{ program notes
The First Piece is built over a slow , simple theme in the violins , rocking over just two chords . The string orchestra is divided into many individual parts , and the texture becomes progressively richer .
The Second Piece is repetitious in a quicker tempo based on an actual Polish folk dance . The composer spices it with changing rhythmic accents and abrupt leaps upward in the violins .
The Third Piece is based on a 16 th -century Polish part song , and Górecki emphasized its antiquity by instructing the instruments to be played without vibrato to imitate presumed period performance style . The tranquil purity of this early sound is then juxtaposed against an aggressively modern treatment of the melody , played triple-forte in chords of crunchy dissonances .
Instrumentation : String orchestra .
Symphony No . 4 in B-flat Major
Ludwig van Beethoven
The Fourth Symphony is one of the least performed of Beethoven ’ s mighty nine . And yet this fact can actually work to its advantage . Audiences may be better able to respond to this engaging work with the sense of discovery and delight it deserves . The Fourth has been unfortunately obscured by the overlapping shadows of the two formidable symphonies that preceded and followed it : the “ Eroica ” and the Fifth . And while Beethoven ’ s music is often revered for its grappling with big human issues and its sense of triumph over obstacles , the Fourth is not in this mold . Instead , it shows us the mischievous , life-affirming side of Beethoven ’ s genius , and the obstacles it overcomes are purely musical . The conflict between lyrical melody and complex rhythmic play is helpful to remember when listening to this work .
Beethoven had already begun his Fifth Symphony when he broke away from it to compose the Fourth . By this time , he had more or less come to terms with his increasing deafness and found salvation from depression lay in work . “ I live only in my notes ,” he wrote a close friend , “ and with one work barely finished , the other is already started ; the way I now write , I often find myself working on three , four things at once .”
The first movement begins with a slow introduction that suggests a weighty work . But suddenly a teasing series of upward flourishes gathers and explodes into the high-spirited Allegro vivace . Beethoven has played his first practical joke : the tragedy is really a comedy !
The battle between melody and rhythm is waged in the development section , where the violins and woodwinds trade back and forth a soaring theme against the staccato notes of the movement ’ s principal subject . The section ’ s master stroke begins as we hear a hushed drum roll on the home note of B-flat . The timpani then continue this roll for 22 measures while , as Lewis Lockwood tells us , “ the strings gradually whip up momentum .” It is one of the great dramatic moments in Beethoven .
The second movement , in E-flat Major , is one of Beethoven ’ s slow-tempo rondos , as was the funeral-march movement of the “ Eroica .” The first violins spin a long descending melody , marked cantabile ( singing ). But while you luxuriate in this melody , don ’ t ignore its halting accompaniment in the second violins . Later the clarinets offer their version of the long descending melody , now reversed into an ascending shape .
Returning to the key of B-flat , the third movement is a scherzo , with a rustic woodwind Trio section that suggests the “ Pastoral ” Symphony ’ s peasant dances . With both scherzo and trio sections repeated , this movement “ now stands up handsomely to the other large movements in its weight and length , rather than serving as a point of relaxation before the finale ” ( Lockwood ).
The sonata-form finale is predominantly playful , but it is also energized by sharply accented cross rhythms and high-octane string writing . Still poking us in the ribs , Beethoven caps the work with a marvelously mischievous coda .
Instrumentation : Flute , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , two trumpets , timpani , strings .
Notes by Janet E . Bedell , Copyright © 2017
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