Program Notes

NOTES BY LORI NEWMAN/ RAVEN CHACON

Raven Chacon

Ashdla’ (2022)

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona, within the Navajo Nation in 1977. He holds degrees from the University of New Mexico (BA in Fine Arts) and the California Institute of the Arts (MFA in music composition). In 2022, he became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his work Voiceless Mass. Written in 2022, Chacon’s Ashdla’ was commissioned by I Musici de Montréal. The work is scored for string orchestra. Approximately 7 minutes.

About Ashdla’:

Chacon has a series of compositions that are titled after Navajo words for numbers. The works in the series are musical studies, but the sequence of the numbered titles does not follow a chronological order. Numbers are assigned to the compositions according to formal considerations, effects, or instruments used; spatial relations between players; and other musical or non-musical factors. Ashdla’ (five) is the fourteenth composition in this series.

NOTES BY DAVID B. LEVY

Ludwig van Beethoven

Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61 (1806)

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 15 or 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany, and died in Vienna, Austria, on March 26, 1827. His Violin Concerto, Op. 61 was composed in 1806, a particularly productive year that also yielded the three String Quartets, Op. 59 (“Razumovsky”), the Fourth Symphony, Op. 60, and the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58. The work received its first performance in Vienna on December 23, 1806, with Franz Clement as soloist. Beethoven dedicated the work to his friend Stephan von Breuning. It is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximately 45 minutes.

Beethoven completed only one violin concerto, although among the surviving fragments from his youth in Bonn is an incomplete Concerto in C Major. Two Romances, Op. 40 and 50, and the “Triple” Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello complete the résumé of Beethoven’s compositions for violin and orchestra. Composed in 1806, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto stands in solitary splendor, not only among his own works, but among all other works in the genre. Even its closest rival, the Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms, was modeled closely on Beethoven’s towering example. Beethoven himself had several models from which to work, including the violin concertos of Mozart and Haydn. Works for violin, including concertos, by Kreutzer, Rode, and Viotti also were important models. These violinist-composers are better known by pupils of the violin than by the general public, but they were most certainly known by Beethoven, who, although not primarily a violinist, had a working knowledge of the instrument.

Thanks to the research of Clive Brown and a subsequent recording by Rachel Barton Pine, we now know that Beethoven had a more direct model for his Violin Concerto. The work owes its existence to an 1806 commission from Franz Clement (1780–1842), a Viennese musical prodigy and virtuoso who was the concertmaster of Vienna’s Theater an der Wien with whom Beethoven had previously worked on other projects. Clement’s virtuosity was matched by a phenomenal memory, and he was alleged to have been able to commit to memory large-scale choral works and operas, including Haydn’s The Creation and Beethoven’s Fidelio, upon only one hearing. Two important compositions were featured on a concert organized by Clement that took place in the Theater an der Wien of April 7, 1805. One of them was the first public performance of Beethoven’s mighty “Eroica” Symphony, Op. 55, under the composer’s direction. The other was a Violin Concerto in D Major composed and performed by Clement—a work whose outer movements were a clear influence on Beethoven’s own concerto in the same key. Clive Brown’s research reveals that Clement most likely played a role in the evolution of Beethoven’s masterpiece. Curiously, many details of the solo part were left undecided and unwritten, even after Clement gave the work its first performance on December 23, 1806. The fact that Beethoven wrote the following pun on the autograph of the score, “Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement, primo violino al Theatro a Vienne, dal L. v. Bthvn. 1806” (Concerto, composed with mercy, for Clement, first violinist at the Theater an der Wien), strongly suggests Beethoven’s respect for Clement and his own concerto.

Concerto, composed with mercy, for Clement, first violinist at the Theater an der Wien.

—Ludwig van Beethoven

The earliest Viennese critics had a difficult time coming to terms with the lofty vision expressed in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. This is understandable in part because its first movement alone is one of the longest and most symphonically conceived works of its kind. The immense and tuneful orchestral ritornello that begins the work, with its five taps on the kettledrum, immediately reveal the scope of Beethoven’s sublime plan, a work characterized by Maynard Solomon as filled with “inner repose,” despite its moments of real drama and (in the development section) pathos. No less sublime is the exquisite dialogue between soloist and orchestra that defines the second movement, a serene Larghetto that is loosely structured along the lines of a theme and variations. A brief cadenza (Eingang) for the soloist at the end connects the Larghetto to the final movement, a Rondo (Allegro), a vigorous and pastoral piece whose overall ethos evokes the spirit of the hunt (a common device in many finales in the classical style). A moment that rarely fails to delight audiences is the two pizzicato notes (plucking the open A and D strings with the fingers). As best as has been determined, this is the first major violin concerto to call upon this technique. This gesture, as well as many other passages that exhibit the idiomatic nature of the violin as a bowed string instrument, render Beethoven’s own transcription of this piece as a concerto for piano, a request that came in 1807 from his contemporary Muzio Clementi, rather unsatisfactory. The Violin Concerto, a work that cast a long shadow on subsequent generations, stands as the first work of its kind in the grand style and the true queen of its genre.

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 1 in c minor, Op. 68 (1855–1876)

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany, and died in Vienna, Austria, on April 3, 1897. One of the dominant composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms greatly enriched the repertory for piano, organ, chamber music, chorus, art song, and orchestra. His Symphony No. 1 was composed between 1855 and 1876 and received its first performance in Karlsruhe on November 4, 1876, under the direction of Felix Otto Dessoff. The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximately 45 minutes.

The four symphonies of Johannes Brahms stand as monuments to Beethoven. No composer of symphonies after Beethoven could escape the shadow of his nine masterpieces. Mendelssohn’s solution to the problem was to circumvent them by returning to a Mozartian ideal. Robert Schumann struggled consciously to measure up by attempting to synthesize a historical perspective with novel innovations. Berlioz and Liszt followed the path of the “program” symphony, attaching extra-musical ideas to their purely musical inventions, while Richard Wagner self-servingly decreed that after the choral Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, purely instrumental symphonies were an impossibility. Musicians such as Joachim Raff, Niels Gade, or Louis Spohr also penned symphonies, but these are regarded nowadays as historical curiosities. Some composers, such as Chopin, became specialists who avoided the issue entirely by writing no symphonies at all.

Brahms was so acutely aware of the problem, that for a long time it seemed that he, too, would avoid composing symphonies. His sketches for the Piano Concerto No. 1 indicate that the first movement of that mighty work was at one

Brahms was roundly criticized by some for cribbing […] from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, to which the composer replied in his typically gruff manner:

Any jackass can see that!

time intended to belong to a symphony. His subsequent works for orchestra—A German Requiem, the two Serenades (Op. 11 and 16), and the Variations on a Theme of Haydn (St. Anthony Chorale), and other choral works—all veered away from the title symphony. In the early 1860s, Brahms began to sketch ideas for what would emerge as his Symphony No. 1, but he did not finish work on it until 1876. (Sketches from the mid–1850s also were implemented.) An early draft of the first movement omitted the powerful Un poco sostenuto introduction, one of the many great inspirations of the work. But now in his forties, Brahms felt confident enough to take the plunge.

The wait was worthwhile. Few first attempts at composing a symphony, except, perhaps the one by Gustav Mahler, were as imposing as this one. Sure of his craft and purpose, Brahms approached the Beethovenian model head on. The most obvious points of reference for this symphony were Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 9. The latter must be included for the obvious similarity between the melody of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and the principal theme in the finale of Brahms’s Symphony. Brahms was roundly criticized by some for cribbing this tune directly from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, to which the composer replied in his typically gruff manner: “Any jackass can see that!” More recently, musicologist Mark Evan Bonds has suggested that Brahms’s purely instrumental finale represented an alternative to Beethoven’s choral last movement, i.e., a melody akin to the “Ode to Joy” without the need for words. As was the case in Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 9, Brahms begins his symphony with a dramatic and tragic first movement, ending in a triumphant finale representing the victory of light over dark.

Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 begins solemnly with a slow introduction that presents not only the main ideas of the first movement, but those of the entire work—two chromatic lines that pull in contrary motion. At the outset, the descending line is heard in the winds, while the strings surge upward. The tension that this creates is intensified by the throbbing pulse of the timpani that tenaciously hangs on to one note, refusing to yield ground. These frictions are exploited in the sonata-form Allegro, but now these opposing lines are given an angular rhythmic profile. The movement concludes with a shortened version of the introduction, with the minor mode yielding, almost in exhaustion, to the parallel C Major (a characteristic found at the end of the first movement of Beethoven’s final Piano Sonata, Op. 111). The Andante sostenuto that follows offers relief from the first movement’s tension in a serene distant key of E Major, well prepared by the first movement’s last-moment shift to C Major. Its mood derives from the hymnal quality of its opening theme. A particularly beautiful timbre is created by the oboe, horn, and solo violin at the end of the movement. Once again, the composer prepares the ear for a shift to a foreign tonality (A-flat Major) by having the solo violin cling to the note G sharp (G sharp=A flat) at the end of the Andante sostenuto The third movement, Un poco allegretto, provides further contrast of mood and tonality (A-flat Major, with a central section in B Major). Brahms wisely avoids the demonic energy of a Beethovenian scherzo at this point, saving that energy for the finale to come. The final movement begins with a moody Adagio, reminiscent of the introduction to the first movement. Listeners should pay close attention to its first few notes, as they are a minormode prefiguration of the wonderful and familiar tune that will dominate the finale. As the introduction builds to a climax, a Piu andante ensues with a new—and brighter—theme in the horns, presented over rustling string accompaniment. The trombones then intone a noble and solemn “chorale.” Now follows the famous Allegro non troppo, ma con brio that comprises the main body of the finale, as the listener luxuriates in the affirmative tune that the opening of the introduction had prefigured. The Symphony closes with a jubilant coda, crowned by a powerful restatement of the trombone “chorale.”

Richard Wagner

Siegfried Idyll, WWV 103 (1869–1870)

[Wilhelm] Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany, and died in Venice, Italy, on February 13, 1883. His early operas represented the high point of German Romantic opera. His later operas, including the cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, charted new paths for the development of music drama that was to have a profound impact on the history of opera and beyond. Siegfried Idyll is a work that was first performed on Christmas Day 1870 at his home, Triebschen, in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. Originally written for a small chamber ensemble, Wagner later expanded its orchestration to include flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, and strings. Approximately 17 minutes.

Siegfried Idyll offers a chance to hear some of the gentler moments from Wagner’s epic operatic cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. Even more, it offers a fascinating glance inside the private domestic life of the composer, his wife, Cosima (the daughter of Franz Liszt and former wife of the famous conductor Hans von Bülow), and their children, Isolde, Eva, and their youngest, Siegfried (Fidi), who was born in June 1869. These offspring all were born while Cosima technically was still married to von Bülow. The conductor finally agreed to a divorce and Cosima and Richard got married on August 25, 1870. When Wagner’s affair began, he was still married, albeit unhappily, to Minna (née Planer), but the two had long been separated. Almost by a stroke of convenience, Minna died in 1866.

The piece at hand, originally titled Triebschen Idyll with Fidi’s Birdsong and the Orange Sunrise, was written later that year as a birthday gift to Cosima (she was born on December 24 but always celebrated her birthday on Christmas Day). It also was a personal expression of Richard’s personal happiness at his newly found domestic bliss. Its musical content is a blending of themes and motives from Act III of the opera Siegfried, which is the third part of the Ring cycle. The themes from the opera are first sung by Brünnhilde (“From Eternity to Eternity Am I” and “Siegfried, You Glorious Protector of the World”), and the references to the Wagners’ son is unmistakable. The piece also contains snatches of the “Forest Murmurs” from Act II of the same opera. Another theme, played by the oboe, is a German cradle song, “Sleep, Little Baby, Sleep.” Wagner biographer Ernest Newman takes this to be a reference to the couple’s daughter, Eva. Because the family was strapped for cash, Wagner agreed in 1878 to sell the piece, with expanded orchestration, to the publisher B. Schott Söhne.

Cosima’s diary offers a vignette of the impact that Siegfried Idyll made upon her and the family:

As I awoke [on December 25, 1870] my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming; music was sounding, and such music! When it died away, Richard came into my room with the children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was in tears, but so was all the rest of the household. Richard had arranged his orchestra on the staircase, and thus was our Triebschen consecrated forever. … After lunch, the orchestra came into the house downstairs, and now the Idyll was heard once again, to the profound emotion of us all.

Robert Schumann

Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major, “Spring,” Op. 38 (1841)

Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Germany (Saxony), and died on July 29, 1856, at the Endenich asylum, near Bonn. His Symphony No. 1 was composed between January 23 and February 20, 1841. Felix Mendelssohn conducted its first performance on March 31 of that year at a concert of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, triangle, and strings. Approximately 30 minutes.

There may be some truth to the notion that says that when one is in love, everything looks fresh and springlike. The period of 1840–41 was very much a springtime in the life of Robert Schumann, who, after the wintery disapproval of Friedrich Wieck, had finally been joined in wedlock to Wieck’s daughter Clara. No wonder then that these words from a poem by Adolf Böttger resonated in Schumann’s very soul:

O wende, wende deinen Lauf, O turn, turn from thy course, Im Tale blüht der Frühling auf!

In the valley the springtime blooms forth!

The rhythm of Böttger’s poetry fits perfectly to the horn and trumpet motto that opens Schumann’s inaugural effort as a symphonist.

Robert and Clara could barely restrain their enthusiasm for Robert’s venture into what for him was a brave new world. The mantle of symphonist did not fall easily on Schumann’s shoulders, as witnessed by his frequent revisions of his three other symphonies. But a sheer sense of exhilaration somehow carries his First Symphony on its wings, and this “Spring” Symphony (Schumann’s own name for it) was launched into the world some six weeks after its completion at a concert of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig “with the greatest love and care” under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn.

The first movement begins, as indicated above, with a motto whose rhythmic pattern perfectly matches the words of Böttger’s poetry. The Andante un poco maestoso awakens the forces of the new season, which finally bursts forth, Allegro molto vivace, with a sped-up version of the motto as its principal theme. This movement is filled with many felicitous touches, not least of which is the delicate color of the triangle, an instrument that had never been used in quite this way. I cannot resist quoting the charmingly anachronistic and tongue-in-cheek observation of conductor and analyst Donald Francis Tovey here:

When Shakespeare called springtime ‘the only pretty ring time,’ he obviously referred to Schumann’s happy use of the triangle in the lighter passages of [the Allegro molto vivace].

The second movement is a beautiful Larghetto in triple meter. Its straightforward form is that of a five-part rondo, with the first theme presented with ever-new embellishments upon its reprises. Toward the end, Schumann introduces the trombones within a quiet dynamic, and in a quite unexpected manner, and the movement moves directly into the scherzo, Molto vivace. By this time, we realize that the composer had been foreshadowing the principal theme of his third movement, which now aggressively presents itself. The tonality, d minor, of the scherzo also comes as something of a surprise. Two distinct trio sections are introduced, the first of which is a duple-meter affair in D Major and is the essence of simplicity. The second trio is in the home key of B-flat.

The finale is marked Allegro animato e grazioso. Graciousness indeed is its principal quality. An interesting event is the moment when Schumann quotes the finale of his solo piano work Kreisleriana, which itself is based on the character created by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Robert and Clara were quite fond of epigrams, and this reference surely bore some special significance for the pair, just as it brings pleasure to those who recognize it.