Lighter Classics Program Notes: Great Moments from Great Piano Concertos, October 9, 2008

Lighter Classics Program Notes: Great Moments from Great Piano Concertos, October 9, 2008

Great Moments from Great Piano Concertos
Thursday, October 9, 2008 – 8 pm

Rei Hotoda, conductor
Katherine Chi, piano +

LAVALLÉE
O Canada (arr. Gilliland)  (1’)*

RAVEL
Le tombeau de Couperin  (16’)*
    Prélude
    Forlane
    Menuet
    Rigaudon

SAINT-SAËNS
+ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op.22: Allegro scherzando  (7’)*

CHOPIN
+ Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op.21: Larghetto  (9’)*

BRAHMS
+ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op.83: Allegretto grazioso  (9’)*

INTERMISSION

LISZT
Two Episodes from Lenau’s Faust: No. 2 – The Dance at the Village Inn
(Mephisto Waltz No. 1)  (11’)*

MOZART
+ Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.467: Andante  (9’)*

BEETHOVEN
+ Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op.73 “Emperor”: Rondo: Allegro  (10’)*

*indicates approximate performance duration

Great Moments from Great Piano Concertos – Program Notes

“Concerto” is from an Italian word meaning “against.” And while our modern understanding of the word, as a work for a solo instrument (or small group of instruments) accompanied by a larger orchestra, would seem to mean “together” rather than “against,” the notion of a concerto is manifest by the contrast of the sound of a single instrument against a larger orchestral texture.

There is also an irony in tonight’s program, in which each half begins with orchestra-only works. Yet both of those works are by composers famous as important composers for the piano. Indeed, Franz Liszt was a phenomenally successful pianistic showman during his lifetime, and wrote piano works of dazzling virtuosity.

There are many contrasting threads interweaving throughout Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Firstly, there is the title, indicating an homage to the French baroque master François Couperin – and this homage is displayed in the work’s use of baroque forms (including the only fugue Ravel ever wrote, in the suite’s opening movement). Secondly, beyond the work’s title dedicatee, each movement of the work (it was originally written as a six-movement piano suite, and later four of the movements were orchestrated into the suite heard tonight) was further dedicated to friends of Ravel’s who had lost their lives in World War One.

Another contrast is found in the work’s musical language. While certainly charmingly “old-fashioned,” this is still music by Ravel, post-romantic and fully arrived in the 20th century. Its piano-version premiere in 1919 was the first public appearance of Ravel following the war, and while much of the suite is carefree and capricious, the feelings of loss that must have been so keen in the composer show in the contrastingly tender and melancholy Menuet movement.

The whole idea behind the Second Piano Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was entertainment. The gauntlet was thrown down by the composer’s friend, the great Russian conductor/composer Anton Rubinstein. I’m coming to Paris, Rubinstein informed his friend in the spring of 1868, let’s do a concert together. The trick was, the concert was only three weeks away. Yet the concerto Saint-Saëns created on such short notice is perhaps his most popular. The work begins unusually with a slow movement, making the second movement (the one featured tonight) rather like a Scherzo in its breezy energy. It is everywhere graceful, delicate, charming – indeed, all the adjectives often used (even pejoratively) to describe Saint-Saëns himself.

When the Polish piano master Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) wrote his Second Piano Concerto, first performed in 1830, it was while he was besotted over a young singer, Constantia Gladkowska. She had no idea, however, that Chopin was so infatuated, and the love remained unrequited. “It is with thoughts of this beautiful creature that I composed the Adagio,” Chopin wrote. It is very much in the style of the many nocturnes (“night songs”) he wrote for solo piano.

Like Chopin, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) wrote two piano concerti – yet that is where the comparisons stop. Each of Brahms’ concerti are vast, and feature writing for the orchestra at least as strong as that for the piano. Piano Concerto No. 2, first performed in Budapest in November 1881, is in four movements, but can also be divided into two halves, emotionally speaking. The first half contains the work’s weight and passion, the second is much lighter and graceful. The final movement is one of the few moments in Brahms’ entire output in which he gives himself over to sheer, well, fun. It has elements of the Hungarian folk music which Brahms had been exposed to as a young man, and is light, even graceful, in its charm.

The Faust legend proved fertile ground for many composers. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) turned to it a couple of times. His Two Episodes from Lenau’s Faust is based on a version of the Faust tale by poet Nikolaus Lenau. The Scene at the Village Inn, which has become known as Mephisto Waltz No. 1, depicts a part of the story where the Devil, tempts Faust by seizing a violin at a party taking place in an inn, and through his macabre waltz, turning the revelry to an outright orgy, in which Faust seduces the innkeeper’s beautiful daughter, leading her outdoors where a nightingale (a solo flute) is witness to his lust.

The slow movements of many of the piano concerti written by Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756-1791) are beautiful. Often, the most delicate orchestral fabric serves as the texture over which the piano sings its song. The C Major Concerto No. 21, then, is very much a work in this form. What set this movement apart, however, was its adaptation in a Swedish art film, Elvira Madigan (1967). Not many saw the movie, but the slow movement from this concerto was featured prominently, and it actually became a bit of a European radio hit. Over pulses in the lower strings, the violins present the lovely main melody, which is rhapsodized by the piano.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) wrote his final, Fifth Piano Concerto in the midst of challenges. The army of Napoleon was storming his home city, Vienna, and his deafness was nearing totality. Yet the work he wrote is one of triumph over adversity, and was written in E-flat Major, a key he identified with heroism and victory. The final movement of the work is a Rondo, a form in which the main theme returns, alternating with contrasting material, in an A-B-A-C-A etc. format. The main theme here skips and dances, it is rousing and even optimistic. The contrasting material does little to change the overall mood, and near the end, listen for a very unique duet between the piano and, of all things, the timpani. To add a final touch of irony, it was apparently a French army officer, at an early performance of the work, who proclaimed it “the Emperor of concerti,” and while Beethoven would have sneered to have earned praise from an invader, the nickname for the work stuck.

Program Notes © D.T. Baker

Program notes © 2008 by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and its respective annotators. All Rights Reserved. Program notes may not be printed in their entirety without the written consent of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra; excerpts may be quoted if due acknowledgment is given to the author and to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. For reprint permission, contact D.T. Baker, Music Resource, by email, dave.baker@winspearcentre.com.

These notes appear in galley files prepared for Signature magazine, official publication of the ESO, and may contain typographical or other errors, or may differ from the final print version. Programs and artists subject to change without notice.