Concert Details - Past Concerts

Concert Notes
by Annelies Reeves

IGOR STRAVINSKY
b. Oranienbaum (now Lomonosov) Russia, June 17,1882: d. New York City, USA, April 6, 1971.

Stravinsky is considered by many in the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets performed by Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. The premiere of Loiseau de feu (The Firebird), is one of the notorious events of 20th century music history—protests and fights broke out in the audience. Thus Modernism arrived in music, delivered by the 30-year-old Russian composer.

Stravinsky was rooted in the nationalistic school that drew inspiration from Russia's expressive folk music but his greatest musical influence was his teacher, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The colourful, fantastic orchestration that Stravinsky brought to his folk-song inspired melodies was clearly derived from Rimsky-Korsakov, but the primitive, offbeat rhythmic drive was entirely his own.

After leaving Russia, Stravinsky lived in Switzerland and Paris and in 1939 he fled the war in Europe for the U.S. He experimented with virtually every technique of 20th century music: tonal, polytonal and 12 tone serialism. Stravinsky turned to many musical forms during his long career, producing symphonies, concertos, oratorios, operas, and a bewildering variety of choral works.

The Suite for Small Orchestra, composed between 1917 and 1925, opens with an Andante to warm us up, followed by dances Neapolitan and Spanish in origin, and concludes with a delightful orchestral imitation of the balalaika, that most popular of Russian folk instruments.

DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
b. St. Petersburg, Russia, September 25, 1906; d. Moscow, Russia, August 9, 1975.

Dmitri Shostakovich's music was influenced by composers such as Alexander Glazunov, with whom he studied at the Petrograd Conservatory, as well as by Prokofiev and Stravinsky. He was also introduced to the music of Gustav Mahler, who strongly influenced his later symphonies. Shostakovich had a complex relationship with the Soviet government, suffering two official denunciations of his music in 1936 and 1848, and the periodic banning of his music.

Shostakovich wrote the First Cello Concerto in the summer of 1959 for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich. After Stalin's death in 1953 a "Great Thaw" in relations with the West eased travel restrictions for Soviet artists, and Rostropovich was eager for Shostakovich to compose a concerto that he could perform overseas.

The Concerto opens with a quizzical four-note motive which sounds related to the composer's personal musical monogram- D, Eb, C, B (or D-S-C-H in German notation). Shostakovich called the first movement "a jocular march", but its humour is darkly grotesque and acerbic, rudely punctuated by four blows from the timpani. The elegiac Moderato and extended solo Cadenza are the emotional center of the concerto. The heart-felt second movement is imbued with searching melancholy and tenderness and ends bleakly with a dialogue between the celesta and the cello in its highest, most eerie register. In the long, unaccompanied cadenza the cello muses through a lyrical mood and virtuosic reminiscences of the first movement to the fierce rhythmic impetuosity of the Finale. The Finale opens with a direct quote of Stalin's favourite song, Suliko. Again, the mood is grotesque and dark with savage interruptions from the timpani adding a primitive humour from screeching clarinets and piccolo. Finally, the quirky four-note theme of the first movement returns in the woodwinds and solo horn, and the work ends with a grimly exuberant flurry of virtuosic scales and octaves by the soloist.

ANTON DVORAK
b. Nekagiseves, Czech Republic, September 18, 1841; d. Prague, May 1, 1904.

Dvorak was born near Prague (then Austrian Empire), where he spent most of his life. Dvorak studied music at the village school as well as in Prague and became an accomplished violinist and violist. Throughout the 1860's he played viola in the Bohemian Theater Orchestra conducted by Bedrich Smetena, but by 1871 he gave this up in order to compose. Dvorak began by composing string quartets and other smaller symphonic forms, but the symphony is at the heart of his orchestral writing. By 1864 he had written two symphonies, many songs, chamber music, and an entire opera. Dvorak had come to the attention of Johannes Brahms who helped obtain a stipend from the Kultur Ministerium in Vienna for the very cash strapped Dvorak. His published works were an immediate success and were soon performed abroad.

From 1892 to 1895 Dvorak was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He wrote his most popular work, The Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" while spending his time with his family in the Czech speaking community of Spillville, Iowa, where he also wrote the "American" string quartet. In 1896 he visited London for the last time to hear the premiere of his Cello Concerto. In 1897 his daughter married his pupil, the composer Josef Suk.

Dvorak's nine symphonies generally stick to the classical models that Beethoven would have recognized. But Dvorak's works also show the influence of Czech folk music, both in terms of rhythms and melodic shapes. The Symphony No. 3 in Eb Major (1873) shows the impact of Dvorak's recent acquaintance with the music of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. It has only three movements, lacking a scherzo. The first movement is monothematic in tendency, while the final movement makes very free use of sonata form. The fluctuating C# minor / Db major of the slow middle movement imparts a relaxed, colourful tonality that includes reminiscences of a motif from the first movement.