The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often published as three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered on July 17, 1717, in response to King George I’s request for a concert on the River Thames.
Ruth Dorothy Louisa (“Wid”) Gipps MBE (20 February 1921 – 23 February 1999) was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos and many chamber and choral works. This performance of the Oboe Concerto is the NYC premiere.
Here is a performance from the Richmond Symphony with Valentina Peleggi & Katherine Needleman, oboe.
Just fifteen years ago, piles of sheet music and writings were discovered in an abandoned house slated for demolition. Inside were dozens of unpublished scores, including a symphony and two violin concertos. The house had been the summer residence of Florence Price, a child prodigy who was valedictorian at 14 and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She was a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer who had written over 300 pieces of music: four symphonies, four concertos, choral works, vocal work, chamber music, and solo pieces, as well as popular songs. She achieved a degree of success, but during her lifetime she faced challenges in achieving recognition and performance opportunities due to racial and gender bias. Despite that, her “Symphony in E minor” was performed by the Chicago Symphony orchestra in 1933, making her the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra.
The Second Violin Concerto, completed a year before her death (and later found in the abandoned house), was written in a single movement in the form of a rhapsody. It is framed in the western classical structure, combining lyrical romanticism, impressionist harmonies, and elements of West African and African American spiritual and dance traditions. It is a compact single movement work, richly orchestrated, with contrasting motivic sections and bravura solo violin passages.
As Antonin Dvorak had incorporated folk and national elements into his music, Price, along with other composers of the time, sought to further expand the classical canon with a fusion of traditional and vernacular. Alex Ross, in the New Yorker, wrote, “This terse, beguiling piece has an autumnal quality reminiscent of the final works of Richard Strauss. It deserves to be widely heard.”
In 1823, Schubert was commissioned to compose music for a play called “Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress.” Nearing the deadline for completion, and without an overture written, he opted for repurposing his overture from an earlier opera, “Alfonso und Estrella.” But after his death, for unknown and confusing reasons, a publisher took an overture from yet another Schubert opera, “The Magic Harp,” and renamed it the “Rosamunde” overture.
The overture, in a modified sonata form, begins with a dramatic opening which then becomes lively and lyrical. Schubert borrowed from his own, earlier operatic work, “in the Italian style.”
Although a very prolific and successful composer in a short life — 600 vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, piano and chamber music — his efforts to compose for the musical theatre were haphazard disasters. The collaborations with the libretti were poor and the performances were few. Fortunately, the “Rosamunde” Overture has survived and become one of his most popular works.
Franz Liszt was obsessed with death and religion and the themes of salvation and redemption. His fascination with the supernatural and the macabre led to rumors about him being a haunted or eerie figure. Some people believed that his virtuosic piano skills were the result of a pact with the Devil.
in 1838, when Liszt visited the Camposanto in Pisa, he was awed and inspired by “The Triumph of Death,” a monumental 14th century fresco. That work inspired his “Totentanz,” or “Danse Macabre,” a dramatic and virtuosic composition for piano and orchestra. Composed in 1849 (revised in 1853 and 1859), it is based on the medieval tale of people from all walks of life summoned to dance with death itself. The piece begins with a dark, ominous, and percussive introduction, and then the piano enters with a series of variations (e.g., pensive, fiery, playful, majestic) on the “Dies Irae” or “Day of Wrath” chant, a medieval plainchant used for centuries in the Requiem Mass for the dead, and used by many other composers, including Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, and Rachmaninoff. (Liszt attended the first performance in 1830 of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, with the Dies Irae being a major theme of the last movement, “Witches’ Sabbath.”)
Throughout the piece, Liszt showcases his exceptional piano technique, with rapid runs, thunderous chords, and virtuosic passages. The music alternates between moments of intense fury and eerie calm, reflecting the contrasting emotions of mortality. As the piece progresses, the confrontation between the piano and orchestra intensifies, culminating in a thrilling and dramatic conclusion, where death ultimately triumphs over the living.
Liszt was known for his charismatic stage presence and showmanship. He was one of the first pianists to perform from memory, which was a groundbreaking practice at the time. He played a pivotal role in shaping the way the piano is performed and how music was composed for it during the Romantic era.
In 1839, 26-year-old Richard Wagner was employed as a conductor at the Court Theatre in Riga, Latvia. With the retirement of his actress wife and overwhelming debts from their extravagant lifestyle, they fled their creditors by boarding a ship for Paris with the dream of his making a fortune selling compositions for the Paris Opera. Their sea journey was hindered by storms and high seas, turning the eight day trip into three weeks. Wagner’s experience in Paris was also disastrous. He was unable to get work as a conductor, and the Opera did not want to produce his work. His harrowing sea voyage inspired the theme of the Flying Dutchman. Its premiere performance in 1843 was his first great success and played a central role in establishing his reputation.
The legend of the Flying Dutchman is the story of a ghost ship, with black masts and blood-red sails, condemned forever to seafaring on the turbulent high seas. The captain can only be rescued from this doom by finding his true love. The overture is one of the most impressive and enthralling storm scenes in music.
Wagner is credited with popularizing and extensively using the “leitmotif,” a musical theme associated with a character, object, emotion, or event. A recent popular example is in the “Star Wars” series. Many leitmotifs are woven into Wagner’s overture, including:
This monumental work was composed by Berlioz in 1830, just a few years after Beethoven’s death. At that time, Berlioz was an unknown 26-year composer who had fallen madly in love with an Anglo-Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, whom he had seen in the Parisian theater performing Shakespeare. He tried, but failed, to win her attention.
In despair, he poured out his soul in this symphony – a semi-autobiographical tour-de-force – which was revolutionary in its musical impact. Written in five movements, this “fantastic symphony” describes the dreams and imaginings of a love-sick young artist who, despairing of attaining the object of his love, has poisoned himself with opium. He sees visions in the form of musical imagery. His beloved is represented by an “ideé fixe” – a graceful melody which appears in every movement. The ideé fixe binds all of the movements together, although it appears in different guises in each.
A brief description of the movements follows, based on Berlioz’ own programmatic notes:
I. Dreams and Passions: The young artist reflects on his melancholy, despair and anguish; his joyous elation when he sees his beloved, and the volcanic love she inspires. After a somber opening tinged with melancholy, violins and flutes open the passionate allegro section and introduce the ideé fixe. Delirious anguish and furious jealousy intrude, giving way to re-awakening love and, at the end, religious consolation.
II. A Ball: He finds his beloved amid the tumult of a festive ball; the ideé fixe is glimpsed amid the gaiety.
III. Scene in the Country: He imagines himself in the country on a summer evening, hearing shepherds’ pipes play the “Ranz des Vaches” to call in their flocks. The pastoral scene gives him a feeling of calm contentment. Suddenly, thoughts of his beloved intrude; his heart lurches, and he has grim forebodings should she betray him. A solitary shepherd plays his tune again without answer, giving way to distant rolling thunder and silence.
IV. March to the Scaffold: He dreams that he has killed his beloved, has been condemned to death and is being led to the scaffold through a jeering mob. A solemn march interrupted by wild passages accompanies him. At the scaffold, he hears the ideé fixe for an instant – which is interrupted by the death blow.
V. Witches’ Sabbath: He dreams he is at an eerie gathering of horrible spirits, sorcerers and monsters who have come to attend his funeral. There are strange cries, groans, shouts and laughter. His beloved has been transformed into one of the revelers; a raucous clarinet plays the ideé fixe as a grotesque parody. She is gleefully welcomed and joins the infernal orgy. Funeral bells toll; low brass and bassoons play a parody of the “Dies Irae” from the mass of the dead. The witches begin their round-dance, heralded by different instrument choirs. The witches’ dance and the Dies Irae come together in a delirious finale, bringing this “fantastic symphony” to an end.
For Berlioz, the story did not end there. In 1832 he finally met Harriet Smithson – and married her a year later.
This enchanting duet is from Delibes’s famous 1883 opera. It is sung by Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika, as they gather fragrant flowers by the river.
Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto was jointly commissioned by the Library of Congress, the Nashville Symphony, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Aspen Music Festival. It premiered March 7, 2015 at the Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., with conductor Robert Spano leading violist Roberto Díaz (playing a Stradivarius viola) and the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. The work won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Usually embedded in the orchestra, the viola is pitched between the violin and cello. In the Viola Concerto it takes center stage. Higdon made a concerted effort to make her concerto very “up” and lively, as these are qualities not normally associated with the viola and not present in many other viola concertos. Weaving virtuosic lines into the entire orchestra, she also explores the viola’s lower ranges, darker colors, and the best speeds to take the instrument. Higdon made a conscious effort to write something that, in her own words, “sounded really American,” as the concerto was commissioned by several American institutions.
Listen in the First Movement for the low, lyrical melodies in the solo viola, ethereal textures in the orchestra, and dialogues with orchestra members, including clarinet and violin. In the Second Movement, the orchestra is in “perpetual motion” reminiscent of Barber (another American composer, famous for his Violin Concerto.) The orchestra zigs and zags in dotted, jazzy, darting lines, and the percussionist has an especially virtuosic part, playing many different instruments. Movement 3 opens with a plaintive brass chorale, but returns to the themes of the second movement. Listen for a “trio” between the solo viola and principal violin and cello. After hearing this concerto, you’ll know that the viola isn’t just “a big violin!”
— D. Rosen and A. J. Edelstein
Satie was a musical iconoclast who sought to lead French music from Impressionism to a more minimalist, experimental approach. Among those influenced by him during his lifetime were Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, and he is seen as an influence on a number of modern artists, including John Cage, Philip Glass, and Brian Eno.
His formal musical training began in 1879, when at age 12 he was enrolled in the preparatory piano class at the Paris Conservatoire. However, he strongly disliked it, and a few years later was expelled for unsatisfactory performance. Rejecting his restrictive, traditional upbringing, he embraced an eccentric, bohemian lifestyle and earned a living as a cabaret pianist, adapting more than a hundred compositions of popular music for piano, or piano and voice.
He became involved in avant-garde music and art circles in the early 20th century, becoming a friend and collaborator of many famous artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and James Joyce. He composed music for Cocteau’s play “Parade,” which featured set and costume designs by Picasso. His close friend, Claude Debussy, was a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition. Both were bohemians, enjoying the same café society and struggling to survive financially. Satie composed most of his works for solo piano, including two “Gymnopédies” in 1888 (plus another in 1895), and “Gnossiennes” in 1889.
In 1897 Debussy arranged two of the Gymnopédies for orchestra (the ones we are performing today). “Gymnopédie” may refer to a classical Greek annual festival where young men danced naked – or perhaps simply unarmed. The source of the title has been a subject of debate. The Gymnopédies are characterized by slow tempos, simple melodic lines, at once melancholic and atmospheric. The Gymnopédies are among the most publicly recognizable of Satie’s works. They have been featured in many artists’ arrangements, movies, and television shows.
— D. Rosen and M.F. Tietz