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Program Notes
Classical Series
A Midsummer's Dream
Dmitry Sitkovetsky, conductor
Bella Davidovich, piano
Friday, January 4, 2008 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, January 5, 2008 at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, January 6, 2008 at 3 p.m.
in Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center
Conductor Comments
Maestro Sitkovetsky shares his insight about today’s program:
Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
“If it weren’t for Mendelssohn’s rediscovery of the works by J.S. Bach,
we probably would not have known his genius compositions. That’s how
I thought of connecting the pieces on the program tonight. Mendelssohn’s music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a testimony to his brilliance. A true master of the craft, Mendelssohn was able to immerse himself in the daring and sprightly energy of the Overture and complement it with music for the rest of the play.”
Schumann’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor:
“Schumann sketched materials for all his symphonies and the piano concerto. A concerto was far beyond the scope of his previous smaller scale compositions for solo piano and intimate chamber music. Schumann wrote, ‘I realize I cannot write a concerto for a virtuoso, so I must think up something else…something between a symphony, a concerto and a large sonata…a self-contained movement.’ On a personal note I must add that I grew up listening to this concerto played by Bella Davidovich (who is also my mother).”
Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor:
“Heavily Italian in influence, the Violin Concerto in A minor includes the traditional three movement form of fast-slow-fast. However, the approach is still very intimate in a chamber music-like conversation between soloist and small orchestra. This concerto holds a special place in my repertoire because I made my very first orchestral appearance playing it (1969, Moscow State Orchestra, Evgeny Svetlanov, conductor).”
Overture to
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21
Selections from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
B. February 3, 1809, Hamburg, Germany
D. November 4, 1847, Leipzig, Germany
Scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, continuo, cymbals and strings (Overture approx. 11 minutes; Selections approx. 19 minutes).
Felix Mendelssohn was an astoundingly brilliant composer and performer, a child prodigy who grew up to become one of the most broadly educated, well-traveled, sensitive musicians of the early 19th century. He was the grandson of the famed Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn. In 1829, he conducted a historic performance of J. S. Bach’s neglected century-old B-minor Mass, largely reviving public interest in Bach’s music among 19th-century audiences.
In 1825, the Mendelssohn family moved into a spacious new home in Berlin, whose adjoining garden became the site of fanciful games and adventures for the 16-year old Felix and his sister, Fanny. The following year, he began work there on the piece that most closely represents its verdant environment, the magical overture, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Shakespeare’s plays were first translated into German at the turn of the 19th century and these translations were re-issued in 1825, possibly prompting Mendelssohn’s inspiration to compose the overture. Only on the second draft did the young composer come up with a piece properly alluding to the myriad events in Shakespeare’s woodland fantasy of mismatched lovers, mischievous fairies, clowning simpletons and quarreling royalty. But the finished product has always been considered an inspired blend of formal perfection, descriptive content, joyous melody and astute orchestration.
As many as six themes have been identified making up the exposition of its sonata form: the opening woodwind chords, signifying the mysterious forest; a quick, bouncing staccato theme in the upper strings describing the fairies; a martial, full-orchestra theme for the entrance of Theseus and his courtiers; a song-like theme for the lovers; a rustic theme for Bottom and his clownish companions; and finally, a horn-call theme for the royal hunting party. Several of these themes are imaginatively developed, restated and neatly packaged in a dainty coda to the overture.
At the overture’s first performance in 1827, A Midsummer Night’s Dream was purely a concert piece, unattached to any stage production. Mendelssohn did not have occasion to write his remaining pieces of incidental music to Shakespeare’s play until 1842 when he served as music director of the newly established Berlin Academy of Arts under the Prussian king, Frederick Wilhelm IV. A dozen additional numbers were added to the overture and the acclaimed production, which opened Oct. 14, 1843, was one of the happier moments of Mendelssohn’s artistically unsatisfying years at the Prussian court.
The chief numbers include four entr’actes composed to separate the five acts of Shakespeare’s fantasy about quarreling Titania and Oberon, the misadventures of four young lovers, the antics of dim-witted clowns and the mischievous Puck. The feathery Scherzo precedes Puck’s conversation with the Fairy at the beginning of Act Two and is noteworthy for its wispy concluding flute solo depicting the fairy’s effortless flight. The form of the movement is that of a teasing rondo whose main theme keeps returning in altered shapes.
The Nocturne elaborates upon that magical moment at the end of Act Three, when Puck has again coaxed the four confused lovers back to sleep, has sorted out their mixed-up affections and redistributes his love pollens correctly among them. The deep mystery of the German forest is evoked in the opening horn melody, a magical moment when Mendelssohn’s resourceful orchestration is evident in pairing the horns with the bassoons, which absorb some of their warm, brassy tone. The end of the Nocturne depicts daybreak and the awakening of the four lovers at the beginning of Act Four.
The final entr’acte, the joyous and familiar Wedding March, picks up on Theseus’s speech at the end of Act Four, inviting the properly reunited lovers to join him and Hippolyta in a triple wedding ceremony. In the century and a half since it was first heard, the Wedding March has probably united millions of couples in marriage, but because of their hasty retreat out the church door, few wedding-goers have heard the many different musical verses Mendelssohn composed between the march’s stirring refrain.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra last performed portions of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on February 25, 2006 with DSO Resident Conductor Thomas Wilkins conducting.
DSO SHOP @ THE MAX RECOMMENDS:
Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Overture, Paul Paray conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mercury Living Presence 434396.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
ROBERT SCHUMANN
B. June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Germany
D. July 27, 1856, Endenich, Germany
Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor had its premiere in Dresden, Germany, on December 4, 1845, with the composer’s wife Clara as soloist. Scored for solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings (approx. 31 minutes).
It might have seemed the most natural thing in the world for Robert Schumann to write a piano concerto, but in fact he hesitated long before tackling one. After Beethoven, it must have seemed that the symphonic concerto could be carried no further, and for the virtuosos of the 1820s and ’30s, a concerto was a vehicle for solo display, with the orchestra relegated to the background.
The problem, as Schumann realized, was to reestablish the balance between soloist and orchestra. As the piano had grown in range, stamina and reliability in the second quarter of the 19th century, the orchestra had not kept pace, and traveling virtuosos often preferred to show off their wares in solo compositions.
In 1841, he wrote a single-movement Fantasy for piano and orchestra. His wife, Clara, was so taken with the work that she insisted on a run-through with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. She played it twice and pronounced it “marvelous.”
The first movement is for all practical purposes monothematic, a falling phrase first introduced by the oboe being subtly varied without every losing its plaintive character. Schumann found the way out of the piano-concerto impasse by dissolving the barrier between the formal ritornello and the more capricious solo; henceforth, any instrument could speak in any tone of voice.
The rest of the concerto does not comprise two movements, really, but one lengthy span, joined by a ghostly reminiscence of the first movement. The mood of the Intermezzo is playful, bantering, despite the almost comically passionate second theme. Even more than in the first movement, the piano and the orchestra are partners in a delicately balanced game, in which neither is allowed to run too far ahead.
Schumann has been accused of running rhythmic patterns to death, especially in his orchestral works, but in the finale of this concerto, he manages to have his cake and eat it too. Built into the principal theme is a hint of ambiguity between the prevailing 3/4 measure and a 3/2, in which the pace is cut in half. This hint becomes explicit in the second theme, and there is much teasing between piano and orchestra over the sums of three plus three, versus two plus two plus two.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra last performed Schumann’s Piano concerto was last performed March 23-24, 2001, with Music Director Emeritus Neeme Järvi conducting and Leif Ove Andsnes as soloist.
DSO SHOP @ THE MAX RECOMMENDS:
Schumann, Piano Concerto, Hélène Grimaud, piano, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Dresden Staakskapelle, Deutsche Grammophon B0006904.
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
B. March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Germany
D. July 28, 1850, Leipzig, Germany
Though the date of Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1 cannot be precisely traced, it is generally thought to date from about 1720. However, some modern Bach scholars, notably Christoph Wolff, suggest it might have been composed as late as 1730, when Bach held dual positions in church music and orchestral music in Leipzig. Scored for solo violin, strings and continuo (approx 16 minutes).
In the field of instrumental music, we quickly remember J. S. Bach as a great keyboard composer who left a string of masterly fugues for both harpsichord and organ, along with numerous chorale preludes, suites and virtuoso variations. But in the preface to his edition of this violin concerto, scholar Georg von Dadelsen quotes a recollection by Bach’s admiring son, C. P. E. Bach: “In his youth and until the approach of old age, he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly.”
In fact, J. S. Bach sufficiently mastered the violin to gain a position in the ducal orchestra at the small court of Weimar by the time he was 23 and moved to the concertmaster’s chair five years later. While he left only two solo concertos for the violin, the A minor Concerto is a major work that shows his thorough knowledge of string technique.
During his years in Weimar, Bach came into contact with the violin concertos of Vivaldi and transcribed several of them into keyboard concertos. When he began composing his own concertos, he adapted the Vivaldian model to his own personal style, especially in creating orchestral accompaniments that were more contrapuntal and participated more fully in the evolving thematic dialogue. The opening movement of the A minor Concerto offers an excellent example of this. The orchestra begins with the customary opening ritornello, stating 4-5 interrelated thematic ideas before the solo violin enters with a more animated theme. The soloist retains a prominent place throughout the movement, while the orchestra enters periodically with bare suggestions of its opening theme in an energetic, constantly churning stream of music.
The slow movement brings the listener to one of Bach’s poignant aria movements, with the soloist playing a series of lyrical, ever-more elaborate phrases over a constantly repeated rhythmic figure in the bass line. Each phrase of the melody is separated by lengthy rest, as though the soloist were taking a deep breath before proceeding.
The finale is the concerto’s showiest movement. It is set in a rhythm suggesting a lively jig and in addition to several quick scale passages, the soloist is called upon to undertake a display of bariolage – the technique of rapidly rocking the bow between two strings to play an intricate passage.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra last performed Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor on May 30- June 1, 2002, with Itzhak Perlman conducting and performing the solo.
DSO SHOP @ THE MAX RECOMMENDS:
Bach, Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041, Itzhak Perlman, violin, Daniel Barenboim conducting the English Chamber Orchestra, EMI 74720.
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