Melissa Givens, soprano Stefanie Moore, soprano Stephanie Prewitt, alto David Stevens, tenor Brett Barnes, bass The Choirs of St. David's Episcopal Church
"Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman."- Ludwig van Beethoven
Date, Time & Location November 16 & 17, 2007 8:00 p.m. Riverbend Centre
William Bolcom
b. 26 May 1938 in Seattle, Washington.
Commedia for (almost) 18th-century orchestra. Premiered in March 1972 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The following is adapted from notes by the composer:
Commedia, commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra when Sydney Hodkinson was conductor, is written for the unique disposition of that ensemble: one flute, two oboes, one clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, one keyboard player, and approximately 15 strings. This brings to mind the mid-18th-century orchestras of the Stamitzes and the young Haydn, which were not as uniform as they were to become in the later Haydn and Mozart symphonies with winds in pairs.
It is no accident that this work, written for an antique form of the "modern" orchestra, should also hark back to an earlier time for some of its musical language. Commedia, subtitled "for (almost) 18th-century orchestra," baldly trots out some of the orchestral clichés of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Perhaps a few years ago I would have fought to avoid all such associations; today I welcome them. I sense the need to reintegrate the past with the present, to treat the musical language more like spoken language: as a constantly evolving creature always taking on new flesh and bone, yet retaining its most ancient elements.
Much of the piece consists of a tarantella or saltarello in a fast 6/8 meter. Its character echoes (albeit distantly) the Italian commedia dell'arte--the stock stage characters tossed against each other in a variety of situations, often comic but, as the paintings of Longhi or Magnasco portray it, not without a dark side.
While writing the program note for the first performance of Commedia in Minneapolis in 1972, I happened by pure coincidence on this apposite quotation:
". . . But after being bitten by the Tarantula, there was, according to popular opinion, no way of saving lives except by music. . . . Those who were bitten generally fell into a state of melancholy and appeared to be stupefied. . . . This condition was, in many cases, unified with so great a sensibility to music that, at the very first tones of their favorite melodies, they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced on without intermission until they sank to the ground exhausted. . . . The number of those affected by it increased beyond all belief, for who ever had . . . even fancied that he had bene bitten by a poisonous spider . . . made his appearance annually whenever the merry notes of the Tarantella resounded" (Dancing Mania in the Middle Ages, J.F.C. Hecker, M.D., 1837).
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. 16 December 1770 in Bonn, Germany; d. 26 March 1827 in Vienna, Austria.
Symphony no. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60. Premiered in March 1807 in Vienna.
Beethoven probably completed work on his Third Symphony, the "Eroica," during 1804, with the first public performance of it occurring in February 1805. As was frequently the case with Beethoven, several compositions were developing simultaneously. Work on the composer's only opera, Fidelio, started in 1804 and led to one production in October 1805, followed by extensive revisions occupying time through the first half of 1806. There were several piano sonatas, including the "Waldstein" and the "Appassionata." The three "Razumovsky" String Quartets, the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the Fifth Symphony were in their preliminary phases. During the summer of 1806, however, these were set aside in favor of the Violin Concerto and the Symphony no. 4 in B-flat.
Thayer's biography of Beethoven has little to say about the composition of the Fourth Symphony. His purpose was to develop as accurate as possible a record of the events of the composer's life without psychoanalysis or discussion of the artistic aspects of the compositions. For two reasons this symphony will appear as little more than a blip in such a biography: first, Beethoven started and finished the symphony in a single stretch of months in 1806, remarkably fast work for a major composition; second, apparently the compositional process didn't occupy him nor did it require sketching such as one sees with "heaven-storming" works like the Third and Fifth Symphonies.
While the Fourth Symphony has a wide range of moods and tempos, this is a symphony without struggle or conflict. There is the customary energy that at times gets boisterous, along with several unusually hushed and intimate moments. Beethoven in each movement seems to make a point of building the musical discourse from a snippet of material that most other composers would reject as unworthy or unworkable. (And it is surely not coincidental that his next work, the Violin Concerto, would take this same approach to its logical limit by building its first movement from the four quarter-note drum beats that open that work.)
The slow introduction to the first movement of the symphony is one of Beethoven's most mysterious. The very highest and very lowest instruments of the orchestra sustain pitches that clearly anchor the music in B-flat, but the moving voices in the middle seem quite lost. Suddenly the pitch A repeated in the violins in crescendo leads to two fortissimo chords like a happy roar from the full orchestra. The Allegro takes off with a figure in the violins that sounds like a whip cracking; this figure will come back several times throughout the movement to frame sections and keep things moving.
The second movement opens with a dotted figure that sounds repetitious but is actually providing the rhythmic foundation for the themes that unfold above it. The dotted figure is the music's motor, while the melodies and harmonies around it are exquisitely serene. The third movement is the first of Beethoven's scherzo movements to present the main material three times with two repetitions of the intervening trio. The music features quarter notes in groups of two that, in the 3/4 meter, make the music feel a bit off-balance. The last movement is almost a perpetual motion machine with scurrying sixteenth-notes churning away with scarcely a pause for breath.
Johann Sebastian Bach
b. 21 March 1685 in Eisenach, Germany; d. 28 July 1750 in Leipzig, Germany.
Magnificat in D major, BWV 243. First performance of first version, Christmas Day, 1723, in Leipzig.
Bach's position as Cantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig was his last and lengthiest employment, beginning with his installation ceremony on 31 May 1723 and continuing to his death a little more than 27 years later. He was the winner among six candidates (including Georg Philipp Telemann). He had visited on 7 February to lead as his test piece the cantata "Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe," BWV 22, composed for the occasion. A good deal of administrative business culminated in Bach's presentation to the Consistory on 8 May and his official confirmation on the 13th.
The Advent season of 1723 marked the beginning of Bach's first complete church year in Leipzig, which also marked his first Christmas and his first major church festival there. If there had been any doubts as to whether Bach would excel in his new job, he set about dispelling them now. At the Christmas morning service, he led a performance of a new cantata, "Christen ätzet diesen Tag," BWV 63, one of his most festive and brilliant cantatas. For the evening service at Leipzig's other Lutheran church, there was a second performance of the cantata with, after the sermon, an elaborate setting in Latin of Mary's hymn of praise (instead of the normal German text), "Magnificat anima mea dominum" (Luke 1:46-55).
The work as it was performed in 1723 was slightly different from the work we know today. It was in the key of E-flat and had four extra movements setting Christmas texts, two in German and two in Latin, that Bach's predecessor in the position, Johann Kuhnau, had included in his Magnificat. At some point around 1732-35, Bach recast the work in D and removed the extra movements, which made it usable the year round for any festive occasion.
Bach's Magnificat is usually grouped with his large works in the oratorio style, but the Magnificat, designed for use in a fairly normal Lutheran service, is built on the time-scale of a cantata, which is to say that a performance of it takes only about 30 minutes. Into this Bach packs twelve movements, a chorus in five voices, five vocal soloists, and a substantial orchestra including three trumpets and drums. From the first bar, the music shines with a brilliance and joy that is irresistible. Intervening movements are softer spoken as they portray Mary's simple humility. According to the Lutheran custom of reciting psalms and canticles, inherited from the Roman church, the Doxology ("Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto") is appended at the conclusion.
