Masters Program Notes: From the New World, May 30 & 31

Masters Program Notes: From the New World, May 30 & 31

From the New World
Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 8 pm
Sunday, May 31, 2009 - 2 pm
William Eddins, conductor
Colin Currie, percussion

Program
Tailleferre – Valses des dépêches
Debussy (arr. Matthews) – La fille aux cheveux de lin
L. Boulanger – D’un matin de printemps
Higdon – Concerto for Percussion
Tse - Remembrances: Prelude for Orchestra
Dvořák – Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op.95 “From the New World”

Program Notes

Having been a card-carrying member of the National Organization for Women for many years, you can imagine that I’m not a big fan of sexism. So I am quite pleased that this concert, quite unintentionally, shines a bright spotlight on some of the Ladies of music. Sometimes good programming has unintended consequences.

Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel: Valse des dépêches
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)
La fille aux cheveux de lin (arr. Matthews)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
D’un matin de printemps
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)

At least on the surface, the French take their ideals of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité quite seriously.  The roadblocks that women faced in other parts of the world were not so prevalent in France of the early 20th century, and were almost non-existent in the artistic world of the Left Bank.  In many ways the women of the time were the driving force behind the artistic revolution of this time – whether as artists or benefactors, their impact was profound.

Germaine Tailleferre, despite being the only woman in Les Six, more than held her own with the boys.  From 1913-15 she took top honours in counterpoint, harmony, and accompaniment at the Conservatoire, and well before Les Six had been officially knighted she was a good friend and colleague of Maurice Ravel.  Despite a long composition career, her output has been overshadowed by that of her Les Six colleagues Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud. The Valse des dépêches dates from 1921, when Les Six had just been formed.  Les Six were collectively commissioned to write music for Cocteau’s Les mariés de La Tour Eiffel, to which she contributed this waltz. Her beautiful Concertino for Harp will be featured next season on our Sunday Showcase Series.

From the other end of the spectrum is the astonishing Lili Boulanger, a true child prodigy in every sense of the word and the younger sister to the great pedagogue Nadia Boulanger.  D’un matin du printemps, as well as its companion piece D’un soir triste, date from the last year of her life and may well be the last works she completed before succumbing to the Crohn’s Disease that afflicted her all her life.  In between these two ladies we find a very famous yet imaginary lady - La fille aux cheveux de lin (“The girl with the flaxen hair”).  Perhaps the most popular of Claude Debussy’s Preludes for piano, it is also the one most commonly orchestrated.  In this arrangement, Colin Matthews makes exclusive use of the strings and harp to evoke this quintessential French ideal.


Percussion Concerto
Jennifer Higdon
(b. Brooklyn, NY, 1962)

First performance: The concerto, composed in 2005, was a co-commission by the Philadelphia, Indianapolis Symphony, and Dallas Symphony Orchestras. Each orchestra premiered the work in their respective concert halls during the 2005-06 season. Philadelphia was first, in November 2005.
This is the ESO premiere of the piece

Program Note by the composer

The Percussion Concerto plays continuously, while very clearly following the regular fast-slow-fast pattern of concertos, with the normal sort of dimensions, though with a cadenza placed less usually—but so fittingly—in the finale. Playing with and against the soloist is a standard full symphony orchestra, including a pianist (doubling on celeste), a harp player, and a timpanist as well as three fellow percussionists. The soloist starts out from the open sounds of fifths, played tremolando and also in pulsing chords at the low end of the marimba. It is answered by the three co-percussionists, on marimba, chimes, and vibraphone. Soon the four are playing together, though with the soloist at the head and, after some excited signaling, quickening the pace to carry the music into the main body of the first movement.

Brass and piano launch a simple theme, offset by oboes, bassoons, harp, and strings in emphatic chords. Then the soloist moves across to vibraphone for a lively stream that carries the piano along for stretches. Now the music quiets down as the soloist returns to marimba to play with like-minded chimers, with support from strings and stopped horns. The movement’s bounding drive, which soon returns, is given force, as well as contrast, by the possibility of gentleness, and of course there are collisions and combinations along the way. The rhythm of four beats in the measure—to which the entire concerto is set—is here a mighty engine.

Soloist and the other percussionists turn to “noise” instruments, and the timpanist gets into the act, but the soloist trumps them all with an outburst of virtuosity on diverse items, including wood blocks, a bowl, gongs, and a cowbell, while from the rest of the orchestra there is only a jittery background. When the strings come searing in, the soloist for the first time falls silent. As the orchestra moves toward a high point, the soloist has the opportunity to return on drums of various kinds: timbales, tom-toms, bongos.

The slow movement comes in with metallic resonances from all the percussionists. First the strings interject, and then the movement turns into a flow from the soloist on vibraphone and crotales, the latter joined by harp and celeste, and by the woodwinds moving the music on to a climax. When this has passed, the soloist goes back to the rolled marimba fifths of the very beginning, this time drawing in not only his fellow percussionists but the harp and celeste.

The finale begins with the tempo of the first movement restored, and with it one of that movement’s catchiest ideas, which will keep returning right to the end, rather in the manner of a traditional rondo. At this opening point, the soloist is racing away on marimba, the pianist with him, and he keeps on going, through a quiet episode with brass and orchestral percussion, to the return of full orchestral excitement, which has him careering up to insist on the marimba’s very highest note. From here, for a while, the orchestra goes it alone, to arrive at a reprise of the first movement’s culmination, now carried further but similarly fading away.

The outcome this time is the cadenza, beginning with irresistible pulsation from all four percussionists, on temple blocks and wood blocks. As often before in concertos, the composer here leaves the soloist to make up the music. Powerful drumming from the soloist is the cue for the other three percussionists, and eventually also the timpanist, to perform likewise, and the cadenza ends with massive determination. Now the music’s destiny is clear. Freed to improvise a little before the end, he comes back to reinforce the charge toward an exuberant cadence in D Major, traditionally a key of brightness and celebration.


Remembrances (2008 ESO Commission through the TELUS Young Composers Project)
Roydon Tse
(b. Hong Kong, 1991)

First performance: The ESO presented the world premiere of this piece at Sobeys Symphony Under the Sky on September 1, 2008.
This is the work’s second performance

Roydon Tse has begun post-secondary music studies. His interest in composition was sparked during his years of study in the United Kingdom. He has had lessons on violin and piano in Hong Kong and England, and has continued this since moving to Edmonton with his family in 2007.

About his work, Mr. Tse write: “I am very impressed by how Ravel manages to orchestrate his pieces and form perfectly crafted lines with the orchestra, so I wrote a piece stylistically linked with works by him. The title Remembrances was picked as I felt there were a variety of different moods and atmospheres within the music. The opening melody has a longing and optimistic quality which I feel embodies the theme of the music. In the development section, a solo flute emerges over a light orchestral backdrop, like a bird which has flown out of the defeated storm.  The solo flute is just one of a number of solos featured in this piece, as I wanted to explore the individual tone qualities within the orchestra. They also represent different memories and moods in the music which again ties in with the theme of Remembrances. As a young composer having never composed a symphony before, I was anxious to experiment with different effects that could be achieved with a top quality orchestra.”


Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op.95 “From the New World”
Antonín Dvořák
(b. Nelahozeves, 1841 / d. Prague, 1904)

First performance: December 16, 1893 in New York
Last ESO performance: Symphony Under the Sky 2005

For a composer who has been so obviously identified with all things Czech, Antonín Dvořák sure took a roundabout way towards his own background.  It was none other than his friend and colleague Johannes Brahms who urged him to eagerly embrace the musical language of Dvořák’s culture, something the younger composer had been actively trying to avoid.  But upon hearing Brahms’ massive Third Symphony, Dvořák became re-inspired, quickly writing his Seventh Symphony (closely modeled on Brahms’ Third).  The next few years saw the Eighth Symphony, the “Dumky” Trio, the second set of Slavonic Dances, the Mass, and two operas.  Then, suddenly, Dvořák heard the Siren’s call. What brought the Czech master to New York City was the title “Director of the National Conservatory of Music.”  What kept him there was a good salary and a large Czech population.  The output of these years – 1892-1895 – include three of his most recognizable works: The String Quartet in F (known as “The American”), the Cello Concerto, and the Symphony in E minor (“From the New World”). 

Although taking inspiration from a “foreign” culture was a common device for composers, to use a traditional “American” tune was rather novel.  America was still something of a musical Wild Wild West and the continent was a couple of decades away from making the huge cultural impact on Europe brought on by the Doughboys of World War One.  So Dvořák was ahead of his time, and by using this traditional song in his symphony he insured that it would be successful.  To this day my father still has his first LP record of this symphony which proudly says on the cover that the symphony “features Goin’ Home.” 

Program Notes © 2009 William Eddins, except as noted

Program notes © 2009 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.