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 14 OV E R T U R E / BSOmusic.org 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