Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season January-February 2016 | Page 38

{ program notes
in working-class Ayrshire on the southwest coast of Scotland below Glasgow.
Despite these humble origins, he studied
music at the University of Edinburgh
and eventually took a doctorate at
Durham University in England. After
Durham, he returned to Scotland and
began composing prolifically. Today his
catalogue boasts more than 150 works.
In recent years, MacMillan has created
a series of colorful, exacting concertos
for such virtuosi as violinist Vadim
Repin, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet,
oboist Nicholas Daniel, and violist
Lawrence Power. Now we hear his
Percussion Concerto No. 2 written for
his fellow Scot, the extraordinary Colin
Currie, and co-commissioned by the
BSO. It is the successor to his spectacular
first concerto for percussion instruments written for Evelyn Glennie in
1992, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which has
received more than 500 performances
worldwide to date. This Second Percussion Concerto, however, differs from
the first in that it is written for a large
symphony orchestra, while Veni, Veni
was created for chamber orchestra. And
it actually features two percussionists in
the orchestra who sometimes interact
with the soloist, as in the Concerto’s
opening moments when all three play
marimbas against each other in whirling
counterpoint creating in MacMillan’s
words “a meta-marimba,” or in the drive
to the finish in which the orchestral
percussionists urge the soloist on.
With the number of instruments
available to a percussionist today, MacMillan explains “you have to be selective
so, apart from marimba and some
drums, I homed in on metal percussion
for the concerto. This still allowed a
lot of variety, and the journey between
untuned and tuned metal became very
important. Colin also introduced me to
a recent instrument, the aluphone, … a
metallophone that combines the sounds
of vibraphone and bells.”
Though designed as a single movement lasting about 24 minutes, the
Concerto actually subdivides into three
distinct sections: “a substantial fast
and lively [opening] section, a middle

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section that begins ritualistically and
subsides into a dreamy, reflective mood,
and a third section that gradually builds
in momentum and speed.”
A dissonant three-note motive
launches the opening section and will
return frequently and be expanded
by both the orchestra and soloist.
The soloist plays hyperactive, vigorously rhythmic music on the marimba,
aided and abetted by the two orchestral
marimbists. This music grows more
frenzied as the soloist moves to the
metal instruments and drum. A police
siren pierces the violence. Gradually, the
soloist succeeds in calming the orchestra
along with a portentous tuba solo.
A quiet, lyrical slow section gradually emerges. Here is the loveliest, most
imaginative writing in the score as MacMillan, in his words, explores “how the
instruments can be played against type,
producing delicate and light sonorities,
and how they can be expressive.” The
soloist first moves to the tuned cowbells
and then to the steel drum, heard so
prominently in Caribbean music. Here,
combined with piano, two flutes, and
a melancholy viola solo, its tremulous
sound takes on the oriental coloration
of an Indonesian gamelan.
Grim low brass disturb this tranquil
interlude. The low strings begin to whir
busily, driving a transition into the faster final section. Here, MacMillan said
he wanted to create “a clangorous sheen,
almost like a halo” with the percussion
instruments. From this, a noble, deeptoned chorale emerges in the lower brass
instruments and powers an exhilarating
drive to the finish line, with the soloist
moving rapidly between the contrasting
instruments of his battery.
Variations on an Original Theme,
Enigma, opus 36

Edward Elgar

Born in Broadheath, England, June 2, 1857;
died in Worcester, England, February 23, 1934

Seldom in musical history has one work
propelled a composer from obscurity
to fame to the degree that the Enigma

Variations did for Edward Elgar. Before
the Enigma, he was a provincial composer in the west of England, somewhat
in demand for writing oratorios for the
regional choral festivals that flourished
in that era, but also needing to give
music lessons to the local gentry to
make ends meet. After the Enigma’s
premiere in London on June 19, 1899,
Elgar instantly became England’s leading composer. A year later, Cambridge
University awarded him an honorary
doctorate, and a knighthood followed
in 1904.
The Enigma Variations is an unusual
and felicitous blending of the theme and
variations form with a series of beguiling, psychologically astute musical
portraits of Elgar’s friends and family.
It began innocently one evening in
October 1898 when the composer was
improvising at the piano for his wife.
She praised a theme he’d invented, and
he began to vary it to match the personalities of members of their circle.
So far, the plan was straightforward
enough, and although Elgar cryptically
labeled the variations with initials, they
were easily decoded to reveal his wife’s
and friends’ identities. But a month
before the premiere, the composer threw
in his “enigma.” In a letter to the work’s
first annotator, he wrote: “The enig