The Four Seasons Mixtape

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

The Four Seasons Mixtape

November 1 & 2, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
Audrey Wright, violin

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About this Performance

Branford Marsalis with the Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Branford Marsalis with the Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
Branford Marsalis, alto saxophone

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Program

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor (1890)

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
Scaramouche, Op. 165c (1937)
Branford Marsalis, saxophone

i.Vif

ii.Modéré

iii.Brazileira

John Williams (b. 1932)
Escapades from Catch Me If You Can (1937)
Branford Marsalis, saxophone

1.Closing In

2.Reflections

3.Joy Ride

- INTERMISSION -

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (1940)

i.(Non) allegro

ii.Andante con moto (Tempo di valse)

iii.Lento assai — Allegro vivace

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About this Performance

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

Friday, May 10, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, May 11, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
MSO Chorus
Daniel R. Afonso Jr., chorus director
Georgiana Adams, soprano
Kindra Scharich, mezzo-soprano
Alex Boyer, tenor
Matt Boehler, bass

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Program

Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
Fratres (1977)

Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Peace I Leave With You (1891)

Ludwig van Beethoven  (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 9 in D minor (1824)

i.Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

ii.Molto Vivace—Presto

iii.Adagio molto e cantabile

iv.Finale—Ode to Joy

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Program Notes for MAy 10 & 11, 2024

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

Arvo pärt

Fratres

Composer: born September 11, 1935, Paide, Estonia

Work composed: 1977

World premiere: undocumented

Instrumentation: string orchestra

Estimated duration: 6 minutes

The crystalline quality of Arvo Pärt’s music evokes the wintry climate of his native Estonia. Pärt achieves this shimmering transparency through single notes, a compositional style he named “tintinnabulation,” Latin for “little bells.” Pärt explains, “I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements – with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials – with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells, and that is why I call it tintinnabulation.”

At the time Pärt composed Fratres, he was also immersing himself in the sound world of medieval and Renaissance music. Music from these periods did not often indicate which instruments or voice parts should be used, a practice Pärt employed with Fratres. This choice showcases notes and melodic phrases, rather than particular timbres, or sound colors.

Fratres features a series of variations on a simple stepwise theme, which reappears in several different octaves. Underneath the gently shimmering variations, the low strings maintain a steady drone. The overall effect is meditative, enveloping the listener in a mood of reflection.

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AMy BEach

Peace I Leave With You

Composer: born September 5, 1867, Henniker, NH; died December 27, 1944, New York City

 Work composed: 1891

 World premiere: undocumented

 Instrumentation: a cappella SATB chorus

Estimated duration: 1.5 minutes

Amy Beach’s musical accomplishments include several firsts: the first American woman to compose and publish a symphony – and the first American woman to have a symphony performed. She is also one of the first American composers – of any gender – whose musical training occurred wholly within the United States, rather than Europe. As such, Beach’s approach to composition and her aesthetics are uniquely American, and she did not measure the quality of her work by comparing it to music by European composers, unlike some of her contemporaries.

Beach’s prodigal musicality emerged as early as age two, as documented by her mother Clara: “Her gift for composition showed itself in babyhood before two years of age. She could, when being rocked to sleep in my arms, improvise a perfectly correct alto to any soprano air I might sing … She played the piano at four years, memorizing everything that she heard correctly ...” Clara was Beach’s first piano teacher; the young girl later studied piano in Boston. By the time she reached age 12, Beach’s parents were being lobbied by musical impresarios eager to launch their wunderkind daughter onto the concert stage. Beach’s parents declined, allowing Beach to refine her piano skills and pursue other musical studies through her teenage years. She made her concert debut at age 16, to great acclaim, and continued concertizing for the next two years, until her marriage to Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, 25 years her senior.

In 1930, Beach moved to New York, where she formed a close relationship with St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, and wrote many liturgical choral works for their choir. It is likely her 1891 anthem, “Peace I Leave with You,” with text from the Gospel of John, was first sung there. The simple elegance of Beach’s homophonic setting emphasizes the clarity and meaning of the words to create a gentle benediction.

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ludwig van beethoven

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 “Choral”

Composer: born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827, Vienna

 Work composed: Beethoven made preliminary sketches in 1817-18, but most of the music was composed between 1822–24. Beethoven finished his Ninth Symphony in February 1824, and dedicated it to King Frederick William III of Prussia.

 World premiere: Beethoven conducted the first performance on May 7, 1824, at the Kärntnerthor Theater in Vienna. 

 Instrumentation: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists, four-part mixed chorus, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, bass drum, cymbals triangle and strings.

Estimated duration: 70 minutes

The Ninth Symphony extends beyond the realm of the concert hall and has permeated Western culture on many levels, including socio-political and commercial arenas. The music of the Ninth, particularly the “Ode to Joy” melody of the final movement, is so familiar to us that it has lost its unique character and taken on the quality of folk music; that is, it has shed its “composed” identity as a melody written by Ludwig van Beethoven and simply exists within the communal ear of our collective consciousness.

While some classical works are inextricably linked to the time in which they were written, Beethoven’s profound musical statements about freedom, equality, and humanity resonate just as powerfully today as they did at the Ninth’s premiere. This was evident to the entire world 35 years ago, when Leonard Bernstein conducted an international assembly of instrumentalists and singers in a historic performance of Beethoven’s Ninth at East Berlin’s Schauspielhaus (now Konzerthaus) on December 22, 1989, three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. To emphasize the historic event, Bernstein substituted the word “freedom” for “joy” in the famous lyrics by the poet Friedrich Schiller in the final movement. The performance was broadcast on television worldwide, attracting more than 200 million viewers.

By 1822, Beethoven was completely deaf and emotionally isolated. Five years earlier, at the age of 47, he had written in his journal, “Before my departure for the Elysian fields I must leave behind me what the Eternal Spirit has infused into my soul and bids me complete.” Alone and embittered, Beethoven focused almost exclusively on his musical legacy.

The lofty salute to the human spirit expressed in Schiller’s poem An die Freude (To Joy) had resonated with Beethoven for many years; in 1790 he set a few lines in a cantata written to commemorate the death of Emperor Leopold II; he also included portions of Schiller’s poem in his opera Fidelio. “The search for a way to express joy,” as Beethoven described it, was the subject of his final symphony. To that end, Beethoven edited and arranged Schiller’s lines to suit his musical and dramatic needs, using a melody from the Choral Fantasy he had written 20 years earlier.

The symphony opens with the strings sounding a series of hollow open chords, neither major nor minor, which are harmonically ambiguous – what key is this? The fifths build into a massive statement featuring a weighty dotted rhythmic theme. The intensity of this movement foreshadows the finale.

As was his wont, Beethoven broke with symphonic convention by writing a second-movement scherzo. The music bursts forth with dramatic string octaves and pounding timpani. The main theme, a contrapuntal fugue, gives way to a demure wind melody. Underneath its playful simplicity, the barely contained agitation of the scherzo pulses in the strings, like a racehorse pawing at the starting gate.

In a symphony synonymous with innovation, Beethoven’s most significant departure from convention is the inclusion, for the first time, of a chorus and vocal soloists in a formerly exclusively instrumental genre. The cellos and basses play an instrumental recitative, later sung by the baritone, which is followed by the unaccompanied “Joy” melody. Beethoven then presents several instrumental variations, including a triumphal brass fanfare. The baritone soloist introduces Schiller’s poem with words of Beethoven’s: “O friends, not these tones; instead, let us strike up more pleasing and joyful ones.” The chorus repeats the last four lines of each stanza as a refrain, followed by the vocal quartet. A famous interlude, the Turkish March, follows (this music was considered “Turkish” because of the inclusion of the triangle, cymbals and bass drum, exotic additions to the orchestra of Beethoven’s time). After a number of variations, the chorus returns with a monumental concluding double fugue.

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

Friday, April 12, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
Tai Murray, violin

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Program

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Tangazo (Variations on Buenos Aires) (1969)

Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)
Symphony No. 3 in G minor (1847)

i.Adagio—Allegro

ii.Adagio cantabile

iii.Scherzo: Vivace

iv.Finale: Allegro

- INTERMISSION -

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) arr. Nicholas Hersh
Fugue in G minor BWV 578 “Little Fugue” (1918)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)
Tai Murray, violin

i.Allegro molto appassionato

ii.Andante

iii.Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto

Program Notes for April 12 & 13, 2024

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

Astor piazzolla

Tangazo (Variations on Buenos Aires)

Composer: born March 11, 1921, Mar del Plata, Argentina; died July 5, 1992, Buenos Aires

Work composed: 1969

World premiere: 1970 in Washington, D.C., by the Ensemble Musical de Buenos Aires

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, cymbals, glockenspiel, guiro, tom-toms, triangle, xylophone, piano, and strings

Estimated duration: 15 minutes

“For me, tango was always for the ear rather than the feet.” – Astor Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla is inextricably linked with tango. He took a dance from the back rooms of Argentinean brothels and blurred the lines between popular and “art” music to such an extent that, in the case of his music, such categories no longer apply.

Tangazo is a later composition, originally scored for solo bandoneon, piano, and strings. Piazzolla was a master of the bandoneón, a small button accordion of German origin, which originally served as a portable church organ. The distinctive sound of the bandoneón became a fundamental element of Piazzolla’s tangos; its insouciance and melancholy permeate Piazzolla’s music, even in works scored for other instruments.

Tangazo begins in the low strings, which murmur a slow introduction with more than a hint of menace. Harmonically, Tangazo often ranges beyond conventional tango tonalities to explore a modernist palette replete with unexpected detours. After the deliberate legato pace of the introduction, a solo oboe takes off with a skittish tango full of bounce and swagger. Legato interludes featuring pensive horn solos alternate with the agitated tango. Overall, Tangazo conveys restlessness, even as its last notes fade away.

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Louise farrenc

Symphony No. 3 in G minor

Composer: born May 31, 1804, Paris; died September 15, 1875, Paris

 Work composed: 1847

 World premiere: 1849, by the Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire in Paris

 Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, timpani, and strings

Estimated duration: 33 minutes

During her lifetime, Louise Farrenc was well known as both a composer and outstanding pianist. Throughout the 19th century, she was also the first and only female professor of music on the faculty of the Paris Conservatory.

Farrenc grew up in a family of artists who encouraged their daughter’s musical interests. Young Louise displayed extraordinary talent at the piano in early childhood, and soon began composing her own music. When she was 15, her parents enrolled her at the Paris Conservatory to continue her composition studies, although she was tutored privately by its faculty because women were not admitted to the Conservatory’s composition program at the time..

At 18, Louise married a flutist, Aristede Farrenc, who later founded a music publishing house. By the 1830s, Farrenc was balancing a busy, multifaceted career as a teacher, composer, and pianist who concertized all over France. As a composer, Farrenc also began expanding her portfolio from solo piano music to larger forms such as symphonies, concert overtures, and a number chamber works, including piano quintets and trios. Farrenc, unlike many female composers whose music was discovered only long after their deaths, was able to hear the public performance of all three of her symphonies – which were well-reviewed – during her lifetime.

The symphonic format evolved from earlier German and Italian genres; by the mid-19th century, symphonies epitomized German style. In fervently nationalist France, particularly in Paris, symphonies and their composers faced aesthetic discrimination from those who deemed the symphony an exclusively German art form. Moreover, the idea of a woman writing symphonic music – in the eyes of some putting herself on par with symphonic greats such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, and others – seemed an outrageous provocation.

After a brief Adagio for winds, a graceful Allegro ensues, featuring themes in the strings. This opening movement is full of vigor, artful melodies, and a sense of orchestral mastery. Farrenc follows this confident beginning with a serene Adagio cantabile, featuring a solo clarinet soaring over low winds and brasses, suggesting the intimacy of a woodwind quintet. An agitated Scherzo follows, full of quicksilver flashes of light and shadow that showcases the upper winds. The Finale bristles with dramatic energy and features several powerful statements that unleash the strings’ fiery virtuosity with a series of scalar passages. Minor-key symphonies of this period usually conclude in their corresponding major key, but Farrenc maintains the G-minor intensity right up to the closing notes.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Fugue in G minor BWV 578 “Little Fugue” arr. Hersh

Composer: born March 21, 1685, Eisenach; died July 28, 1750, Leipzig

 Work composed: c. 1703-07, written while Bach served as an organist in Arnstadt.

 World premiere: undocumented

 Instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, chimes, vibraphone, and strings

Estimated duration: 3.5 minutes

Nicknames can be misleading. The only thing “little” about Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, is its length. Just under four minutes long, this fugue features one of Bach’s best known and most recognizable fugue subjects, and it has been arranged for diverse ensembles, including Leopold Stowkowsi’s brass-heavy arrangement for full orchestra, and the Swingle Singers’ popular vocal jazz version.

Bach was renowned during his lifetime for his extraordinary ability to improvise at the keyboard. It is possible the distinctive fugue subject emerged first as an improvisation; at over four measures long, it is an unusually lengthy statement. Bach allows each voice to shine, including the basses (played by foot pedals on the organ). The opening three notes cut through the dense counterpoint, announcing the subject’s entrance clearly each time, as the music swirls and eddies towards a bold conclusion.

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Felix Mendelssohn

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

Composer: born February 3, 1809, Hamburg; died November 4, 1847, Leipzig

 Work composed: July 1838 – September 1844

 World premiere: Niels Gade led the Gewandhaus Orchestra and violinist Ferdinand David in Leipzig on March 13, 1845

 Instrumentation: solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings

Estimated duration: 27 minutes

“I would like to write a violin concerto for you next winter,” wrote Felix Mendelssohn to his longtime friend and colleague Ferdinand David in the summer of 1838. “There’s one in E minor in my head, and its opening won’t leave me in peace.” Mendelssohn, then conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, had known David for years. The two prodigies met as teenagers; 15-year-old David was a budding violin virtuoso and 16-year-old Mendelssohn had just completed his Octet for Strings. Years later, when Mendelssohn was appointed director of the Gewandhaus concerts in 1835, he hired David as concertmaster. In 1843, Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory and quickly appointed David to the violin faculty.

Mendelssohn had played the violin since childhood, and by all accounts was quite accomplished. However, the E minor Violin Concerto required a level of technical knowledge and skill beyond Mendelssohn’s abilities, so he turned to David for hands-on advice. During the composition of the E minor Concerto, Mendelssohn wrote the melodies and designed the overall structure, while David served as technical consultant.

In this concerto, the violin is always and indisputably the star, while the orchestra’s role provides what the late music critic Michael Steinberg called “accompaniment, punctuation, scaffolding and a bit of cheerleading.” Music this familiar can be difficult to hear as a “composed” work at all; instead, it seems to emerge sui generis, like Athena bursting fully formed from the head of Zeus.

In a break with convention, the solo violin rather than the full orchestra opens the Allegro molto appassionato with the main theme. Mendelssohn also defied expectations by placing the first movement cadenza, which David composed, between the development and return of the main theme, rather than at the end of the movement.

A solo bassoon holds the last note of the Allegro and pivots without interruption to the Andante. Here the soloist leads with a lyrical, singing melody full of tender poignancy. The gentle Andante flows almost without pause into the Allegro molto vivace. The exuberant quicksilver theme of the finale contrasts sharply with the intimate Andante, and demands all the soloist’s technical and artistic skill.

Op. 64 turned out to be Mendelssohn’s last completed orchestral work; he died two years after its premiere. Scholar Thomas Grey observed, “It seems fitting, if fortuitous, that [the Violin Concerto] should combine one of his most serious and personal orchestral movements (the opening Allegro) with a nostalgic return to the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the finale – the world of Mendelssohn’s ‘enchanted youth’ and the music that, more than any other, epitomizes his contribution to the history of music.”

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Symphonic Soundtrack

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Symphonic Soundtrack

Friday, March 15, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 16, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
Rob Patterson, clarinet

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Program

Giachino Rossini (1792-1868)
Overture to La Gazza Ladra (1817)

Giovanni Gabrieli (1554-1612)
Sonata pian’e forte (1597)

Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
Starburst (2012)

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Clarinet Concerto (1948)

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)
Sicilienne from
Pelleas and Melisande Suite (1898)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Suite from The Firebird (1919)

John Williams (b. 1932)
Princess Leia’s Theme from Star Wars

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Symphonic Soundtrack

Program Notes for March 15 & 16, 2024

Symphonic Soundtrack

Gioachino rossini (1792-1868)

Overture to La Gazza Ladra (1817)

This piece was chosen by violinist Josephine Gray

"Who Is the wittiest composer? Mozart, Rossini or perhaps Berlioz? My first memory of the Thieving Magpie overture during my early childhood in the UK was it being a musical joke as the opening drum roll caused the entire audience to spring to their feet, mistaking it for God Save the Queen! Rossini was undoubtedly a master entertainer and a musical tease, showing off the virtuoso winds and strings, and the pompous brass and percussion. He sure knew how to build momentum and excitement and has scored the magpie protagonist perfectly with lilting, graceful, cheeky and mischievous themes and masterful orchestration."

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Giovanni gabrieli (1554-1612)

Sonata pian’e forte (1597)

This piece was chosen by principal viola, Patricia Whaley

In addition to the many philosophical and scientific advancements brought on by the Italian Renaissance, music also saw significant innovation, including a standardization of notation to something very close to what we would recognize in modern sheet music. The prolific Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli gave remarkably clear instructions to performers in his written music while he served as maestro of St. Mark’s Basilica, including, in the case of his 1597 Sonata pian’ e forte, which passages should be played forte (loud) and which piano (soft)—indications we still use today. In St. Mark’s, the musicians were traditionally split into two groups in choir lofts facing one another, and Gabrieli wrote much of his music with this layout in mind, making extensive use of echoes and call-and-response; today, we can recreate this almost 500-year-old style to great effect with brass instruments laid out in a similar “antiphonal choir” setup.*

*Program Notes written by Nicholas Hersh, music director

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jessie montgomery (b. 1981)

Starburst (2012)

This piece was chosen by principal viola, Patricia Whaley

"I love Starburst! I hope you will too. It’s full of wonderfully bright, propulsive energy, and it shows off the wealth of different sounds and colors that strings alone can produce, using all the different techniques we have at our disposal. Jessie Montgomery, a violinist herself, writes in a style that’s both distinctly modern and still welcoming for all listeners, as well as being challenging but eminently playable for us."

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aARON COPLAND (1900-1990)

Clarinet Concerto (1948)

This piece was chosen by violinist Josephine Gray

"I suggested this piece because my late father played jazz clarinet and saxophone.For me the first movement has a heart rending plaintiff quality that reaches my soul in a poignant and nostalgic way. It's not particularly sad, but just very human. Pain and hope, serenity coupled with disquiet as it goes in harmonic directions that are unexpected. After a cadenza bridge which introduces the jaunty theme of the second movement, Copland uses slap bass and Latin American jazz themes to set up a kind of musical race that's bright, intricate and overwhelmingly fun ending with a Gershwin "smear" flourish."

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Gabriel faure (1845-1924)

Sicilienne from Pelleas and Melisande Suite (1948)

This piece was chosen by Don Grishaw, violin

"I first heard it when I was in fourth or fifth grade, on the radio... It's a magical piece with a beautiful melody."

The slow, symbolism-laden words of Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 Pelléas and Mélisande never saw much success until the play was set to music—multiple times, by musical luminaries like Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, and Gabriel Fauré. Fauré used a light touch: the play was staged in an English translation and Fauré only added incidental music (music usually played only during scene changes or in the background). Matching the moody story of forbidden love, the most well-known segment of music is the “Sicilienne,” which accompanies Mélisande playing the flute for her lover Pelléas by a well, the gentle lilt to its rhythm in a dreamy 6/8 time adding an air of antiquity.*

*Program Notes written by Nicholas Hersh, music director

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Igor stravinsky (1882-1971)

Suite from The Firebird (1919)

This piece was chosen by principal viola, Patricia Whaley

Igor Stravinsky was a 20th-century chameleon—he explored several different musical styles over the course of his nearly one-hundred-year life, from experiments in modernist atonal music to a conservative “neo-Classical” style. Russian by birth, he soared to fame (and scandal) in Paris with his late-Romantic, folk-infused Ballets Russes, which included the infamous Rite of Spring, so avant-garde that it allegedly started a riot at its premiere. Among his earlier successes in Paris was the 1910 ballet The Firebird, a retelling of an ancient folk tale of a young warrior-prince defeating a monstrous sorcerer with the help of a magic bird. The music is immensely evocative and a tour-de-force of orchestration, from the low strings depicting a shadowy forest, to the frenetic xylophone and trombone glissandos of the sorcerer’s wild minions, and finally to the majestic horn call that marks the hero’s victory over evil.*

*Program Notes written by Nicholas Hersh, music director

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John williams (b. 1932)

Princess Leia’s Theme from Star Wars (1977)

This piece was chosen by music director, Nicholas Hersh

"This is really one of the first pieces of music that I would have heard as a kid that used the orchestra in a huge and engaging way, and watching Star Wars as a kid is a fundamental part of my upbringing. This music is written so beautifully by John Williams with this soaring, beautiful melody, which really left a mark on me and may have even set me down a path to become the conductor I am today. Performing Williams's musicis always such a privilege because he just knows how to write for the orchestra to make it sound its absolute best. Every instrument is involved. Every instrument gets an interesting line to play. In addition to hearing these lush harmonies and soaring melodies that we instantly associate with our favorite characters from Star Wars."

Gershwin's An American in Paris

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Gershwin’s An American in Paris

Friday, February 9, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor

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Program

William L. Dawson (1899-1990)
Negro Folk Symphony (1934)

i.The Bond of Africa

ii.Hope in the Night

iii.O, Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!

- INTERMISSION -

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
D’un Matin de Printemps (1918)

George Gershwin (1898-1937)
An American in Paris (1928)

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Gershwin's An American in Paris

Program Notes for February 9 & 10, 2024

Gershwin’s An American in Paris

William dawson

Negro Folk Symphony

Composer: born September 26, 1899, Anniston, AL; died May 2, 1990, Montgomery, AL

Work composed: 1934, rev. 1952

World premiere: Leopold Stokowski led the Philadelphia Orchestra on November 20, 1934, at Carnegie Hall in New York City

Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, adawura (Ghanaian bell), African clave, bass drum, chimes, cymbals, gong, snare drum, tenor drum, xylophone, harp, and strings

Estimated duration: 30 minutes

“I’ve not tried to imitate Beethoven or Brahms, Franck or Ravel – but to be just myself, a Negro,” William Dawson remarked in a 1932 interview. “To me, the finest compliment that could be paid my symphony when it has its premiere is that it unmistakably is not the work of a white man. I want the audience to say: ‘Only a Negro could have written that.’”

Two years later, Leopold Stokowski led the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony. Critics and audiences alike hailed it as a masterpiece. One reviewer declared it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved,” and another enthused, “the immediate success of the symphony [did not] give rise to doubts as to its enduring qualities. One is eager to hear it again and yet again.” Given this overwhelmingly positive reception, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, which at the time he thought of as the first of several future symphonies, should have been heard “again and yet again.” But it was not. Despite Stokowski’s advocacy for Dawson and the Negro Folk Symphony, and despite the stellar reviews it received at its premiere, within a few years both the music and its composer had faded into relative obscurity. Dawson never composed another symphony, although he did continue writing and arranging music – primarily spirituals, which he preferred to call “Negro folk songs” – for the rest of his long career.

In the current climate of racial reckoning, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony is enjoying a long-overdue revival, as is the music of other Black classical composers such as Florence Price, William Grant Still, Nathaniel Dett, and many others.

Dawson wrote that his symphony was “symbolic of the link uniting Africa and her rich heritage with her descendants in America,” and gave each of its three movements a descriptive title. Dawson explained in his own program note: “The themes are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals. In this composition, the composer has employed three themes taken from typical melodies over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother’s knee.” Musicologist Gwynne Kuhner Brown observes, “The themes are handled with such virtuosic flexibility of rhythm and timbre that each movement seems to evolve organically,” creating a “persuasive musical bridge between the ‘Negro Folk’ and the ‘Symphony.’”

In “The Bond of Africa,” Dawson opens with a horn solo. The dialogue between the horn and the orchestra echoes the call-and-response format of most spirituals. The horn solo repeats, usually in abbreviated form, several times throughout this movement, and serves as a musical “bond” holding the work together. The central slow movement, “Hope in the Night,” also features a unifying solo. Here an English horn sounds Dawson’s own spiritual-inspired melody, which he described as an “atmosphere of the humdrum life of a people whose bodies were baked by the sun and lashed with the whip for two hundred and fifty years; whose lives were proscribed before they were born.” Underneath the plaintive tune, the orchestra provides a dirge-like accompaniment that builds to an ominous repetition of the solo for tutti orchestra. This episode is offset by an abrupt change of mood, and we hear a lighthearted, up-tempo reworking of the original tune (the “hope” of the movement’s title). These two contrasting interludes alternate throughout the rest of the movement. Towards the end, Dawson reworks the harmony, which has been grounded in minor keys up to this point, and tiptoes towards major tonalities without fully embracing them. Musically, this device works as a powerful metaphor for the importance and elusive nature of hope to sustain people through traumatic circumstances.

The closing section, “Oh, Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like A Morning Star!” imagines a world in which the hopes of the previous movement are fully realized. Dawson creates this musical utopia through rhythm. The central melody showcases accented off-beat exclamations from various solo instruments and sections throughout, as the rhythms layer increasingly complex parts over one another. Dawson revised this movement in the early 1950s after he encountered the intricate polyrhythms of West African music during a trip to Africa. The interlocking parts and the sounds of African percussion instruments captured Dawson’s ear; when he returned to America, he added these elements. Eventually all these rhythmic strands come together in a final buoyant exclamation.

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Lili Boulanger

D’un matin de printemps (From A Spring Morning)

Composer: born August 21, 1893, Paris; died March 15, 1918, Mézy-sur-Seine

 Work composed: 1917-18. Boulanger made arrangements in multiple versions: for violin and piano, string trio, and full orchestra

 World premiere: undocumented

 Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, bass drum, castanets, cymbals, tambourine, tam-tam, timbales, triangle, celeste, harp, and strings

Estimated duration: 5 minutes

Women composers, like other female creative artists, have to fight battles their male counterparts do not. Even today, a female visual artist, writer, or composer is sometimes evaluated on criteria that have little or nothing to do with her work, and everything to do with her gender, her appearance, or her life circumstances. Lili Boulanger was no exception.

The younger sister of composer and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, who taught composition to many of the 20th century’s most distinguished composers, Lili Boulanger revealed her enormous talent at a very young age. She was a musical prodigy born into a musical family; in 1913, at age 20, she became the first woman to win the coveted Prix de Rome, France’s most prestigious composition prize. Boulanger’s compositional style, while grounded in the prevailing impressionistic aesthetics associated with Claude Debussy, is nonetheless wholly her own. Her music features rich harmonic colors, hollow chords (open fifths and octaves), ostinato figures, running arpeggios, and static rhythms.

Along with her tremendous musical ability, Boulanger was born with a chronic, debilitating intestinal illness, probably Crohn’s disease. Today there are drugs and other therapies to manage this condition, but in Boulanger’s time the illness itself had neither name nor cure, and its treatment was likewise little understood. Throughout her short life, Boulanger suffered from acute abdominal pain, bouts of uncontrollable diarrhea, and constant fatigue; all these symptoms naturally impacted her stamina and her ability to write. Contemporary reviews of Boulanger’s work always emphasized her physical fragility, often in lieu of a thoughtful assessment of her music.

Despite illness, Boulanger continued composing, even on her deathbed. D’un matin printemps, the second half of a diptych that includes its shorter counterpart D’un soir triste (From a Sad Evening) are two of the last works she wrote. Both pieces treat the same opening melodic and rhythmic theme in different ways: in D’un soir triste, the tempo is slow and the mood elegiac, while the same melodic/rhythmic fragment receives a cheerful, puckish treatment in D’un matin printemps that sparkles with effervescence and youthful joy.

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George gershwin

An American in Paris

Composer: born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, NY; died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, CA

 Work composed: March - June 1928, while Gershwin and his siblings were vacationing in Paris

 World premiere: Walter Damrosch led the New York Philharmonic on December 13, 1928 in New York

 Instrumentation: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 saxophones (alto, tenor, baritone), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, bells, cymbals, snare drum, taxi horns, tom-toms, triangle, xylophone, celesta, and strings

Estimated duration: 17 minutes

“My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris, as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere,” wrote George Gershwin about his tone poem, An American in Paris. “As in my other orchestral compositions, I’ve not endeavored to represent any definite scenes in this music. The rhapsody is programmatic only in a general impressionistic way, so that the individual listener can read into the music such as his imagination pictures for him,” This highly evocative, colorful symphonic music expertly captures the sights and sounds of Paris as its American protagonist wanders through the city streets. To illustrate the American’s journey, Gershwin included several of what he termed “walking themes,” which recur throughout the work. The trumpet sounds the most recognizable of these, the “homesick music,” in a bluesy solo. The “American” section concludes with an up-tempo Charleston played by a pair of trumpets, and the walking themes return. Finally, the orchestra winds up with a glittering exuberant finale as night falls on the City of Light.

An American in Paris marked a breakthrough for Gershwin as a composer, as the first symphonic piece for which he created his own orchestrations. When Rhapsody in Blue premiered in 1924, Gershwin was criticized because the Rhapsody’s orchestral version was created by Ferde Grofé. Four years after Rhapsody’s premiere, with An American In Paris, Gershwin demonstrated his growing command of orchestral colors, effectively silencing his detractors.

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Tchaikovsky & Copland

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Tchaikovsky & Copland

Friday, October 13, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
Alessio Bax, piano

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Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro KV492 (1786)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1875)
Alessio Bax, piano

i.Allegro

ii.Andantino

iii.Allegro

- INTERMISSION -

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Symphony No. 3 (1946)

i.Molto moderato

ii.Allegro molto

iii.Andantino quasi allegretto

iv.Molto deliberato

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Tchaikovsky & Copland

Program Notes for october 13 & 14, 2023

Tchaikovsky & Copland

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Overture from Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492

Composer: born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria; died December 5, 1791, Vienna

Work composed: May 28, 1786.

World premiere: Mozart conducted the first performance of Figaro at Vienna’s Burgtheater on May 1, 1786

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings

Estimated duration: 4 minutes

The best way to generate interest in something is to ban it. This holds as true today as it did in 1782, when King Louis XIV, after attending a private reading of a French comedy of manners written by Pierre Beaumarchais, declared it “detestable.” Beaumarchais’ play contained revolutionary ideas too dangerous for commoners to hear, as far as the rulers of Europe was concerned. Austria’s Emperor Joseph II agreed, and banned Beaumarchais’ play within Austria’s borders.

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart encountered Beaumarchais’ subversive play, he saw in it the perfect basis for an opera. With librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart relocated the story of Figaro, Susanna, Count Almaviva and Countess Rosina, and all their circle to Italy, and toned down the more obvious revolutionary elements.

The dizzyingly intricate plot of Le nozze di Figaro, Mozart’s most popular and frequently staged opera, is rife with twists, turns, reversals, misunderstandings, rumors, gossip, and deceptions. Such narrative complexity is mirrored in the Overture’s series of running notes, which generate the nonstop high energy needed to keep the story going over four acts. As was common at the time, none of the actual music in the opera appears in the Overture, but the anticipatory excitement of the music readies the audience for all the shenanigans to come.

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Piotr ilyich tchaikovsky

Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23

Composer: born May 7, 1840, Kamsko-Votinsk, Vitaka province, Russia; died November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg

 Work composed: Tchaikovsky began composing his first piano concerto in November 1874 and finished it in February, 1875. He revised it in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888; this final revision is the one usually performed. Tchaikovsky originally dedicated the concerto to his mentor Nicolai Rubinstein, but after Rubinstein declared it unplayable, Tchaikovsky removed his mentor’s name from the manuscript and dedicated it to pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow.

 World premiere: Valter Poole led the Michigan WPA Symphony Orchestra (aka the Detroit Civic Symphony) on November 6, 1940

 Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.

Estimated duration: 33 minutes

The first measures of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 have assumed an identity all their own. Many people recognize the four-note descending horn theme and the iconic crashing chords of the pianist’s first entrance without knowing the work as a whole. Interestingly, this signature introduction to the Piano Concerto No. 1 is just that, an introduction; after approximately 100 measures it disappears and never returns. These opening bars have also become part of popular culture, as the theme to Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre radio programs; in the 1971 cult film Harold and Maude; and in a Monty Python sketch.

Although the rest of the concerto is equally compelling, that was not the initial opinion of Tchaikovsky’s friend and mentor, Nikolai Rubinstein. Rubinstein, director of the Moscow Conservatory, had premiered many of Tchaikovsky’s works, including Romeo and Juliet. Tchaikovsky considered Rubinstein “the greatest pianist in Moscow,” and wanted Rubinstein’s help regarding the technical aspects of the solo piano part. In a letter to his patron Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky described his now-infamous meeting with Rubinstein on Christmas Eve, 1874: “I played the first movement. Not a single word, not a single comment!” After Tchaikovsky finished, as he explained to Mme. von Meck, “A torrent poured from Nikolai Gregorievich’s mouth … My concerto, it turned out, was worthless and unplayable – passages so fragmented, so clumsy, so badly written as to be beyond rescue – the music itself was bad, vulgar – only two or three pages were worth preserving – the rest must be thrown out or completely rewritten.”

It is true that this concerto is awkwardly constructed in places, with some abrupt musical transitions. The writing for the soloist is often exceedingly difficult, because Tchaikovsky was not a pianist and did not possess a player’s kinetic, idiomatic knowledge. However, Rubinstein’s excessively negative reaction seems disproportionate.

After the majestic introduction, which anticipates the harmonic language of the following movements, the Andante non troppo continues with a theme Tchaikovsky borrowed from a Ukrainian folk song. Woodwinds introduce a second theme, gentler and quieter, later echoed by the piano. The movement ends with a huge cadenza featuring a display of virtuoso solo fireworks.

In the Andantino semplice, Tchaikovsky also features a borrowed melody, “Il faut s'amuser, danser et rire” (You must enjoy yourself by dancing and laughing) from the French cabaret. Tchaikovsky likely meant this tune as a wistful tribute to the soprano Désirée Artôt, with whom he had been in love a few years previously. (In another musical compliment, Tchaikovsky used the letters of her name as the opening notes of a melody from the first movement).

The galloping melody of the Allegro con fuoco, another Ukrainian folk song, suggests a troika of horses racing over the steppes. A rhapsodic theme in the strings recalls the lush texture of the introduction. The two melodies alternate and overlap, dancing toward a monumental coda.

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Aaron Copland

Symphony No. 3

Composer: born November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, NY; died December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, NY

 Work composed: 1944-46. Copland’s Third Symphony was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation and Copland dedicated it “to the memory of my good friend, Natalie Koussevitzky.”

 World premiere: Serge Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 18, 1946.

 Instrumentation: piccolo, 3 flutes (one doubling 2nd piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, anvil, bass drum, chimes, claves, cymbals, glockenspiel, ratchet, slapstick, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tam tam, tenor drum, triangle, wood block, xylophone, celeste, piano, 2 harps, and strings.

Estimated duration: 38 minutes

In 1922, Nadia Boulanger, who taught composition to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers, introduced conductor Serge Koussevitzky to one of her young American students. From that moment, Koussevitzky and Aaron Copland forged a reciprocal collaboration that lasted until Koussevitzky’s death, in 1951. Koussevitzky championed Copland’s music and taught him the nuances of conducting; in turn, Copland encouraged Koussevitzky to focus on American composers, particularly at the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music center), which Koussevitzky established in 1940 in Lenox, MA.

In 1944, Copland received his last commission from Koussevitzky’s Foundation; this evolved into his most substantial orchestral work, the Third Symphony. Copland explained, “I knew exactly the kind of music he [Koussevitzky] enjoyed conducting and the sentiments he brought to it, and I knew the sound of his orchestra, so I had every reason to do my darndest to write a symphony in the grand manner.”

In his autobiography, Copland wrote, “If I forced myself, I could invent an ideological basis for the Third Symphony. But if I did, I’d be bluffing – or at any rate, adding something ex post facto, something that might or might not be true but that played no role at the moment of creation.” Nonetheless, one cannot help hearing Copland’s Third Symphony as the expression of a country emerging victorious from a devastating war. Copland acknowledged as much, noting that the Third Symphony “intended to reflect the euphoric spirit of the country at the time.”

Copland described the Molto moderato as “open and expansive.” Of particular note is the second theme, a singing melody for violas and oboes, which sounds like an inspirational moment from a film score.

The Andantino quasi allegretto contains the most abstract and introspective music in the symphony. High strings wander through an empty landscape, like soldiers stumbling upon a field after a bloody battle. A solo flute intones a melody that binds the rest of the movement together with, as Copland explains, “quiet singing nostalgia, then faster and heavier – almost dance-like; then more childlike and naïve, and finally more vigorous and forthright.” As the third movement’s various themes weave and coalesce, sounding much like sections of Copland’s ballet music, they produce a half-conscious sense of déjà vu – have we heard this before? Not quite, but almost, and as the third movement dissolves without pause into the final movement, we hear the woodwinds repeating a theme present in all three of the preceding sections. Now the theme shifts, the last jigsaw puzzle piece locks into place, and the Fanfare for the Common Man emerges.

Although the Fanfare is instantly recognizable today, at the time Copland was writing the Third Symphony it was little known. In 1942, Eugene Goossens, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony, commissioned Copland and eighteen other composers to write short, patriotic fanfares, for the orchestra to premiere during their 1942-43 season. Copland explained his choice of title: “It was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army. He deserved a fanfare.”

Copland wanted a heroic finale to represent the Allied victory in WWII, and the Fanfare epitomized it. The flutes and clarinets introduce the basic theme, before the brasses and percussion burst forth with the version most familiar to audiences.

Reviews were enthusiastic, ranging from Koussevitzky’s categorical statement that it was the finest American symphony ever written to Leonard Bernstein’s declaration, “The Symphony has become an American monument, like the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.”

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Mozart Requiem

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Mozart Requiem

Friday, May 12, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Anthony Parnther, conductor
MSO Chorus
Daniel R. Afonso Jr. , chorus director
Jennifer Lindsay, soprano
Maria Dominique Lopez, mezzo-soprano
Orson Van Gay, II, tenor
Zachary Gordin, baritone

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Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Requiem, K. 626 (1791)

MSO Chorus
Daniel R. Afonso Jr., chorus director
Jennifer Lindsay, soprano
Maria Dominique Lopez, mezzo soprano
Orson Van Gay II, tenor
Zachary Gordin, baritone

- INTERMISSION -

Florence Price (1887-1953)
Symphony No. 3 in C minor (1938)

1. Andante

2. Andante ma non troppo

3. Juba: Allegro

4. Scherzo: Finale 

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Mozart Requiem

Program Notes for MAy 12 & 13, 2023

Mozart Requiem

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Requiem, K. 626 (completed by Robert Levin)

Composer: born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria; died December 5, 1791, Vienna

Work composed: 1791. Mozart died before completing the Requiem, an anonymous commission from Count Franz Walsegg von Stuppach. The Requiem was originally finished by one of Mozart’s students, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. The version heard in these concerts was realized and completed by musicologist Robert Levin in 1991.

World premiere: Helmuth Rilling conducted the first performance of Levin’s realization in August 1991 at the European Music Festival in Stuttgart.

Instrumentation: soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, SATB chorus, 2 bassoons, 2 basset horns (or clarinets), 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, organ, and strings 

Estimated duration: 53 minutes

The mysterious circumstances surrounding Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem have lent the work an aura of romance and intrigue almost as compelling as the music itself. In the summer of 1791, Count Franz Walsegg von Stuppach sent a messenger to Mozart with an anonymous commission for a Requiem intended to honor Walsegg’s late wife. Walsegg, an amateur musician, had a habit of commissioning works from well-known composers and then claiming them as his own, hence his need for anonymity and subterfuge. Chronically hard up, Mozart accepted the commission. He completed several sketches before putting the Requiem aside to finish Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito and to oversee a production of Don Giovanni.

In October 1791, in failing health, Mozart returned to the Requiem. When Mozart died two months later, the Requiem remained unfinished. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, facing a mountain of debt, asked one of Mozart’s associates, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, to complete it. Süssmayr agreed, but his claims of authorship of the later movements of the Requiem have provoked sharp debates over which man wrote what, debates that continue today.

In 1991, musicologist Robert Levin presented his ‘completed’ version of the Requiem in which he corrected what he called Süssmayr’s “errors in musical grammar.” This version has become preferred by conductors and ensembles; since its premiere, there have been over 125 recordings of Levin’s edition.

The fine attention to detail in the meaning of the words of the requiem mass dictates the musical structure throughout. The chorus’ heartfelt pleading in the opening lines, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” (Grant them eternal rest, O God), are presented in a dark minor key. This is transformed into a promise of glowing eternity in the next sentence, “Et lux perpetua luceat eis” (and may perpetual light shine upon them) as the music moves into the light of a major key. The strong Kyrie (Lord, have mercy/Christ, have mercy) that follows is set in a stark fugue, Mozart’s homage to J. S. Bach.

The Sequence, which is composed of a number of short movements, begins with the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), whose fiery, agitated setting and orchestral accompaniment bring the terror and fury of the text frighteningly alive. In the Tuba mirum, the bass soloist and a solo trombone proclaim the Day of Judgment, followed by each of the soloists in turn. The chorus returns to beg for salvation from hell in the powerful Rex tremendae, which is followed by the more intimate pleading of the Recordare, in which each of the soloists makes a personal petition to God. The gentleness of this movement is followed by the thunder of the Confutatis, which juxtaposes the images of the damned consigned to the flames of hell with that of the supplicant kneeling in prayer. Then comes the exquisite Lacrymosa, in which the chorus grieves and sobs; The sighing appoggiaturas of the violins echo the lamenting of the text. In the Offertory, the chorus ends its plea for mercy with a reminder of God’s promise to Abraham; these words are set into a tremendous fugue, which recurs at the end of the graceful Hostias.

With the Sanctus comes the first wholly joyful expression of emotion, as the chorus and orchestra together sing God’s praises with shining exclamations in the brasses and a fugue on the words “Hosanna in the highest.” The operatic grace of the melody of the Benedictus, sung by the four soloists, conveys the sense of blessedness of those “who come in the name of the Lord;” this is followed by a recurrence of the choral fugue from the Sanctus. With the Agnus Dei, the chorus and orchestra return to the darkly shifting mood of the opening movement; this culminates in the Communio, which uses the music of the opening Requiem aeternam and concludes with the same fugue used in the Kyrie, but this time on the words “cum sanctis tuis in aeternam” (with Thy saints forever).

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Florence price

Symphony No. 3 in C minor

Composer: born April 9, 1887, Little Rock, AR; died June 3, 1953, Chicago

 Work composed: 1938-39

 World premiere: Valter Poole led the Michigan WPA Symphony Orchestra (aka the Detroit Civic Symphony) on November 6, 1940

 Instrumentation: 4 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, castanets, crash cymbals, gong, orchestral bells, sand paper, slapstick, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tambourine, triangle, wood block, xylophone, celesta, harp, and strings

Estimated duration: 28 minutes

Florence Price, the first Black female American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Her compositional skill and fame notwithstanding, however, the entrenched institutional racism and sexism of the white male classical music establishment effectively erased Price and her music from general awareness for decades after her death in 1953. More than 50 years later, in 2009, a large collection of scores and unpublished works by Price were discovered in a house in rural Illinois. Since then, many ensembles and individual musicians have begun including Price’s music in concerts, and audiences are discovering her distinctive, polished body of work for the first time.

The daughter of a musical mother, Price was a piano prodigy, giving her first recital at age four and publishing her first composition at 11. During her childhood and teens in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price’s mother was the guiding force behind her piano and composition studies. In 1903, at age 16, Price won admittance to New England Conservatory (she had to “pass” as Mexican and listed her hometown as Pueblo, Mexico, to circumvent prevailing racial bias against Blacks), where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early advocate for women composers, and he believed, as did Antonín Dvořák before him, that American composers should incorporate the rich traditions of American vernacular music into their own work, rather than trying to imitate European styles.

Price, already inclined in this direction, was encouraged by Chadwick; many of her works reflect the expressive, distinctive idioms of what were then referred to as “Negro” traditions: spirituals, ragtime, jazz, and folkdance rhythms whose origins trace back to Africa. In 1938, Price wrote, “We are even beginning to believe in the possibility of establishing a national musical idiom. We are waking up to the fact pregnant with possibilities that we already have a folk music in the Negro spirituals – music which is potent, poignant, compelling. It is simple heart music and therefore powerful. It runs the gamut of emotions.”

Price’s later works, including the Symphony No. 3, fuse these uniquely Black American musical idioms with the modernist European language employed by many classical composers of the day. Price explained, “[The Symphony No. 3 is] a cross section of present-day Negro life and thought with its heritage of that which is past, paralleled or influenced by concepts of the present day,” specifically, her use of the expressively dissonant harmonic language of the 20th century.

Each of the Third Symphony’s four movements juxtaposes elements of both musical traditions, often in opposition to one another. The Andante; Allegro opens with a slow, pensive introduction in which brasses and winds feature prominently. This gives way to the Allegro’s restless, harmonically unsettled first theme. A solo trombone introduces a contrasting second section, featuring original melodies grounded in the Black vernacular tradition. The pastoral quality of the Andante ma non troppo evokes the warm serenity of a summer afternoon, while the Juba, an African dance brought to America by enslaved people, transmits its infectious ebullience through syncopated rhythms and specific percussion accents, particularly the castanets and xylophone. The closing Scherzo combines Black-inflected rhythms and 20th-century harmonies in an orchestral showcase full of virtuosic passages.

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Barber & Brahms

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Barber & Brahms

Friday, February 10, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Andrew Grams, conductor
Simone Porter, violin

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Program

Margaret Brouwer (b. 1940)

Remembrances (1996)

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Violin Concerto, op. 14 (1939)

I.Allegro
II. Andante
III. Presto in moto perpetuo

Simone Porter, violin

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms  (1833-1897)

Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 73 (1877)

I.Allegro non troppo
II. Adagio non troppo
III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)
IV. Allegro con spirito

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Barber & Brahms

Program Notes for February 10 & 11, 2023

Barber & Brahms

Margaret Brouwer

Remembrances

Composer: born February 8, 1940, in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Composed: 1996
written for the Roanoke Symphony, dedicated to Robert Stewart

Premiere:  Roanoke Symphony, Yong-Yan Hu, guest conductor, Roanoke, VA, March 18, 1996

Duration:  14 minutes

Instrumentation: 2 (2nd picc.) 2 EH 2 2(2nd cbsn.); 4331; timp., 2 perc., hp., strings

Learn more from the composer

This tone poem is an elegy and a tribute to Robert Stewart who was a musician, composer, sailor and loved one.  Beginning with an expression of grief and sorrow, the music evolves into a musical portrait, full of warm memories, love and admiration, and images of sailing.  Typical of elegies and tone poems, such as "Death and Transfiguration" by Strauss, it ends in a spirit of consolation and hope.

REVIEWS

"...Next was RSO Composer- in-Residence Margaret Brouwer's lovely tone poem "Remembrances."  This was Brouwer at her best: lyrical, accessible, powerful and deeply moving.  I have heard a number of Brouwer's works in several venues, and "Remembrances" made the best impression by a long shot.  If more contemporary composers would write like Brouwer in this vein, the uneasy armed truce between audiences and modern music would quickly come to an end....In the long second section there were numerous gorgeous solos for winds, including a ravishing line from solo oboe over timpani roll and pedal tones from the double basses.  There was also a lovely soliloquy for clarinet.  The mood alternated between gentle sorrow and striving affirmation.  "Remembrances" ended on a rising three-note figure and the piece was quickly awarded enthusiastic applause, bravos and a standing ovation."   - Seth Williamson, Roanoke Times, March 19, 1996

"The moving "Remembrances" is 'an elegy and a tribute' to a deceased loved one. Its 15-minute span allows it to move with unhurried sincerity from mourning to hard-won reassurance. With its consonant tonality, it is the most stereotypical "American" piece on this disc." - Raymond S Tuttle, International Record Review, June 2006

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Samuel Barber

Violin Concerto, op. 14

Composer: born March 9, 1910, West Chester, PA; died January 23, 1981, New York City

Work composed: 1939, rev. 1948

World premiere: Eugene Ormandy led the Philadelphia Orchestra, with violinist Albert Spalding, on February 7, 1941. The revised version was first performed by violinist Ruth Posselt, with Serge Koussevitzky leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on January 6, 1949.

Instrumentation: solo violin, 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, snare drum, piano, and strings

Estimated duration: 25 minutes

Samuel Barber wrote the Violin Concerto, his first major commission, for Samuel Fels, the inventor of Fels Naptha soap, on behalf Fels’ adopted son, violinist Iso Briselli. Barber began work on the concerto in Switzerland in the summer of 1939, but, due to what he described in a letter as “increasing war anxiety,” Barber left Europe in August and returned home with the final movement still unfinished.

At the end of summer 1939, Barber sent the first two movements to Briselli for comment. Briselli was unimpressed, describing them as “too simple and not brilliant enough for a concerto.” Taking these comments to heart, Barber resolved to write a final movement that would afford “ample opportunity to display the artist’s technical powers.” Briselli found fault with this movement as well, calling it “too lightweight” in comparison with the other movements. In a letter to Fels, Barber wrote, “[I am] sorry not to have given Iso what he had hoped for, but I could not destroy a movement in which I have complete confidence, out of artistic sincerity to myself. So we decided to abandon the project, with no hard feelings on either side.” Barber later approached violinist Albert Spalding, who immediately agreed to premiere the work. Because of all the controversy generated by the third movement, Barber gave the concerto a humorous nickname, the “concerto del sapone,” or a “soap concerto,” a reference both to Fels Naptha and the melodrama of soap operas.

Reviews praised the concerto as “an exceptional popular success” and Barber for writing a concerto “refreshingly free from arbitrary tricks and musical mannerisms … straightforwardness and sincerity are among its most engaging qualities.” The late annotator Michael Steinberg called the opening of the first movement “magical,” and goes on to ask, “Does any other violin concerto begin with such immediacy and with so sweet and elegant a melody?” Few works, certainly few concertos, draw the listener in so quickly, and keep our attention focused so completely. The Andante semplice features a heartbreakingly beautiful oboe solo – classic Barber in its yearning – and the violinist answers it with an impassioned yet surprisingly intimate melody that suggests the violin musing aloud to itself.

The finale, a rondo theme and variations, is particularly impressive. In his program notes for the 1941 premiere, Barber wrote, with characteristic understatement, “The last movement, a perpetual motion, exploits the more brilliant and virtuoso characteristics of the violin.” But as biographer Barbara Heyman points out, “This is one of the few virtually nonstop concerto movements in the violin literature (the solo instrument plays for 110 measures without interruption).”

Watch to learn more about Barber’s Violin Concert from violinist Simone Porter!

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JOhannes Brahms

Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 73

Composer: born May 7, 1833, Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, Vienna

Work composed: During the summer and fall of 1877

World premiere: Hans Richter led the Vienna Philharmonic on December 30, 1877

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.

Estimated duration:39 minutes

Less than a year after the successful premiere of Johannes Brahms’ first symphony, on November 4, 1876, the composer left Vienna to spend the summer at the lakeside town of Pörtschach on Lake Wörth, in southern Austria. There, in the beauty and quiet of the countryside, Brahms completed his second symphony. Pörtschach was to be a productive place for Brahms; over the course of three summers there he wrote several important works, including his Violin Concerto. In a letter to critic Eduard Hanslick, a lifelong Brahms supporter, Brahms wrote, “The melodies fly so thick here that you have to be careful not to step on one.”

Unlike Brahms’ first symphony, which took more than 20 years to complete, work on the second went smoothly, and Brahms finished it in just four months. Brahms felt so good about his progress that he joked with his publisher, “The new symphony is so melancholy that you won’t stand it. I have never written anything so sad … the score must appear with a black border.” In a different letter, Brahms self-mockingly observed, “Whether I have a pretty symphony I don’t know; I must ask clever people sometime.”

As Brahms composed, he shared his work-in-progress with lifelong friend Clara Schumann. “Johannes came this evening and played me the first movement of his Second Symphony in D major, which greatly delighted me,” Schumann noted in her diary in October 1877. “I find it in invention more significant than the first movement of the First Symphony … I also heard a part of the last movement and am quite overjoyed with it. With this symphony he will have a more telling success with the public as well than he did with the First, much as musicians are captivated by the latter through its inspiration and wonderful working-out.”

The Symphony No. 2 is often described as the cheerful alter ego to the solemn melancholy of the Symphony No. 1. Brahms uses the lilting notes of the Allegro non troppo as a common link throughout all four movements, where they are repeated, reversed and otherwise, in Schumann’s words, “wonderfully worked-out.” In the extended coda, Brahms introduces the trombones and tuba, casting a tiny shadow over the sunny mood. The Adagio’s lyrical cello melody hints at the wistful melancholy that characterizes so much of Brahms’ music. The Allegretto grazioso is remarkably gentle, and the infectious joy of the closing Allegro con spirito expands on the first movement’s amiable mood, so much so that at the Vienna premiere, the audience demanded an encore.

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Rachmaninoff & Sibelius

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Rachmaninoff & Sibelius

Friday, November 11, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Nicholas Hersh, conductor
George Li, piano

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Program

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
arr. Nicholas Hersh

String Quartet No. 14, II. Andante con moto
Variations on a Theme "Death and the Maiden"

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934)
George Li, piano

INTERMISSION

Jean Sibelius  (1865-1957)

Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 95 82 (1915)

i. Tempo molto moderato – Allegro moderato – Presto
ii. Andante mosso, quasi allegretto
iii. Allegro molto – Misterioso – Un pochettino largamente

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Rachmaninoff & Sibelius

Program Notes for November 11 & 12, 2022

Rachmaninoff & Sibelius

Program Book

Franz Schubert (arr. Hersh)

String Quartet No. 14, II. Andante con moto
Variations on a Theme "Death and the Maiden"

Composer: born January 31, 1797, Vienna; died November 19, 1828, Vienna

Work composed: March 1824; dedicated to violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. 

World premiere: First performed in a private gathering at the home of Josef Barth on February 1, 1826

Instrumentation: string orchestra

Estimated duration: 10  minutes

In 1824, 27-year-old Franz Schubert was physically and mentally worn out from his years-long battle with syphilis, a battle he lost four years later. The disease caused him extreme pain and weakness, and amplified his tendency to depression. On March 31, 1824, Schubert wrote to a friend, “I feel myself to be the most unfortunate, the most miserable being in the world. Think of a man whose health will never be right again, and who from despair over the fact makes it worse instead of better … My peace is gone, my heart is heavy … each night when I go to sleep I hope never again to wake, and each morning merely reminds me of the misery of yesterday.”

The String Quartet in D minor reflects Schubert’s understandable preoccupation with mortality, from its powerful opening notes through the meditative, soothing Andante; from the angry denunciations of the Scherzo to the breathless defiance of the Presto. The nickname “Death and the Maiden” comes from Schubert’s 1817 setting of Matthias Claudius’ eponymous poem, written in the form of a dialogue between Death and a young woman. The maiden pleads for her life, while Death woos her with promises of an eternal, all-embracing sleep. Schubert repurposed Death’s melody from the song as the basis for the second movement’s theme and variations.

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Notes from the Arranger, Nicholas Hersh

This set of variations on the lied "Der Tod und das Mädchen" is an orchestration of the complete second movement of the String Quartet No. 14 "Death and the Maiden," functioning in this arrangement as a standalone concert piece for chamber orchestra. The string section presents the unaltered theme, while the five subsequent variations and coda explore various orchestral colors. I have attempted to preserve Schubert's original markings wherever possible, but I also took an occasional liberty to better serve this symphonic milieu.

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Sergei Rachmaninoff

Rhapsody on A Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

Composer: born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Starorusky District, Russia; died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, CA

Work composed: Rachmaninoff wrote his Rhapsody in six weeks, from July 3 – August 18, 1934, while staying at his villa in Switzerland.

World premiere: Leopold Stokowski led the Philadelphia Orchestra with Rachmaninoff as soloist at the Lyric Opera house in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 7, 1934

Instrumentation: solo piano, piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, triangle, harp, and strings.

Estimated duration: 23 minutes

After he left Russia, Sergei Rachmaninoff found little time for composition. He had a family to support, and his skills as a conductor and concert pianist were more in demand, and paid far better, than composition. Consequently, Rachmaninoff wrote relatively little in the years after the Russian Revolution; instead, he toured with earlier works, like the Second and Third Piano Concertos.

The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is an exception; Rachmaninoff wrote it in 1934, just seven years before his death. Based on the last of Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, this melody has inspired variations from a number of other composers, including Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, and Witold Lutosławski.

Audiences immediately responded to the Rhapsody’s technical virtuosity and unabashed romanticism. As the late musicologist Michael Steinberg noted, “[the Rhapsody] embodies [Rachmaninoff’s] late style at its brilliant and witty best, it has one of the world’s irresistible melodies and it gives the audiences the satisfaction of watching a pianist work very hard and with obviously rewarding results.”

Critics were far less enthusiastic: one described it as “trite to the verge of cheapness,” while another opined, “[it is] just a concert piece for the composer’s playing, and the day for that sort of thing is past.” The New Yorker critic was especially harsh, denigrating both music and audience: “The Rhapsody isn’t philosophical, significant, or even artistic. It is something for audiences.” Despite the condescending reviews, the Rhapsody became an instant hit on the concert circuit, and remains one of the most popular works for piano and orchestra.

The Rhapsody can be organized into the conventional outline of a piano concerto, with the first ten variations (some under 20 seconds) corresponding to a first movement. These ten variations stay very close to Paganini’s theme and remain in the key of A minor, each one building on the excitement and tension of its predecessor. Variation 11 transitions to the slow “second movement” (variations 12-18). In keeping with the middle movement of a concerto, the harmony shifts from A minor and wanders through several other keys until it arrives at the famous 18th variation in D-flat major, which was featured in the 1993 hit movie Groundhog Day. “This one,” Rachmaninoff shrewdly commented, “is for my agent.” While this variation seems unrelated to the fundamental melody, Rachmaninoff constructed it by simply inverting Paganini’s original theme. The final six variations make up the third movement and feature Paganini’s opening theme as the Rhapsody builds to its fiery climax.

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Jean Sibelius

Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82

Composer: born December 8, 1865, Hämeenlinna, Finland; died September 20, 1957, Järvenpää, Finland

Work composed: 1914-15, rev. 1916, 1919

World premiere: Sibelius completed the first version of the Fifth Symphony just in time to conduct it for his fiftieth birthday on December 8, 1915, with the Helsinki Municipal Orchestra. A year later, Sibelius revised Op. 82 and conducted it with the same ensemble. The final version was completed in 1919; Sibelius conducted it on October 21, 1921.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings

Estimated duration: 31 minutes

“These symphonies of mine are more confessions of faith than are my other works,” wrote Jean Sibelius in 1918, while revising his Symphony No. 5 for the third time. Always his own harshest critic, Sibelius struggled to realize his original musical conception of the Symphony over a period of six difficult years.

Sibelius’ multiple attempts to write a version of the Fifth Symphony that withstood his implacable self-criticism were hampered by personal problems and global upheaval. In the years 1910-14, Sibelius struggled with the desire to be perceived by the world as a “modern” composer, but at the same time he rejected the prevailing styles established by Debussy, Mahler, and Richard Strauss. Composing, frequently difficult for Sibelius even under the best of circumstances, was made even harder by the composer’s poor health and chronic alcoholism.

From 1914-18, the chaos and brutality of WWI engulfed Europe. In 1917 Finland declared independence from Russia, which sparked additional conflict between the two countries. In 1918, an invasion of Russian soldiers into his town forced Sibelius and his family to flee to Helsinki. Later that year, Sibelius returned home and resumed his life and work, including the third revision of the Fifth Symphony, which he described as “practically composed anew.”

The reworked symphony condenses the original four movements into three – Sibelius combined the first and second movements – and features a new finale. The Tempo molto moderato is textbook Sibelius, featuring brief, fragmentary ideas that surface somewhat enigmatically from the depths of the orchestra. A short melody in the horns later coalesces into a fully developed theme. At times the instruments seem to murmur to themselves; as the music progresses, the strings and brasses declaim bold proclamations.

In the Andante mosso, pizzicato strings and staccato flutes state the primary melody, while a group of woodwinds and horns sound a counter-theme of long sustained notes. These shimmering notes become a backdrop for several variations on the staccato main theme.

On April 21, 1915, Sibelius wrote in his diary, “Today at ten to eleven I saw 16 swans. One of my greatest experiences. Lord God, that beauty!” The opening of the finale captures this rustle of wings with tremolo strings accompanying an expansive melody, also in the strings. Sibelius juxtaposed this breathless music with a majestic “swan theme” sounded first by the horns. As the symphony concludes, the swan theme becomes an exultant shout of triumph.

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com

Rhapsody in Blue

Modesto Symphony Orchestra

Rhapsody in Blue

Friday, October 21, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Gallo Center for the Arts, Mary Stuart Rogers Theater

Christopher Dragon, conductor
Gabriela Martinez, piano

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Program

Florence Price (1887-1953)

Concert Overture No. 2 (1943)

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
Gabriela Martinez, piano

INTERMISSION  

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World," Op. 95 (1893)

I.Adagio - Allegro molto
II. Largo
III. Molto vivace
IV. Allegro con Fuoco

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About this Performance

Program Notes: Rhapsody in Blue

Program Notes for October 21 & 22, 2022

Rhapsody in Blue

Florence Price

Concert Overture No. 2

Composer: born April 9, 1887, Little Rock, AR; died June 3, 1953, Chicago

Work composed: 1943

World premiere: undocumented

Instrumentation: piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, harp, and strings

Estimated duration:15  minutes

As the first Black female American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, Florence Price enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Her compositional skill and fame notwithstanding, the entrenched institutional racism and sexism of the white male classical music establishment effectively erased Price and her music from general awareness for decades after her death. In 2009, a large collection of scores and unpublished works by Price were discovered in a house in rural Illinois. Since then, scholars, musicians, and audiences have been discovering Price’s work and her rich legacy.

The daughter of a musical mother, Price was a prodigy, giving her first recital at age four and publishing her first composition at 11. During her childhood and teens, Price’s mother was the guiding force behind her piano and composition studies. Young Florence entered New England Conservatory in 1903, at 16, where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early champion of women as composers, which was highly unusual at the time, and he believed that American composers should incorporate the rich traditions of native American and “Negro” styles in their own works. Price, already inclined in this direction, was encouraged by Chadwick, and many of her works, including tonight’s Concert Overture No. 2, reflect the expressive and distinctive sounds of Negro traditions, particularly the spirituals, ragtime, and folkdance rhythms whose origins trace back to Africa. This overture features the spirituals “Go Down, Moses,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” and “Every Time I Feel the Spirit.”

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George Gershwin

Concerto for Tabla & Orchestra

Composer: born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, NY; died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, CA

 Work composed: Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in the first three weeks of 1924

 World premiere: Gershwin was at the piano when Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra premiered Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York City, on February 12, 1924

 Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, gong, glockenspiel, snare drum, celesta, triangle, banjo, and strings

 Estimated duration: 15 minutes

Rhapsody in Blue introduced jazz to classical audiences, and simultaneously made an instant star of its composer. From its iconic clarinet glissando to its brilliant finale, Rhapsody in Blue epitomizes the Gershwin sound, and transformed the 25-year-old Tin Pan Alley songwriter into a composer of “serious” music.

On January 4, 1924, Ira Gershwin showed George a news report in the New York Tribune about a concert put together by jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman, grandiosely titled “An Experiment in Modern Music,” that would endeavor to trace the history of jazz. The article concluded, “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto.” This was certainly news to Gershwin, who was then in rehearsals for a Broadway show, Sweet Little Devil. Gershwin contacted Whiteman to refute the Tribune article, but Whiteman eventually talked Gershwin into writing the concerto.

In 1931, Gershwin described to biographer Isaac Goldberg how the musical ideas for Rhapsody in Blue first emerged: “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer … And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end … I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.”

At the premiere, Gershwin’s unique realization of this “musical kaleidoscope of America,” coupled with his phenomenal abilities at the keyboard, wowed the audience as much as the novelty of hearing jazz idioms in a classical work.

The opening clarinet solo got its signature jazzy glissando from Whiteman’s clarinetist Ross Gorman. This opening unleashes a floodgate of colorful ideas that blend seamlessly. The pulsing syncopated rhythms and showy music eventually morph into a warm, expansive melody à la Sergei Rachmaninoff.

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Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”

Composer: born September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves, near Kralupy in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic); died May 1, 1904, Prague

Work composed: 1892-1893 in New York City

World premiere: Anton Seidl led the New York Philharmonic on December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

Estimated duration: 40 minutes

Antonín Dvořák began his Ninth Symphony in December 1892, shortly after he arrived in America, and completed it the following May. During his three-year sojourn in New York, Dvořák explored the city, watched trains and large ships arrive and depart, fed pigeons in Central Park, and met all kinds of people. Late in 1892, Dvořák wrote to a friend back home, “The Americans expect great things of me. I am to show them the way into the Promised Land, the realm of a new, independent art, in short, a national style of music! … This will certainly be a great and lofty task, and I hope that with God’s help I shall succeed in it. I have plenty of encouragement to do so.”

Dvořák was also introduced to a great deal of American folk music, including Native American melodies and Negro spirituals. However, he did not quote any of them in the Ninth Symphony. Dvořák explained, “The influence of America can be readily felt by anyone with ‘a nose.’” That is, hints of the uniquely American flavor of this music are discernable throughout, as Dvořák made use of the syncopated rhythms, repeated patterns, and particular scales common to much of America’s indigenous music. But the Ninth Symphony is not a patchwork of previously existing materials, and all the melodies in the Ninth Symphony are Dvořák’s own (including the famous English horn solo in the Largo, which was later given the title “Goin’ Home,” with accompanying text, by one of Dvořák’s New York composition students, a young Black composer and baritone named Harry Burleigh).

“I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, harmony, counterpoint, and orchestral color,” Dvořák explained. As for the title, “From the New World,” Dvořák intended it as an aural picture postcard to be mailed back to friends and family in Europe and meant simply “Impressions and Greetings from the New World.”

At the premiere, the audience applauded every movement with great enthusiasm, especially the Largo, which they cheered without pause until Dvořák rose from his seat and took a bow. A critic writing for the New York Evening Post spoke for most when he wrote, “Anyone who heard it could not deny that it is the greatest symphonic work ever composed in this country … A masterwork has been added to the symphonic literature.”

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© Elizabeth Schwartz

NOTE: These program notes are published here by the Modesto Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at www.classicalmusicprogramnotes.com