Lexington Symphony: September 16, 2006 Concert

Saturday, September 16 2006, 8:00 pm, National Heritage Museum

Conductor's talk 7:00 pm

Haydn	Symphony No. 73 "La Chasse"
Prokofiev	Violin Concerto No. 2
Ravel	Mother Goose

Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2 was written simultaneously with his score to Romeo and Juliet and includes some of his most famous lyrical writing. Inspired by the splendor of the Esterhazys' country estate, Haydn crafted La Chasse ("The Hunt"), a courtly gem originating in opera and expanded for symphony with thematic material from his song Gegenliebe ("Mutual Love"). Ravel's Mother Goose radiates from the realm of enchantment, meticulously orchestrated to portray the magical fairy-tale poetry of childhood.

Program Notes

Haydn

In 1781, Haydn provided an opera, La fedeltà premiata ("Fidelity Rewarded") for the opening of the 400-seat theater which his employer, Prince Nicolaus the Magnificent had recently added to the renowned palace at Eszterháza. Haydn's opera featured Diana, the goddess of the hunt, and the horn call which the composer used in the overture had earlier been published in a manuel du chasseur ("Hunter's Manual").

Seeing the great success of the overture, Haydn decided to incorporate it in one of his symphonies, and, in the months following the opera's premiere, wrote three additional movements. The symphony was first reviewed in 1783 by a critic who had the highest praise for the music's 'wonderful' workmanship, but who found it necessary to observe:

It goes without saying, that there are in this, as in all his symphonies, difficult and unexpected progressions which require trained and correct players, and cannot be entrusted merely to good luck, without the closest study of the key signatures, and without knowing the work. So let this be a warning to amateurs and hesitant players, who dare not essay this work without knowing it beforehand, else they shame themselves.

In other words, sight-readers need not apply!

The symphony opens with a pulsing, four-note figure that becomes the basis of the following allegro. The second movement is based on one of Haydn's own songs, Gegenliebe ("Mutual Love"). The minuet features a melody sprinkled with appoggiaturas, with solo turns for oboe and bassoon in the trio. In its original form, the music now incorporated in the finale was immediately followed by the opening scene of the opera. The symphony's ending remains unchanged in its new context, making La Chasse one of only two Haydn symphonies—the other being the famous Farewell—with a quiet ending.

Prokofiev

Shortly after the completion of his first violin concerto in 1917, Sergei Prokofiev secured permission to leave his native Russia, ostensibly to undertake an American concert tour. The composer had no intention of returning to his homeland, however, as he had become increasingly concerned about his artistic freedom in the face of the recent Bolshevik revolution.

After four years residence in America, he returned to Europe, eventually (1923) moving to Paris. During his self-imposed exile he would compose over sixty works. Eventually he found himself increasingly homesick, even to the point of growing sympathetic to Soviet ideology. "I did not realize," he wrote, "that the events [in the U.S.S.R.] demanded the collaboration of all citizens-not only men of politics, but art as well." Gradually, over the years 1932-36, while still maintaining a base in Paris, Prokofiev began working actively to provide music for various projects in his homeland. Unsatisfied with the three symphonies he had composed since leaving Russia, he focused his attention on stage works, descriptive pieces, and virtuoso concertos, striving to produce compositions of melodic character with clear formal structures.

In 1935, a group of admirers of the French-Belgian violinist Robert Soetens requested a concert work for their friend. (His first association with Prokofiev came when Soetens and Samuel Dushkin played the premiere of Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins at the inaugural concert of Le Triton, a new-music society in competition with "Les Six," in 1932.) Prokofiev readily agreed to write such a work and to allow the violinist exclusive performance rights for one year after the premiere. The composer wrote:

As in the case of the preceding concerto, I began searching for an original title for the piece, such as Concert Sonata for Violin and Orchestra, but finally returned to the simplest solution: Concerto No. 2. Nevertheless, I wanted it to be altogether different from No. 1, both as to music and style.

Prokofiev was active as both pianist and conductor during this time, and had recently recorded the solo part of his Third Piano Concerto in London.

The variety of places in which that concerto was written is a reflection of the nomadic concert-tour existence I led at that time: the principal theme of the first movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the second movement in Voronezh, the orchestration I completed in Baku, and the first performance was given in Madrid.

During the winter of 1935-36, the composer made a concert tour with Soetens. The tour included the Madrid premiere of the violin concerto, with Enrique Arbos conducting the Madrid Symphony Orchestra. Both musicians and audience gave the composer a standing ovation following the performance, and a special delegation was sent to the composer afterward to express thanks that he had allowed the work to be premiered in Spain. The concerto has remained one of his most popular compositions.

The work is warm and tonal, opening with a somber theme played by the solo violin. The movement as a whole is a lyric outpouring in which this initial melody alternates with another of almost equal prominence (and which moved one writer to notice a "distinct affinity" between this second melody and the gavotte from the Classical Symphony.) The second movement, considered by many to be the heart of the concerto, has been called "Mozartean in its brilliance of song," strongly suggesting the love music from the ballet yet to come, Romeo and Juliet. The final movement, a "stamping, brash rondo," has the earthy rhythms of a peasant dance; one writer considers this to be the most strikingly Russian of all of the composer's concerto movements.

Ravel

Maurice Ravel's ballet Ma Mere L'oye began life as set of five children's pieces for piano four hands. Based on a handful of familiar French fairy tales, the music was completed in April of 1910, having been written to encourage the musical training of the Godebski children. (The Godebskis were close friends of Ravel and devoted lovers of the avant-garde; their home served as a meeting place for a Sunday evening salon of Parisian musicians, dancers, artists, and writers.) Later, encouraged by the publisher Durand and the impresario Jacques Rouché, Ravel orchestrated the pieces and then turned them into a ballet-divertissement. For this staged production, Ravel penned a scenario, placed his movements in a new order, and composed new sections and connective interludes.

1. Prelude: The opening music provides a foretaste of what is to come in the ensuing movements.
2. Dance of the Spinning Wheel: An enchanted garden. An old woman is seated at her spinning wheel. Princess Florine enters, jumping rope. She stumbles, falling against her spinning wheel, and is pricked by its spindle. The old woman calls for help. The young ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting rush in, trying vainly to revive the Princess. Then they recall the fairy curse, and two ladies-in-waiting prepare the Princess for her long sleep.
3. Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty: Florine falls asleep. The old woman now stands erect and throws off her cape, revealing herself to be the Good Fairy. Two blackamoors appear; the fairy entrusts them with the guarding of Florine and with granting her pleasant dreams during her extended sleep.
4. Tom Thumb: A forest, at nightfall. The woodcutter's seven children enter. Tom Thumb crumbles a piece of bread. He looks about but cannot find any houses. The children cry. He reassures them by showing them the bread which he has strewn along the path. They lie down and fall asleep. Birds pass by and eat all the bread. Upon awakening and finding no crumbs, the children wander sadly about to a gentle melody.
5. Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas: A tent draped in Chinese style. Male and female pagodas enter. (A pagoda was a porcelain Chinese figurine with a grotesque face and moveable head; it was a popular decorative accessory in 18th-century France.) Laideronnette, appears, a green serpent crawling at her side. She enters the bath, whereupon the pagodas began to sing and play on instruments. Some have oboes made of walnut shells and others have violas made of almond shells-"for they had to have instruments that were of their own small proportions." (Laideronnette is a Chinese princess cursed with great ugliness; she wanders for years, her only companion being the equally ugly green serpent, a prince also suffering under a curse. Eventually they find themselves shipwrecked on the island of the pagodas, who take her as their queen. In the end, she marries the serpent, and both are magically restored to their former beautiful selves).
6. Conversation of the Beauty and the Beast: Beauty enters. Taking her mirror, she powders herself. The Beast enters. Beauty notices him and remains petrified; with horror, she rejects the declarations of the Beast, who falls at her feet, sobbing. Reassured, Beauty makes fun of him coquettishly. The Beast falls down faint with despair. Touched by his great love, Beauty raises him up again and accords him her hand. Now before her is a handsome Prince, who thanks her for having ended his enchantment. (The effective simplicity of this section led one critic to quip that Ravel had written a fourth Gymnopédie; Ravel himself presented Satie with a score in which he inscribed, "for Erik Satie, grandpapa of 'L'entretiens de la Beauté et de la Bête' and others."
7. The Fairy Garden - Apotheosis: Dawn. Birds are singing. Prince Charming enters, led by a cupid. He notices the sleeping Princess. She awakens at the same time. The Good Fairy appears and blesses the couple. The garden bursts into vivid bloom, and the ballet closes with the sound of wedding bells.

Ken Seitz