Overture Magazine 2019-20 BSO_Overture_Jan Feb | Page 24

SAINT-SAËNS CELLO CONCERTO
About the Concert
THE OAK
Florence Price
Born in Little Rock, AR, April 9, 1887;
died in Chicago, IL, June 3, 1953
As both a woman and an African
American, Florence Price was a dual
pioneer in the world of American classical
music at a time when there were formidable
obstacles in place against both groups.
Born and raised in Little Rock, she began
playing the piano at four and had her
first composition published at eleven. By
the time she was 14, Price had graduated
at the top of her high school class and
matriculated at Boston’s esteemed New
England Conservatory of Music. By 1906
before she was 20, she had graduated with
honors; nevertheless, during part of her
time there, she pretended to be Mexican to
counter the prejudice against her race.
In 1910, Price moved to Atlanta, where
she became head of the music department
at Clark Atlanta University. Upon her
marriage, she moved back to Little Rock,
but after a series of racial incidents there,
including a lynching, she and her husband
left for Chicago. There she became friends
with both the writer Langston Hughes and
the great contralto Marian Anderson, both
of whom had a hand in promoting her
composing career. After her Symphony
in E Minor won first prize in the
Wanamaker Foundation Awards in 1932,
conductor Frederick Stock selected it for
performance in June 1933 at the Chicago
World’s Fair by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra: the first composition by an
African American woman ever to be
played by a major U.S. orchestra.
Over the course of her career, Price wrote
some 300 pieces in a variety of genres.
Her songs and arrangements of spirituals
were in heavy demand in Chicago during
her lifetime; both tenor Roland Hayes
and soprano Leontyne Price programmed
them. But after her death, Price’s music
was largely forgotten for decades. With the
coming of the 21 st century, its rediscovery
began when new owners of her summer
home found major, previously unpublished
works and sent them on to the University
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of Arkansas’ archives. There, musicologists
found a treasure trove of works that
revealed her under-appreciated gifts.
Recently, a Florence Price revival has
been spreading around U.S. symphony
orchestras as more of her pieces are
prepared for performance.
The tone poem The Oak was recently
found in the Eastman School of Music’s
Sibley Library. There is uncertainty as to
whether it was composed in 1940 or 1943,
but it is believed—most likely because
of the large orchestra called for—it was
never performed during Price’s lifetime.
Splendidly scored with impressive,
idiomatic writing for strings, woodwinds
and sonorous, full-bodied brass, it also
features many subtle, magical touches, like
the color contrasting of delicate woodwinds
against rich pealing brass and the tiny
pings of harp and celesta.
Price was known for her use of classical
Late Romantic gestures and harmony
mixed with suppler melodies inspired by
African American and Southern spirituals
and folk melodies. Certainly, the brooding,
mysterious opening of The Oak evokes the
lush chromaticism of Wagner and Richard
Strauss. However, as the tempos accelerate,
more American sounds emerge. Especially
lovely is the cantabile melody for the strings
that appears about two/thirds of the way
through: music that evokes the more laid-
back spirit of the South. Price closes the
tone poem with cathartic brass-powered
music, which, nevertheless, skillfully avoids
any bombast.
Instrumentation: Three flutes, piccolo,
two oboes, English horn, two clarinets,
bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns,
three trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, percussion, harp and strings.
CELLO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN A MINOR
Camille Saint–Saëns
Born in Paris, France, October 9, 1835;
died in Algiers, Algeria, December 16, 1921
Camille Saint-Saëns was one of the most
prodigiously gifted of all musicians. He
was among the finest piano virtuosos of
his day, which because of his long lifespan
ranged over eight decades. His prowess as
an organist was so phenomenal that Franz
Liszt, listening to him improvise at the
Church of the Madeleine in Paris, called
him the greatest organist in the world.
He was a prolific composer who wrote in
virtually every genre from grand opera to
symphony to salon wit. As Berlioz once
quipped: “He knows everything, but
lacks inexperience.”
Unlike many musicians who are fully
absorbed by their field, Saint-Saëns’
knowledge and interests ranged far beyond
music. He pursued studies in literature,
mathematics, archaeology, geology and
astronomy with more than amateur ability
and wrote as energetically about them as he
did about musical topics.
All this talent revealed itself at an early
age. He began piano lessons at two and a
half. His major professional debut came at
ten at Paris’s celebrated Salle Pleyel; after a
concert including Mozart and Beethoven
concertos, he offered as an encore the
audience’s choice of any one of Beethoven’s
32 piano sonatas, played from memory!
Living until the age of 86, Saint-
Saëns experienced several generations of
musical trends in France and beyond.
Beginning as a musician who encouraged
the experiments of young musicians, he
gradually ossified into an arch conservative
who disapproved of everything from
Debussy’s impressionism to Richard
Strauss’ fervid late Romanticism.
However, his Cello Concerto No. 1
was written at a time when Saint-Saëns
was still very open to innovation.
Composed in 1873 and premiered in
Paris on January 19, 1873 by August
Tolbecque, the concertmaster of the
Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, this
was a soloist’s showcase through and
through that paid homage to the
formal innovations of Liszt. Saint-Saëns
here adopted his formal strategy of
combining three separate movements
into one continuous sweep with different
constituent phases.
Appropriately for a soloist-dominated
concerto, the cellist burst out of the gate
immediately with a turbulent whirlwind of
a theme featuring hurtling triplet rhythms
and a dramatic downward plunge.