September 26, 2009 Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11 Fryderyk Chopin b. Zelazowa Wola, Poland / March 1, 1810; d. Paris, France / October 17, 1849 Chopin wrote much of his music for his own performance. In addition to solo works for intimate recitals, he also composed six pieces with orchestral accompaniment, for those occasions when larger forces were available. He composed his two full-scale concertos between 1829 and 1830, at the end of his teens. Due to a delay in publishing, they appeared in the reverse order of composition. The piece you will hear this evening is the later of the two. The premiere took place privately, in Warsaw on September 22, 1830. The public debut followed on October 11, at what proved to be Chopin’s farewell concert to his native land. The first movement opens with a substantial orchestral introduction. It sets forth the two main themes; the first is dramatic, the second lyrical. Both are touched with a degree of melancholy. Once the piano enters, it dominates the proceedings completely, save for orchestral interludes that elaborate the principal materials. The second movement features a lovely melody whose nature is so vocal that it almost sounds as if Chopin had transcribed it from an opera. Agitation sets in, but by the end of this section, all is calm once more. The concluding rondo opens somewhat hesitantly. But before long, Chopin launches into a joyful succession of dance themes, some of which show the influence of his beloved Polish folk music. Finlandia, Op. 26 Jean Sibelius b. Hämeenlinna, Finland / December 8, 1865; d. Järvenpää, Finland / September 20, 1957 When Sibelius was a young man, Finland lay under oppressive Russian rule. In 1899, with press censorship in full force, a group of artists in the capital, Helsinki, organized a series of Press Pension Celebrations. Although these events were announced as a gesture of support for those journalists who had taken a stand against the abuses of Russian rule, they were also designed to promote the wider cause of Finland’s right to a free society. The centerpiece was a stage pageant that presented uplifting scenes from Finnish history. Sibelius, the country’s foremost composer as well as an ardent patriot, was the natural choice to provide incidental music. The grand finale was a stirring tone poem embodying both the Finns’ spirit of resistance and their faith in their eventual return to democracy. Finland Awakes, as Sibelius first called it, created extraordinary enthusiasm. The following year he re-christened it Finlandia. Under this title it has won enduring popularity, not only for its high musical values, but as an internationally recognized anthem of freedom. Firebird Suite (1919 version) Igor Stravinsky b. Oranienbaum, Russia / June 17, 1882; d. New York, New York, USA / April 6, 1971 Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird belongs to his first creative period, when his music displayed the influence of the colorful, folk-based style favored by his teacher, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. It came into being thanks to the impresario Sergei Diaghilev. For the second Parisian season of his celebrated company, Les Ballets Russes, Diaghilev envisioned a lavishly mounted new dance production, its plot adapted from Russian fairy tales. When his first choice as composer, his former music teacher, Anatoly Lyadov, was judged too slow to complete the score on time, Diaghilev cast about for a replacement. Familiar with Stravinsky through the orchestrations of Chopin’s piano music that he had contributed to Diaghilev’s ballet Les Sylphides, and impressed with two of Stravinsky’s brief, original orchestral pieces (Scherzo fantastique and Fireworks), Diaghilev offered the 27-year-old composer a tentative commission for The Firebird. Given such an opportunity, Stravinsky had no qualms in setting aside his opera The Nightingale, whose first act he had recently completed. “I had already begun to think about The Firebird when I returned to St. Petersburg from Ustilug in the autumn of 1909,” Stravinsky wrote, “although I was not yet certain of the commission (which in fact did not come until December, more than a month after I had begun to compose; I remember the day Diaghilev telephoned me to say to go ahead, and my telling him I already had).” He completed the score in March 1910. “I was flattered, of course, at the promise of a performance of my music in Paris, and my excitement at arriving in that city, towards the end of May, could hardly have been greater,” Stravinsky wrote. The premiere on June 25, 1910 achieved a glittering triumph, launching him into the front rank of contemporary composers. Claude Debussy came backstage to congratulate him, launching a close friendship that ended only with Debussy’s death in 1918. Stravinsky arranged three concert suites from the full score of The Firebird. This concert will present the second, which is by far the most popular. It contains roughly half the music of the complete score, and follows the sequence of the original scenario. With the help of a magic firebird, the hero, Prince Ivan, rescues a group of spellbound princesses from the clutches of an evil magician, Kastcheï. Stravinsky’s music is highly atmospheric, colorful, imaginative and melodious. It includes two Russian folk songs, one a lyrical tune for the princesses, the other the majestic hymn which closes the score. The whirling, nightmarish Infernal Dance performed by Kastcheï and his monstrous subjects is a tour-de-force of orchestral brilliance. |
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