PROGRAM NOTES
PROGRAM NOTES
ISATA RETURNS
Maximilian Franz
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
BY AARON GRAD
Zoltán Kodály
Born December 16 , 1882 in Kecskemét , Hungary Died March 6 , 1967 in Budapest , Hungary
VARIATIONS ON A HUNGARIAN FOLKSONG (“ THE PEACOCK ”) [ 1914 ]
The son of a railway stationmaster , Zoltán Kodály grew up in the countryside of what is now Slovakia , and his music remained grounded in the folksongs and traditions of the Magyar ( Hungarian ) people who had occupied those lands for more than a thousand years . Kodály ’ s friend and collaborator in the systematic collection of folksongs , Béla Bartók , once wrote , “ If I were to name the composer whose works are the most perfect embodiment of the Hungarian spirit , I would answer , Kodály . His work proves his faith in the Hungarian spirit . The obvious explanation is that all Kodály ’ s composing activity is rooted only in Hungarian soil , but the deep inner reason is his unshakable faith and trust in the constructive power and future of his people .”
A sign of Kodály ’ s growing international stature was the commission he received to write an orchestral piece for the 50th anniversary of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam , for which he completed his Variations on a Hungarian Folksong in 1939 . Kodály ’ s source material may have been ancient , but the references in “ The Peacock ” to prisoners and freedom were certainly timely in that period when an increasingly authoritarian Hungary was aligning itself with Nazi Germany . The opening presentation of the theme is diffuse and atmospheric , and the 16 interconnected variations are more like evocative fantasies than strict elaborations on a fixed template . A robust finale marches this celebration of the Hungarian people and traditions toward a rousing conclusion , with an interruption in the middle to anchor the underlying theme in a lush and dreamy setting .
Instrumentation Three flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , timpani , glockenspiel , triangle , cymbals , harp and strings .
Sergei Prokofiev
Born April 15 , 1891 in Sontsovka , Ukraine Died March 5 , 1953 in Moscow , Soviet Union
PIANO CONCERTO NO . 3 IN C MAJOR , OP . 26 [ 1921 ]
Prokofiev , like so many other Russian artists and intellectuals , left his homeland in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 . With World War I raging to the west , he traveled east through Siberia , Tokyo , and Honolulu before entering the United States in San Francisco , where he was briefly suspected of being a spy . He struggled to restart his career in New York , but he did have some luck in Chicago , where he secured a commission to compose the opera known in English as The Love for Three Oranges , and where the symphony claimed premiere rights for his Piano Concerto No . 3 .
Prokofiev wrote most of that concerto in 1921 during a summer beach vacation in France . He was back in the U . S . later that year to perform the concerto on a tour that included stops in Chicago and New York , but even with a piece written with American audiences in mind ( the presumption being that Americans ears favored simple material and big effects ), Prokofiev didn ’ t come even close to replicating the success that his older compatriot Sergei Rachmaninoff achieved with his own American-born Third Piano Concerto . Having exhausted his options for an American career , Prokofiev moved on to Europe in 1922 , and when he found that he didn ’ t fit in there either , he became the only major artist to repatriate in the Soviet Union .
Some of the themes in the Third Piano Concerto were sketched before Prokofiev left Russia , including the folklike melody intoned by clarinet to start the introduction . The fast body of the movement reinterprets this theme when the piano soloist makes a dazzling entrance , setting the concerto ’ s penchant for dry , propulsive textures and sparkling filigree .
In Prokofiev ’ s own recording as soloist from 1932 , we can hear his pure and incisive playing style , and his orchestrations match that crisp aspect of his musical personality , in details like the bony click of castanets in the first movement ’ s contrasting theme , or in the sparse mock-tragedy of the middle movement ’ s theme , launching a riotous set of variations . The finale , built from a Russian-inflected theme borrowed from a discarded string quartet , disrupts its own hearty progress with an ominous melody over oscillating accompaniment . This was no meatand-potatoes composition , and it failed to make Prokofiev a heartthrob of the American concert circuit , but it has aged well as one of the most alluring and attractive concertos of its era .
Instrumentation Two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , four horns , two trumpets , three trombones , strings , timpani , bass drum , cymbals ( pair ), tambourine , and castanets . Soloist : piano .
Johannes Brahms
Born May 7 , 1833 in Hamburg , Germany Died April 3 , 1897 in Vienna , Austria
SYMPHONY NO . 4 IN E MINOR , OP . 98 [ 1884-85 ]
“ I shall never write a symphony ,” Brahms lamented to a friend , at a point when he was
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