Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_NOV_DEC | Page 16

POULENC CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS
work of pure entertainment to be played
by two pianists who were close friends:
Poulenc himself and Jacques Février. They
gave the Concerto’s first performance in
Venice on September 5, 1932.
Wildly eclectic indeed, this sparkling
work merrily combines influences from
Ravel, Stravinsky, popular music-hall
entertainment and even the exotic sounds
of Balinese gamelan music. But strongest
of all is the connection to Mozart,
who was Poulenc’s favorite composer;
the Concerto’s second movement is an
enchanting homage to him.
With two gunshot chords, the first
movement explodes into a series of zany
melodies linked together by a four-note
rhythmic motive. This craziness suddenly
subsides into a much calmer middle
section in a slow, entranced tempo,
here the two pianos dominate with cool
melodies over delicate orchestration.
After a return to the zany music comes an
abrupt pause. Then, with his two pianos,
Poulenc conjures the magical, bell-like
sounds of Balinese gamelan instruments
as he remembered hearing them at the
1931 Paris Colonial Exposition.
Of movement two, Poulenc wrote: “In
the Larghetto of this Concerto, I allowed
myself, for the first theme, to return to
Mozart, for I cherish the melodic line and
I prefer Mozart to all other musicians.”
Poulenc’s exquisite opening melody closely
resembles a Mozart slow-movement
theme, but it contains odd chromatic
(half-step) inflections that would never
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have been heard in the 18 th century.
This slippery chromaticism gradually
eases the music into Poulenc’s world, and
the middle section becomes dreamily
romantic in the style of Rachmaninoff.
Once again launched by percussive
explosions, the finale is the most antic and
diverse movement of all. Brilliant toccata-
like music for the two pianos runs into a
succession of brashly orchestrated slapstick
tunes. Near the close, the gamelan music
returns again, now brighter and less
mysterious. However, the Concerto’s last
notes confirm that this marvelous musical
game is not to be taken seriously at all.
Instrumentation: Flute, piccolo, two oboes
including English horn, two clarinets,
two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets,
two trombones, tuba, percussion and strings.
SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN D MAJOR
Felix Mendelssohn
By the time Mendelssohn began writing
his “Reformation” Symphony in 1829,
he was only 20 years old, but had moved
far beyond child-prodigy status. He
had already launched a revival of Bach’s
music with his celebrated performances
of the St. Matthew Passion and was
one of the most renowned musicians
in Germany. But this symphony
was to become one of the few major
disappointments in a career marked
more by triumphs than failures.
With his growing celebrity, Mendelssohn
had every expectation he would be called
upon to compose music for the gala
commemoration of the 300 th anniversary
of the Augsburg Confession — Martin
Luther’s declaration of the doctrines of the
new Protestant faith — in Berlin on June
25, 1830. Though born into an illustrious
Jewish family, Mendelssohn was baptized
at seven and reared in the Lutheran
Church. Thus, the Augsburg tercentenary
stimulated the most ambitious orchestral
work he’d yet tackled, grand and heroic in
tone and scored for a large ensemble with
full brass complement.
However, by the time he completed the
work in May 1830, Mendelssohn already
knew his new symphony would not be
played at the Berlin celebration. Many
commentators have claimed the festivities
were cancelled, but musicologist Judith
Silber has recently produced contemporary
newspaper evidence that they did, in fact,
take place, with music by the now-forgotten
Eduard Groll. Why was Mendelssohn
passed over for this occasion? No one knows
for certain, but it seems that choral music
to appropriate religious texts was used and
that Mendelssohn’s purely instrumental
symphony may not have seemed suitable.
Antisemitism may also have played a part.
Over the next two years Mendelssohn
urgently but vainly sought a premiere in
Munich, Leipzig and Paris. Paris dealt him
a wounding blow when, after one rehearsal
of the work, he was told the conservatoire
musicians found the work “too learned,
[with] too much fugato [and] too little
melody.” No performance took place,
though a cholera epidemic that closed all
theaters may have sunk the symphony
rather than the musicians’ quibbles. Finally,
a belated premiere took place in Berlin on
November 15, 1832 to mixed reviews.
Gradually, Mendelssohn turned against
his ill-starred symphony and declared it
a failure. In 1838 he wrote: “I can hardly
stand the Reformation Symphony anymore
and would rather burn it than any other
piece of mine; [it] shall never be published.”
And indeed, the work was not published
until 1868, two decades after his death.
This stirring, richly contrapuntal work,
however, has finally come into its own as