| Symphonic Haunts |
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Classical One STRAUSS: OVERTURE TO DIE FLEDERMAUS JOHANN STRAUSS, JR.: Born in Vienna, October 25, 1825; died in Vienna, June 3, 1899 Champagne, waltzes, elegant ballrooms, glittering chandeliers, romantic strolls through the Prater, splendid buildings and infectious gaiety are the nostalgic images conjured up by Vienna of the late-nineteenth century. The composers Johann Strauss (both Sr. and Jr.), Lehár, Kálmán, Millöcker and von Suppé are indelibly associated with that era of high spirits and ebullience, primarily through the medium of the waltz and operetta. Though all the above contributed significantly to the repertory of light, magical Viennese music, one man stands out as an immortal - Johann Strauss Jr., the "Waltz King." Johann Jr. was the first of six children born to Johann Sr. Although the father was an accomplished composer (his Radetzky March is his best known work today) and conductor of international fame, he was determined that his sons pursue non-musical careers. Johann Jr. worked for a period as a bank clerk, but with his mother's blessing, studied music on the sly. On October 15, 1844, he threw off the yoke of such uninspiring employment. He had secured an engagement at Donmayer's Garden Restaurant, and leading a small orchestra through the evening's entertainment, Johann scored an immediate and resounding success. Strauss Sr. had strongly protested the whole affair, but the son tactfully ended the program with one of his father's most popular waltzes. One newspaper the next morning wrote: "Good night, Lanner [another popular composer of waltzes]. Good evening, Father Strauss. Good morning, Son Strauss." Die Fledermaus (The Bat), Strauss’s his third stage work, was premiered in 1874. It became not only the most famous Viennese operetta ever written, but one of the most amazingly successful stage shows of all time. It is a joyous, bubbly, totally improbable concoction of mistaken identities, amorous intrigues, mischief and mirth. Within six years it had been seen on over 170 separate stages in Germany alone. To date, it has been heard in Polish, Danish, Croatian, Swedish, Hungarian, Lettish, Finnish, Bulgarian, Romanian, and of course Italian, French and English. The overture is put together from a potpourri of the operetta's main themes, including (after an Allegro vivace introduction) Rosalinde's mock-serious farewell to her husband Eisenstein before he goes off to serve a jail term; Eisenstein's wrath when, disguised as the lawyer Blind, he learns how his wife has deceived him with Alfred; and the famous waltz. DVOŘÁK: THE NOONDAY WITCH, OP. 108 ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK: Born in Mühlhausen (near Prague), Bohemia (today Nelahozeves, Czech Republic), September 8, 1841; died in Prague, May 1, 1904 In April of 1895, Dvořák returned to Prague from the second of his New World sojourns, during which he spent winters in New York teaching at the newly opened National Conservatory and summers relaxing in Spillville, Iowa. He had been contracted for a third visit to New York but his heart was truly in Bohemia, and desiring to avoid another spell of homesickness, decided to remain in Prague. Here, in the winter of 1896, he turned a new leaf by venturing into a genre hitherto unexplored by him, the symphonic poem. Within four months, Dvorak turned out three such works, The Water Sprite, The Noonday Witch, and The Golden Spinning Wheel. (A fourth followed later in 1896, The Wild Dove, and a fifth in 1897, Heroic Song). All but the last were based on stories in a collection of folk tales set as poetic ballads and published in 1853 as Kytice z povĕtí národních (A Garland of National Myths) by the Czech poet Karel Jaromir Erben. The first three were given a “public reading rehearsal” on June 3, 1896, and The Noonday Witch received its formal premiere in London on November 21. In The Noonday Witch, a C-major theme is put through varied permutations to reflect the developing story line: A child is playing quietly in a corner of a peasant cottage, the mother busy with housework, the father out working in the fields. The child becomes discontent and begins to scream. The mother scolds the child, then threatens it with a visit from the dreaded Noonday Witch (in Bohemian folklore, noontime brings forth evil spirits just as midnight does). This quiets the child, but only momentarily. The mother, at her wits’ end, now calls upon the Noonday Witch to come get the child, little realizing that her summons, meant only as a threat, is about to become reality with dreadful consequences as the clock strikes twelve. When the father returns from work, he finds the mother unconscious and the child dead. SAINT-SAËNS: DANSE MACABRE, OP. 40 CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS: Born in Paris, October 9, 1835; died in Algiers, December 16, 1921 Saint-Saëns' symphonic poem Danse macabre (Dance of Death) was inspired by a ghoulish poem of Henri Cazalis, who wrote under the pen name of Jean Lahor. The work has long enjoyed great popularity for its vivid graveyard imagery and sensation of Death a-dancing. It was first performed in Paris on January 24, 1875 A mood of eerie fantasy prevails. At midnight (twelve strokes on the harp) Death arrives with his violin, tunes up and begins its evil dance (flute). The solo violin plays a second melody - suave and lyrical but still with an undercurrent of menace. The xylophone takes up the flute theme, its sound all too suggestive of rattling bones. At various points there are references to the "Dies irae," the chant for the dead from the Catholic liturgy. The two main themes become ever more frenzied and intertwined, culminating in a fearful climax. But dawn is imminent; a cock crows (oboe), and the diabolical assembly quickly dissipates into the darkness. Danse macabre ends on a note of unsettling quiet with which it began. MUSSORGSKY: PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION Promenade - Gnomus - Promenade - The Old Castle – Promenade – Tuileries – Bydlo – Promenade – Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks – Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle - The Marketplace at Limoges – Catacombs-Cum mortuis in lingua mortua - Baba Yaga's Hut on Chicken Legs - The Great Gate at Kiev MODEST MUSSORGSKY: Born in Karevo (renamed Mussorgsky in 1939), province of Pskov, March 21, 1839; died in St. Petersburg, March 28, 1881 When Viktor Hartmann, an artist, designer and sculptor, died of a heart attack in 1873, his close friend Modest Mussorgsky was devastated. Mussorgsky was further plagued with guilt feelings, recalling that, had he run for a doctor rather than trying to comfort the stricken Hartmann, the artist might have lived. Mussorgsky slipped into depression, aggravated by his alcohol problem. Vladimir Stassov, a music critic and friend of both Mussorgsky and Hartmann, arranged an exhibit of about four hundred works of the deceased artist, hoping that this tribute might in some way relieve Mussorgsky's depression. The exhibition opened in January, 1874 at the St. Petersburg Society of Architects. Thanks to Stassov, Mussorgsky was inspired to create a suite of ten musical portraits for piano, his only significant work for this instrument. The entire set was written in a single burst of creative energy during June of 1874. The music was not published until 1886, and did not achieve popularity in any form until Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in 1923 at the request of conductor Serge Koussevitzky. The first orchestral performance was given later the same year, conducted by Koussevitzky at the Paris Opéra. The Boston Symphony introduced Pictures to North America the following year. Pictures has become one of the most popular repertory staples for pianists and orchestras alike. Ravel's remains by far the most popular of the orchestrations, but his was neither the first nor the last. Nearly two dozen additional versions exist, including those by Mikhail Tushmalov, (1891), Walter Goehr, Sir Henry Wood, Lucien Caillet, Leopold Stokowski, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Sergei Gorchakov. In recent years, a rock version (Keith Emerson), an electronic version (Tomita), and arrangements for solo guitar (Yamashita), string ensemble and brass quintet have also appeared. Each musical portrait is based on one of Hartmann's paintings. A "Promenade" theme opens an imaginary stroll through the picture gallery, a theme that returns several times throughout the work as the viewer moves on to another painting or group of paintings. These paintings are: GNOMUS - A child's toy made of wood for the Christmas tree at the Artists' Club, styled after a small, grotesque gnome with gnarled legs and erratic hopping movements. THE OLD CASTLE - A watercolor of a troubadour singing in front of a medieval castle. His melancholic song is "sung" by the alto saxophone. TUILERIES - A lively picture of children scampering about, engaged in horseplay while their nannies chatter. BYDLO - On giant, lumbering wheels, an oxcart comes into view, its driver singing a folk song in the Aeolian mode. BALLET OF THE UNHATCHED CHICKS - Cheeping baby canaries dance about, still enclosed in their shells, with their wings and legs protruding. SAMUEL GOLDENBERG AND SCHMUYLE - Mussorgsky called this piece "Two Polish Jews, Rich and Poor." The personalities are vividly drawn: the rich man is pompous, self-important, arrogant; the poor man is sniveling, beseeching, nervous, pitiable. THE MARKETPLACE AT LIMOGES - Another lively, bustling, French scene. Here, rather than children, we find the rapid chatter, babble and arguments of housewives. At the height of a particularly noisy fracas, the music suddenly plunges into CATACOMBS - Hartmann himself, lantern in hand, explores the subterranean passages of Paris. Eerie, ominous sounds are heard in the ensuing CUM MORTUIS IN LINGUA MORTUA (With the dead in a dead language). To a distorted version of the Promenade theme, the music depicts a grisly sight: "Hartmann's creative spirit leads me," wrote Mussorgsky, "to the place of skulls and calls to them - the skulls begin to glow faintly from within." BABA YAGA'S HUT ON CHICKEN LEGS - In Hartmann's painting, the home of the fabled Russian witch Baba Yaga appears as a fantastic bronze clock-face, mounted on chicken legs. Mussorgsky prefers to portray the witch's ride through the air in her mortar, steering with a pestle. At the height of the dizzying ride, she seems to sail right out of the picture into THE GREAT GATE AT KIEV - This depicts Hartmann's architectural design for a gate (never built) to commemorate Alexander II's narrow escape from an assassination attempt in Kiev. |