TCHAIKOVSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO
Pasadena Symphony and Pops
Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor
Chee-Yun, violin
GABRIELA LENA FRANK
Elegía Andina
TCHAIKOVSKY
Violin Concerto in D major, Op.35
Allegro moderato
Conzonetta: Andante
Finale: Allegro vivacissimo
INTERMISSION
TCHAIKOVSKY
Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
Alborada
Variazioni
Alborada
Scna e canto gitano
Fandango asutriano
PROGRAM NOTES
Elegía Andina (andena elegy)
GABRIELA LENA FRANK (b. 1972)
American composer and pianist Gabriela Lena Frank was born in Berkeley, CA to parents of widely mixed background: Her mother is of Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and her father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent. A graduate of Rice University in Houston and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Frank has traveled extensively in South America drawing on its folk culture as inspiration for her compositions. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, she is currently composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Vanderbilt University.
Frank composed Elegía Andina in 2000, explaining: "[It] is dedicated to my older brother, Marcos Gabriel Frank. As children of a multicultural marriage …our early days were filled with Oriental stir-fry cuisine, Andean nursery songs, and frequent visits from our New York-bred Jewish cousins. As a young piano student, my repertoire included not only my own compositions that carried overtones from Peruvian folk music but also rags of Scott Joplin and minuets by the sons of Bach. It is probably inevitable then that as a composer and pianist today, I continue to thrive on multiculturalism. Elegía Andina is one of my first written-down compositions to explore what it means to be of several ethnic persuasions, of several minds. It uses stylistic elements of Peruvian arca/ira zampoña panpipes (double-row panpipes, each row with its own tuning) to paint an elegiac picture of my questions."
Violin concerto in D Major, op.35
pytor ilyich tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
“Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto raises for the first time the ghastly idea that there are pieces of music that one can hear stinking... [the finale] transports us into the brutish grim jollity of a Russian church festival. In our mind’s eye we see nothing but common, ravaged faces, hear rough oaths and smell cheap liquor.” This politically incorrect assessment comes from the pen of the dean of 19th century music critics, Eduard Hanslick, reviewing the Concerto’s Vienna premiere.
Why did the first performance take place in Vienna and not St. Petersburg? It is difficult to believe that this Concerto was declared to contain passages that were “almost impossible to play” by its first dedicatee, the famed violinist and violin teacher Leopold Auer, concertmaster of the Imperial Orchestra in St. Petersburg. Completed in 1878, it had to wait for three years for its premiere in Vienna where Hanslick was not alone in his opinion.
What Hanslick and the other critics disliked most is what makes the Concerto so appealing today: its athletic energy, unabashed romanticism and rousing Slavic finale. Without diminishing our own enjoyment of the Concerto, attempting to hear it with the ears of its first audience is a fascinating exercise in cultural relativity. First of all, consider the sheer difficulty of the piece. What defeated Russia’s leading violin virtuoso is the stuff teenage prodigies cut their teeth on at Juilliard and Curtis, practicing the killer bits ad nauseam until they get it right or find some other career.
Then there’s the fact that there was no love lost between the two great 19th century imperial behemoths, Russia and Austria-Hungary, who continued to slug it out until the end of World War I. That Tchaikovsky disliked Johannes Brahms, Hanslick’s favorite composer, probably also added fuel to the fire.
The vibrant energy of the Concerto seems to have been inspired by the visit of Josif Kotek, a young violinist, pupil and protégé who managed to raise the composer’s prevailing low spirits. He helped him with the Concerto, giving advice on technical matters.
The Concerto opens with a brief, gentle introduction, paving the way for the lyrical first theme. After some virtuosic fireworks, the emerging second theme is surprisingly similar in mood to the first. The development, full of technical acrobatics, leads into the very difficult cadenza.
The slow movement opens with a gentle melancholy song on the woodwinds that pervades the movement, serving as sharp contrast to the raucous finale that follows without pause. Hanslick’s appraisal: “The adagio with its gentle Slav melancholy [note the stereotyping] is well on its way to reconciling us and winning us over.”
The unabashed use of Russian peasant dance rhythms in the third movement that so upset Vienna’s critics was, even at the time, becoming a signature of much Russian orchestral music and a symbol of Russian nationalism. Another peculiar divergence from tradition that must have raised a few Viennese eyebrows is the spectacular cadenza at the beginning of the movement that follows immediately on the fiery orchestral introduction and leads right into the main theme. Now, if these had been German or Hungarian dances, Vienna’s attitude might have been different.
romeo and juliet fantasy overture
PYTOR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
The plays of William Shakespeare were one of the major literary influences on composers of the 19th century, including Tchaikovsky, who wrote fantasy overtures based on three of them. Two of these, Hamlet and The Tempest, are seldom heard today, but the third, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, has become one of the most popular orchestral compositions ever. The psychological drama of youthful passion and thwarted love consummated in death was an ideal theme for Tchaikovsky, resonating through many of his subsequent works.
Composed in 1869, Romeo and Juliet was one of Tchaikovsky’s earliest orchestral works, written at the suggestion of his friend and mentor, the composer Mily Balakirev, who wrote out a detailed scenario for the composer to follow. But Balakirev criticized the results, especially the lack of any musical reference to Friar Lawrence: “You need something here along the lines of a Liszt chorale...with old Catholic character,” he wrote the composer, who sat down to rewrite the work to his mentor’s satisfaction.
A second version, published in 1871, still did not satisfy Balakirev, and Tchaikovsky sat on the score for nearly ten years before bringing out the final version in 1880. Although Balakirev was still hypercritical, especially of the coda, by then Tchaikovsky had enough self-confidence to resist him. He always regarded the overture highly and once referred to it as his best orchestral work.
Tchaikovsky’s Overture is not a tone poem; there is no attempt to tell the story of the doomed lovers, only to present the major themes of the play, love and violence, in musical guise. The chorale-like introduction recalls the serenity of Friar Laurence’s cell, followed by the Friar’s theme. The composer transformed the ambience from the Roman Catholicism of the play into a Russian Orthodox modal melody in the woodwinds. But this serenity is broken by a fiery Allegro representing the recurrence of the old enmity between the warring families. Finally, muted violas and English horn introduce the love theme.
In the development, the tender love music is harshly interrupted by the furious outbursts of street brawls, combined and contrasted with Friar Lawrence’s theme. Although the love theme overcomes the violence, it ultimately fades away into a despairing lament.
Capriccio espagnol, op. 34
NIKOLay rimsky-korsakov (1844-1908)
In the history of Russian nationalist music, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov occupies a place of honor. From 1871, when he joined the faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, until his death, he taught and encouraged nearly every young Russian composer, from Glazunov and Arensky to Stravinsky and Prokofiev. After the death of Borodin and Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov edited, completed and “corrected” their manuscripts, especially their operas, and had them published. He also helped publish the works of many other less famous Russian composers.
Rimsky-Korsakov was particularly fond of “ethnic” pieces, creating compositions with a Russian, Central Asiatic, Italian or Spanish caste. In spite of the fact that his acquaintance with Spain was minimal – as a naval cadet in 1864-65, he spent three days in Cadiz – he felt sufficiently comfortable with its folk idiom to compose the symphonic suite Capriccio espagnol. The work started life as a movement in a planned fantasia for violin and piano, but during the summer of 1887 he abandoned the idea, completely revising and orchestrating the sketches. He borrowed the themes and harmonies from a collection of authentic Spanish songs, transforming them with multi-textured orchestration. From its premiere in October 1887, it has been a particular favorite among orchestra players, who get hefty solo riffs.
The five movements begin with “Alborada” (a Spanish morning song), whose repeated theme serves as a kind of musical glue to give unity to the piece. There follows a set of five variations, which are more changes in mood than bravura showpieces. The “Scene and Gypsy Song” features a series of faux-improvisatory orchestral solos that serve as a workup for the principal theme. The "Fandango," a couples dance in triple time traditionally accompanied by guitar and castanets, completes the group. At the end a presto reprise of the “Alborada” returns as the coda.
Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
[email protected]
www.wordprosmusic.com