Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_Sept_Oct | Page 21

SIBELIUS SYMPHONIES
Though his language remained
quite contemporary, it became more
traditional and considerably easier
on the ears. Such is the case with his
delightfully entertaining Concertino
for Trumpet and Orchestra, composed
in 2015 for the Hungarian trumpet
virtuoso Gábor Boldoczki.
Boldoczki brought the composer five
different types of trumpet to demonstrate
the variety of the instrument’s different
color possibilities. Penderecki chose two
for the Concertino: the standard trumpet
in C major and the deeper, mellower
flugelhorn, beloved of jazz musicians.
He cast the trumpeter as an actor as
well as a musician and also featured
prominent roles for a group of
percussion instruments.
Indeed, to begin the Andante
first movement, drums preemptively
summon the soloist, who is soon heard
but not seen. But she soon appears and
commands center stage with a cadenza
showing a vivid personality as well as
virtuosity. Throughout this movement,
her moods change rapidly from sassy to
dreamy to, in a fast Allegro, aggressive.
For the slow and very beautiful
second movement, the soloist switches
to the alto-range flugelhorn for music
that is nostalgic and melancholic.
Wonderful contributions from solo
woodwinds, including a soprano
saxophone, support her.
In the third-movement Intermezzo, a
new character arrives to challenge her:
the bass clarinetist. Explosive chords
from the orchestra and bass drum set up
suspense for the confrontation.
This confrontation spurs the soloist on
to extreme but lighthearted virtuoso feats
in the finale, which suggests a Charlie
Chaplin chase scene. Eventually, the
driving Allegro music from the close of
the first movement reappears to fuel the
manic energy.
Instrumentation: Two flutes including
piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets including
bass clarinet, two bassoons including
contrabassoon, saxophone, two horns, two
trumpets, two trombones, tuba, percussion,
celesta and strings.
TRUMPET CONCERTO IN E-FLAT MAJOR
Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Born in Pressburg, now Bratislava, Slovakia,
November 14, 1778; died in Weimar, Germany,
October 17, 1837
Living roughly during the same period
as Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk
Hummel occupied an intriguing niche
in the pantheon of the great. A piano
prodigy, he studied for a time with
Mozart — who thought highly of his
talent— and then became a touring
child performer who visited nearly
as many European courts as Mozart
had in his legendary youth. Hummel
succeeded Haydn as head musician at
Prince Esterházy’s court in Hungary
and later held a similar position at the
grand ducal court in Weimar, where he
and the poet/novelist Goethe reigned
together as Weimar’s world-class
celebrities. He was sometimes viewed
by Beethoven as a rival although the
two had reconciled by Beethoven’s
death in 1827. Hummel was one of the
greatest pianists of his day, a brilliant
improviser, and perhaps the finest piano
pedagogue of the early 19 th century,
with a piano method still in use today.
As a composer, his music sums up the
aesthetic principles of late Classicism
without attaining the heights of Mozart,
Haydn and Beethoven.
While he wrote prolifically for his
own instrument, Hummel is best
known today for his only trumpet
concerto, composed in 1803 for Anton
Weidinger, the virtuoso of the newly
invented keyed trumpet. (Seven years
earlier, Haydn also wrote a concerto for
Weidinger; today both the Hummel and
Haydn concertos are mainstays of any
trumpet virtuoso’s repertoire.) At the
end of the 18 th century, the trumpet was
undergoing a series of refinements to
allow it to play all pitches, not just those
in its natural harmonic series. First,
keys — like those on a clarinet — were
added to enable trumpeters to play a
full chromatic scale. By 1814, the more
reliable system of valves we use today
was introduced.

Hummel exploited the capabilities
of Weidinger’s keyed trumpet,
especially in the concerto’s second
movement: an aria over a triplet-
rhythm accompaniment in which the
trumpet displays its newfound ability
to sing a melody as compellingly as any
soprano — delighting in the expressive
half-steps now at its command. The
lengthy sonata-form opening movement
emphasizes brilliant fanfare writing,
while the fast-tempo rondo finale
revolves around a jaunty, off-to-the-
races trumpet theme.
Instrumentation: Flute, two oboes,
two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns,
timpani and strings.
SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN D MINOR
SYMPHONY NO. 7 IN C MAJOR
Jean Sibelius
Born in Hämeenlinna, Finland, December 8,
1865; died at Järvenpää, Finland,
September 20, 1957
Symphony No. 6
Jean Sibelius’ Sixth Symphony is a
beautiful enigma. The subtlest and most
lyrical of his seven symphonies, it is the
least often performed. Yet it is a jewel of
a work and one well worth discovering.
In the period from 1920 to 1923 when
Sibelius was composing the Sixth, his
world was again expanding beyond his
rustic country house Järvenpää in the
Finnish woods. World War I and the
Finnish Revolution to free the country
from the subsequent Russian Revolution
had trapped him at Järvenpää with few
outside contacts, often little food to eat
and occasionally police harassment.
In 1920, the newly founded Eastman
School of Music in Rochester, NY,
offered him a handsome contract to
become its first director. The composer
gave it serious consideration, but finally
turned it down, fearing it would interfere
too much with his creative work. For the
rest of his long life, he would elect to stay
close to his Finnish roots.
Sibelius was aware that he was out
of step with the orchestral blockbusters
S E P – O C T 2018 / OV E R T U R E
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