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Program Notes
Cobb Symphony Orchestra, 2008-2009 Season, Masterworks Concert #1
Program Notes by Michaelene Gorney
This first Masterworks Concert of the 2008-2009 Season of the Cobb Symphony Orchestra might well be called a “Celebration of Popular Culture”: composer Michael Daugherty mines the popular cultural icons of his times for direct inspiration; Sergei Rachmaninoff was a pop icon in his own right as a flamboyant soloist with enormous personal charisma; and the music of Gustav Holst continues to inspire and influence both classical and popular artists in a variety of artistic media. Classical music is alive and well on the concert stage, in comic books, and at the movies!
Michael Daugherty’s (b. 1954) fascination with pop culture is revealed in the titles of his works, among them Niagara, Desi, Motor City Triptych, Philadelphia Stories, Bizarro, Rosa Parks Boulevard, Timbuktu, and UFO. Says Daugherty, “…icons serve as a way to have an emotional reason to compose a new work. I get ideas for my compositions by browsing through second book stores, antique shops, and small towns that I find driving on the back roads of America.” The hallmarks of Daugherty’s music – melodic motives and rhythms influenced by pop, jazz and Latin music - can all be heard in “Red Cape Tango.”
“Red Cape Tango” is from Metropolis Symphony (1988-1993), inspired by a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1 of 1938. Though it evokes the Superman story, the Symphony is not programmatic in the sense that it tells a story. Says Daugherty, “The symphony is a rigorously structured, non-programmatic work, expressing the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes, and wit of American popular culture…Through complex orchestration, timbral exploration, and rhythmic polyphony, I combine the idioms of jazz, rock, and funk with symphonic and avant-garde composition….Red Cape Tango was composed after Superman's fight to the death with Doomsday.” The Tango’s repeated melodic figure, heralded by the bells and first heard in the oboe, is recognized as the first eight notes of the Dies irae, a medieval plainchant sung during the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, or Mass for the Dead. Over a tango rhythm played on castanets and finger cymbals (and later the timpani!), the Dies irae becomes an apocalyptic “dance of death,” alternating between legato and staccato sections (“to suggest a musical bullfight” ) and undergoing a myriad of transformations. The melody is ultimately punctuated by repeated-note figures in the brasses and a violent combination of crash cymbals, brake drum and timpani.
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) carried Russian Romaticism well into the 20th Century through his talents as a composer, a conductor, and as a charismatic and masterful pianist whose devotion to the romantics – Chopin, Schumannn, Liszt, and himself among them– made him immensely popular. First and foremost a composer, he was intimidated by modern music and even considered abandoning the craft. “The new kind of music,” he said, “seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel…they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.” This state of mind, a demanding but financially necessary concert career – he had lost an estate, a way of life, and his livelihood after the Russian Revolution of 1917 - and the thought that he might never see home again led to a decline in the creative spirit as Rachmaninoff moved his family first to Sweden and then to New York in order to support them. The solace he needed to compose again was found in a home in Switzerland, where he spent summers from 1932 to 1939, and which reminded him of Ivanovka, his family estate. It was here that he wrote the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1934), a set of 24 variations on a theme for solo piano and orchestra, was premiered in 1934 by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski with the composer at the piano. In the Rhapsody, Rachmaninoff pays tribute to an outstanding soloist of an earlier era, the violinist Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), whose 24th Caprice from his 24 Caprices for solo violin has been adapted for many instruments - electric guitar, saxophone and balalaika among them - and used as musical subject matter for classical and jazz compositions into the 21st Century.
Rachmaninoff’s work is like a concerto in that it has a soloist, and some analysts group the variations into “movements,” with the Introduction through Variation 11 (or so) representing the first movement, subsequent Variations through No. 18 comprising the middle movement, and Variations 19-24 providing the finale. One hears first not the theme, but a brief Introduction followed by Variation 1, a presentation of the theme’s underlying harmony. The Tema, a memorable twenty seconds long, is then played by the violins with brilliant punctuation in the piano. With little or no pause between them, the Variations follow one another in rapid succession and are sometimes difficult to differentiate, although the ride is no less enjoyable for not being able to count them! Of note is the use of the Dies irae melody (already heard in Daugherty’s work) in Variations 7, 10, and 24, and, less overtly, in other Variations as well. The Dies irae was a favorite reference of Rachmaninoff’s; he researched it extensively and used it in no less than a third of his compositions. A complement of violins and piano arpeggios lead into the expressive Variation 18, an Andante cantabile in which the inverted theme is transformed into an exquisitely Romantic melody for solo piano. This well-known Variation represents perhaps the height of this work as well as that for which Rachmaninoff lived and wrote: feeling over thinking, exaltation over reason, music from his heart.
Before John Williams there was Gustav Holst (1874-1934). Echoes of Holst’s music, in particular that of The Planets (1914-1918), can be heard in William’s film score for Star Wars, Cliff Eidelman’s score for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and countless media and musical works for film, television, video games, advertising, heavy metal and progressive rock bands, electronics, and church services. The hymn tunes “O God Beyond All Praising” and “Thaxted” (the name of the village where Holst lived) were adapted from this work, as was the theme of the 1991 Rugby Union World Cup. It is an understatement to say that both classical music and popular culture owe much to his vision.
Holst was plagued by serious health problems all of his life and by bouts of depression brought on by professional disappointments, overwork, and an unhealthy diet. Yet he accomplished much as a professional trombonist and a respected teacher (both of which helped pay the bills), then as a noted composer with uncommon interests. With lifelong friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, he discussed Walt Whitman and the socialist William Morris; an interest in Hindu philosophy led to the learning of Sanskrit in order to produce his own translations for settings of hymns from the Rig Veda. After 1920, Holst’s popularity waned, due to the complex and enigmatic nature of his later works, unpleasing to audiences expecting more of The Planets, and the long-lasting effects of a concussion suffered in 1923. Only a small percentage of his masterful works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, and opera, are recorded, and at least one of his works has never been heard. Nevertheless, Holst would be amazed at his influence on subsequent generations, even as he bemoaned the neglect of what he considered to be his best works.
The Planets, subtitled “Suite for Large Orchestra,” was completed between 1914 and 1916, and its first orchestral performance (six movements were originally scored for piano duet, “Neptune” for organ ) took place in 1918 at a private concert conducted by Adrian Boult in Queen’s Hall. Following the concert, the composer, eager to assist in the World War I effort, quickly departed for Salonica, where he directed music with the YMCA troops. In a successful concert two weeks later, five movements were played, but a complete public performance did not take place until after the War in 1920. The movements of this “series of mood pictures,” as Holst called them, are named after the then-known planets, with the exclusion of Earth. (Pluto, now relegated to the status of “dwarf planet,” was not discovered until 1930.) Fascinated with astrology and occasionally casting horoscopes for his friends (“My pet vice!” he called it), Holst noted that “These pieces were suggested by the astrological significance of the planets,” but “There is no program music in them, neither have they any connection with the deities of classical mythology bearing the same names.” Nevertheless, the planets were indeed named after Roman gods, and Holst granted each of them a character in the titles of his movements.
The writing of “Mars, the Bringer of War,” was unconnected with World War I, but its martial character is undeniable; it is both frightening and thrilling. “Venus, the Bringer of Peace,” is rendered all the more serene and poignant by virtue of contrast, its fulfillment of longing a precious and treasured indulgence. “Mercury, the Winged Messenger,” to Holst a “symbol of mind,” is clearly a scherzo which lives up to its name: swift, capricious, and the shortest of the seven movements. “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” “brings jollity in the ordinary sense, and also the more ceremonial kind of rejoicing associated with religious or national festivities.” In this movement, suggestive of a country fair, is heard one of the most elegant and majestic of tunes ever written by an English composer, one of which Elgar would have been proud. “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age” “brings not only physical decay but also a vision of fulfillment,” its steady progression undeterred by the occasional burst of abandon. “Uranus, the Magician,” characterized by the composer as “abrupt, eccentric, and unexpected,” brings to mind Paul Dukas’ The Sorceror’s Apprentice, but in a more ominous way – a somewhat sinister “March of the Toys,” if you will. In “Neptune, the Mystic,” the orchestra, which never plays above pianissimo, is joined by a wordless and unobtrusive women’s chorus. Through this movement’s quasi-formless nature and its unending fade-out, a first in the orchestral literature, Holst introduces an element of timelessness and the suggestion of empty space beyond our reach.
[1]
Michael Daugherty, Biographical Information,
http://www.michaeldaugherty.net/Bio.cfm
[1]
Michael Daugherty, Composer
Background by Timothy Salzman,
http://www.michaeldaugherty.net/bio.cfm
[1]
Les Daniels, Superman: The Complete History, 1st
Edition, Titan Books,
[1]
Michael Daugherty, Music, Metropolis Symphony, Program
Notes,
http://www.michaeldaugherty.net/description.cfm?trackid=95
[1]
Ibid..
[1]
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, “Sergei Rachmaninoff,”
with further reference to Rachmaninov by J. Hancock,
[1]
Wikipedia,
op. cit., with further reference to “Sergei Rachmaninoff
Biography,” 8notes.com,
http://www.8notes.com/biographies/rachmaninoff.asp
[1]
Robert Bagar & Louis Biancolli,
The Concert Companion, McGraw-Hill Book Company,
[1]
Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia, “Niccolo Paganini,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Paganini and
“Caprice No. 24,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprice_No._24_%28Paganini%29
[1]
Vincent Palliver, “Rachmaninoff and Dies Irae,” February,
2004,
http://www.victoryvinny.com/svr_and_di/RachmaninovandDiesIrae-Version03.pdf
[1]
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, “The Planets,” with
further references to
I Vow To Thee My Country,
http://www.g4central.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=61,
Supplementary Features, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country Collector's Edition (DVD)
[1]
Ian Lace, “A Biography of
Gustav Holst,” The Gustav Holst Website by Kenric Taylor,
1996-2007,
http://www.gustavholst.info/biography/
[1] “HOLST Suite: The Planets,” Len Mullenger, Olton Recorded Music Society, January 200, http://www.musicweb.uk.netholst.htrm
[1]
Stephen Banfield, CD liner
notes to “Holst” The Planets” Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
James Levine, Conductor, Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg,
1990
[1]
Compositions: The Music of Gustav Holst, “The Planets Op.
32,” The Gustav Holst Website by Kenric Taylor, 1996-2007,
http://www.gustavholst.info/compositions/listing.php?work=18
[1]
Ian Lace, op. cit.
[1]
Compositions: The Music of Gustav Holst,
op cit.
[1]
Ibid.
[1]
Ibid.
[1]
Ibid.