 Beethoven & Strauss
Peter Bay, conductor
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Brenda Harris, soprano*+
Mela Dailey, soprano+
Jennifer Lane, mezzo-soprano+
"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." - Ludwig van Beethoven
Date, Time & Location
February 15 & 16, 2008
8:00 p.m.
Riverbend Centre
Directions to Venue
Program
| Beethoven |
 |
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 |
| R. Strauss |
|
Four Last Songs* |
| R. Strauss |
|
Der Rosenkavalier: First Suite of Waltzes |
| R. Strauss |
|
Der Rosenkavalier: Act 3 Trio and Finale+ |
Program Notes
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. 16 December 1770 in Bonn, Germany; d. 26 March 1827 in Vienna, Austria.
Symphony no. 7 in A major, Op. 92. Premiered 8 December 1813 in Vienna, age 43.
It might seem silly, and without careful explanation it is misleading, to state that Beethoven in his Seventh Symphony particularly emphasizes rhythm. It's not as though his other compositions have no rhythm, of course; and, for another example, the famous motive that opens the Fifth Symphony organizes rhythm in that composition as much as it organizes melody. But in the Seventh the elements of the music have a slightly different mix that brings rhythm more consciously to a listener's attention; and the repetitions of important rhythmic patterns throughout the work generate a cumulative energy that almost produces a physical response.
The first movement has a lengthy introduction with several themes that develop and interact enough that this opening comes close to being an independent movement. The oboe melody at the start with the upward moving scales in the strings feels like one body of material, while the flute brings in a new theme that feels like a second. These interact and develop as if this is the main movement, but activity slows down and one pitch is repeated almost as if to ask, "What now?" The woodwinds take that pitch and launch into the primary Allegro section of the movement with a dotted rhythm played on one pitch--here is some of the unique emphasis on rhythm. The flute then leads with a joyful melody infused with the dotted rhythm and, although the movement is in the common sonata form, the music seems nearly obsessed with the dotted rhythm.
The second movement, gently melancholy variations in A minor with some structural surprises, becomes similarly obsessed with a rhythm. The subject of the variations as a melody is mostly repetitions of a rhythm pattern on one pitch. What makes the theme appealing is the changes in the harmony and the simple clarity of the phrase lengths. One surprise is the mode of the key changing from minor to major, with a completely new, mellow theme heard in the clarinet. Eventually the music returns to minor, the original theme, and more variations. Another surprise occurs when one of these variations turns into a fugue, breaking up the regular pattern of phrases in the variations. Working up to a climax and coming to a stop, the music turns back to major and a second episode with the clarinet theme before a coda with last references to the main subject.
The scherzo movement features a kind of obsession in its structure. Instead of the usual ABA pattern Beethoven expands the form to ABABA, and the B section becomes quite comical with its melody's constant rocking between two adjacent pitches. The tremendous final movement comes close to being a perpetual motion machine, with stress being constantly placed on the second beat of the measure. It is also a classic example of what numerous writers have called the Dionysian aspect of Beethoven's music--energy and joy in a driving tempo that work up to a marvelous, almost explosive, conclusion.
Richard Strauss
b. 11 June 1864 in Munich; d. 8 September 1949 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs). Premiered posthumously in London, 22 May 1950.
While Strauss was on good terms with the Nazi government when he resigned as president of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Chamber of Music) in June 1935 and was busy with conducting engagements and composing, he became increasingly isolated as World War II approached and ran its course. At the end of hostilities Strauss was basically in hiding at his estate in Garmisch in Bavaria. It was his good fortune that the officer in charge when Allied soldiers arrived in Garmisch knew who Strauss was and left Strauss and his property alone. But the American War Commission assigned him to Class I, the most serious of the five tribunal categories. He and Frau Pauline were permitted to stay in Switzerland in the meantime, though it wasn't until June 1948 that the denazification tribunal in Garmisch finally cleared Strauss's name.
The composer was now 84 years old. He grieved for the violence done to all kinds of monuments of German culture during and after the war and felt left behind by most of the music world. Composition was difficult now. He copied a poem by Eichendorff, "Im Abendrot" (In the Sunset), into his diary and sketched a setting of it in 1947; the orchestration of it was completed in May 1948. Four poems by Hermann Hesse were chosen to make up a cycle with the Eichendorff, though only three were completed: "Frühling" (Spring) on 18 July, "Beim Schlafengehen" (Going to Sleep) on 4 August, and "September" on 20 September 1948.
Each of the poems contemplates the passage of time, the end of life, and whatever awaits beyond death. The music has an exquisite, autumnal glow. He still could write ravishing parts for women's voices. The conclusion of each song has a solo for the horn, one of his favorite instruments. The Eichendorff poem is the words of an old couple, still thoroughly in love. The last line--"Is this perhaps death?"--is sung over a quotation from Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, and the music slowly, gorgeously fades like light dispersing after a sunset.
Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59. Premiered 26 January 1911 in Dresden, age 46.
The partnership of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of the best known and most admired in the history of opera. They produced six operas and one ballet, among which Der Rosenkavalier is certainly the most popular and possibly the best.
Hofmannsthal, an Austrian nobleman, was making a successful career as an author and dramatist when Strauss, from Bavaria in southeast Germany, first contacted him in 1906 to ask about using Hofmannsthal's treatment of Sophocles' Elektra as a libretto for an opera. The writer adapted his drama for the opera, but it was their next project, Der Rosenkavalier, that was their first piece created together from the start.
The music of both Elektra and Rosenkavalier could only have been composed by Richard Strauss, though the personalities of the operas contrast sharply. William Mann in an inspired phrase described Elektra as a "great hunk of gleaming granite." Where Rosenkavalier lacks heroic tragedy it generously provides comedy, both farcical and romantic, wistful pathos, a gallery of wonderful, sharply drawn characters, and some of the most glorious music in the operatic repertory.
(1) First Suite of Waltzes (Waltzes from Acts I and II, arr. 1944)
Strauss had only recently received the first portion of the opera's libretto when Hofmannsthal, in a postscript to a letter dated 24 April 1909, added, quite casually: "Do try and think of an old-fashioned Viennese waltz, sweet and yet saucy, which must pervade the whole of the last act." This comment might be the only surviving documentation regarding when or why Strauss chose to use waltzes as a musical backdrop to Der Rosenkavalier.
As has been frequently noted, the waltzes are actually anachronistic. Hofmannsthal described the setting of the opera as Vienna during the early years of the reign of Maria Theresia, which means shortly before 1750. It wasn't until the 1830s in Vienna that Johann Strauss I (1804-1849) and Joseph Lanner (1801-1843) between them developed and popularized the waltz as we know it; one classic, the younger Johann Strauss's On the Beautiful Blue Danube, was composed in 1867.
Since many listeners, including this one, don't associate waltzes with historical time, it is difficult to understand how Richard intended us to react to the waltzes in Der Rosenkavalier. Fortunately, that ultimately doesn't matter, and these tunes in concert arrangements have been beloved since the opera's first performance.
Initially Strauss left it to his publisher to commission these arrangements, but after decades of listening to someone else's recycling of his music, the composer in 1944 prepared his own. The selection on this program was the second to be published but is designated the first because of where its music occurs in the opera.
(2) Act III, Final Scene (Trio and Duet)
The plot of Der Rosenkavalier is set in motion when an uncouth country nobleman, the Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, makes a surprise visit in Vienna to Maria Theresa--not the Empress Maria Theresia but Maria Theresa, the Princess von Werdenberg and wife of a field marshal (hence her best known title, Feldmarschallin or Marschallin). Ochs seeks to marry a young woman, a girl really, Sophie von Faninal, an only child in a rich family, and the Marschallin suggests her 17-year-old lover, Octavian Rofrano, to present Sophie with the traditional silver rose (a "tradition" wholly fabricated by Hofmannsthal, incidentally). Octavian and Sophie fall in love at first sight, and in hopes of winning her Octavian sets up a Viennese "scandal" to embarrass Ochs and chase him back to his country estate.
In Act III, Octavian manages to thwart Ochs's plans and finds himself in the last scene standing between Sophie and the Marschallin--to whom we saw and heard Octavian in Act I swearing eternal devotion. The trio captures the moment unforgettably in sweet, almost ethereal, slightly sad music: pretty, naive Sophie, overwhelmed in the presence of the Marschallin yet all the more smitten with Octavian, the dashing, young nobleman, while the Marschallin herself realizes she is about to lose Octavian but knows that the right thing to do is let Octavian go. After the Marschallin's exit, the young couple sings a simpler, sweeter duet celebrating their new love.
©2008 David Mead
MAESTRO'S CHOICE RECORDINGS
Purchase Maestro Bay's recommended recordings from Amazon.com and help support the ASO.
Beethoven: Symphonien Nos. 5 & 7 / Kleiber, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra; Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes
Renée Fleming - Strauss Heroines / Bonney, Graham, Eschenbach
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