Canteloube (1879-1957) was born in the Ardèche region in southern France. Early on he showed a proclivity for musical composition and eventually studied in Paris.
While he composed two operas and a number of other works, he is best known today for his settings of French folk songs, particularly those from the Auvergne region in south-central France, a rural and mountainous region. He arranged six “series” or books of these songs; the ones we’re performing today have been selected from books 1-4, composed in the 1920s. They can be sung either in the “Auvergnat” dialect (based on the medieval Occitan language — the “langue d’oc”), or in French. We’ve chosen to perform them in Auvergnat because its piquant flair fits so well with the music.
The songs themselves feature mostly country themes — a shepherd pleading with a shepherdess to come to him over the river, pledging to her his devoted love (Pastourelle); a girl’s scornful rejection of a hunchback’s offer of love (Lou Boussu); a haunting duet sung by a shepherdess and shepherd, echoing across the mountains — the shepherd finally promising to cross the river to her (Bailèro); a warning that drinking spring water is fatal — a maiden should drink wine instead, especially if she wants to get married (L’Aïo de Rotso); let’s find a meadow to graze our flocks and make love (Ound’ Onorèn Gorda?); and a hymn of praise to the beautiful girls, and to the gallant and faithful men, of the Auvergne (Obal din lou Limouzi).
Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738) was a court composer active in France during the reigns of Louis XIV (the “Sun King”) and his son, Louis XV. Very few of his compositions have survived, and even fewer are known to the public.
The major exception is this collection of fanfares known as his “Premiere Suite de Symphonies” which was first performed for Louis XV. The Suite has four movements, each with a different character, and each featuring contrasting forces – strings and woodwinds; trumpets; and timpani.
The Suite opens with a Rondeau, a grand fanfare (also known as the “Masterpiece Theater” theme), with 2 contrasting couplets. The second movement is a graceful minuet, played first by strings and woodwinds, with trumpets and timpani joining in; there are two string couplets in the middle of the movement, followed by a return to the opening minuet. Next is a sprightly march, in 18th-century military style. A short lilting final movement (“Guay”) closes out this work.
Mouret’s formalized style emphasizes rhythmic precision and simplicity of line, and typifies the French style in baroque music.
Rimsky-Korsakov is best known for large-scale works – operas and symphonies, as well as chamber works, which are staples of Russian romantic music. Less-well known, however, is that he initially embarked on a career with the Russian navy.
After retiring from the service, he was appointed Inspector of Music Bands of the Navy in 1873 and held that post until 1884. During that time he familiarized himself extensively with wind and brass instruments, and composed a number of concert pieces to elevate the musical level of navy band performances. One of the pieces he wrote was the concerto for trombone and military band, a 3-movement work first performed in 1878.
The concerto shows off both the lyrical and technical aspects of the trombone. It opens right away with a heroic solo theme; moves to an introspective and lyrical middle movement; and ends in a rousing last movement heralded by trumpets and snare drum.
Instantly recognizable, this work is taken from Wagner’s opera “The Valkyries,” his second opera in the Ring cycle. The “Ride” is a musical tone poem in which the Valkyries – warrior daughters of Wotan, king of the gods – ride through the air bringing back the souls of dead heroes to Valhalla, the home of the gods. The scenery is foreboding – towering, craggy mountains, a stormy thundering sky. All of this is brought to life in Wagner’s electrifying and dramatic orchestration.
This piece represents one of the highest achievements of Mozart’s art. It is at once a symphony and a concerto, and showcases both the violin and the viola (the latter being an instrument particularly loved and played by Mozart himself).
The orchestra sets the mood at the outset in a magnificent opening section – majestic in style, with elegant contrasting sections, and featuring one of the most dramatic crescendos in all of the musical literature. The soloists make their subtle entrance entwined with the end of the opening orchestral section. Mozart gives the soloists their own distinctive themes, with orchestral accompaniment interspersed with vigorous symphonic sections; a lengthy double cadenza leads to a rousing ending.
The lovely second movement is set in the contrasting key of C minor, which Mozart uses to convey themes of great poignance and emotion (albeit in his restrained classical style), with its own cadenza for the soloists. The third movement is a spritely rondo, with lively themes taken up by the orchestra and soloists in turn. After a final rising flourish by the soloists, the piece ends joyously
César Franck was 66 when he completed the Symphony in D minor, his only symphony.
It premiered the next year, on February 17, 1889, nine months before the composer’s death. Performed by the orchestra of the Paris Conservatory under the direction of Vincent d’Indy, it was a complete catastrophe. Only now, more than 130 years later, can we see that the features which caused the negative turmoil at the premiere are precisely what cause our admiration today: the symphony’s then atypical three-movement structure, its extremely dense (at times almost Wagnerian) texture, and its organ-like overall sound.
The symphony is in three movements with the first having probably the most peculiar structure of the three. It is a richly modified sonata movement in which, not the themes, but the two tempos (Lento and Allegro non troppo) define the development. The heavy and dark introduction sets the main question of the symphony and a quick answer follows at the beginning of the Allegro. The symphony’s first surprise occurs when, in the middle of the allegro exposition, Franck returns us to the very beginning of the story by reintroducing the entire introduction, this time not in D minor, but in F minor. A second Allegro non troppo takes over leading us successfully out of the darkness. The final appearance of the Lento at the very end of the first movement brings a bright apotheosis.
The second movement is a unique hybrid of an old ballad and a scherzo that is directly derived from the ballad material. The scherzo starts as a harmless tremolo in the strings and grows monumentally toward the end of the movement. The expressive solo of the English horn at the very beginning of the movement was only one of the specific reasons for the conservative audience of Paris rejecting the work — in those days an English horn solo would be expected in an opera but not in a symphony.
The third movement begins with a stormy tremolo in the strings that is quickly interrupted by five short and powerful chords leading us to a movement that is simply a triumph of thematic richness and formal fantasy. This is also the movement in which the global plan of the symphony is revealed to us in the form of the reappearing ballad, but now heroic and with full-pipe organ volume.
Beethoven was a great admirer of Shakespeare’s plays, and according to the composer’s secretary, Anton Schindler, planned to compose an opera based on Macbeth. Unfortunately, such a plan never materialized and aside from Schindler’s unreliable testimony, there is no evidence of any Shakespearean influence on this work. When Beethoven chose the story of Coriolanus as a subject for his overture, he turned instead to the play of his contemporary, Heinrich Joseph von Collin.
The overture was written in 1807 and premiered the same year in the residence of Prince Lobkowsky in Vienna. The overture depicts a specific moment from the tragic story of the Roman general Coriolanus — the moment when his mother tries to convince him to return to Rome, even though the city has cast him out as a traitor.
The overture begins with powerful and decisive unison in the strings, followed, in the third measure, by an explosive eruption of the entire orchestra. This motive is repeated many times during the course of the overture, clearly symbolizing the heroic nature of the protagonist. After the heroic first subject, Beethoven introduces a theme closely associated with the image of the young general’s mother.
While the first subject of Coriolan is in C minor (Beethoven’s most tragic key), the second subject is in E-flat major, picturing the inner world of a loving mother. This C minor/E-flat major key relation is one that Beethoven had used a few years earlier in his Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”. There, the second movement is a funeral march in C minor, and is surrounded by three movements in E-flat major.
A striking similarity between the ending of the “Eroica’s” funeral march and the Coriolan’s ending is the way in which the musical texture breaks apart. It seems as if there is no gravity anymore or, according to the tragedy, no point in living anymore. Thus, Coriolan stabs himself to death as the only way to reconcile honor, false betrayal and a son’s love.
Beethoven wrote only one opera, Fidelio (originally entitled Leonore). It is the story of Florestan, a young man who is unjustly imprisoned. His wife, Leonore, disguised as a young man, Fidelio, helps her husband to escape and liberates all other prisoners who have been wrongly imprisoned. Leonore No. 3 Overture was one of four overtures that Beethoven composed for his only opera. The overture was composed in 1806, and was first performed in Vienna on March 29 of the same year.
The overture begins with a slow introduction partially based on Florestan’s aria “In the Springtime of Youth” from Act II. The sonata allegro that follows the extended introduction, by its enormous power, variety of emotions and orchestral richness, could be compared with a symphonic movement.
A key moment in the overture is the trumpet call before the coda. This call corresponds to the moment in the opera, when Fidelio is saved by his courageous beloved Leonore. Although today most musicians consider Leonore No.3 to be the best of the three Leonore overtures, it is very rarely performed as an actual overture to the opera because its monumental character completely overshadows most of the plot of the opera. Instead, today the overture has its own independent place in the orchestral repertoire along with Beethoven’s symphonies.
Schubert composed his Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”) in 1822 and kept it a deep secret for the rest of his life. Even after the composer’s death in 1828, the premiere of the symphony had to wait an additional 37 years until 1865 when it was performed in Vienna under the direction of Johann Herbeck.
The two-movement structure of the “Unfinished” Symphony has raised many questions and debates during the past 150 years. All resulting theories and assumptions have their strong and weak points. Some of today’s theorists have concluded that Schubert in fact completed the work by writing what is known today as the First entr’acte of the incidental music to “Rosamunde”. This theory is based on the fact that both symphony and entr’acte are in the key of B minor, a fairly rare key for a symphony even in the beginning of the nineteenth century. A second argument supporting the ‘Rosamunde’ theory is that at the time he composed the symphony, Schubert had to complete, in a very short time, some incidental music. According to the theory, Schubert sacrificed the finale of his symphony in order to secure his income.
A second theory as to why the composer did not write a third and fourth movement for his most famous instrumental work is based on a very simple and purely aesthetic observation: these two movements say everything the composer had to say. In his book Schubert: A Musical Portrait, Alfred Einstein argues that “He [Schubert] had already written too much that was “finished,” to be able to content himself with anything less or with anything more trivial.”
The first movement begins with an introduction, based on an 8-measure motive, which although not having the status of an independent theme, plays a significant role in the unfolding of the first movement. The themes of the sonata allegro are of a rich singing quality and each complements rather than contrasts with the other. This is a movement in which the romantic intensity is masterfully mixed with tender lyricism. The movement ends in darkness and pessimism: the opening motive is broken to short segments without gravity and without hope.
After the intensity and the dramatic force of the first movement, the second movement presents even more imaginative compositional and melodic structure. Here we have virtually everything the listener can desire to hear in a romantic work – almost “lied”-quality melodies, heroic frescoes, explosive climaxes, and sudden harmonic shifts.
Between 1783 and 1791 Mozart wrote four horn concertos and a horn quintet. All of these works were dedicated to one person – Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb was an acclaimed performer and one of Mozart’s closest friends in Vienna. Indeed, their friendship was so close that it enabled Mozart to take the liberty of inscribing on the title page of the concerto: “Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox, and simpleton, at Vienna, March 27, 1783.”
Typically childish Mozartean cynicism aside, all the four concertos long ago formed an important part of the horn repertoire and even today continue to challenge even the most celebrated masters of the instrument. The first movement of the concerto is a sonata allegro based on two contrasting themes. The first theme has a march-like character and solid tonal plan – in contrast to the second “female” theme with its singing quality. A new episode (B minor) introduced in the development section deserves special attention.
The second movement is a peaceful Andante with beautiful cantilenas in the solo part. These arresting melodies must have been a perfect match to Leutgeb’s famous singing tone on the horn. The last movement is a rondo (ABACABA) in the rhythm of a cheerful dance. An important element of this movement is the frequent use of trills, which – when the concerto was written – created tremendous difficulty for the performer.
