SoNA
Symphony of Northwest Arkansas
Imagine Big October 29, 2022 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor
“Connecting Go BIG or Go HOME, the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1, and Pictures at an Exhibition is a spirit of ambition, imagination, and contagious energy that speaks to SoNA’s biggest season yet and our vibrant future.” – Paul Haas
Go BIG or Go HOME (2019)
Jessica Meyer has been making waves. A
Jessica Meyer
violist, a teacher, and a composer, she brings
b 1974
a sheaf of sensibilities to her wide-ranging and always fresh compositions. Electronics. Period instruments. Latin. Hip-Hop. Bluegrass. Funk. And, yes, Brahms.
They’re not musical directives you would encounter in the score of a Brahms
Go BIG or Go HOME dates from early 2019.
symphony. But there they are in the score
Meyer tells us that it began as the last
to Go BIG or Go HOME: Swervy Heavy Funk,
movement of a string quartet that she had
Slammin’, like a Burlesque solo, think Miami
written for Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble.
Afro-Cuban... ALWAYS FUN!
“When the opportunity came up for me
to make this arrangement,” she explains, “I
Shostakovich was not arrested, but he might
wanted to both showcase what the group can
have been. He had fallen afoul of Party
uniquely do while also writing in a way that
bigwigs twice during his career. In 1936 he
captures the spirit of what Miami inherently is.”
was taken severely to task, then threatened, in a Pravda article entitled “Muddle Instead
What Miami inherently is: a melting pot,
of Music,” his opera Lady Macbeth of the
bristling with energy and dynamism. “In
Mtsensk District having elicited Stalin’s
Go BIG or Go HOME, you will find hints
condemnation. It was only with the Fifth
of funk, bluegrass, and Latin while being
Symphony that Shostakovich was able to
driven by groove, virtuosity, and moments
crawl back into official good graces.
of improvisation allowing members of the group to put their own personal signature
In 1948 he landed in even deeper trouble,
on the piece.” But that isn’t to imply that
denounced via the “Zhdanov Doctrine”
this is just some unbuttoned free-for-all.
that aimed to cleanse Soviet music of what
Meyer emphasizes that “it is written from a
was considered decadent and modernistic.
place of self-realization, empowerment, and
The fist came down particularly hard on
celebration of how joyous life can be.”
Shostakovich: he was dismissed from his positions as professor in both the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories, while performances of his works were effectively banned. His very means of making a living
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107 (1959)
had been ripped away. And there he was, with his suitcase, sitting by the elevator door.
Dmitri Shostakovich b 25 September, 1906 in
Stalin died in 1953. Things got better. By
St. Petersburg, Russia
1959 Shostakovich was firmly re-established
d 9 August, 1975 in Moscow, Russia
as the Soviet Union’s greatest living composer, his music performed worldwide. And now he had written a cello concerto for his dear friend, the incomparable master
There was a time, from the late 1940s
cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Imbued with
through the early 1950s, when Dmitri
joyous energy and irresistible verve, Cello
Shostakovich would spend his nights sitting
Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107,
by the elevator door, suitcase at the ready,
comes off rather like the work of a much
so his family wouldn’t be disturbed when the
younger Shostakovich, one who had not been
authorities came to arrest him. Musicians
through the emotional and political traumas
are by and large harmless creatures and
of the previous decades.
rarely pose threats to the body politic, but life really could be that insecure for a composer
Shostakovich was blessed in writing for such
in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.
an Olympian cellist, but even Rostropovich
needed sensitive scoring to avoid being
by a single composer but involved the
drowned out by the orchestra. Only a few
significant contributions of an artist (Viktor
composers have achieved truly well-balanced
Hartmann), an editor (Nikolai Rimsky-
cello concertos—Dvořák and Elgar come
Korsakov), and a field of orchestrators
most readily to mind. Shostakovich nailed
(including Sir Henry Wood, Maurice Ravel,
it, by slimming down the orchestra and
and Leopold Stokowski.)
opening up abundant sonic space for the soloist, even to the extent of scoring the
Mussorgsky and the artist Viktor Hartmann
third movement for cello alone. The ravishing
met sometime around 1870. Their mutual
second movement is particularly effective,
devotion to nurturing a native Russian
with its dialogues between the cello and
art encouraged the blossoming of a solid
various wind instruments.
friendship, cut tragically short when Hartmann died in 1873 at the age of 39. A
Nota bene: a wisp of a tune runs through
year later the influential critic Viktor Stasov
the concerto—it’s the first four notes you
helped to organize a showing of Hartmann’s
hear and almost the last ones as well.
works at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine
It bears a family resemblance to the “DSCH”
Arts. That exhibition inspired Mussorgsky to
motto—four notes outlining Shostakovich’s
plunge into the composition of Pictures at
name—that recurs in much of Shostakovich’s
an Exhibition, originally titled Hartmann. Six
music at this time.
weeks later the work was finished, although it was never to be performed publicly during Mussorgsky’s lifetime. Music lovers are sometimes unaware that
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874, orch. 1922)
Mussorgsky wrote Pictures for solo piano; its
Modest Mussorgsky
In fact, the first known public performance
b 21 March, 1839 in Karevo, Russia
of the work, in November 1891, was an
d 28 March, 1881 in St. Petersburg, Russia
abridged orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov’s
history of orchestral transcription runs deep.
student Mikhail Tushmalov. Since then, Maurice Ravel, orch.
approximately thirty orchestral transcriptions
b 7 March, 1875 in Ciboure, France
have been made of Pictures at an Exhibition.
d 28 Decenber, 1937 in Paris, France Maurice Ravel’s masterful 1922 orchestration has become the de facto standard. Despite his fastidious disdain for The familiar claim that great art cannot be
Mussorgsky’s crudity, Ravel was a bonafide
created by committee is sorely challenged
Russophile who could not help but respond
by Pictures at an Exhibition, an undisputed
to Pictures’s kaleidoscopic imagery. The
masterpiece that may have been written
celebrated result seamlessly blends two
contrasting cultures in a milestone of
accompanying us from picture to picture
orchestral writing.
as make our way along. It all culminates with Hartmann’s architectural design for
Pictures at an Exhibition charts the course
The Great Gate of Kiev, originally intended
of visitors strolling through a gallery of
for a civic competition. The gate itself was
Hartmann’s various paintings, sketches,
never built, but it lives on in Mussorgsky’s
and architectural fantasies. A Promenade
powerful portrait.
theme acts as a musical museum guide,
Program notes by Scott Foglesong, copyright 2022 First North American Serial Rights Only