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Madison Symphony Orchestra Program Notes
September 24-25-26, 2021
96th Season
Michael Allsen
Welcome back to Overture
Hall! As a special
concert to open this season, the Madison Symphony Orchestra
presents this
program of three works for strings, opening with our
first-ever performance of
Elgar’s Introduction
and Allegro. Featured
in this work is the Rhapsodie Quartet, the resident ensemble
of our
award-winning HeartStrings educational program: Suzanne Beia
and Laura Burns,
violins, Christopher Dozoryst, viola, and Karl Lavine, cello.
The MSO’s
principal organist, Greg Zelek, then takes center stage for
Poulenc’s brilliant
Concerto in G minor for Organ, Strings,
and Timpani. Our closing work,
Tchaikovsky’s
gorgeous Serenade,
is among the
finest Romantic pieces written for string orchestra
This sumptuous work for
strings
was written in 1905 to showcase the principal string players
and string section
of the newly-created London Symphony Orchestra
Edward Elgar
Born: June 2,
1857,
Broadheath, Great Britain.
Died:
February 23, 1934,
Worcester, Great Britain.
Introduction
and Alllegro
Background
By 1905, when
he composed
his Introduction and
Allegro, Elgar
was tremendously successful: widely recognized at home and
abroad as one of
England’s leading composers. The work was written for the
newly-founded London
Symphony Orchestra, at the suggestion of his friend August
Jaeger (immortalized
as Nimrod in
Elgar’s famous Enigma
Variations). Elgar frequently
sketched musical ideas as they came to him, and would come
back to these
sketches months or years later in creating new works. In this
piece, he drew
upon a theme he called the “Welsh tune,” reportedly a melody
he had heard in
the distance when he and his wife were on holiday in Wales in
1901. He had
intended to use it in a planned, but never completed Welsh Overture. In the Introduction
and Allegro, it became the unifying main theme. Scored
for strings only,
this work was designed to display the virtuosity of the
orchestra’s principal
string players—parts played here by the Rhapsodie Quartet.
Writing for strings
came naturally to Elgar, who, as a young man, had earned much
of his living as
a violinist. He had a keen awareness of the capabilities of
the instruments,
and wrote challenging but idiomatic parts for the soloists and
accompanying
string orchestra.
What You’ll Hear
The Introduction opens with a bold, tragic statement
from the full
ensemble, but the solo viola soon introduces the flowing,
wistful “Welsh tune.”
A brief return to the opening music and a hushed passage for
the quartet usher
in the main body of the work (Allegro).
This broad scherzo is set in sonata form, and works with three
primary ideas: a
wide-ranging opening theme, a rather tense sixteenth-note idea
introduced by
the quartet, and a soaring closing idea. This exposition ends
with a languid
version of the opening idea from the Introduction
and brief reminder of the Welsh tune. In place of a
conventional development
section, Elgar wrote an extended fugue on a new theme, but
which eventually
incorporates most of the other musical ideas. (In a letter to
Jaeger, he
described this as a “devil of a fugue.”) Rather than coming to
some kind of
climactic ending, the fugue dies away into a brief
recapitulation of the main Allegro themes. The
coda returns to the
Welsh theme, now in a lushly-scored version for the full
ensemble, before a
brisk closing passage.
This
concerto, written by one of the 20th-century French masters,
Francis Poulenc,
frequently pays tribute to the great organ works of J. S.
Bach.
Francis
Poulenc
Born:
January 7, 1899, in Paris, France.
Died:
January 30, 1963, in Paris, France,
Concerto in G minor for Organ,
Strings, and Timpani
Background
Poulenc,
born into wealth, had the enviable position as a composer of
not having to
worry about making a living. Likable, humorous, and friendly,
he circulated
easily in the social world of the French upper class. This
didn’t mean he was
not serious about his work, however. Poulenc was a member of
the influential
group of French composers known as Les Six, together with Honegger, Milhaud, Auric, Durey, and
Tailleferre: an
informal association founded when most of them were Paris
Conservatory students
in the late 1910s. The members of Les Six sought a more
naturalistic style of
modern French music, rejecting the Romantic excess of
Wagner, the harsh
atonality of Schoenberg, and what they saw as vagueness of
form in Debussy. Poulenc’s
music, often dry and witty, fits these goals perfectly.
There is also a deeply spiritual and serious side
to much of
Poulenc’s music. He rediscovered his Catholic faith while in
his late 30s, and
many of his choral works, from the Mass
in G Major of 1937 to the well-known Gloria
of 1960, were settings of Latin religious texts. Poulenc’s
religious vision
reflected his own joie
de vivre, and
his religious music is never pompous or conventional. His
organ concerto,
though not intended as church music, clearly draws on the
organ fantasias of
Bach and other Baroque composers and on the great 20th-century
French organ
tradition. It was originally commissioned in 1934 by the
Princesse de Polignac,
a wealthy patroness who had earlier commissioned his concerto
for two pianos. The
Princesse—American-born Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the
Singer sewing machine
fortune—was a talented musician who had a large organ
installed in her salon in
Paris.
The Concerto’s composition was uncharacteristically
drawn-out and
difficult for Poulenc. He was not himself an organist, and was
unsure about
technical details of writing for the instrument. He also seems
to have had in
mind a piece of greater emotional depth than many of his
earlier works, writing
at one point to the Princesse that: “It is not the amusing
Poulenc of the Concerto
for Two Pianos, but more like a
Poulenc on the way to the cloisters.” After four years of
off-and-on
frustration, he wrote to her in May 1938 that “Yes, you will finally have your Concerto. The word finally
sums up the joy I feel on being at peace with my conscience
and even more
specifically, with my artistic conscience, as the work is now
truly ready. Never,
since I first began composing, have I had so much trouble
finding my means of
expression, but I nevertheless hope that it now flows freely
without giving the
impression of too much effort.”
What
You’ll Hear
Though the original commission was apparently for
a relatively
easy organ piece that the Princesse herself could play, the
solo part of
Poulenc’s concerto ended up as music calling for considerable
virtuosity. (For
the premiere, Poulenc enlisted the eminent Maurice Duruflé, organist at the
church of St.
Etienne-du-Mont, and organ professor at the Paris
Conservatory.) The piece is
laid out in several linked sections, which do indeed “flow
freely” from one to
another. There is a severe and distinctly “Bach-like”
introduction, which
eventually leads to, stormy music carried by the strings with
short bursts from
the organ. There is a full stop, and then a short recitative
by the organ leads
to long section marked “very calm.” A long period of
increasing tension
culminates in an outburst from the organ, a short quiet
interlude, and another
furious scherzo. In the end, there is a brightening of the
harmony, and a quiet
passage of almost religious mystery, before a final Baroque
explosion from the
organ and a closing chord.
Tchaikovsky’s
Serenade is filled
with delightful
music: a tribute to Mozart in the opening movement, a swirling
Waltz, an emotional
Elegy, and a forceful Russian-style finale.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born: May 7,
1840, in
Votkinsk, Russia.
Died:
November 6, 1893, in
St. Petersburg, Russia.
Serenade
in C Major for String
Orchestra, Op. 48
Background
In October of
1880,
Tchaikovsky wrote to his patron and confidante
Nadezhda von Meck: “You can be assured, dear friend, that my
muse has been
benevolent lately, when I tell you that I have written two
long works very
rapidly: a festival overture for the upcoming Exhibition and a
serenade in four
movements for string orchestra. The overture [the famous 1812 Overture] will be very noisy. I wrote it
without much warmth
and enthusiasm—therefore it has no great artistic value. The
serenade, on the
other hand, came from an inward impulse. I felt it, and I
venture to hope that
this work is not wholly lacking in artistic qualities.” The
new work was played
in December 1880 by his colleagues and students at the Moscow
Conservatory as a
surprise for the composer, who was returning to Moscow after a
long absence. In
1881, he sent a copy the score to Eduard Nápravník, conductor
of the Russian
Musical Society in St. Petersburg. Nápravník conducted its
public premier in
October, and the Serenade
was an
immediate success. It was apparently one of Tchaikovsky’s
personal favorites
among his works, and it remains is one of the most popular
Romantic works for
string orchestra.
What You’ll Hear
Tchaikovsky
described the
opening movement (Pezzo
in forma di
sonatina) as “...my homage to Mozart; it is intended to
be an imitation of
his style.” The opening passage clearly hearkens back to the
slow introductions
to a few of Mozart’s symphonies, and the middle section of the
work is set in
one of the lightest of Classical forms, the sonatina: a sonata
form with very
little in the way of development. The Waltz
(Moderato) is
lilting and graceful,
spinning out two lovely themes, and occasionally slowing to
hold the highest
note in a phrase for moment before continuing its forward
motion. The Elegy (Largo elegiaco) is also in a very simple form.
The beginning is a
emotional passage for the entire orchestra, which gives way to
a more agitated
section (Poco più
animato). The
opening music returns at the end, and is expanded in a brief
coda.
The Finale, Tema Russo is the most nationalistic of
the Serenade’s
movements. For the opening
passage (Andante),
Tchaikovsky
borrows a folk tune from the Volga region, passing it from the
upper strings to
the lower. The main theme of the movement, marked Allegro con spirito, is a popular dancelike tune
from Moscow, and
this is pitted against a more songlike melody of distinctively
Russian
character. Tchaikovsky skillfully weaves these themes together
until the very
end, when he brings back the very opening music of the first
movement. After
this reminiscence, the tempo quickens gradually for a lively
coda.
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program notes ©2021 by J. Michael Allsen