SoNA
Symphony of Northwest Arkansas
Masterworks I: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto November 9, 2019 Walton Arts Center Paul Haas, conductor
Blow It Up, Start Again Jonathan Newman b 28 July 1972, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Jonathan Newman is having a busy autumn. In September, the Florida State Wind Orchestra premiered his Pi’ilani and Ko’olau, a large-scale “imagined ballet” based on a true Hawai’ian story. The same month, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble performed Newman’s As the Scent of Spring Rain. Last month he had wind ensemble and orchestra performances at Liberty University in Virginia and in Indianapolis. This weekend’s SoNA performance of Blow It Up, Start Again is one of several this year for this lively curtain-raiser. Newman’s day job is Director of Composition and Coordinator of New Music at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia. He holds degrees from Boston University, where he studied composition with Richard Cornell and Charles Fussell and conducting with Lukas Foss; and The Juilliard School, where his composition professors were John Corigliano and David Del Tredici and his conducting professor was Miguel HarthBedoya. He is a veteran of both the Tanglewood and Aspen summer programs, and he was awarded the Charles Ives Scholarship from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. Newman is also a founding member of the composer consortium BCM International: four stylistically diverse composers dedicated to enriching the repertoire with exciting works for mediums often mired in static formulas. That willingness to break from the norm — leavened with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek irreverence — is evident in Blow It Up, Start Again. As a youth, Newman studied both piano and trombone. He performed in orchestras, sang in jazz choirs, played in marching bands, and accompanied himself in talent shows. Like every other kid in his generation, he listened to a broad swath of popular music, from bubblegum pop to heavy metal to hip-hop. His acquaintance with so many styles gives Blow It Up, Start Again a gleeful eclecticism: four minutes of very-well-organizedchaos and irresistible energy. Newman’s succinct composer’s note sums it up: Commissioned as an encore by Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, this short work incorporates flavors of funk, electronica and dubstep into an anarchistic exploding dessert. If the system isn’t working any more, then do what Guy Fawkes tried and go anarchist: Blow it all up, and start again.
The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, a large percussion complement requiring three players [glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, two timbales, snare drum, low tom-tom, bass drum, high-hat, ride cymbal, crash cymbals, splash cymbal, sizzle cymbal, high and low woodblocks, Gatling Cabasa, whip, triangle, and large brake drum], harp, piano and strings.
Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 61 Ludwig van Beethoven b 16 December, 1770, Bonn, Germany d 26 March, 1827, Vienna, Austria The Violin Concerto and the “Emperor” Concerto: A Comparison If the Fifth Piano Concerto is Beethoven’s “Emperor,” Op. 61 is its royal analogue among violin concertos: the king of them all. Like the “Emperor,” it dates from Beethoven’s middle period. The two works are by any standard the pinnacle of his achievement during these richly productive years, and certainly his two finest concerti. Beyond that distinction, the Violin Concerto holds a special place in the hearts of violinists, orchestral players and music lovers. Yet how different in spirit it is from the “Emperor.” Instead of extroversion we have thoughtfulness; instead of display and inventive methods of exploring virtuoso technique, Beethoven gives us subtle explorations of what the violin’s E-string can deliver. In fact, one of the most astonishing aspects of this concerto is Beethoven’s instinctive understanding of both soloist and orchestra, despite the fact that he was a keyboard player. Forgotten Virtuoso Beethoven wrote the concerto for Franz Clement (1780-1842), an Austrian violinist, conductor and composer who led the violin section at the Vienna Opera. Clement is said to have sight-read
the piece at the premiere because Beethoven finished writing it only at the last minute. If that apocryphal story is true, it may account in part for the fact that this concerto took a long time to win friends, which is surprising in light of the staple it has become on today’s concert programs. A Struggle to Enter the Canon After its premiere in 1806, the Violin Concerto received only one additional documented performance during Beethoven’s lifetime, and that was in Berlin rather than Vienna, Beethoven’s adopted city. The nineteenth century favored flashy showpieces for its concerto soloists, and this one does not focus on the violinist’s brilliant technique. Beethoven studied the repertoire of his contemporaries Giovanni Battista Viotti, Rodolphe Kreutzer and JacquesPierre Rode to become more conversant with the technical possibilities of the violin. But display for its own sake never overtakes the broader musical architecture of his mighty work. Among Beethoven’s own compositions, the Violin Concerto’s closest spiritual sibling is not the “Emperor,” but rather the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58, with which it shares serenity, absolute conviction in its own inherent balance, and a lack of need for overt display. About the Music A timpani pattern of five gentle taps opens the concerto and become its leitmotif. From this pattern springs the entire first movement: its leisurely, unhurried pace, its emphasis on internal examination rather than external show, and of course the minimal motivic cells from which Beethoven develops his ideas so incomparably. These five beats are a stable foil to the woodwind theme, marked dolce, that answers them and eventually emerges as the principal melody of the movement. The same five strokes, understated yet inexorable, firmly anchor the Allegro, ma non troppo in the tonic key of D; they are a welcome homing point in light of the disorienting and unexpected D-sharps (significantly, repeating the same rhythm of the opening timpani strokes) that the first violins interject as early as the tenth measure.
The first movement has a sense of expansiveness. Beethoven takes subtle liberties with form; for example, he reserves the cantabile second theme for the orchestra until the coda, when his soloist finally has the opportunity to express that lovely melody as a single violin line. Intimate Slow Movement and Foot-tapping Finale Built on variation principles, the Larghetto is sheer embroidery. It is lovingly scored: only muted strings and pairs of clarinets, bassoons and horns accompany the soloist. The mood is comfortable, intimate, friendly. Beethoven’s geniality carries through to the Rondo finale, a foray into near-irresistible foot-tapping that wields its power even on those who have heard the music dozens of times. The doublestopped episodes are the only such occurrence in the concerto. Taking unusual and beguiling advantage of the violin’s upper register, the finale provides wonderful opportunities for a soloist to display discerning taste and polished execution. For this performance, Jennifer Frautschi has chosen the cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler. The score calls for flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani, solo violin and strings.
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 Sergei Rachmaninov b 1 April, 1873 Oneg, Novgorod District, Russia d 28 March, 1943, Beverly Hills, California During the summer of 1940, following an exhausting concert season, Sergei Rachmaninov took refuge on the then-bucolic north shore town of Huntington, Long Island. He hoped to compose some music and regain his failing health. Though he survived until spring 1943, the work he composed that summer proved to be his last complete score. And a magnificent swan song it was. Rachmaninov was deservedly proud of the new piece, writing excitedly on 21 August to his friend, Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy:
Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called Fantastic Dances. I shall now begin the orchestration. Unfortunately my concert tour begins on October 14. I have a great deal of practice to do and I don’t know whether I shall be able to finish the orchestration before November. I should be very glad if, upon your return, you would drop over to our place. I should like to play the piece for you. Ormandy responded promptly, accepting the composer’s invitation for the following week. By then, Rachmaninov had changed the title to Symphonic Dances. While we know that Rachmaninov flirted with the idea of presenting his new piece as a ballet — choreographer Mikhail Fokine heard the piano version even before Ormandy did — it is essentially a symphonic work that celebrates the lush orchestral palette for which Rachmaninov is celebrated. At the same time, vigorous dance rhythms permeate its fabric in all three movements, providing forward momentum and catching us up in a whirl of mysterious, compelling sound. The string parts to the Symphonic Dances are notoriously difficult, and a major challenge to the finest orchestra. There is a good reason: Rachmaninov enlisted the assistance of the eminent violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler in editing the string parts, including all the bowings. Whereas the strings do not dominate the sound, their presence is a constant factor throughout the Symphonic Dances. The first movement is dominated by a descending triad motive from which the balance of the musical material unfolds. Rachmaninov takes superb advantage of his orchestral resources, continually surprising us with a panoply of percussion, woodwind and brass accents amidst the ongoing sweep of the strings. His unique stroke in this movement is the luscious solo
awarded to alto saxophone in the more leisurely middle section. Precedent for using saxophone as a significant orchestral soloist lay in Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suites, Ravel’s Boléro and his orchestration of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Rachmaninov’s countryman Alexander Glazunov composed both a solo concerto for saxophone and a saxophone quartet. Still, the timbre is unusual: peculiarly close to the human voice, and vividly set with clarinet and oboe sharing a light accompaniment. The central waltz opens with muted trumpets in an eerie reminder of the composer’s Russian roots. Pizzicato strings establish the ghostly waltz rhythm; a free violin solo lends a folksy, half-gypsy facet to the music. Rachmaninov focuses on individual instrumental colors, whose chromatic lines often seem like veiled threats undulating beneath the smooth exterior of the waltz. The brasses of the opening measures return periodically, as if to herald the sinister spirits that seem to underlie this disquieting dance. Metric vacillation from 6/8 and 3/8 to 9/8 and back again add to the haunting character. Much has been made of Rachmaninov’s recurrent use of the medieval Dies irae chant in his music. The best known example is the
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, but there are several other occurrences among the composer’s works. Its presence in the finale to the Symphonic Dances has been called Rachmaninov’s last and definitive statement. An English horn solo also makes use of Russian Orthodox chant. The two ideas bind together with the composer’s original material to build to a dynamic close. The magnificence of Rachmaninov’s achievement in this thrilling work is the melding of balletic impulse and symphonic grandeur. Vastly more sophisticated than the heart-on-sleeve romanticism of the early piano concerti, the Symphonic Dances are a superb example of his mature orchestral style. Rachmaninov scored his Symphonic Dances for a large and colorful orchestra comprising piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, tubular bells, xylophone, tam-tam, glockenspiel, piano, harp and strings. Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2019 First North American Serial Rights Only