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| Alfred Schnittke |
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| 1934-1998 |
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Alfred Schnittke
Moz-Art á la Haydn
Like the older generation of Soviet composers, including Shostakovich
and Prokofiev, Alfred Schnittke experienced a continual roller-coaster
of approval and disapprobation that did not end until Gorbachov
came to power in 1985. Born to German-Jewish parents in Engels,
on the banks of the Volga, Schnittke received his early musical
training in 1946-48 in Vienna, where his father was working for
a newspaper. He continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory.
In 1972 he began making his living primarily from his compositions
and, like Shostakovich, had to resort to writing film music when
his major compositions were out of official favor. Schnittke
initially dabbled in serialism,
but eventually developed a language of his own, that he called “polystylism.” It
is a kind of eclectic collage of all styles of Western music,
from Orthodox Russian choral chant to Baroque dance forms, Mozartian
harmonies – with direct quotes and snippets from all of
the above. Polystylism is also well-suited for musical irony,
making Schnittke something of an Eastern European Charles Ives.
His self-irony is consistent with his musical style: “My
musical development took a course similar to that of some friends
and colleagues, across piano concerto romanticism, neoclassic
academicism, and attempts at eclectic synthesis... and took cognizance
also of the unavoidable proofs of masculinity in serial self-denial.
Having arrived at the final station, I decided to get off the
already overcrowded train. Since then I have tried to proceed
on foot.” Nevertheless, despite the fact that he is among
the most performed and recorded of contemporary composers, critics
have frequently expressed doubts as to what his music actually
means.
Beginning in 1985, a series of strokes gradually disabled Schnittke,
but he continued to compose, although his illness affected and
changed the way in which he conceived his musical ideas. Despite
the cultural thaw under Gorbachov, he moved to Germany in 1990,
settling in Hamburg to teach and compose. Schnittke worked closely
with soloists, and many of his compositions were written with
specific performers in mind. Moz-Art á la Haydn,
dedicated to the violinists Gidon Kramer and Tatiana Grindenko,
is a playful pastiche on the only surviving fragment – the
incomplete first violin part – of a pantomime by Mozart,
K. 446.
The music opens with the stage in darkness, with each of the
musicians improvising on distorted fragments of Mozart’s
music. After a suddenly loud chord the lights go on. The musicians
play around with Mozartian themes as if musing about their significance
and elaborating on them so as to render them sometimes virtually
unrecognizable.  Occasional
Mozart snippets quote from pieces so familiar that even a couple
of distorted chords from Symphony No. 35 "Haffner Symphony" and
Symphony No. 40 cut through the chaos. The meat of the piece,
however, are two tunes –although not from the pantomime
fragment. The first, a jaunty Schnittke elaborates on in a canon. The
other, a languid cantabile,
shows up well into the piece. After
a complex, multi-layered rendition of the first theme, the
lights gradually dim, the musicians file out still playing – recalling
Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony (later on this
program) – while the conductor is left standing and beating
time to silence. |
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| Johann Sebastian Bach |
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| 1685-1750 |
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV
1048
Original instrumentation: solos: 3 violins, 3 violas, 3
cellos; ripieno: continuo
The six Brandenburg Concerti stand at the crossroads in musical
history, where chamber music and orchestral music went their
separate ways. These Concerts á plusieurs instruments (Concerti
for various instruments) as Bach named them, were dedicated to
Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, who employed a modest
orchestra that was in all probability too small and inexpert
to play all the Concertos. The Dedication Score, including an
obsequious cover letter by Bach, has been preserved and is now
in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. The mint condition
of the manuscript indicates that in all probability the Margrave’s
orchestra seldom if ever performed them.
However, the Concerti were probably common fare at the court
of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, Bach's employer. We
know from letters and records that the personnel in the Cöthen
orchestra corresponded closely to the instrumental requirements
of the Concerti. Three of the Concertos, nos. 2, 4 and 5, are
true concerti grossi, requiring a solo instrument or group of
instruments, and these requirements correspond closely to better
players in the prince’s orchestra.
The Concerti were composed between 1718 and 1721, although parts
may have been written as early as 1708. They were not composed
as an independent group, but rather assembled from various orchestral
works Bach had already composed over the years; they may be described
as courtly entertainment music on the highest level.
The Concerto No. 3 could be called a concerto for string orchestra.
It is a true ensemble work, music for a group of friends spending
a musical evening together. It interweaves three groups of strings – three
violins, three violas and three cellos – playing the alternate
solo, concertino (small group of instruments) or the tutti (all
together) parts. In other words, all nine musicians share equally
in the playing. A harpsichord and a violone (a very large viola
da gamba) or double bass fill out the continuo.
In the last movement the violone joins the three cellos in unison
throughout.
The most unusual aspect of this concerto is the absence of a
slow, middle movement. In its place is a one-bar time signature
and two eighth-note chords only. Some scholars think that Bach
intended for one or two of the soloists to improvise the slow
movement, ending with a cadence on the chords he specifically
notated. The dedication score in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek gives
no clue whatsoever as to Bach’s intentions.
The outer movements are essentially the spinning out and free
variations on a single theme.
The first movement opens with all the players in the ritornello in
unison, a device Bach picked up from Vivaldi. As
we have come to expect, the episodes introduce new music interrupted
by the ritornello until its final restatement of the ritornello
at the end. Because of the significant amount of new music in
the episodes, the movement roughly follows an ABA form.
The third movement ritornello is a grand chase, putting the lie
to the stereotype that canons are stuffy. The
episodes, while breaking out of the canon,
never lose the breakneck momentum.
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| Franz Joseph Haydn |
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| 1732-1809 |
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Franz Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 45 in f Sharp Minor,
During the course of the eighteenth century the economic and
social standing of musicians changed dramatically. Mere servants
in the retinue of the royal and aristocratic courts, by the end
of the century they had morphed into respected artists. They
were free to seek employment either as freelancers or in the
orchestras of the burgeoning concert halls and opera houses now
patronized by the bourgeoisie. Much of this change and growing
respect they owed to the personality and genius of Franz Joseph
Haydn. Employed by Prince Nicolaus Esterházy, lord of
one of the most opulent estates in the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Haydn, through his musical gifts and personal tact, as well as
his boss’s enthusiastic support, was able to significantly
improve the employment condition of his musicians.
Not that there were no hitches. Beginning in mid 1760s, Esterházy
had begun building the fairy-tale castle of Esterháza
in the Hungarian hinterland. By 1772, although it was mostly
completed and the prince spent a good part of the year there,
the music building was still under construction with the result
that musicians’ rooms were limited and the prince forbade
the families of the musicians to join them when in residence.
When the prince refused to relent and even extended his stay
in Esterháza, the musicians went to Haydn for help. Haydn,
one of the most innovative and creative musical minds of his
time, cannily applied a musical remedy, the Symphony No. 45 in
f-sharp minor, and scored a diplomatic coup.
First of all, it is important to note that during the eighteenth
century there were very few symphonies written in minor keys,
and those composers who did so usually had good reason. While
many modern musical scholars dismiss the idea that key and mode
have any emotional significance, the fact is that their emotive
association in Haydn’s time was alive and well, having
been attested to for centuries by both composers and theorists.
The first three movements of the symphony follow the classical
pattern. An opening movement quick, forceful and passionate in
the spirit of C. P. E. Bach’s extravagant emotionalism. Despite
the obligatory second theme in
the relative major (A), Haydn bases it on the main theme .
The movement is dominated by the minor mode and an unusual number
of restatements of the stormy principal theme.
There follows a gentle Adagio with a long, theme in several segments .
In it Haydn uses a little two-note sighing motive,
first a descending major third, then redefined as a minor third
that significantly darkens the affect every time the passage
appears. The
movement is a compendium of musical devices used since the early
Baroque and generally known as "affections." Chromatic lines,
appoggiaturas, suspensions with an extra helping of dissonance
before resolving, even particular keys, represented a universally
understood vocabulary of moods and feelings – some of the
devices quite specific. Haydn deftly weaves the lot into this
expansive pathos-laden movement. Here, if nothing else, the Prince
got a lot for his money and in the Symphony as a whole, which
goes on longer than most of Haydn's others.
The lively minuet, while seemingly cheerful enough contains a
clashing dissonance in the first phrase. The trio,
a French horn duet, is based on a Gregorian chant for the Lamentations
of Jeremiah, sung on Good Friday.
And if Esterházy missed the hints of discontent so far,
Haydn drove his point home in the Finale. It began at a lively
tempo – its high spirits belied by its minor key – until
it reached a point when it appeared to be over. After a long
pause, the tempo slowed to adagio with what is actually a movement
within a movement, an ABA form
typical of classical slow movements. Haydn
pulled out some more appoggiaturas on a sequence that rises chromatically. Gradually
the musical texture became thinner and thinner as the musicians,
one by one, blew out their candles and walked off the stage.
As the harmonic richness evaporated, the music became increasingly
hollow until the last violinist just stopped, extinguished the
last candle and walked away.
The prince got the point. |
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| Sergey Prokofiev |
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| 1891-1953 |
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Sergey Prokofiev
Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, Classical
Prokofiev was a composer caught between two cultures. Born into
an affluent musical family, he left the Soviet Union in the summer
of 1918, shortly after the 1917 Revolution. For the next seventeen
years he lived in Paris and toured the United States, returning
to his native country in the mid-1930s never to leave again.
The year 1917 was a traumatic one for Russia. The February Revolution
deposed the Tsar, and the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks
to power. Meanwhile, on the international front, Russia was losing
disastrously in its war against the central powers, Germany and
Austria. In the spring and summer of that year Prokofiev retired
to a village not far from Petrograd (now and formerly St. Petersburg)
and, as if oblivious to the earth-shattering turmoil around him,
composed at a furious pace. Among the creations of that period
was his sunny Symphony No. 1, which he subtitled “The Classical.”
The Symphony was an experiment. An accomplished pianist, Prokofiev
routinely composed at the piano, although he noticed: “…thematic
material composed without the piano was often better in quality…I
was intrigued with the idea of writing an entire symphonic piece
without the piano…So this was how the project of writing
a symphony in the style of Haydn came about…it seemed it
would be easier to dive into the deep waters of writing without
the piano if I worked in a familiar setting.” This delicate,
nostalgic Symphony premiered in Petrograd in April 1918 with
the composer on the podium amidst civil war and social upheaval.
The overall Classical style of the Symphony makes it easy to
forget that it is a twentieth-century creation. The opening Allegro conforms
to the standard first movement sonata allegro form,
with occasional twentieth-century harmonies. The
second theme is
a caricature of the eighteenth-century Rococo style, played on
the tips of the violin bows “con eleganza” like a
mincing dancing master – but with a less than elegant surprise sforzando at
the cadence. The
graceful Larghetto theme in the second movement, introduced
first by the violins then joined by a flute, shows what a little
musical creativity can do with a simple descending scale. A
middle section introduced by the solo bassoon and pizzicato strings
emphasizes the constant sixteenth-note pulse that pervades the
entire movement before the full orchestra joins in, then slowly
fades to return to the opening theme.
The short Gavotte replaces a traditional minuet/trio movement.
Prokofiev’s is a clumsy dance, whose melody contains awkward
octave leaps and strange grace notes in the bassoon. The Trio is
accompanied by a bagpipe-like drone. Prokofiev
loved this movement, recycling and expanding it some 20 years
later in Act I of his ballet Romeo and Juliet.
The Molto vivace finale is in sonata form, rather than
the usual rondo, but has the same persistent dynamic drive as
the finales of so many Haydn symphonies. Like the opening of
the Symphony, the first theme is certainly accessible but lacks
the "singability" of Prokofiev's classical models. The
brief second theme, which serves also as a closing theme, provides
the sole "tune" in the movement. In
composing it, Prokofiev played a game with himself, trying to
eliminate all minor chords, a restriction that makes it extremely
difficult to do much with a development section. So he didn't.
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