Overture Magazine 2019-20 BSO_Overture_Mar_Apr_final | Page 24

RAY CHEN PERFORMS SHOSTAKOVICH
cellos and basses accented by timpani, is
17 measures long and broken into choppy
phrases. Gradually this pattern travels
through the orchestra; even the soloist
eventually takes it up in fierce double-
stopped octaves. The movement concludes
with one of the longest and most taxing
cadenzas ever written for a violinist; almost
a movement in itself, it constitutes the
soloist’s commentary on the entire concerto.
The spirit of mockery returns in the
Allegro con brio finale, “Burlesca.” Here the
mood seems less bitter than earlier—more
a wild folk dance over a driving rhythmic
ostinato. Midway, the passacaglia theme
makes a brief, mocking appearance in the
clarinet, horn and the hard-edged clatter of
xylophone. Shrill woodwinds dominate the
finale, while the soloist hurtles through a
non-stop display of virtuosity, culminating
in a final acceleration.
many of his piano pieces—orchestrated in
1910. Its stately style also suited the woman
for whom it was written: the Princesse
Edmond de Polignac, who ran one of
Paris’ most fashionable artistic salons.
(Interestingly, she was an American, born
Winnaretta Singer, the heiress of the Singer
Sewing Machine fortune.)
A “pavane” is a slow, processional dance
that originated in Padua, Italy (called
“Pava” in the local dialogue), and its
measured pace seems perfect for a nostalgic
reminiscence of long-ago royalty. “Infanta”
is the name given to a daughter of the
Spanish royal family. However, Ravel
joked that he only gave the piece this title
because he liked how the words sounded
together. He also criticized the Pavane
as being formally weak, but that hardly
bothers anyone listening to what is one
of the most hauntingly beautiful melodies
he—or anyone—has ever written.
Instrumentation: Three flutes including piccolo,
three oboes including English horn, three Instrumentation: Two flutes, oboe,
clarinets including bass clarinet, three bassoons two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns,
including contrabassoon, four horns, timpani, harp and strings.
percussion, harp, celeste and strings.
DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION
PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS
Maurice Ravel
Richard Strauss
Born in Munich, Germany, June 11, 1864;
Born in Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875; died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany,
died in Paris, France, December 28, 1937 September 8, 1949
Maurice Ravel was one of the greatest of
the French impressionist composers who
flourished at the end of the 19 th century and
the beginning of the 20 th . His beautifully
colored music is usually very subtle and
restrained, but his two most popular pieces,
Boléro and La valse, conclude with music of
unbridled violence. Though Ravel devoted
his creative energies to the world of classical
music, he personally adored jazz. He
became a friend of George Gershwin, and
when he visited the U.S. in the late 1920s,
he joined Gershwin on trips to Harlem
clubs to hear the real thing.
Ravel also adored the past, especially the
elegance and refinement of the 18 th century.
It is that world that inspired his exquisite
Pavane for a Dead Princess (Pavane pour une
Infante défunte), which he wrote for solo
piano in 1899 and then—as he did with so Death and Transfiguration (Tod
und Verklärung) was the second of
Richard Strauss’ enduring tone poems,
following on the heels of Don Juan,
which had set the musical world on fire
in 1888. In contrast to the traditional
symphony laid out according to formal
structural principles and intended to
express purely musical ideas, Strauss’
tone poems were loose in form and
aspired to tell in graphic detail a
non-musical story through the most
advanced use of a very large orchestra.
Strauss once bragged he could even
describe a knife and fork in music!
In Death and Transfiguration, the
composer seized on a topic a bit more
ambitious. And it was a most unlikely
choice for a young man who had not yet
experienced any serious illness (he was
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only 24 and 25 during 1888 – 89 when
he wrote the work). But perhaps this is an
early example of the dramatic imagination
that would later make Strauss such a
successful opera composer. Interestingly,
in 1949 when the 85-year-old composer
was actually dying, he was quoted by his
daughter-in-law as saying: “Funny—it is
just as I imagined it in Tod und Verklärung.”
In 1894, Strauss explained the tone
poem: “It was six years ago that it
occurred to me to present in the form of a
tone poem the dying hours of a man who
had striven towards the highest idealistic
aims, maybe indeed those of an artist.
The sick man lies in bed, asleep, with
heavy, irregular breathing; friendly dreams
conjure a smile on [his] features…. he
wakes up; he is once more racked with
horrible agonies; his limbs shake with
fever. As the attack passes and the pain
leaves off, his thoughts wander through his
past life; his childhood passes before him;
the time of his youth with its strivings and
passions, and then, as the pains already
begin to return, there appears to him the
fruits of his life’s path, the conception,
the ideal which he has sought to realize,
… but which he has never been able to
complete, since it is not for man to be able
to accomplish such things. The hour of
death approaches, the soul leaves the body
in order to find gloriously achieved in
everlasting space those things which could
not be fulfilled here below.”
Though Strauss later disavowed this
program, it remains an extremely clear
guide to what we will hear. You will
have to wait some 13 minutes to hear the
beautiful ascending theme that stands
for the ideal that the dying man has
pursued throughout his life, and it will
first appear only in tentative, incomplete
form. This theme does not come into
its full glory until the work’s closing
“Transfiguration” section.
Instrumentation: Three flutes, two oboes,
English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
percussion, two harps, celeste and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2020