27 minute read
Program Notes
Program Notes
BY DAVID B. LEVY
Jean Sibelius
Finlandia, Op. 26 (1899) (rev. 1900)
Jean Sibelius is indisputably the greatest composer Finland has ever produced. He was born on December 8, 1865, in Hämeenlinna (Tavastehus), Finland, and died in Järvenpää, Finland, on September 20, 1957. His abiding interest in Finland’s literature (especially the national epic known as the Kalevala) and natural landscape places him at the forefront of Finnish nationalism, although few traces of folk tunes are to be found in his music. He is best known for his symphonies, Violin Concerto, and above all his patriotic symphonic poem Finlandia, which was composed in 1899 and received its premiere performance on July 2, 1900, with Robert Kajanus conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Finlandia is the ultimate expression of the Finnish people’s desire for independence at a time when the country was still under the control of Czarist Russia. In 1899, Sibelius created some incidental music for a pageant based on Finnish history for a benefit event that was on the surface a fundraiser for the newspapermen’s pension. In point of fact, however, the event was a call for freedom of the press and Finnish independence. Originally titled Finland Awakes!, Sibelius reworked it as an orchestral tone poem under its now well-known name Finlandia.
The first part of the piece begins darkly in the minor mode with music that may be easily interpreted as a representation of the struggle of the Finnish people. As the music gains strength, each gesture is punctuated by stirring fanfares in the brass. This ultimately yields to the memorable Finlandia Hymn, which itself grows ever-more triumphant. Many years
later, Sibelius rearranged the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece. Words were created for the hymn in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, and Finlandia became one of the most important national songs of Finland, although not the country’s national anthem. ●
Jean Sibelius
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 47 (1903–1904) (rev. 1905)
Best known for his patriotic symphonic poem Finlandia, Sibelius’s genius is revealed most clearly in his Violin Concerto and seven symphonies. His Violin Concerto was composed in 1903–1904 and revised in 1905. Although intended for a Berlin premiere with Willy Burmeister as soloist, the original version of the Violin Concerto received its first performance on February 8, 1904, with Sibelius conducting and Victor Nováček, a violin teacher at the Helsinki Conservatory, as soloist. For various reasons, not the least of which was Sibelius’s alcoholism, the premiere was a disaster. The premiere of the revised version took place in Berlin on October 19, 1905, with Karel Haliř as soloist and Richard Strauss conducting. The work is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
Composed in 1903–1904, but much revised in 1905, Sibelius’s Violin Concerto ranks as one of the greatest masterpieces of its kind, comparing favorably to those towering exemplars composed by Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn. The strong influence of the last composer mentioned may be seen most clearly in Sibelius’s first movement.
Both works dispense with the traditional orchestral exposition and introduce the solo violin right away, in each case over a soft rippling figuration in the strings. A further similarity lies in the placement of the solo cadenza immediately before the recapitulation instead of at the end of the movement. Despite these structural similarities, the two works are completely different in temperament. Whereas Mendelssohn is typically lyrical, Sibelius is brooding, with his characteristic craggy orchestrations that favored cellos, basses, and bassoons to form the canvas upon which the solo violin paints its dramatic narrative. Another strong identifying characteristic is the way in which his themes emerge and grow, as it were, from the middle of each measure.
The powerful first movement is followed by a more lyrical and luxurious Adagio di molto. It begins with an unsettled figure in the woodwinds that will take on a more dramatic cast as the movement progresses. The violin solo then presents a broad and expansive melody. The passionate central section calls upon the violinist to play sophisticated crossrhythms in double stops—another technique used by Mendelssohn in his own Violin Concerto.
The tempo indication of Allegro, ma non tanto (Lively, but not too much so) for the rondo finale needs to be taken at face value if the soloist hopes to finish the piece intact! The technical challenges for both the left hand and bow arm that the violin soloist must master are quite formidable and come in rapid fire. The opening theme has been described by Donald Francis Tovey as a “polonaise for polar bears.” But I can’t recall ever seeing these animals move at the speed Sibelius demands from his soloist. For all its fireworks, sheer technical dexterity is never evoked here for its own sake or for mere display. Passion also abides in this movement, as well as much evocative lyricism. ●
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 (B. 163) (1889)
The Czech master Antonín Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, on September 8, 1841, and died in Prague, May 1, 1904. His Symphony No. 8 is one of his most popular works, yielding only to Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World.”). It was composed in 1889 at Vysoká u Příbramě, Bohemia, on the occasion of his election to the Bohemian Academy of Science, Literature, and Arts. Dvořák conducted its premiere in Prague on February 2, 1890. It is scored for 2 flutes (second doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.
One of Dvořák’s most popular and tuneful works, his Symphony No. 8 reflects a happy time in the composer’s life. The composer had experienced a rise to international prominence in the early 1880s, spurred in part by the skill he brought to bear in embracing the Bohemian nationalism established by his elder compatriot Bedřich Smetana, but also by his growing mastery of form,
harmony, and orchestration. Johannes Brahms stood at the forefront of Dvořák’s admirers, working actively to promote Dvořák’s music among Austrian and German audiences and introducing the composer to the important music publisher Simrock.
Dvořák, however, was torn between two worlds. How could he foster his acceptance outside of his homeland without sacrificing the folk-like elements of Czech music that had become an essential element in his emerging style? Anti-Czech sentiment in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to which the Czech lands belonged, had been running high. A performance of Dvořák’s opera Dimitrij, which had been a success in Prague, was now being contemplated for Vienna. But the directors of the Court Opera in Vienna decided that the staging of a Czech nationalistic opera was too risky, and pressure mounted for Dvořák to consider selecting from two German librettos for a new opera. To make matters worse, Brahms was urging Dvořák to move to Vienna. Were Dvořák to accept these career moves, his future success was assured. The magnet of national identity proved too strong, however, and Dvořák respectfully declined the offer to compose the new opera. Thus freed, he turned his energies to other projects. The fact that these projects continued to include the composition of symphonies— Nos. 7 (1885) and 8 (1889)—demonstrates that Dvořák could have things his way after all. The ongoing influence of Brahms’s symphonies, especially the Third Symphony, had become reconciled with Dvořák’s Czech muse and he was now free to integrate his folk idiom into the structural rigors of symphonic composition. It is no accident that Dvořák’s best, and most popular, three symphonies—Nos. 7, 8, and 9 (“From the New World”)—all came into being after the watershed events described above.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 is one of his most lyrical, and some writers have seen in it a kinship to the spirit of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. The work is filled with fascinating innovations. Take, for example, the beautiful g-minor theme that begins the Allegro con brio first movement, a melody that presents itself softly and expressively in the clarinets, bassoons, horns, and lower strings, only to yield ground to the “real” first theme—a jaunty one with crisply dotted rhythms—chirped by the solo flute. The lyrical theme reappears at the start of the development section, and once again at the movement’s climax, now boldly blared by the trumpets against a tumultuous cascade of chromatic scales in the strings. The opening of the beautiful Adagio second movement in c minor shows how much Dvořák had learned from Brahms and Schubert. As in the first movement, Dvořák contrasts mellow timbres with brighter upper woodwinds. A haunting effect is created by the clarinets, who respond to each of the flute and oboe phrases with cadences that constantly shift modes. A contrasting major-key theme is introduced, punctuated by staccato chords in the brass and delicate scales in the violins.
The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso in g minor, features a graceful folk-like waltz theme. The three-part design introduces another lilting theme, this time in G Major, as the central Trio section. An unusual coda follows the return of the opening section, in which the tempo shifts unexpectedly to Molto vivace and the meter changes from triple to duple. The symphony’s finale presents a theme-and-variation structure, prefaced by a stirring and memorable trumpet
fanfare. The cellos then sing the principal theme, which is followed by a sequence of formal variations. This soon yields to an outburst of unbridled jubilation in the whole orchestra, highlighted by brilliant and raucous trills in the horns. Later in the movement, we hear a quasi-serious march in c minor reminiscent of a rag-tag village band. The march becomes more assertive, subjected to a host of descending sequences, until the opening fanfare brings things down to earth. The variation theme returns, only to transform itself this time into a sublime reverie. The jubilant outburst returns, marking the onset of an exciting coda. ●
Ernest Bloch
Concerto Grosso No. 2 in g minor (1952)
Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch was born on July 24, 1880, in Geneva, Switzerland, and died on July 15, 1959, in Portland, Oregon. Born of Jewish parents, much of his best-known music reflects various aspects of Jewish culture and identity, including, among others, Schelomo: Hebraic Rhapsody for Violoncello and Orchestra (1915–1916), Sacred Service (Avodat Hakodesh) (1930–1933), and the Baal Shem Suite for Violin (1923, orchestrated 1939). His early training was that of a violinist, having studied with the famous Belgian artist Eugene Ysaÿe. His compositional studies began in Germany and continued in Paris and Geneva. He settled in the United States in 1916, later becoming an American citizen. His activities as a teacher made him one of the most sought-after pedagogues and his students included George Antheil, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, and Roger Sessions. He was appointed professor of composition at the Mannes School of Music, and in 1920 was the first Musical Director of the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1925, he moved to California to direct the San Francisco Conservatory, co-founded the Music Academy of the West, and lectured at UC Berkeley. He spent the later years of his life teaching and composing in Oregon. The Concerto Grosso No. 2 dates from 1952.
Bloch’s musical style was a mix of the old and the new, applying modern twists to tonal and even modal harmonies. He also revealed himself at times to be a neoclassicist, as revealed in his two works entitled Concerto Grosso. The second one, in g minor for string quartet and string orchestra, was composed in 1952 and was published the next year. Its premiere took place on April 11, 1953, with Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the BBC Orchestra. The work comprises four movements. The first movement roughly follows the outline of the French opera overture structure of the Baroque by using a broad Maestoso opening that leads to a fugal Allegro, ending with a modified return of the Maestoso that morphs into the style of the poetic Andante second movement that proceeds without interruption. The third movement is a vigorous Allegro filled with rhythmic energy, The finale, Tranquillo- Animato, again evokes the Baroque era by using a descending series of notes that are treated, in Bach-like fashion, as the basis of a continuous series of variations known as a passacaglia. ●
Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 104 in D Major, Hob. I:104, “London” (1795)
[Franz] Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, on March 31, 1732, and died in Vienna on May 31, 1809. His long and productive career spanned the end of the Baroque era to the onset of the Romantic era. Famed for his incomparable contribution to the development of the symphony and string quartet, Haydn composed an enormous amount of music in other genres, including sacred choral music. The Symphony No. 104 in D Major was his final composition in the genre that he came to define during his long and fruitful career. The work was a product from his second tour of England from 1794–1795. The premiere of the work took place in the King’s Theater in London on May 4, 1795, as part of an all-Haydn concert under the composer’s direction. The subtitle “London” was not given by the composer, and in England it is known as the “Salomon,” in recognition of the German-born violinist/entrepreneur Johann Peter Salomon, who arranged for the composer’s two tours of England. It is interesting to note, however, that the concert series on which the work was first performed was not arranged by Salomon, but one of his rivals Giovanni Battista Viotti. Haydn’s final symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.
Joseph Haydn did not invent the symphony, as implied by the popular idea that he was the “father” of the genre (as well as the string quartet). His Symphony No. 104 represents the capstone of his career as a composer of symphonies, achieving at once a high watermark in its own right, as well as setting the table for subsequent generations of composers, including his pupil Beethoven, whose studies with Haydn began in 1792. Haydn was one of the most fortunate composers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in that, starting in 1761, he enjoyed the steady patronage of the wealthy and powerful Esterhazy family of Hungarian princes, for whom he composed an astonishing large number of compositions. It mattered little to the younger Haydn that his workload was exceedingly heavy and that his compositions were the sole property of his employer. Greater artistic freedom would come his way eventually, leading to commissions from Paris in the 1780s (Symphonies 82–87), and London (Symphonies 93–104). As Haydn’s fame grew, the Esterhazy princes gave him freedom to sell his compositions to publishers as well as to accept foreign commissions.
The Adagio introduction to the first movement of Symphony No. 104 in D Major begins with a brilliant fanfare motive that immediately arrests the audience’s attention. A mysterious excursion into the minor mode ensues, continuing right up to the start of the movement’s main body, an ebullient Allegro in the cheerful major mode. As is quite common in Haydn’s sonata-form movements, this Allegro is essentially monothematic, deriving nearly all of its motivic content from its folk-like opening theme. Haydn’s playful wit is also found in abundance, displaying a youthful spirit that one might not expect from a composer who was sixty-three years old. The second movement, an Andante in G Major, offers a contrast in tempo as well as tonality. Its disarmingly naive principal theme is presented in the strings, only to take unexpected harmonic twists that serve as harbingers of deeper ranges of expression explored as the movement unfolds. Commentators and audiences also have taken note of the freedom granted to the solo flute toward the movement’s conclusion. The third movement is a vigorous Minuet and Trio, with the Minuet filled with unexpected accents on the second beat of its triple meter as well as sudden humorous pauses. The central Trio section takes a gentler folk-like turn, typical of the Austrian Ländler, before the return of the Minuet.
Most Haydn scholars agree that the main theme of the symphony’s finale, Spiritoso, is based on the Croatian folk song “Oj, Jelena, Jelena, jabuka zelena” (“Oh, Helen, Helen, Green Apple of Mine”). Haydn was born and lived most of his life at the crossroads of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia, and was exposed to a wide variety of folk traditions. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that many of these ethnic influences made their way into Haydn’s music. Perhaps only a genius of Haydn’s caliber, however, could reward these folk idioms with the sophistication of a symphonist without sacrificing the earthiness of their sources. ●
Claude Debussy
“Clair de lune” (1890)
(Achille-) Claude Debussy was born on August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain-en- Laye (near Paris) and died in Paris on March 25, 1918. One of the seminal geniuses of modernism at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, his idiosyncratic compositions were often described as analogous to that of the revolution in the world of French painting known as Impressionism. Interestingly, Debussy himself shunned the comparison. He composed many important orchestral works, including Nocturnes (1893–1899), Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun (1894), and La Mer (1903–1905). His best-known work that is often played on symphony concerts, however, is an orchestration (not by the composer) of the third movement from his Suite bergamasque for solo piano (1890, published 1905), “Clair de Lune.”
Just as was the case with Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, “Clair de lune” is inspired by a poem of the same name by the French symbolist Paul Verlaine. Gabriel Fauré set the poem for voice and piano in 1887, and Debussy also made two settings of it. Verlaine’s poem reads as follows:
Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau, Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau, Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
Your soul is a chosen landscape Where charming masquerades and dancers are promenading, Playing the lute and dancing, and almost Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.
While singing in a minor key Of victorious love, and the pleasant life They seem not to believe in their own happiness And their song blends with the light of the moon,
With the sad and beautiful light of the moon, Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming, And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy, The slender water streams among the marble statues.
The wistful melancholy and lyricism of Verlaine’s poem finds beautiful expression in Debussy’s instrumental setting, cast as a dreamy Andante très expressif in 9/8 meter. ●
Gabriel Fauré
Élégie, Op. 24 (1880)
French composer, organist, pianist, and educator Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, Ariège, on May 12, 1845, and died in Paris on November 4, 1924. His earliest musical training took place at the School of Classical and Religious Music (later Niedermayer School). Camille Saint-Saëns later introduced Fauré to the music of more contemporary composers, including Liszt and Wagner. Fauré went on to serve in many capacities as a teacher and composer. By the end of his life, he was acknowledged to be the peerless master of French songs, although he also composed many significant works in a wide variety of genres. His lyrical gifts are on ample display in his Élégie for cello and piano, composed in 1880 and dedicated to and first performed by Jules-Léopold Loeb. The version for cello and orchestra dates from 1901 and was first performed in April of that year by Pablo Casals with the Sociétë Nationale.
Fauré’s Élégie (Elegy), is, understandably, one of the most beloved works in the vast repertory of compositions for the violoncello. Originally conceived as the slow movement of a planned, but unfinished, sonata for cello and piano, the standalone movement was premiered at the salon of Camille Saint-Saëns. A work of the deepest pathos, Fauré’s gift as a melodist and composer for the human voice is evident from the very first phrase—a descending line in the cello part played over a throbbing repeated chord in the accompaniment. Solace is offered by the middle section of the piece, which departs from the c-minor opening into a more hopeful major mode, but this, too, leads to a passage of vehement expression. After a loud and impassioned return of the opening theme, the music ultimately settles down, ending calmly in a gesture of resignation. ●
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G Major (1929–1931)
Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, Basses Pyrénées, France, on March 7, 1875, and died in Paris on December 28, 1937. His Piano Concerto in G Major was composed in 1929–1931 simultaneously with the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. The Concerto in G Major is dedicated to the pianist Marguerite Long, who premiered the work on January 14, 1932, in Paris. It is scored for solo piano, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, percussion, harp, and strings.
After Ravel’s highly successful tour of the United States in 1928, hopes for a second one followed. The Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned Ravel to provide a concerto for piano and orchestra for its fiftieth anniversary, with the expectation that the composer would also serve as soloist. The composer began work on this piece in 1929. He continued the process through 1931, working simultaneously on the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, a work composed for Paul Wittgenstein. Ravel considered this double assignment to be an “interesting experiment.” To his credit, he succeeded in inventing two distinctly individual compositions, despite the danger of confusing the two projects.
Ravel completed the Wittgenstein piece in August of 1930. Fatigued by the effort, Ravel communicated to a friend his concern that work on the two pieces was causing him considerable tension.
He subsequently abandoned the idea of performing the Piano Concerto in G Major himself, and he passed that honor instead to the work’s dedicatee, Marguerite Long. She gave its premiere performance in Paris on January 14, 1932. Ravel did play the work later in Europe, but never in the United States as originally planned.
Ravel remarked that the Piano Concerto in G Major was conceived in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. Indeed, the five concertos by the latter represented the finest achievements in this genre by any French composer before this time. The Mozartian inspiration may be discerned in Ravel’s Adagio assai, whose exquisite music evokes the slow movement of Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings. Further influences—most notably those of Stravinsky and of jazz— also figure prominently in the piece, whose effervescence derives from a piquant harmonic language, brilliant orchestration, and virtuosic passagework for the soloist. ●
Franz Schubert
Symphony No. 8 in b minor, D. 759, “Unfinished” (1822)
Franz Peter Schubert was born in Vienna on January 21, 1797, and died there on November 19, 1828. He composed a wide variety of music, but his most enduring contributions were to the repertory of song for voice and piano. As best as can be determined, Schubert composed over six hundred accompanied songs in his brief life, as well as a large number of solo piano compositions, operas, sacred vocal works, and chamber music. His gift as a lyrical composer may also be heard in his purely instrumental music, including his popular “Unfinished” Symphony of 1822, which is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
Composed in the autumn of 1822, this symphony is the best-loved of Schubert’s orchestral music. For the record, Schubert completed two movements of this symphony and sketched a third (scherzo), nine measures of which were fully scored. Part of the appeal of the “Unfinished” Symphony lies in the mystery that surrounds its incomplete status, and many theories have been suggested as to why Schubert abandoned it in midstream. The notion that he intended it to be a two-movement composition is disputed by the sketch for a scherzo. Another theory stating that Schubert did compose a third and fourth movement that subsequently became lost has been refuted due to lack of evidence. It has been documented, however, that at the time Schubert was working on its composition he contracted syphilis, causing him to become very ill, not to mention the psychological effect that this must have had on him. Martin Chusid has offered a still more likely theory that Schubert did not finish this, and several other works from roughly the same period, due to a personal compositional crisis fostered largely by the composer’s desire to “confront” his imposing contemporary Beethoven. It should be remembered that Beethoven not only was still alive at this time, but had yet to compose his own Ninth Symphony, and that Schubert was a somewhat shy admirer of the musical giant.
One need hardly wonder how awestruck the young Schubert would have been by the model of Beethoven’s instrumental music. Schubert’s own efforts, as wonderful as many of them are, often fail to measure up to Beethoven’s in many points of detail, most notably the finales to his multi-movement works. Might this not best explain why Schubert was reluctant to finish the “Unfinished”? As fate would have it, this great composition remained largely unknown—and completely unperformed—until 1865.
Modern judgment reveals that Schubert need not have been afraid to offer what exists of the “Unfinished” Symphony to his contemporaries, since it shows that Schubert was beginning to explore new possibilities in symphonic construction and thought that were even more forward-looking than Beethoven. In terms of aesthetic and form, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony pointed toward the Romantic in its thematic and tonal elements. Perhaps this work, more than any other, marks the true beginning of Romanticism in orchestral music, even if it went unknown and unperformed until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. We can only speculate as to how influential it might have become had it been performed and published earlier. Its influence, however, was not lost on latenineteenth-century symphonists, including Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. ●
Franz Liszt
Les préludes (Symphonic Poem No. 3), S. 97 (1849–1854)
Franz Liszt was born on October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Austria (Doborján, Hungary), and died on July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany. Hungarian by nationality, Liszt was one of the first great piano virtuosos of the modern era. Les préludes (Symphonic Poem No. 3) was composed between 1849 and 1854. Its premiere took place on February 23, 1854, in Weimar under the composer’s direction. It is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.
Franz Liszt is a composer who defies simple categorization. No sooner do we identify him as a virtuoso pianist, when his accomplishments as a conductor and composer of symphonic poems come into view. Accuse him of bombast and the understated softness of Nuages gris whispers in our ear. His reputation as an egoist is given lie by the generosity he exhibited toward Chopin, Berlioz, Wagner, and many other composers. The notorious young womanizer morphs into the devout Catholic cleric of maturity. Mephistopheles becomes Abbé Liszt.
One of the foremost dilemmas facing composers in the nineteenth century was the issue of how to write symphonies in the wake of Beethoven’s daunting achievement. What remained to be said in this genre? Could one write “better” symphonies? Had the symphony—a genre whose history began in the middle of the eighteenth century—arrived at its endpoint in less than one hundred years? Each composer after Beethoven who desired to write for orchestral forces had to find his or her own answer. The resulting repertory represents an astonishing variety of solutions. Many German composers—chief among them Schumann, Mendelssohn, Spohr, Brahms, and Bruckner—continued to write symphonies. Even these conservative composers, however, infused, or rather superimposed, many of their works with extra-musical references (think of Mendelssohn’s “Italian” and “Scottish” Symphonies, for example).
—Franz Liszt
Another alternative was a Lisztian invention—the symphonic poem. This kind of piece was an outgrowth and extension of the concert overture (which might be said to have its roots in some of Beethoven’s overtures such as Coriolan, the Leonore Overtures, and Egmont).
The symphonic poem is best defined as a one-movement orchestral work with a title derived from a piece of literature, a historical event or figure, or a work of visual art. Liszt contributed thirteen such pieces to the repertoire, the first twelve of which were composed during his period as Music Director at Weimar between the late 1840s and 1861 (the last one, From the Cradle to the Grave, was composed toward the end of Liszt’s career). All of the twelve original symphonic poems are dedicated to the composer’s muse, the Princess Caroline Sayn-Wittgenstein. Liszt’s most illustrious successor in the genre was Richard Strauss.
Having conquered the world of the piano, Liszt had turned his attention toward conducting and the composition of symphonic music, oratorio, and opera (Wagner’s Lohengrin received its first performance under Liszt’s baton in 1850). His inexperience as a composer for orchestra led him to seek help from several people, including his copyist August Conradi and the composer Joachim Raff. Liszt also learned from the example of the two composers whose music he championed and prized most highly—Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner. Les préludes, the third, and by far the most popular of Liszt’s symphonic poems, had a complicated compositional history. Its musical ideas began between 1845 and 1849 as an overture to a choral work Les quatre élémens, based on texts by Joseph Autran. Sometime during this period, Liszt scribbled a reference to the title Les préludes in reference to one of the Nouvelles meditations poétiques. The overture’s evolution into the symphonic poem we now know took place in the years 1853–1854. The composer conducted the premiere on February 23, 1854, in Weimar. Just as Berlioz had done at the premiere of his Symphonie fantastique, Liszt issued a vague program to his audience, the text of which appeared also in the published score in 1856:
What else is life but a series of preludes to that unknown hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death? Love is the dawn of all existence; but what fate is there whose first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, whose fine illusions are not dissipated by some mortal blast, consuming its altar as though by a stroke of lightning? And what cruelly wounded soul, issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to solace its memories in the calm serenity of rural life? Nevertheless, man does not resign himself for long to the enjoyment of that beneficent stillness, which he first enjoyed in Nature’s bosom, and when “the trumpet sounds the alarm” he takes up his post, no matter how dangerous may be the struggle which calls him to its ranks, that he may recover in combat the full consciousness of himself and his powers.
While the “program” of Les préludes cannot be said to have driven the creation of the music, it does serve as a useful guidepost for audiences to the work’s broad structural articulations. What unifies the piece is the continual series of thematic transformations of the one primary melodic idea. “What is life but a series of preludes … ?” refers to the quizzical nature of the work’s opening, especially the upward-turning figure in the strings beginning in the third measure that serves as the thematic lynchpin for the rest of the piece. This figure bears an uncanny resemblance to the “Muss es sein?” figure used by Beethoven in the finale of his String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135, which may suggest a double entendre on Liszt’s part. Interestingly, César Franck also used this musical motive in his Symphony in d minor (1889).
The introductory material leads inexorably to a solemn Andante maestoso that corresponds clearly to the “unknown hymn.” The lyrical melody stated in the second violins and cellos (“Love is the dawn of all existence…”) is yet another iteration, which itself evolves into newer transformations. The “storm” (Allegro ma non troppo) will be self-evident, as are the tripping 6/8 horn, oboe, and clarinet flourishes that usher in the “solace [and] calm serenity of rural life,” followed by the subsequent “alarm” of the trumpet. A triumphant return of the hymn—a reprise of the Andante maestoso—brings the work to a stirring conclusion. ●
