By profession an eminent chemist and professor, Borodin (1833-1887) was also a member of a Russian musical circle which included Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.
While his musical output was not large, it includes some of the best-known Russian classical works, including a number of symphonies, his D Major string quartet (with the famous Nocturne), and his masterpiece, the opera Prince Igor.
The Polovtsian Dances come from the second act of the opera, in which the Khan of the Polovtsi, a Mongol tribe, is entertaining Prince Igor, whom he has taken captive.
While a chorus is used when the dances are played in the opera, they are often played by instruments alone in a concert setting, as we are doing today. An initial processional characterized by wind solos against a plucked string and harp accompaniment gives way to a series of dances alternatively featuring dancing girls, warriors (fast descending clarinet motif); and young boys (leaping wind and string motifs). An accelerating coda brings the piece to its conclusion.
Giovanni Gabrieli (circa 1553–1612) was born into a musical family in late Renaissance Venice. He succeeded his uncle, Andreas Gabrieli, as principal composer at the great Basilica of San Marco.
Continuing a musical tradition long-established in Venice, one of his major responsibilities was to compose grand music for civic and religious processions. Two major collections of Gabrieli’s work survive – the Sacrae Sinfoniae, composed in 1597, and Canzoni e Sonate, published in 1615 after his death.
His music featured contrasting choirs of instruments, with sweeping chords, brilliant counterpoint, and bold rhythms. While these works are now most often played on trumpets and trombones, his notations indicate that other wind and string instrumental combinations were possible, and so we have adapted them to our own instrumental forces.
The Canzona in Echo features contrasting brass choirs, which echo the main musical motifs. The short Sonata XIII, with a spritely dance movement in the middle, is here performed by two string choirs. The concluding Sonata XX, with its 22 separate parts and five choirs (2 brass, 2 string, 1 woodwind), is a study in solemn sonority.
This well-known piece was actually constructed from 2 different fragments of Albinoni’s work by the Italian composer Remo Giazotto. It is composed in “church-sonata” style, with organ melody and accompaniment to the strings.
After the organ introduction, the main theme is introduced, at first simple and soulful, and then impassioned at its recapitulation. A solo violin with rising arpeggios is featured in the middle and end of the work.
French composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) almost defies characterization in terms of musical style. He was a member of the famed composer group known as “Les Six” and played a prominent role in 20th-century music.
He wrote many well-known works for the stage (Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Les Biches, Dialogues of the Carmelites), as well as numerous chamber works and concertos.
His Sinfonietta is one of his few large-scale orchestral works. It was commissioned in 1947 for the BBC, and premiered the following year. While Poulenc originally conceived of it as a short, 15-minute work (hence the title), it blossomed into a more substantial four-movement symphony, full of vigor, beauty and wit, with equal prominence given throughout to strings, woodwinds and brass.
The first movement begins with a serious and dramatic minor-key opening, with subsequent rising motifs passed around the orchestra. There is an unusual slow interlude in the middle of the movement in which solo winds are prominently featured, and a calming major-key ending.
The second movement is a lighthearted scherzo, with three witty themes introduced by the strings. The Andante cntabile features winds and strings in melodies written by Poulenc in late-Romantic, almost Brahmsian, style. The Finale is a romp, with an abrupt introduction, several incisive and witty themes, and a surprise ending.
Many of Bach’s cantatas and oratorios include instrumental sections, such as sinfonias or overtures, which are musical masterpieces in their own right. Bach freely interchanged his compositions as he saw fit, borrowing from his instrumental works as needed to fill out his vocal works, and vice versa.
This Concerto in D major is based on the first three movements of the Easter Oratorio, which according to musicological research may well have been performed separately as a three-movement instrumental concerto.
The first two movements (Allegro and Adagio) are taken verbatim from the Oratorio. The third movement is based on the Oratorio’s following choral number, with the original orchestral opening and accompaniment, and vocal lines arranged for instruments. The first and third movements of this concerto are scored for a large orchestra of trumpets, timpani, oboes, bassoon, strings and continuo. Majestic openings contrast with more quiet, introspective sections, including a section featuring solo violin in the first movement and a section with a small violin-oboe-continuo chamber ensemble in the third movement.
The second-movement Adagio is a mellifluous oboe solo over string accompaniment, serving as an introspective contrast to the exuberant outer movements.
This concerto is certainly one of the most familiar, and best-loved, works in the entire violin repertoire. It was composed in 1844 expressly for the violin virtuoso Ferdinand David and performed in Leipzig the following year.
Its three movements are essentially meant to be played without pause (although there is a slight break between the second and third movements). After a one-measure introduction, the famous opening theme is introduced by the solo violin, and gradually picked up by the entire orchestra. A lyrical theme is introduced by the winds midway through the movement; the cadenza makes an early appearance, leading to the recapitulation of the opening theme.
The second movement is essentially a “song without words,” simple and hauntingly beautiful. After a restless introduction, the solo violin introduces the last movement’s theme – an elf-like motif, evocative of Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A second robust orchestral motif makes its appearance; Mendelssohn thoroughly mixes the two themes in the contrapuntal section that follows. A triumphant coda brings the concerto to a close.
The Bach family of central Germany was prolific, producing generations of musicians from the 16th through the 19th centuries. While its greatest exemplar was undoubtedly Johann Sebastian Bach, many other Bach family members achieved local and international renown as instrumentalists and composers.
One of these was Johann Bernhard Bach, who was Johann Sebastian’s cousin and contemporary. He studied organ with his father (Johann Aegidius Bach) and then took up successive posts as organist and harpsichordist in Erfurt, Magdeburg and Eisenach, where he worked from 1703 until his death in 1749.
Besides his instrumental talents, Johann Bernhard was also a gifted composer. While little of his work has survived, the works that have come down to us include four orchestral suites. The suites show Georg Philipp Telemann’s influence (as was remarked by contemporaries); Johann Bernhard probably became acquainted with Telemann in Eisenach (where Telemann also worked from 1706-1712). Of interest, Johann Sebastian so esteemed his cousin’s suites that he was involved in copying them for his own use (which is how they were preserved).
The G major suite we are playing today is scored for strings and continuo, to which we have added oboes and bassoons as was often done at the time. The work opens with an “overture” in French style, with stately and sprightly sections. After that there are six contrasting movements based on stylized French dances, which alternately convey elegance, gaiety, introspection and joy.
