Program Notes

by Pam Davis, Assistant Concertmaster

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912)

Petite Suite de Concert, Opus 77 (1910)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in Victorian England the son of an African doctor and an Englishwoman. After his father returned to Africa, Coleridge-Taylor grew up with his mother and grandparents who encouraged his musical interest. He studied violin and piano at The Royal College of Music, where he was a classmate of Vaughan-Williams.

Dvořák was Coleridge-Taylor’s idol and his influence is said to be evident in some shorter works. Among his great compositional output, the work to make him famous was his critically acclaimed Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. After his death his works remained popular and years later, his son Hiawatha and his daughter Avril, who were also musicians conducted some of his works.

Before Coleridge-Taylor even visited the United States, a Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society was founded in Washington, D.C. for black singers. Three subsequent visits cemented his popularity where he was received by Theodore Roosevelt at the White House and became friends with W.E.B. Dubois. Dubois stated that the life and achievement of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor showed what could happen if the artificial restraints placed on African American children were removed. The international sensation lived in relative poverty; his tragic death from pneumonia at 37 years old was said to be caused by exhaustion from overwork.

Primarily a light composition, the Petite Suite has been said to be somewhere between Elgar and Arthur Sullivan, his elder contemporaries. Elgar helped Coleridge-Taylor get published and described him as “far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the younger men.”

Opening with a bold announcement, the first movement, La Caprice de Nanette, relaxes into a charming waltz. Demande et Réponse, the second movement, has a melody reminiscent of popular songs of the day. A peaceful ballet-like interlude follows with Un Sonnet d’Amour. The final movement, Tarantella Frétillante, erupts in a mad dash to the finish with its ‘fretting tarantella’. e WORLD EVENTS: Stravinsky’s Firebird premieres in Paris, Mother Teresa is born, Florence Nightingale dies e FIRST PERFORMANCE: April 20, 1911, Bournemouth, England e MOST RECENT SSO PERFORMANCE: Tonight is the SSO premiere

Antonin Dvořák (1841 -1904)

Slavonic Dances, Opus 46 (1878)

Born to a Bohemian peasant family, Dvořák was apprenticed to his butcher father until his musical interest and ability were recognized, when his family agreed to his pursuit of a musical career.

For the Slavonic Dances which catapulted Dvořák to fame, he indirectly had Brahms to thank. Brahms had recommended Dvořák to his publisher, who then commissioned him to write a set of dances in the style of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances. His first extended use of authentic Czech dance forms, this set was originally for piano four hands, then imme48

diately arranged for orchestra. Whereas Brahms’s work utilized actual folk tunes, Dvořák employed the folk rhythms and attitudes while the melodies were strictly his own.

The success of Opus 46 prompted composition of a second set published in 1887 as Opus 72.

Explaining the rapid popularity of the dances, composer and publisher Franz Hoffmeister said at the time “nationalism in music was beginning to be appreciated and the Slavonic Dances came as a distinct revelation. They were, it was felt, authentic, springing directly from the soul of the people. Something of the Slavic character speaks in every phrase of them—the stormy high-spirited mood of the Furiants; the whimsical merriment, the charm, the touch of coquetry, the ardent tenderness of the lyrical passages.” e WORLD EVENTS: First moving pictures caught on camera, Carl Sandburg is born, Sarasate’s Ziguenerweisen premieres e FIRST PERFORMANCE: Unknown e MOST RECENT SSO PERFORMANCE: March 1995, Bob Lappin, conductor

Sergei Prokofiev (1891 -1953)

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 2, G Minor, Opus 16 (1913)

His first two piano concertos were written while Prokofiev was still a student at St. Petersburg Conservatory. A precocious child, he wrote his first piano piece at five years of age and was playing Beethoven sonatas at nine. He was admitted to the conservatory at 13 and was a rebellious student who did not excel in his studies, including those with Rimsky-Korsakov.

His early piano concertos exhibited a distancing from the prevailing tastes. The first concerto established his maverick reputation and critics complained of its superficial bravura and exhibitionist, “acrobatic” technique. The second concerto was partly an effort to demonstrate greater depth, but the result was even more technical difficulty.

The score of this work was lost when he came to America: he left it in his apartment where his tenants used it as fuel to cook an omelet! Prokofiev reconstructed the score in 1923 and we will never know for sure how much it changed from the original. But its impact was dramatic. One critic wrote of the premiere that it left the audience “frozen with fright, hair standing on end.” It is said that he took his bow to hisses and defiantly performed an encore.

The form of the work is unconventional: it is in four movements and there is no slow movement. The first movement contains the only delicate and lyrical theme in the work. The traditional development and recapitulation morphs into a virtuoso cadenza. The orchestra only returns for the very end of the movement. Nonstop sixteenth notes create the perpetual motion of the scherzo, with the orchestra commenting along the way. The intermezzo also departs from the expected: over a repeating bass line a fierce march is heard. A skirmish between soloist and orchestra comprises the finale with the soloist the clear winner. Surprisingly, there is a brief interlude with a folk-like melody followed by another ornate cadenza before the discordant chords that troubled that first audience close out the work. e WORLD EVENTS: Richard Nixon is born, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring premieres,

Harriet Tubman dies e FIRST PERFORMANCE: September 5, 1913, Pavlovsk, Russia, with the composer as soloist e MOST RECENT SSO PERFORMANCE: Tonight is the SSO premiere