composed: 2015

First performance: 13 November 2015; Plaisir, France

Last MSO performance: MSO premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, crotales, slapstick, suspended cymbals, tam tam, vibraphone); strings

Approximate duration: 12 minutes

The opening to This Midnight Hour is inspired by the character and power of the lower strings of Orchestre national d’Île-de-France. From here, it draws inspiration from two poems. Whilst it is not intended to depict a specific narrative, my intention is that it will evoke a visual journey for the listener.

–Anna Clyne

The British composer Anna Clyne grew up in Abingdon, near Oxford, where her mother earned a living as a midwife. Though music was not a regular part of the family’s life, she took cello lessons and later studied music at the University of Edinburgh. Composition lessons commenced during a year abroad at Queen’s University in Ontario. “It was late to start,” she said in a recent interview, “but I already knew what I wanted to say.”

This Midnight Hour was co-commissioned by the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France and the Seattle Symphony. At the time, Clyne was composer-in-residence for the former ensemble, who gave its premiere – conducted by Enrique Mazzola – at the Théâtre Espace Coluche, in the Paris suburb of Plaisir. Cast in one movement, it uses orchestration identical to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 (“Little Russian;” 1872, rev. 1880), which was on the same program.

Clyne said she took inspiration from two poems: “La Musica” by Juan Ramón Jiménez and “Harmonie du soir” by Charles Baudelaire. The work’s accessible, almost-cinematic style depicts the mysterious midnight journey of a woman. Full of energy, its moods range from the ominous to the playful. Listen for folklike woodwind solos, some deliberately out-of-tune strings that evoke the sound of a tipsy accordion, and a duet for two trumpets placed on either side of the stage. Lyrical moments alternate with a scampering motif and, at the end, there is a hymn-like melody before the timpani and bass drum bring the proceedings to an abrupt conclusion.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born 7 May 1840; Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia

Died 6 November 1893; St. Petersburg, Russia

Variations on a Rococo Theme, Opus 33

Composed: 1876

First performance: 30 November 1877; Moscow, Russia

Last MSO performance: April 2016; Ben Gernon, conductor; Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; strings

Approximate duration: 18 minutes

Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations date from December 1876, following closely on the heels of his symphonic fantasy Francesca da Rimini. That piece, with its torrential and tortured emotional outpourings, is in stark contrast to the order and calm of the Variations. This delightfully crafted music displays the elegance of an 18th-century divertimento and is the closest the composer ever came to writing a cello concerto.

Music historian David Brown has suggested that, whereas Stravinsky, in his neoclassical works, sought self-discovery by subjecting styles from the past to his Russian flair for creative caricature, Tchaikovsky’s focus on the 18th century was the opposite: a means of psychological escape. At this time in his life – at age 36 – he was already preparing for what ultimately would be a disastrous marriage, in a desperate attempt to gain release from his homosexuality and its accompanying bitter self-hatred.

Following a brief orchestral introduction, the solo cello states the simple, elegant theme. Though it sounds like it might have been written in the 1700s, Tchaikovsky’s melody is of his own devising. Seven variations follow, one after another. (The brief orchestral ritornellos allow the soloist only a moment’s rest.) The harmonic underpinning of the theme – and indeed, even its general melodic contour – is retained throughout. The fifth variation features two cadenzas: one brief, the other more extended. The final variation, replete with blazing 32nd notes, propels the work to a stunning conclusion.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Born 25 September 1906; St. Petersburg, Russia

Died 9 August 1975; Moscow, Russia

Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47

Composed: 1937

First performance: 21 November 1937; Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia

Last MSO performance: February 2011; Carlo Rizzi, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; E-flat clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam tam, triangle, xylophone); harp; celeste; piano; strings

Approximate duration: 44 minutes

Widely regarded as the greatest symphonist of the mid-20th century, the Russian master Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 15 works in that genre. Additionally, his impressive compositional catalogue includes six concertos for various instruments, chamber music (including 15 string quartets), solo piano music, two operas and an operetta, several cantatas and oratorios, three ballets, 36 film scores, incidental music for 11 plays, choral music, and songs.

Along with his older contemporaries Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Shostakovich represents the apotheosis of 20th-century Russian music. Unlike them, however, the whole of his compositional output was created within the confines of Soviet aesthetics. He was educated entirely under the Soviet system, and his loyalty to his country and to his government never wavered, even during those times when he himself fell into disfavor with the powers-that-be. It is a credit to his remarkable genius that he overcame the limitations of the “socialist realism” expected of him, to the point where it no longer impeded his musical creativity.

Shostakovich’s Opus 47 was a smashing success at its premiere and has continued to be the best-known and most-often-performed of his symphonies. Its backstory is a bit darker, however. His opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1934, rev. 1963) came under the approbation of Stalin’s cultural commissars, who denounced it in the pages of Pravda as “muddle instead of music … un-Soviet, unwholesome, cheap, eccentric, tuneless and leftist.” By this time, Shostakovich had begun work on his Symphony No. 4 (1936). After hearing it in rehearsal, he was unhappy with the piece and withdrew it from performance. Following some soul-searching, he started work on the Fifth in April 1937, completing it three months later.

The Symphony No. 5 has proven to be an enduring work. Cast in four movements, each displaying taut structural design, it opens with a potent Moderato whose emotional power is anything but “moderate.” By comparison, the lively Scherzo is succinct; one can picture the smirk on Shostakovich’s lips as he makes a few Mahler-like nods toward far-off folk music. The luxurious F-sharp minor Largo’s long-lined melodies are yearningly exquisite; note that there are no brass instruments of any kind. In the manic, over-the-top Allegro non troppo, it’s as though Shostakovich is sticking his thumb in the eye of the Soviet authorities. “You want raucous, celebratory music,” he seems to say, “I’ll damn well give you some.” In his somewhat-controversial posthumous memoirs, Testimony (1979), he explained: “The rejoicing is forced, created under threat … It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.’”