Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_JanFeb_19 | Page 35

ELGAR CELLO CONCERTO
of a seventh, making the mood yet more
poignant as the cello is unable to reach its
longed-for goal.
In the rondo finale, the orchestra tries
to launch the refrain theme, but is unable
to budge the soloist from his mood of
mourning. Eventually, he is willing to take
up the quicker tempo and the rondo theme,
which is very rhythmic and marked risoluto
(resolute). This is bitter, dark music, and it
becomes truly sardonic in a passage begun
by the soloist and the cello section in unison.
The closing coda is the finale’s most
remarkable feature. The tempo slows,
and the cello descends into a world of
grief, dragging the orchestra with it. A
quotation of the third movement’s lament
is followed by the dramatic chords of the
Concerto’s opening. Then Elgar abruptly
jerks the music back to allegro for a
frenzied, fast finish.
Instrumentation: Two flutes including piccolo,
two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani and strings.
SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN E-FLAT MINOR
Sergei Prokofiev
Born in Sontsovka, Ukraine, April 23, 1891;
died in Moscow, U.S.S.R., March 5, 1953
Sergei Prokofiev became a resident of the
U.S.S.R. in 1936 after two decades of
enjoying the freedom and privileges of a
career in the U.S. and Europe. The choice to
return had been his own, but once there, he
found the international career he had hoped
to continue was forbidden, and he would
have to trim his musical sails to the winds
and whims of the Soviet authorities.
For a decade, this worked fairly well.
Prokofiev had to pay lip-service to Soviet
propaganda, but generally — especially
since he was now writing in a more
conservative and accessible style — he was
able to compose what he wanted. Despite
its challenging language and dark tone, the
Sixth Symphony was warmly praised by the
official critics at its premiere on October
11, 1947 in Leningrad. But in the U.S.S.R.,
an artist’s standing was never secure, and
by January 1948, the notorious Zhdanov
Commission was in full swing, issuing edicts
about what was and was not acceptable for
Soviet music. Prokofiev joined Shostakovich
at the top of the list of composers who were
censured for writing politically incorrect
music, and the Sixth Symphony was singled
out as being too obscure for the ordinary
Soviet citizen to understand.
More personal problems were already
harassing the composer as he set to work
on the Sixth during the summer of 1945.
The war was over, but his health had been
severely weakened: 1945 brought a heart
attack and then a severe fall that caused some
permanent brain damage. Despite severe
headaches, nose bleeds and exhaustion, he
continued to work slowly and painstakingly
on his new symphony, requiring nearly two
years to finish it.
The Sixth Symphony is a fascinating
enigma of a work. It suggests a great
drama is taking place, but its exact nature
is hard to identify. It contains music that
constantly thwarts our expectations and it
certainly isn’t the kind of upbeat “victory”
symphony the Soviets would have liked
to hear at this time. Perhaps the best clue
to its often dark and introspective moods
can be found in Prokofiev’s words to his
biographer Israel Nestyev: “Now we are
rejoicing in our great victory, but each of us
has wounds that cannot be healed … This
must not be forgotten.”
The first movement’s opening sounds
—short blasts from muted brass —were
likened by musicologist Yulian Vaynkop
to “the scrape of a key in a rusted lock.”
The door opens on a rural vista with a
meandering theme in muted strings. Its
pastoral character is enhanced by rustic-
sounding woodwinds, but is frequently
disturbed by dissonant incursions from the
brass and a shrill-toned E-flat clarinet. The
tempo eventually eases slightly for a new
theme marked dolce e sognando (“sweetly
and dreaming”) and sung by a pair of oboes.
Suddenly, the orchestra explodes in fury, but
this subsides very quickly.
Rather than a development section,
Prokofiev now moves to a march that may
be a reference to the wartime just passed.
First we hear just its satirical, slightly
grotesque accompaniment in tick-tocking
bassoons and drums, then a wearily

determined melody in English horn and
violas. This music awakens the orchestra
at last to frenzied activity and volume.
Menacing horns blast continuously. The
violence fades, and a solo horn reprises the
dreaming second theme. The movement
closes softly but ominously.
The opening of the great second
movement is also startling. Above an A-flat
pedal in bass and timpani, winds and brass
shriek in dissonant conflict. The lower
instruments inch painfully upward while a
keening lament in the highest woodwinds
drifts downward. This fierce battle subsides
into a sweeping romantic theme in violins
and solo trumpet reminiscent of the love
music in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. We
also hear a serenely beautiful second theme
launched by the cellos. Savagely tick-tocking
percussive music intrudes.
A mellow horn quartet singing the
romantic theme restores calm; in a magical
passage, they are joined by bell-like celesta
and harp. Both the cello theme (now high
in the violins) and the romantic theme (in
full orchestra) return. Though the opening
music of shrieking conflict also reappears, it
cannot destroy this gloriously lyrical mood.
The final movement in E-flat major
initially throws off the introversion and
the threatening intrusions of the earlier
movements in favor of extroverted
celebration and a crowd of merry tunes.
Pay attention, though, to that persistently
hammering rhythm that keeps appearing.
After this music subsides, we hear something
from the past: the oboes’ winding, rustic
theme from movement one, which sets off
a savage outburst. Prokofiev told his second
wife that these interruptions represented
“questions cast into eternity” and that one of
them was “what is the purpose of life?” The
hammering motive, which earlier sounded
playful, now makes a brutal reappearance
and carries this once celebratory music to an
unexpectedly fierce conclusion.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet,
bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four
horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, percussion, harp, celesta and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2019
JA N – F E B 201 9 / OV E R T U R E
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