Single tickets $27-$55 (senior and student discounts available)
54-MUSIC (707-546-8742)

 

Performances at: Wells Fargo Center for the Arts
50 Mark West Springs Rd. Santa Rosa, CA 95403

 

Program Notes
by: Steven Ledbetter

BEETHOVEN:Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60

Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. He composed his Fourth Symphony in the last half of 1806. The premiere took place in a private performance at Prince Lobkowitz’s Vienna residence in late March 1807. The score calls for one flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, plus timpani and strings. Duration is about 34 minutes.

Beethoven composed his Fourth Symphony as an interruption of work on the Fifth while spending the summer and fall of 1806 as a houseguest at the summer castle of Prince Lichnowsky. Though he was a difficult guest, often barricading himself in his room to compose or stalking the grounds hatless in even the worst weather, singing out at the top of his lungs the musical ideas that thronged within him, he struck up a friendly acquaintance with a neighbor, Count Franz von Oppersdorf, who, hearing a performance of the Second Symphony, was so pleased by the work that he offered Beethoven the substantial sum of 350 florins for another like it.

No sketches survive for the Fourth Symphony, and Beethoven seems to have been able to complete it with very little delay or effort. It is very likely that he used many of the ideas that had been fermenting for the Fifth Symphony, though in a very different character, for the more cheerful Fourth. Though the basic mood of the two works could hardly be more different, the fundamental musical gesture of a falling third is central to the conception of both (the very first line in the slow introduction of the Fourth traces in its opening notes the same melodic outline as the famous rhythmic figure that opens the Fifth). By the time Beethoven completed the Fifth in 1808, he was also busy at work on the Sixth, with which it has other things in common. The Fifth Symphony is thus a link to the whole middle part of Beethoven’s career as a symphony composer.

The Fourth Symphony opens with a mystifying slow introduction that suggests the key of B-flat minor. Listeners would expect the Allegro to follow in the major. It does—but by a drawn-out path that seems to be traveling around the world, harmonically. Finally Beethoven weighs a sustained, emphatic A, reinterpreting it as a note leading homeward, and the Allegro suddenly materializes. Its headlong rush flashes with high spirits. The jaunty main theme is nicely contrasted with the cheerful, slightly rustic second theme. The development begins a series of modulating reiterations of the main theme, to which Beethoven adds a lovely lyric counterpoint. Harmonic clouds recall the slow introduction and intimations of the distant key heard there. A soft, sustained timpani roll on B-flat begins a long crescendo of scale fragments building rousingly to the recapitulation, in one of Beethoven’s most original musical effects.

The slow movement begins with the hint of a distant horn call or signal in the second violins before the arrival of a serenely beautiful melody. The signal keeps returning more obtrusively, while the melody undergoes lavish ornamentation while maintaining the idyllic mood of the opening. This serenity is ousted by a stormy outburst for the full orchestra; it moves to a darkly distant key, but returns (with help from the flute) for the restatement of the opening. The coda is lush and peaceful again, with but the smallest outburst to interrupt its meditation.

Beethoven uses the old designation Menuetto for his third movement, but this is no sedate court dance. It is filled with musical jokes, some broad, some refined. Cross-rhythms so frequently disturb the triple meter of the dance. That is followed by a smooth melodic phrase that demolishes the sense of key. What kind of courtly dance is this? The next section leaps out of the key we have landed in and begins playing games on all our expectations of the melody as well. The Trio is more rustic in character, but no less filled with witty surprise. The opening section returns and ends in high spirits.

The finale is effervescent, built on a perpetual motion figure that could be a parody of violin exercises, and it leads to still more humorous sallies. The wittiest of them all comes at the very end of the piece when the entire orchestra stops and the first violins play the theme at half its normal speed—as if the players are too exhausted to continue. The equally exhausted bassoon chimes in, echoed by others. Suddenly the entire orchestra races through the last six measures to end one of the wittiest symphonies in the entire repertory.

ROUSE:Der gerettete Alberich (Fantasy for Percussion and Orchestra)

Christopher Rouse was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 15, 1949. He composed Der gerettete Alberich, a “fantasy for percussion and orchestra on themes of Wagner,”in 1997 for Evelyn Glennie and a consortium consisting of the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras and the London and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras. The first performance was given by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Christoph von Dohnanyi in January 1998. The soloist plays a battery consisting of four wood blocks/four log drums, four tom-toms, two bongos, two timbales, snare drum, steel drum, marimba, two guiros, pedal-operated bass drum, and drum set, while the orchestral part calls for two flutes and piccolo, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, percussion (chimes, antique cymbals, xylophone, castanets, tam-tam, bass drum, suspended cymbal, four tom-toms, anvil, thunder sheet), and strings. Duration is about 22 minutes.

Christopher Rouse’s works have often pursued expressive extremes, whether of ecstasy or the darker side of human feelings. His earlier pieces tended to be “harsh, brutal, violent, hysterical,” and they were often named after mythological beings, “preferably the demons of various cultures.” His First Symphony, dating from the mid-1980s, was very different—an extended slow movement of considerable expressive power that quotes briefly from Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony but for the most part went its own original way. His Trombone Concerto won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize. Since then he has written a Second Symphony and a substantial number of concertos—for cello, violin, flute, guitar, clarinet, percussion, and piano. Musical America recently named him Musician of the Year.

His own commentary on Der gerettete Alberich is abridged here, appearing with the composer’s permission:
One of Richard Wagner’s most interesting decisions as creator of Der Ring des Nibelungen was to leave unclear the fate of Alberich, the villainous dwarf who has set in motion the inexorable machinery of destiny, leading in the end to the apocalyptic cataclysm which concludes Götterdämmerung. As is so often the case in Wagner’s operas, Alberich is more than a cardboard villain in the Italian mode — as memorable as he is, a Scarpia, for example, is thoroughly and irredeemably maleficent. Alberich, on the other hand…is not entirely unsympathetic; however cruel his actions, they are often the result of mistreatment at the hands of others. It is the Rhinemaidens’ heartless mockery of him that leads Alberich to the theft of the gold, and it is Wotan’s treachery that goads Alberich into placing his mighty curse on the ring he has fashioned from the gold. (Indeed, Wotan is something of a mirror image to Alberich, an essentially sympathetic character whose actions are often devious, even ignoble.) Thus, it is possible with Alberich — and with many other Wagnerian villains — to recognize the inherent evil of his nature and deeds and yet still discern some measure of humanity in him and, in the process, to feel compassion for his plight.

As Alberich’s whereabouts are unknown at the end of the Ring, it occurred to me that it might be engaging to return him to the stage, so to speak, so that he might wreak further havoc in what is quite literally the godless world in which Wagner has left us in the final pages of Götterdämmerung. The result was Der gerettete Alberich, whose title might best be translated as “Alberich Saved,” itself a reference to Georg Kaiser’s expressionist play Der gerettete Alkibiades. Rather than a concerto, Der gerettete Alberich is more of a fantasy for solo percussionist and orchestra on themes of Wagner, with the soloist taking on the “role” of Alberich. Much of the musical material in the work is derived from a number of motives associated with Alberich in the Ring, among them the motives for the curse, the power of gold, the renunciation of love, annihilation, the Nibelungs, and, of course, the Ring itself. Only Wagner’s Redemption through Love motive stands beyond the ken of the other, Alberich-related motives I have used, through I have rather maliciously distorted it to suit the purposes of my “hero….”

Having said all of the above, it would now be absurd of me to aver that this work is not programmatic; however, it is fair to say that it is not a narrative piece in the manner of, say, Strauss’ Don Quixote. Beyond a brief passage in which Alberich serves a stint as a rock drummer (probably inspired, at least in part, by the wonderfully over-the-edge Wagner Reincarnated scenes in Ken Russell’s film Lisztomania), I was not attempting to paint specific pictures in this score. However, the listener is free to provide whatever images he or she likes to the sonic goings-on.

BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor,
Opus 67

Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770 (he was probably born the day before), and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. He began to sketch the Fifth Symphony in 1804, did most of the work in 1807, completed the score in the spring of 1808, and led the first performance on December 22, 1808. The symphony is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. Duration is about 31 minutes.

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was first heard in a long concert that he gave at Vienna’s Theater-an-der-Wien to present an amazing series of his own works, all first performances. The evening began at 6:30 p.m. with the Sixth Symphony, followed by the concert aria Ah, perfido!, two movements from the Mass in C, and the Fourth Piano Concerto (with the composer himself as soloist) on the first half. After intermission the audience heard for the first time the Fifth Symphony, a piano fantasy improvised by the composer, and the Choral Fantasy. The last piece did not end until 10:30 PM!

Given the length of the evening, most of the reports focus on the one real catastrophe of the evening: when the orchestra fell apart in the middle of the Choral Fantasy and the whole piece had to be started over. Thus, the most important and influential reaction to the Fifth Symphony did not come until a year and a half later, when the famous writer E.T.A. Hoffmann (who was also a composer) gave an enthusiastic appraisal of the Fifth Symphony as a landmark in the history of music.

Early audiences were stupefied or exhilarated. When someone asked Beethoven, “What does it mean?” he replied, “Thus Fate knocks at the door.” This response was appropriate enough. Fate working out a path to victory has long been associated with the piece. The “victory” is inherent in the music itself. This is why the score grips us today no matter how many times we have heard it.

Is it possible, at this late date, to listen to Beethoven’s Fifth not as if it were the most familiar of symphonies, but rather as if it were brand new? The opening four-note figure assumes great importance from the outset, but we gradually realized that this musical atom is not a theme in itself; it is the rhythmic foreground to an extraordinarily long-limbed melody, made up of a chain of four-note atoms. We hear a long phrase, but no one in the orchestra actually plays it. Instead one section overlaps another, then another. The tensely climbing phrase is an aural illusion. The rapid interplay of orchestral sections, a constantly boiling cauldron in which each has its own brief say before yielding to the next, lends a dramatic quality to the sound of the orchestra from the very opening.

The drama in the Fifth Symphony is musical: How to achieve a coherent and fully satisfying conclusion in the major mode to a symphony that begins in the minor? Throughout the four movements of this symphony, C major keeps appearing without ever quite exorcizing the haunting sense of C minor—never, that is, until the end of the last movement. In the opening Allegro, the C major appears right on schedule where it is conventionally expected—at the recapitulation of the secondary theme. But then the lengthy coda goes on—in C minor—to show that there is still a struggle ahead.

In the Andante, Beethoven keeps moving with a surprising modulation from the home key of A flat to a bright C major, reinforced by trumpets and timpani. But that C-major idea is never once allowed to come to a full conclusion; rather, it fades away, shrouded in harmonic mists and sustained tension.

The very unjoking scherzo (in C minor) turns to C major for a Trio involving some contrapuntal buffoonery, but the fun comes to an end with a hushed return to the minor key material of the opening. Finally we begin to approach the light, moving through the darkness of a tense passage linking the movements to a glorious sunburst of C major that opens the finale. Even then we have one more struggle. Beethoven recalls the scherzo and the tense linking passage just before the recapitulation (another shift from gloom to bright day). Only then have we safely arrived in C major. An extended coda—an extraordinary peroration—needs to be as long as it is because it is not just the conclusion of the last movement, but rather of the entire symphony, culminating a demonstration of unification on the very grandest scale to which virtually every composer since has aspired, though few have succeeded.

 

 

 

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