SOL GABETTA PERFORMS TCHAIKOVSKY
Written in 1865 but not published until 1876, Mallarmé’ s pastoral poem,“ L’ Aprèsmidi d’ un faune”(“ The Afternoon of a Faun”) epitomized the Symbolist aesthetic. Its subject is the amorous adventure of a faun— the cloven-hoofed demigod of Greek mythology also known as a satyr— on a sultry summer afternoon. However, the poem leaves purposefully vague whether the faun’ s pursuit and capture of two nymphs is real or only a languid dream.
Both the sensual imagery and the vagueness meshed with Debussy’ s own ideals, and his musical paraphrase of the poem, composed between 1892 and 1894, became his first orchestral masterpiece. He described it as“ a series of scenes against which the desires and dreams of the faun are seen to stir in the afternoon heat.” Premiered on December 22, 1894 in Paris, it drew demands for an encore from an audience that immediately embraced its radical new sound world.
To appreciate how novel Debussy’ s soundscape was, compare this work with two almost contemporary pieces: Dvořák’ s“ New World” Symphony and Tchaikovsky’ s“ Pathétique” Symphony. In both, strings dominate the orchestra, brass peal out and the timpani crashes in fortissimo climaxes. But in his Afternoon of a Faun, Debussy banished both brass and timpani and de-emphasized the strings. Instead, the plangent tones of woodwinds dominate his orchestra, led by a superb part for the solo flute representing the faun. His most luxurious addition is two harps, providing a shimmering accompaniment to the wind solos, and his most exotic, the bell-like antique cymbals that ring softly at the end. The sounds of these instruments are deployed with the utmost subtlety, and no loud climaxes are permitted.
To his new sound palette Debussy added other radical features: free harmonic movement not dictated by the classical rules of tonality and the supplest use of rhythm, in which time flows rather than beats. All the work’ s thematic material is derived from the flute’ s opening melody: a lazy chromatic slither that captures both the heat of the afternoon and the faun’ s desire. Mallarmé himself was delighted by this fusion of music and poetry:“ The music brings forth the emotion of the poem and gives it a background of warmer color.”
Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two basssons, four horns, percussion, two harps and strings.
SUITE FROM DER ROSENKAVALIER
Richard Strauss
Born in Munich, Germany, June 11, 1864; died in Garmisch – Partenkirchen, West Germany, September 8, 1949
Having devoted his early career to the composition of tone poems, in middle age Richard Strauss moved on to the most dramatic musical form of all— opera. Of his 15 operas, the most popular and, in the opinion of many critics, the finest is Der Rosenkavalier, his bittersweet comedy set in 18 th-century Vienna. With a libretto by the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, it tells the story of a love triangle involving different generations: two women— one mature and the other only a teenager— vying for the love of one young man.
The older woman is the Marschallin Maria Theresa: a beautiful, married aristocrat who is carrying on an affair with the 17-year-old Octavian, Count Rofrano.( Because he personally disliked the tenor voice, Strauss cast Octavian as a mezzo-soprano, making it a female“ trouser role” like Cherubino in Mozart’ s The Marriage of Figaro.) When the Marschallin’ s cousin, the boorish country bumpkin Baron Ochs von Lerchenau, arrives with the news he is wooing the teenaged Sophie von Faninal and needs a young man to present a silver rose to her as a token of his love( the old Viennese aristocratic ceremony of the“ Rose Cavalier”), the Marschallin proposes Octavian as rosebearer, half knowing she may thereby lose him to an attractive woman his own age. And indeed, the story unfolds as she suspected: Sophie and Octavian are instantly smitten with each other during the rose presentation ceremony; Ochs’ crude wooing throws Sophie into Octavian’ s arms and, after various comic episodes, Ochs admits defeat, and the Marschallin gracefully surrenders Octavian to Sophie.
Ever since its premiere in 1911, this opera has entranced audiences with its soaring ensembles for its three female leads( Octavian included), its comic sparkle and especially its anachronistic( the waltz hardly existed in the 18 th century), but gloriously Viennese waltzes. The concert suite we’ ll hear is a potpourri of its greatest melodies pulled together by an unknown arranger with the elderly Strauss’ blessing in 1945, when World War II had left him in desperate financial straits.
We will hear: from Act I, the ardent prelude that opens the opera, in which the Marschallin and Octavian are discovered in bed together; the Act II“ Rose Presentation Scene,” with its high, cascading motive shimmering in celesta, harps, flutes and strings and including the enraptured duet in which Octavian and Sophie first express their mutual attraction; also from Act II, Baron Ochs’ sentimental waltz“ Mit mir”( the most famous of Rosenkavalier’ s waltzes) as well as his more boisterous waltz proclaiming the“ Luck of the Lerchenaus”; the glorious Act III trio in which the Marschallin tenderly renounces her claims to Octavian and gives him to Sophie; and the charmingly naive duet for the young lovers that closes the opera. Finally, though Baron Ochs loses in the opera, he gets the last word in the Suite with a reprise of his exuberant waltz boasting of the“ Luck of the Lerchenaus.”
Instrumentation: Three flutes including piccolo, three oboes including English horn, three clarinets including E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, celesta and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright © 2017
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