Program Notes

Scholarship Fund

James Randall

Preparing these notes, I came across a Vietnamese proverb: “Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.” While intimately connected, they are also independent. The proverb also hints at the sometimes oppositional or competitive nature of sibling relationships. Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, the composers featured in the first half of our concert, exemplify both the closeness of brothers and sisters, but also the rivalry. Both were child prodigies, or, as the Germans colorfully say—Wunderkinder. We often read about Mozart’s precociousness (and should read more about his own overlooked sister, Maria Anna), but the early talents of Felix and Fanny were in many ways just as dazzling. The great German writer Goethe heard both Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn play improvisations at the piano. About Felix, he wrote to his friend Frank Zelter, Felix’s teacher, “what your pupil already accomplishes, bears the same relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child.” To be fair, Mozart was seven at the time and Mendelssohn twelve. Still, it’s quite the endorsement. And Zelter was equally impressed with Fanny, who was also a student. In an earlier letter, it was her musical talents that he singled out as “something special” rather than Felix’s.

Talent rarely thrives in a vacuum. In this respect, the Mendelssohn siblings were lucky to have encouraging parents who made sure they had every educational advantage. Each week their parents entertained lavishly in their Berlin home, hosting artists, literati, and the rich and famous. And, of course, they took this opportunity to show off the kids. Many of Fanny and Felix’s compositions, including the ones we hear today, were first heard in Sunday matinees at the Mendelssohn home.

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847): Overture in C Major (1832)

Fanny Mendelssohn wrote nearly 500 compositions, including songs, cantatas, piano works, and chamber music. The vast majority remained unpublished in her lifetime, and a few were actually published under Felix’s name. There’s a telling story involving his introduction to Queen Victoria, who praised him for writing her favorite song. He had to confess that it was actually Fanny who had written it. In fact, Felix depended quite a lot on Fanny’s expert opinion in his own compositions. In their letters to one another he often seeks her approval in a way that shows his own vulnerability. From today’s perspective (and certainly from Fanny’s at the time), it’s frustrating that she didn’t receive equal support in return. In a letter to Felix, their mother tried to intervene on Fanny’s behalf. Felix responded “You write to me about Fanny’s new compositions, and say that I ought to persuade her to publish them… if she does resolve to publish anything, I will do all in my power to obtain every facility for her, and to relieve her, so far as I can, from all trouble which can possibly be spared her. But to persuade her to publish anything I cannot, because this is contrary to my views and to my convictions… She is too much all that a woman ought to be for this. She regulates her house, and neither thinks of the public nor of the musical world, nor even of music at all, until her first duties are fulfilled. Publishing would only disturb her in these, and I cannot say that I approve of it.” Their father, Abraham, was even less supportive, and it was only after she married her husband, William Hensel, that she found a true advocate for the publication of her works.

It’s sad to think that the work we hear today, Overture in C, languished “undiscovered” in a library for over a hundred years after Fanny’s death. As far as we know, it’s the only purely instrumental work for full orchestra that she composed. It’s obvious charms have made it a popular addition to the symphonic repertoire, and it stands as one of the very few examples of orchestral works by female composers of the first half of the 19th century. While we typically think of overtures as preceding a larger work like an opera or a ballet, this one is a concert overture, which is a stand-alone work. Many concert overtures of the 19th century were programmatic, telling a story, often from a novel or a play. This one, however, is purely musical. We can imagine (or not) our own narrative. Beginning with a beautifully pastoral slow introduction, melodic motives in the strings and winds create a sunrise in sound as they yawn and stretch. Shards of light in sound increasingly brighten the day, and a solo flute stretches us to a high point of the introduction just as the sound of timpani and a scurry of strings interrupt, foreshadowing the galloping section to come. Following the slow introduction, the form of the work is sonataallegro; listen for the musical themes first presented in the exposition section; listen for the musical themes presented in the exposition section. These themes are then selectively varied

and explored in a development section before the composer brings back the original themes of the exposition in a final section called a recapitulation. The themes are almost as we heard them originally, but reimagined in more glorious fashion that crescendos to a climactic finish.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Strings in D Minor, MWV O4 (1823)

The premier of this thrilling work, also known as the Double Concerto, took place in Mendelssohn’s parents’ home in Berlin (he was just 14, after all). Felix was at the piano, and his friend and violin teacher, Eduard Rietz, only seven years his senior, took the solo violin part. Fanny was there as well, and probably had a hand in the editing of the work. As she recounted in letter just a year prior, “I have watched the progress of his talent step by step, and may say I have contributed to his development. I have always been his only musical adviser, and he never writes down a thought before submitting it to my judgment.” Initially, Felix wrote the work for piano and violin accompanied by a string orchestra. The version we’ll hear performed today, however, which he finished that same year, is for soloists and full orchestra with winds and timpani.

What I love most about the Double Concerto is its eclectic mash-up of historical styles. Is it Baroque, Classical, Romantic? It’s a bit of each, actually. In its juxtaposition of styles, it was fairly modern for the time. Felix was fascinated with what audiences at the time considered old music, which meant anything written as recently as the Classical period, but even more so the works of “ancient” men like Handel and Bach. Today we’re quite accustomed to hearing music spanning centuries in a single concert. In the first half of the 19th century, however, the sonic museum model was just emerging. Felix played an important role in popularizing the music of Bach and Handel for audiences of nineteenth century, directing works that hadn’t been heard since their deaths. Many of Felix’s own compositions, the oratorios in particular, and parts of the Double Concerto self-consciously imitate these big names of the Baroque.

The first movement of the Double Concerto, Allegro, begins with a kind of Baroque-sounding seriousness. The rhythm drive and imitated theme in a minor mode sound more like Vivaldi than one of Mendelssohn’s contemporaries. When the second theme arrives, after modulating to major mode, it’s as if we’ve arrived in a new century: suddenly the melody is lilting, playful, and very Classical in style. By this point, you may be wondering: where’s the piano? And where’s the violin? Typical of concertos of this era, we hear a so-called double exposition, a variant of sonata-allegro form mentioned earlier. The first exposition introduces the main themes played by orchestra alone; the second introduces these same themes but this time featuring the soloists. In the interplay between piano and violin we hear a much more romantic interpretation of the themes than we’ve heard before, with lots of liberty taken in the tempo of the phrases, as well as a lot of one-upmanship between the soloists.

Movement 2, Adagio, recalls the classical balance of some of Mozart’s most beautiful slow movements. Its form is ABA, typical for the slower, middle movement, of a concerto. If the interplay between soloists in the first movement seemed competitive, here it’s supportive. The piano and violin each take turns singing out the beautiful, hymn-like melody.

Movement 3, Allegro molto, is a playful tour de force. On your marks, get set, go! Both soloists and orchestra get ample opportunity to show off their full virtuosic potential.

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, op. 36 (1847)

Louise Farrenc was descended from several generations of court artists and craftsmen on both sides of her family, but she was the first musician and composer. Among the women in her family there were several notable painters, and their very existence surely provided a model for Farrenc’s professional creative life. Farrenc’s musical study began early, with piano and theory lessons at age six. Her teachers included some of the most famous musicians of their time, including Ignaz Moscheles, and Johan Nepomuk Hummel, both virtuoso pianist and composers. At age 15 she entered the Paris Conservatory. While women were prevented from pursuing diplomas in composition (until 1870!), she still managed to study with Anton Reicha, who was a close friend of Beethoven and a teacher of Liszt and Berlioz. In pursuing a career in composition, however, Farrenc faced a glass ceiling—an opaque one. For that reason, her professional earnings during her lifetime derived from work as a pianist and teacher. And she was spectacularly successful. She won a tenured professorship in piano at the Paris Conservatory, a position she held for over 30 years and launched a generation of successful concert pianists, including her daughter Victorine. She was, in fact, the only female faculty member of this rank for the entire 19th century and was even successful in demanding the same pay as her male colleagues. Compared to Fanny Mendelssohn, she also found more support from her family.

Her husband, Aristide Farrenc, had dodged his family’s wishes that he become a businessman so that he could pursue music. A flutist and eventually a teacher at the Conservatory, he was also a music editor and publisher, and he published her first works for piano. Together, like the Mendelssohns, they were passionate advocates for early music, its research and revival. Their life work together was the compilation of a monumental collection of historic French keyboard music—23 volumes spanning three centuries. They only finished eight of these together, and Louise completed the remaining fifteen after his death.

Farrenc’s piano compositions were her first to achieve acclaim. The composer Robert Schumann remarked in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, “Were a young composer to submit to me variations such as these by L. Farrenc, I would praise him [emphasis mine] highly for the auspicious talent and fine training everywhere reflected in them. I soon learned the identity of the author—rather authoress—the wife of the renowned music publisher in Paris, and I am distressed because it is hardly likely that she will ever hear of these encouraging lines.” While we can’t be sure that Farrenc read these words (or understand why Schumann assumed she wouldn’t), she nevertheless persisted and thrived. Women composers, to the extent they were encouraged at all, were usually channeled toward so-called domestic or salon works—short piano and vocal pieces. Farrenc, however, ventured into the territory of serious chamber music. Her Nonet in E-flat Major was recognized as a masterpiece even in the 19th century, winning the Chartier Prize for chamber music, an award she won twice. While as a woman she was barred from competing in the most prestigious competition of the day, the Prix de Rome, she nonetheless sought to prove herself as well in the testosterone-laden world of orchestral music.

Farrenc’s works for full orchestra include concert overtures, an unfinished piano concerto, and three symphonies. Her Third Symphony in G Minor was programmed as part of the regular subscription series hosted by the Société des Concerts in Paris. The organization was known well known for championing the works of Beethoven, and in what was certainly a recognition of the reputation she’d already achieved, they programmed Farrenc’s Third Symphony alongside Beethoven’s Fifth. It was a nineteenth-century battle of the sexes, as audiences were treated to two symphonies, both in minor mode and with similar structure, side-by-side for all to compare. A reviewer of the concert questioned the placing of any symphony against Beethoven’s classic (few composers would relish that...), but he still managed some back-handed praise for Farrenc, writing that she “… reveals—alone among her sex—throughout musical Europe—genuine learning united with grace and taste.” Hmm…how very gracious! It was also typical. Even glowing reception of Farrenc’s works communicates the prevailing bias. After hearing her first symphony, a critic wrote: “A remarkable thing! The dominant quality in this work, composed by a woman, is precisely what one would least expect to find: there is more power than delicacy in Mme. Farrenc’s symphony…” By comparison, I don’t know of any reviews expressing surprise at a male composer’s ability to compose works of gentleness and sensitivity. Hearing the work today we can admire Farrenc’s expression of the complete range of human emotions. Why should it be otherwise?

Movement 1: Allegro

After a short slow introduction marked adagio, Farrenc launches into a quick allegro. Like most first movements of symphonies, this one is in sonata-allegro form, following a plan similar in structure to Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C Major described above.

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Movement 2: Adagio Cantabile

The Italian word cantabile means “in a smooth, singing style,” which is precisely what we hear in this movement. A solo clarinet introduces the aria-like theme in a major mode, which is developed slowly and deliberately in a truly regal fashion. It’s among the most beautiful slow movements I know Poignantly, it was the last of her works that she heard performed publicly just shortly before her death in 1875.

Movement 3: Vivace

Great symphonies are full of dramatic, meaningful contrasts. The third movement, a scherzo, enters like a firestorm following the nostalgic, blissful sighs at the end of the previous movement. We’re back in minor mode, and Farrenc features strings and winds trading rapid, fluttering passages in the opening A section. The contrasting B section, in major mode, offers a brief chorale-like respite from the incessant speed of the piece before the fury of the A section returns.

Movement 4: Finale-Allegro

It’s no holds barred for the final movement, in which Farrenc exploits the full expressive range of the orchestra— lyricism, power, and virtuosity. Enjoy!