ALSOP CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY’ S PATHÉTIQUE
PROGRAM NOTES
By Janet E. Bedell and A. Kori Hill
Samuel Barber
Born March 9, 1910 in West Chester, PA Died January 23, 1981 in New York City, NY
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS [ 1936 ]
Instrumentation: String orchestra.
Like most American music lovers in the 1930s, Samuel Barber was mesmerized by Arturo Toscanini and his fiery interpretations of the great symphonic and operatic literature. In 1933, the 23-year-old composer used his status as nephew of the celebrated operatic contralto Louise Homer to pay a visit to the maestro at his summer retreat on Italy’ s Lake Maggiore. They struck up an immediate friendship, and the old conductor expressed interest in performing a work by Barber, despite the fact that he generally avoided contemporary music. But Barber was by no means a typical contemporary composer. Although only recently graduated from Philadelphia’ s Curtis Institute, he was a precocious artist who had already found his own creative voice: lyrical, deeply expressive, and rooted in the harmonic language of the late 19th century.
It took Barber several years to produce two works he thought worthy of Toscanini’ s attention. Finally, early in 1938 he sent the maestro his newly completed First Essay for Orchestra and the Adagio for string orchestra he had fashioned from the slow movement of his String Quartet of 1936.
Toscanini’ s selection of both pieces for his evening radio broadcast with the NBC Symphony on November 5, 1938 was the ultimate promotional coup for Barber’ s career. The Toscanini radio concerts had a passionate nationwide following, and by the next morning, Samuel Barber was a household name for American music lovers. The Adagio for Strings remains his most beloved and frequently performed composition. Called our“ national funeral music,” it has eloquently expressed Americans’ grief at the ceremonies for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 and John F. Kennedy in 1963. In 1986, it moved a new generation in the Academy Award-winning Platoon, mourning the young lives snuffed out by the
John Adams
Born February 15, 1947 in Worcester, MA Resides in San Francisco Bay Area, CA
ON THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS [ 2002 ]
Instrumentation: Three flutes( third doubling piccolo), piccolo, three oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, timpani, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel, triangles, bake drums, chimes, crotales, two harps, piano, quarter-tone piano, celesta, children’ s chorus, SATB chorus, and strings.
When the New York Philharmonic approached John Adams in 2002 about creating a work to commemorate the lives lost on September 11, 2001, the composer remembers that he said“ yes” without any hesitation.
In texts chosen by Adams, two women at the end repeat an enigmatic phrase:“ I see water and buildings;” among the last recorded words of Madeline Amy Sweeny, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, as she told her supervisor what was happening on the doomed plane. Adams continues“ I mixed this with taped sounds of the city— traffic, people walking, distant voices of laughter or shouting, … sirens, breaks squealing— all the familiar sounds of the big city which are so common that we usually never notice them.” These ambient street sounds are what we hear at both the beginning and the end of Transmigration, it is as though we are still outside the door of Adams’ imaginary cathedral, about to enter and later depart from the sacred space of the music.
The composer chose other bits of texts from The New York Times’ series“ Portraits of Grief”: brief, touching biographies of the victims as remembered by family members and friends. Another source was the missingpersons signs that dotted New York in the days and weeks after the tragedy.
The completed work was given the evocative title, On the Transmigration of Souls. Adams explains its meaning:“‘ Transmigration’ means‘ the movement from one place to another’ or‘ the transition from one state of being to another.’ … In this case I mean it to imply the movement of the soul from one state to another. And I don’ t just mean the transition from living to dead, but also the change that takes place within the souls of those who stay behind, of those who suffer pain and loss and then themselves come away from that experience transformed.”
Adams continues,“ Music has a singular capacity to unlock those controls and bring us face to face with our raw, uncensored and unattenuated feelings. That is why during times when we are grieving or in need of being in touch with the core of our beings, we seek out those pieces that speak to us with that sense of gravitas and serenity.”
JANET E. BEDELL is a program annotator and feature writer who writes for Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Caramoor Festival of the Arts, and other musical organizations.
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia Died November 6, 1893 in Saint Petersburg, Russia
SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN B MINOR, OP. 74,“ PATHÉTIQUE” [ 1893 ]
Instrumentation: Three flutes( third doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tam tam, cymbals( pair), bass drum, and strings.
The Symphony No. 6 remains a work of tremendous passion, hence the“ pathétique” descriptor. It features some of Tchaikovsky’ s most recognizable techniques: ear-catching melodies; drama; massive orchestral forces, all for the service of an unexpected ending.
I. Adagio Allegro non troppo begins with a slow, morose introduction. The strings bring in the main theme unspooling into a polyphonic, sonata form ranging from fragmented thematic statements to calland-response between the orchestra. But Tchaikovsky doesn’ t let standards of form determine his direction: the concluding section shifts to a rhapsodic resignation, the second theme serving as a de-escalation, to a tender brass and woodwind chorale supported by pizzicato in the strings.
II. Allegro con grazia brings movement Vietnam War.-JANET E. BEDELL CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
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