Fairfax Symphony Orchestra::2007-2008 Season::Masterworks 6::Program Notes

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Elmar Oliveira, violin

DEBUSSY: Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

BRUCH: Scottish Fantasy

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5

The FSO tops off the 51st season with violinist Elmar Oliveira, the only American violinist ever to win a gold medal at the famed Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. Having appeared recently with the Detroit Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mr. Oliveira commands a repertoire ranging from Bach and Barber through Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and Giannini. With the FSO he will perform Max Bruch's much-loved Scottish Fantasy, a melodic gem based on folksongs and featuring a prominent role for harp as well.

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This program is funded in part by the Arts Council of Fairfax County, supported by the County of Fairfax

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PROGRAM NOTES

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)

Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

It’s ironic that, although the “Impressionism in Debussy” debate concerns the parallels between music and painting, this icon of the style, Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, was inspired by a poem. Its author was the “Symbolist” Stephane Mallarmé, whose work is often considered pretty obscure, even by native French-speakers. But it is this vagueness of meaning that provides the link among some types of literature, paintings, and music. The Impressionist painters sought to express feelings, mental states, and the concept of ambiguity through haziness of outlines, fuzzy textures, gentle shadings of forms and colors – techniques found in many works of Monet, Turner, Renoir, and others. The parallel in music was, for practical purposes, invented by Debussy, and is perhaps most perfectly illustrated in the work under discussion.

Mallarmé’s poem provides an apt subject for Debussy’s musical treatment. It describes a woodland scene in which a faun (a mythical Roman deity that is half man and half goat) observes two nymphs in the sunlight; his thoughts wander and he drifts off into an erotic fantasy. The music opens with the most celebrated flute solo in the entire repertoire, and builds gradually through a series of transformations of that theme. The languorous mood and sultry atmosphere are miraculously conveyed through the gentleness of Debussy’s harmonies, the ingenuity of his orchestration, and the suppleness of his rhythms, with a striking use of silence (a whole measure!) near the beginning. In this piece, Debussy at one stroke established a new tone of voice in music and a distinctive style of scoring for orchestra that introduced a palette of instrumental sonorities unprecedented in richness and subtlety. For these achievements he has, in recent years at least, been unfairly taken for granted, as this piece from 1894 is undeniably a landmark in music history.

MAX BRUCH (1838-1920)

Scottish Fantasy, op. 46

In the latter third of the 19th century, Max Bruch was a successful and well-respected composer, known best for his large-scale works for chorus and orchestra. In fact, these works were so popular that for a time his reputation equaled or surpassed that of Brahms. As a conservative (i.e., not a proponent of the “music of the future” or “New German school” of music led by Liszt and Wagner), he was part of the circle that formed around Brahms, including the conductor Hans von Bulow and three of the greatest violinists of the era, Ferdinand David, Joseph Joachim, and Pablo de Sarasate. But as it turned out, the fad for large, serious choral works faded somewhat, and it was his immensely popular Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor that eclipsed everything else and sustained his reputation past the turn of the century. The refusal of many soloists to give a fair shake to his two succeeding concertos and seven other works for violin and orchestra caused him much bitterness in later life.

Although Bruch published three works labeled as violin concertos, he did in fact write a fourth. The proof that he considered his opus 46 to be a concerto is found in his own letters, bolstered by the opinions of his colleagues. The work certainly aspires to the scope and complexity of a true concerto; perhaps it was his use of borrowed themes that led him finally to use another designation. The complete original title of the work was Fantasy for Violin with Orchestra and Harp, with Free Use of Scottish Folk Melodies; nowadays it is invariably referred to by the less cumbersome version on tonight’s program page. That title hints at the importance of the harp, which is sometimes placed at the front of the stage to facilitate its many duets and dialogues with the violin soloist. (Bruch considered both instruments to be integral to Scottish musical culture; his bow toward the bagpipes can be found in his use of droning open fifths in the scherzo.)

The somber introduction is marked Grave and suggests a kind of funereal procession; it merges imperceptibly with the Adagio cantabile first movement. The orchestra introduces the tune “Auld Rob Morris,” which is then taken up by the soloist with harp accompaniment. A lively dance called “Dusty Miller” forms the basis of the scherzo of the work, with a transition linking it directly to the poignant Andante sostenuto based on “I’m Down for Lack of Johnnie.” For a finale, Bruch turned to a melody supposedly played at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, at which Robert the Bruce scored a major victory in Scotland’s war for independence from England. The tune is known today as “Scots What Hae,” derived from lyrics written in 1793 by Robert Burns. Although it is most often sung at a slow tempo, Bruch speeded it up for his finale and gave it the appropriate marking Allegro guerrerio (warlike).

The Scottish Fantasy was one of the many works of Bruch that fell into obscurity as musical trends and “progress” marched on, leaving this quintessentially conservative composer to appear “irrelevant.” The fact that it regained its place in the repertoire is at least partly thanks to the 1947 recording by the legendary Jascha Heifetz. (That Russian master made a number of cuts in the work to accommodate 78 rpm records, but tonight’s soloist, Elmar Oliveira, plays it complete.) Two questions inevitably arise: How many more wonderful creations, by Bruch and many others, still await rediscovery? And how long will we have to wait before someone revives them?

SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, op. 100

As the only child in a prosperous household in Ukraine, Prokofiev had a privileged upbringing. He learned the piano from his mother, an accomplished performer herself, and began composing by the age of five. When Sergei was 11 the noted composer Reinhold Gliere was brought in to be his tutor; two years later the boy and his mother moved to St. Petersburg so that he could attend the Conservatory. By age 20 Prokofiev had completed four operas, two symphonies, and many dozens of other pieces, but he became disillusioned with composing because of the negativity he encountered (his professors were for the most part unimpressed with his “radical” ideas, expressed in spiky melodies and dissonant harmonies). He began concentrating on his keyboard skills, and became an astonishingly virtuosic pianist. But his need to create, to set forth his own vision of what music can do, soon reasserted itself, and by 1917 he had composed the first of many pieces to become worldwide “hits” – the “Classical” Symphony (No. 1 in D Major). Soon afterwards the Bolshevik Revolution threw the country into a state of chaos, an atmosphere uncongenial to an aspiring musician. As a result, what was planned as a routine 1918 concert tour of “the West” stretched into a self-imposed exile of 15 years, during which he made his living as pianist, conductor, and composer.

When he returned to his homeland in the mid-1930’s, it was a vastly different place. Now in the grip of Stalin and the Communist Party, it had been renamed the Soviet Union and was mad for everything new and progressive: a new type of government, new economic system, new social institutions, building new cities, new industries, and so forth. There was one glaring exception: Stalin and his minions were opposed to new-fangled ideas in the arts, as their own tastes were decidedly reactionary. But this turned out not to be completely bad news for Prokofiev, for the composer who had once gloried in his status as a provocateur had recently decided to soften his style and try to appeal to a broader audience. For the rest of his career, Prokofiev (along with his colleagues, notably Shostakovich) walked a tightrope, suffering official condemnation from time to time and constantly working under the pressure to please the masses – in other words, to pander to the lowest common denominator. Given the circumstances, it is remarkable that he composed so much great music, including the ballet Romeo and Juliet, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, his opera War and Peace, and other works.

The Fifth Symphony was composed in the summer of 1944, as World War II appeared to be winding down and the public felt a growing anticipation of victory over the Nazis. This surely accounts for the heroic tone of the first movement, which begins with a quiet, spacious theme and grows, through many changes of tempo and mood, to a huge peroration. The scherzo is large and complex, perfectly illustrating Prokofiev’s sardonic humor (this movement and the finale both contain textbook examples of his “motoric” rhythms – ongoing patterns of repeated notes that suggest the regular, energetic activity of an engine). At the start of the Adagio the tone changes to one of restrained emotion, featuring sometimes weird coloration but growing eventually to an impassioned, even strenuous climax. The finale opens with a brief introduction in which the opening of the first movement is recalled, this time in a thoughtful variation for an ensemble of cellos and basses. The main theme, marked Allegro giocoso (“Playful, humorous”), is set out by clarinet over a chugging ostinato in horns. Extremely demanding for the entire orchestra, the movement displays a wide range of moods and ends in a burst of virtuosic brilliance with a surprisingly abrupt finish. So successful was the Fifth at its 1945 premiere in Moscow and at subsequent performances around the globe that it was immediately adopted into the standard repertoire and has remained a favorite with audiences and performers ever since.