{ program notes
24 woodwind and brass instruments. In 1947, Stravinsky returned to the work and extensively revised it; this is the version we’ ll hear tonight.
Symphonies of Wind Instruments’ title is misleading, for the piece is not in symphonic form at all. Instead, Stravinsky was thinking of the word“ symphony” in its ancient sense of“ groups of instruments sounding together.” The composer described it as“ an austere ritual which is unfolded in terms of short litanies between homogeneous instruments.” In Stravinsky scholar Stephen Walsh’ s words,“ Stravinsky … used color, in the form of sharply distinguished sonorities, to make his shapes stand out clearly from one another,” much as cubist artists defined paintings with blocks of colors.
A composer of today, John Harbison, has given us helpful imagery for listening to this work:“ All the ideas are presented in stages, intercut with other ideas. These fragments are unequal in length, weight and color. The piece is like a film … in which 15 or so shots are alternated to form a pattern. It is a harmonious mosaic of complementary images.”
The striking of a shrill, dissonant bell motive opens the piece and returns frequently to punctuate the contrasting sections. Everything leads towards the final chorale— the first section Stravinsky wrote— with the brass instruments occasionally intervening with preview snatches of it. In the last section, the brass finally present the full chorale in steady, slow-moving chords, the woodwinds eventually joining them in poignant mourning for Debussy.
Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes, English horn, three clarinets, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba.
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770; died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827
While Beethoven largely followed Mozart’ s beautiful models in his first two piano concertos, he probably realized this golden vein had been mined out. With his final three, he searched for new sources of inspiration. And of these last concertos, the most daring, the most innovative— even though it is also the quietest and most introspective— is the Fourth Piano Concerto in G Major, completed in 1806.
That this work should be both so radical and so gentle seems a paradox. The mood throughout the first two movements is subdued and reflective. And Beethoven used a small orchestra: strings and woodwinds for the first movement, strings only for the second, two trumpets and timpani added for the finale. Yet the work is indeed revolutionary from its very opening bars.
The soloist is the leader and provocateur in driving this movement forward.
First Movement: The beginning of the concerto is unprecedented. The soloist begins alone, introducing the principal theme in hushed, rich chords in the home key of G. Another surprise: the orchestra answers the piano, but in a questioning manner in the remote key of B Major. Like so many of Beethoven’ s most productive motives, this theme is as much a rhythmic pattern— three short, stabbing notes leading to a sustained note( shades of the Fifth Symphony!)— as a melodic one. By just quoting the rhythm throughout this sonata-form movement, Beethoven will be able to conjure up the theme while allowing himself free range for development.
The soloist is the leader and provocateur in driving this movement forward. Not only does the pianist begin the movement, he also interrupts the orchestra’ s completion of the exposition to begin the development section by restating the principal theme, and throughout incites the orchestra to new deeds of harmonic daring. And he introduces the recapitulation with a bold, lavishly embellished version of his quiet opening statement.
The second movement, in E minor, is the work’ s most extraordinary. Commentators from the mid-19 th century on( including Franz Liszt) have agreed that it must have been inspired by the Greek legend of Orpheus venturing into the underworld in search of his wife, Euridice, and bewitching the infernal gods with his music. Beethoven may have been inspired by Gluck’ s famous opera Orfeo ed Euridice or by a forgotten one by the composer’ s friend Friedrich August Kanne. Beethoven’ s pupil Carl Czerny tells us that his works were often“ inspired by … visions or pictures from his reading or from his own lively imagination” although the composer“ was reluctant to speak on this matter except on a few occasions when he was in a confiding mood.”
The movement takes the form of a dialogue between the strings— representing the Furies in brusque, staccato-rhythm octaves— and the pianist as Orpheus, entreating them with softly singing, beautifully harmonized phrases. Toward the end, the soloist plays a remarkable passage that sounds like a magical incantation, a sustained trill that throws off eerie, chromatically descending scale figures. Spellbound, the orchestra is finally subdued; only the cellos and basses protest faintly with an echo of their fierce opening.
The finale is a rondo, full of wit and energy, but its extensive developmental passages give it more musical substance than the conventional 18 th-century rondo finale. A lyrical second theme introduced by the piano provides contrast; it is answered by the orchestra singing in rich counterpoint. Beethoven accelerates to Presto for a whirlwind finish.
Instrumentation: Flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings.
Symphony No. 6 in B minor,“ Pathétique”
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born in Votkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840; died in St. Petersburg, Russia, November 6, 1893
Tchaikovsky’ s last and greatest symphony, the“ Pathétique,” with its dark and
14 Overture | bsomusic. org