8:00 pm – Saturday, February 11, 2012 – Fairfield
3:00 pm – Sunday, February 12, 2012 – Vacaville

Tragic Overture                                                                         Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Even though he lived and composed during the heyday of German romanticism, the German composer Brahms nevertheless remained grounded in the classical forms of his musical forbearers, particularly Beethoven.  While romantics, such as Berlioz, Schumann and Liszt, were going out of their way to write music to conjure up particular moods or stories, and naming their pieces to be certain their hearers didn’t miss their intentions, Brahms stuck to writing music for music’s sake, without emotional tag-lines or dramatic intentions.  Not surprisingly then, his two overtures—The Academic Festival and the Tragic—were not introductions to an opera, nor were they intended to spin a musical tale.  While the “Academic Festival” overture was written for a specific occasion—his reception of an honorary degree from the University of Breslau—the “Tragic” refers to no known event.  On the other hand, Brahms gives the nod to the romantics as both works clearly evoke specific moods—the “Festival” overture is truly jubilant while the “Tragic” is unmistakably turbulent and dramatic.

The work begins with sharply slashing chords that will be repeated more than once before the work’s victorious resolution.  Bold and rhythmic themes in the strings and brass are mingled with resigned and plaintiff passages in the winds.  The middle sections offer clear and calm melodies that alternate between strings and winds, before the brass sounds a triumphant and reassuring choral-like hymn.   Whatever struggle is taking place—some critics have suggested the hero against fate—it clearly builds towards the work’s raging and victorious conclusion.  If Brahms intended the piece to have no story, he seems to have been unable to avoid giving us a gripping drama in spite of himself.

 

Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 129                      Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Schumann successfully combined his talents as a writer and musician, bringing romanticism in music to full flower.  He began composing as a child and also loved literature, undoubtedly influenced by his father, a bookbinder and novelist.  In his teens, while becoming skilled at the piano, he started writing essays on the aesthetics of music, a passion that he would bring to fruition later in life with the publication of his mature music journal, Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music).  With both his writing and composing, he espoused and realized the romantic ideal—works of music, as in literature,  which were looser and more extended in form and in which the imaginary and fantastic are, in their own right, more important than the classical ideal of balance and good taste.  Due to a hand injury, his career goal as a piano soloist was not to be realized, so composition became his primary musical outlet.  His initial successes were works for solo piano, often performed by his concert-pianist wife, Clara Wieck.  By age 30, he had also written over 200 songs for solo voice and piano.  During his thirties, Schumann expanded his talent to the composition of orchestral music—symphonies and a piano concerto—as well as chamber pieces, choral music and an opera.  In 1850 he was offered the post of music director at Düsseldorf, which duties included composing and conducting the town orchestra.  His conducting was a failure but his composition was prolific, which in short order included the “Rhenish Symphony” and the eloquent cello concerto, quickly composed in the period of only two weeks.  The work’s performance, however, would not take place until 1860, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer’s birth.  Sadly Schumann never heard the piece performed, as his death had taken place four years earlier.

Schumann titled the work Concert Piece for Cello and Orchestra, subtly indicating that it would not follow expected classical-concerto patterns.  Many cello concertos had been writing during the baroque period by such well-known composers as C.P.E. Bach, Boccherini and Vivaldi, who wrote over 25.  During the classical period, Haydn composed two that are still regularly performed today.  All of these works are set in the well-known and expected sonata form, with an introduction by the orchestra, a thematic exposition, some development of the theme and a return to initial subject.  Schumann’s work, original and daring for his time, breaks with these traditions in many respects.   The work’s three movements are performed without a break, as Schumann was known to hate applause between movements.   The first movement, labeled “Nicht zu schnell” (Not too fast) begins with almost no orchestral introduction as the cello almost immediately begins singing an eloquent melodic line that is not “developed” in the expected sonata form pattern.   The solo cello clearly takes center stage throughout both the first and second movements and there is little thematic conversation with the orchestra, whose role is generally to simply underpin the sonorous and lingering melody.  The slow second movement—Langsam (Slowly)—is deeply lyrical and contemplative, with the solo voice, full of utmost longing, inhabiting its own dreamscape.  Somewhat oddly, in the third movement—Sehr lebhaft (Very lively)—Schumann brings us back to the classical landscape with a familiar upbeat rondo in sonata form.  The movement has everything with which a contemporary audience would have been familiar:  an exposition with development, a recapitulation and a cadenza, albeit an accompanied one—another first.  To our ears, this return to the familiar seems out of place in comparison to the melodic freedom of the first two movements.  And it is this noticeable change in character that has given some modern critics an excuse to consider the work of lesser quality in comparison to the great cello concertos of Dvorak, Elgar or Saint-Saëns.  However, those who perform the work agree with the master cellist, Pablo Casals, who considered it one of the finest works for the instrument because it speaks from the very heart of the cello.

 

Tubby the Tuba                                                                      George Kleinsinger (1914-1982)
­Living in New York for all but the first five years of his life, George Kleinsinger, born in San Bernardino, CA, was initially trained as a dentist.  Music soon lured him in a new direction and he went on to study music at both New York University and Juilliard, where his compositional skills soon became apparent.  He won praise for composing an opera and a choral cantata, I Hear America Singing, based on a text by Walt Whitman.  Starting in 1940, he began a long collaboration with the actor and writer, Paul Tripp.  During the rehearsal of a work in preparation by the NBC Symphony orchestra, the tuba player, Herbert Jenkel, approached the duo about composing a piece for his instrument.  Tripp soon drafted the story line, and worked on and off with Kleinsinger on the music.  As the war was on and Tripp had been drafted, it took some time to complete the work and arrange a recording.  This was realized in 1945 with Jenkel as soloist.  The work was an instant success, selling 500,000 recordings during the first year. Since then, sales have been counted only in the millions. 

The work has been described as a melodrama for tuba, narrator and orchestra, as it tells the story of an unhappy tuba seeking an escape from playing endless oom-pahs.  The straightforward story, told in engaging words and combined with the music’s charm, has become the most well known work written for the instrument.  While more “serious” composers, such as Vaughan-Williams and Hindemith have written works for the tuba, Kleinsinger’s delightful and unassuming composition remains the most endearing.

 

Concert Waltz No. 2, Op. 51                                                 Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
The Russian music teacher and composer, Glazunov, was recognized as musically talented at a young age.  His well-to-do family provided him with a solid education in St. Petersburg and with private lessons by the well-known Rimsky-Korsakov.  Lessons were in counterpoint, orchestration and harmony, and these served him well in a long career as composer, teacher and later the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music.  There he influenced a generation of young Russian composers and performers, including Shostakovich, Milstein and Stravinsky.

Glazunov wrote works in almost every genre, except opera.  While his music has a recognizable Russian lilt, like Tchaikovsky, he was able to blend national idioms with a wider Western sound, thus avoiding writing purely provincial works.  One can hear the influence of western counterpoint and the romanticism of Liszt, as much as that of the nationalism of Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov.  Of his large output, most is performed today only in Russia. But several works, such as the Seasons, the music for the ballet Raymonda, his later symphonies, the masterful violin concerto and his Concert Waltzes remain in the repertoire for good reason.   The unhurried lilting theme of Waltz No. 2 conjures an endlessly pleasant summer’s afternoon, devoid of time and place.  At first hearing we seem to recognize nothing Russian or French; Glazunov had retired to France after leaving the Conservatory and he died there away from his homeland.  But those familiar with his musical mother tongue will, however faintly, hear the accent of Prince Igor instilled by his upbringing at the feet of Borodin.

Coppélia, Selections                                                                            Léo Delibes (1836-1891)
The French composer, Delibes, began his profession as a church organist.  But he had always been attracted to the theater, and thus, at age 35, began composing light operettas at the steady pace of one a year for the next dozen years.  During that time he became accompanist at the Théâtre-Lyrique and 2nd chorus master at the Grand Opéra.  At the Opéra, he was drawn into ballet, which was always a part of French operatic productions.  He first ballet, La Source, was composed 1869, and in the following year, he composed Coppélia, which, with its memorable music and superb choreography, was an instant success that brought him true fame.  Delibes continued to compose both successful ballets and operas, most notably the ballet Sylvia and the opera Lakmé, the latter considered his masterpiece.  While his music is not ground-breaking, it was and continues to be well received by critics and the public alike, as it is characterized by a graceful and lighthearted touch in its melody, harmony and orchestration.  His work is known to have been a considerable influence on composers such as Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Debussy.  His ballet Sylvia was of special interest to Tchaikovsky, who wrote of the score, “. . . what charm, what wealth of melody! It brought me to shame, for had I known of this music, I would have never written Swan Lake.”

Coppélia is a sentimental and comic ballet pantomime in two acts and three tableaux with a libretto based on a story by the romantic German novelist, E.T.A. Hoffmann.  The title refers to a mechanical dancing doll that, appearing to come to life, distracts a village swain from his beloved.  Of course the fellow is ultimately shown his folly in Act II, when his true sweetheart dresses as the doll and pretends to come to life.  However, all turns out well in the final tableau of the festive wedding day which provides much opportunity for large-scale dancing by the many village well wishers.  The dances in the selection are (1) Waltz, (2) Mazurka, a Polish dance in fast triple time, (3) Waltz of the Doll and (4) Czardas, a Hungarian dance with a stately beginning that builds to a fiery conclusion.