Waterfront Concert
1020 Naito Pkwy, Portland, Oregon
Carlos Kalmar, conductor
Gregory Vajda, conductor
Dancers from Oregon Ballet Theatre
Program Notes
“Staycations” have become fashionable recently, thanks to the down economy. Tonight, as you enjoy the music here in Portland, you’ll also be traveling with the Oregon Symphony on a tour of 10 cities that span the globe. Enjoy your trip!
[PENDLETON, OR]
John Williams
(born Feb. 8, 1932, Queens, NY)
Overture to The Cowboys
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pendleton Roundup, one of the largest rodeos in the country, with John Williams’ 1972 score from the film The Cowboys. This exuberant music pays homage to Aaron Copland and effectively compliments film’s coming-of-age story, in which veteran cowhand John Wayne teaches a passel of young cowpokes the ropes during an eventful cattle drive.
[VIENNA]
Johann Strauss Jr.
(born Oct. 25, 1825, Vienna; died June 3, 1899, Vienna)
Annen-Polka, Op. 117
The Annen-Polka is thrice named. Johann Strauss Jr. composed it in 1852, in honor of his mother, Anne, dedicated it to an Austrian archduchess named Anne, and premiered it at the celebration of the Festival of St. Anne on July 26, 1852, in the Prater, a huge public park in the center of Vienna. Not long after the premiere, Strauss was invited to conduct the Annen-Polka and other works at court. This opportunity led to other royal appearances and Strauss’ eventual appointment as Hofballmusikdirektor in 1863.
Stylistically, the Annen-Polka is a Polka Français, a more graceful and delicate dance than its rowdy German cousin. The four distinct melodies of the Annen-Polka are all carefully phrased and balanced, creating an air of refinement.
[PARIS]
Ferdinand Hérold
(born Jan. 28, 1791, Paris; died Jan. 19, 1833, Paris)
Overture to Zampa
In his short life, Ferdinand Hérold distinguished himself as a master of French opéra comique (opéra comiqueincludes spoken dialogue between arias, rather than a completely sung score in the manner of grand opera). Zampa is Hérold’s greatest operatic achievement. The plot centers on the exploits of the title character, a Sicilian pirate, who abducts a young woman on the eve of her wedding. The plot winds its way through a dizzying array of twists and turns, but finally Zampa, in the manner of Mozart’s Don Juan, is defeated by a marble statue. In this case, the statue is an image of Zampa’s former fiancée, Alice, who died of a broken heart waiting in vain for Zampa to return from his sea adventures. As a pitiless stone image, Alice consigns Zampa to the flaming hell he so richly deserves.
[VENICE]
Jacques Offenbach
(born June 20, 1819, Cologne; died Oct. 5, 1880, Paris)
Intermezzo and Barcarole from Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffman)
Jacques Offenbach chose the stories for his most successful opera from the dark tales of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, a German lawyer, composer and writer of the early Romantic era. Offenbach’s “fantastic” opera is in four acts, each illustrating a different story by Hoffmann, whose writing tends toward the hidden, unacknowledged impulses of the human psyche. Hoffmann also appears as a character in Offenbach’s opera. In each act, Hoffmann recalls his vain pursuit of a different, always unattainable, woman.
Tonight’s selections are from Act III, which is set in a palace on the Grand Canal in Venice. Hoffmann’s muse, Nicklausse, sings “Lovely night, oh night of love, smile upon our raptures,” joined by a beautiful courtesan, Giulietta. Hoffmann is of course immediately enraptured but ends up losing both heart and soul to Giulietta.
[BUDAPEST, HUNGARY]
Johannes Brahms
(born May 7, 1833, Hamburg; died Apr. 3, 1897, Vienna)
Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor
Johannes Brahms’ 21 Hungarian Dances, originally written for four-hand piano, brought the composer almost instant fame, although they are known best to audiences as orchestral works. Tonight’s selection, No. 5, is the most famous.
Brahms was one of several composers, including Franz Liszt and Antonín Dvořák, who made use of stylized “folk” music in their work. In 1853, the young Brahms traveled through northern Germany with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, who introduced Brahms to gypsy music. The gypsy melodies and rhythms entranced Brahms, and it is gypsy style, rather than indigenous Hungarian music, which infuses his ostensibly “Hungarian” Dances.
[ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES]
Camille Saint-Saëns
(born Oct. 9, 1835, Paris; died Dec. 16, 1921, Algiers)
Bacchanale from Samson et Delilah
Camille Saint-Saëns abandoned work on his opera Samson et Delilah in 1875 after critics and audiences panned a concert performance of Act I. He eventually completed Samson in 1876, but the opera did not receive its Paris premiere until 1892. Of Saint-Saëns’ dozen operas, no other had such an unpromising beginning, an interesting fact considering Samson is Saint-Saëns’ only opera still performed today.
At the time Samson was composed, Saint-Saëns was considered innovative for his use of “exotic” melodies and rhythms to depict the mysterious East. Today, the Bacchanale is the most recognized music from Samson. Fans of figure skating might also recognize it as the music Canadian Joannie Rochette used in her bronze medal-winning long program at the Vancouver Olympics earlier this year.
[NEW YORK CITY]
John Kander
(born Mar. 18, 1927, Kansas City, MO)
New York, New York (arr. Tyzik)
Please join our audience sing-along to help kick off our Countdown to Carnegie in preparation for the Oregon Symphony’s debut performance at Carnegie Hall on May 12, 2011. You’ll find the lyrics to “New York, New York” immediately following the program notes in the Waterfront Concert program book..
New York, New York,” the semi-official anthem of New York City, was originally written by the veteran Broadway team of John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), as the theme song from the 1977 film New York, New York. In the film, Liza Minnelli sings the now-iconic song, but it didn’t become a hit until the following year, when Frank Sinatra performed it at Radio City Music Hall. Sinatra recorded “New York, New York” in 1980, and it quickly became one of his signature songs.
In a 2002 interview with National Public Radio, Kander recalls, “I think we wrote it in very short time and great anger,” because Robert DeNiro, who starred in New York, New York, thought the theme song “had to be stronger.” Kander remembered, “We walked out of there, highly insulted that some actor was going to tell us how to write a song … but DeNiro turned out to be right.”
[ROME]
Hector Berlioz
(born Dec. 11, 1803, La Côte-Saint-André, Isère; died Mar. 8, 1869, Paris)
Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9
When Hector Berlioz’ opera Benvenuto Cellini premiered in Paris in 1838, Berlioz reported that the audience “hissed with admirable energy and unanimity.” Six years later, Berlioz used some of the opera’s music in his Roman Carnival Overture, which became an instant success (the audience demanded an encore at its premiere).
Berlioz described the Overture as “a wonderfully wild piece.” This is particularly true of the saltarello, an energetic folk dance Berlioz used to capture the excitement of a Roman carnival in the Piazza Colonna. The tempo of this section was crucial and Berlioz was known to flog orchestras if they were too slow. “This is carnival, not Lent. You make it sound like Good Friday in Rome,” he yelled at one unfortunate ensemble.
[ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA]
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(born May 7, 1840, Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia; died Nov. 6, 1893, St. Petersburg)
Adagio from Act II of Sleeping Beauty
In May 1888, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the Russian Imperial Theatre, asked Tchaikovsky to provide a score for a ballet based on the story of Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky was taken by the idea and in a letter to his patron, Nadezhda von Meck, he confided, “The subject is so poetic, so inspirational to composition, that I am captivated by it.” In the Adagio from Act II, Aurora wakens from 100 years of enchanted sleep. The music progresses from an intimate solo cello to a full orchestral expression of joy.
Carlotta Brianza, who originated the role of Aurora, recalled that at the first performance in St. Petersburg in 1890, “Tchaikovsky did not go alone in response to the calls of the public. He went out with Petipa [the choreographer] and with me and … other performers. On stage he tried to move us forward and to hide himself behind us.”
[HAVANA, CUBA]
Ernesto Lecuona
(born Aug. 7, 1896, Guanabacoa, Cuba; died Nov. 29, 1963, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands)
Gitanerías (Gypsies)
Often called “the Gershwin of Cuba,” Ernesto Lecuona was a composer and pianist of consummate skill. He knew many of the influential composers of his time, including George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel, who described Lecuona’s best known work, Malagueña, as “more melodic and beautiful than my own Bolero.” Tonight’s selection, Gitanerías, was composed in 1928 for solo piano and published four years later. With its unrelenting speed and technical requirements, it has challenged pianists ever since. American composer, conductor, pianist and arranger Morton Gould later conducted and recorded Lecuona’s music, using Gould’s own orchestrations. Gould’s orchestral versions provided a wider audience for Lecuona’s Latin melodies and percussive rhythms.
[MOSCOW]
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Year 1812, Overture solonelle, Op. 49
Although the 1812 Overture is one of Tchaikovsky’s best known compositions, he considered it a mere trifle, unworthy of serious consideration by his colleagues or friends. Tchaikovsky’s friend Nikolai Rubenstein, director of the Moscow Conservatory, wanted music to commemorate the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, built to mark the Russian victory in 1812 over Napoleon, and the 25th anniversary celebration of Alexander II as Czar. Rubenstein envisioned a grand outdoor aural spectacle for the audience, and Tchaikovsky was subsequently inspired to score the work for cannons, a military band and church bells in addition to the orchestra.
The premiere of The Year 1812 (the formal title of the 1812 Overture) in Moscow on Aug. 20, 1882, was actually held in a concert hall, minus cannons and bells. Despite the lack of firepower, it was an immediate success and has since become a summer staple of orchestras and a perennial audience favorite. Throughout the 1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky interjects fragments of the French national anthem La Marseillaise to represent Napoleon. Tchaikovsky also quotes the Russian national anthem, God Save the Czar, aRussian Orthodox Church hymn, God Save Thy People, and fragments of a Russian folk song in the opening theme. These musical quotations symbolize the heart and soul of the Russian people.
Regarding the 1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky complained to his patron Nadezhda von Meck, “The ‘Overture’ will be very loud and noisy, but I wrote it without any warm feelings of love and so it will probably be of no artistic worth.” While critics have argued over the years about the “artistic worth” of Tchaikovsky’s music, audiences have remained his staunchest supporters, and his music is consistently among the most requested and performed by symphony orchestras around the world.
The enduring popularity of the 1812 Overture, in particular, has never diminished, thanks in part to the advent of recording technology. In 1958 conductor Antal Doráti and the Minneapolis Symphony (now the Minnesota Orchestra) made the first high-fidelity recording of the 1812 Overture for the Mercury “Living Presence” label. This innovative recording includes separate tracks for the cannons and church bells, as well as a voice-over narration, which explained the new recording technique. The recording also features a 1775 bronze cannon used in the Napoleonic wars.
Staging this work presents unusual challenges because of the inclusion of cannons in the finale. The timing of the cannon bursts is crucial, as Tchaikovsky indicated in his score that they were to sound on specific beats. Determining the length of the fuse and lighting it at the precise moment to fire on cue requires an expert. The cannons featured in our concert are actually howitzers provided by the Oregon Army National Guard, 218th Field Artillery.
The Oregon Symphony recorded this work, along with Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet and The Tempest, under the direction of James DePreist on the Delos label in 1989.
© 2010 Elizabeth Schwartz
Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz
Elizabeth Schwartz is a freelance writer and musician based in the Portland area. She is the program annotator for the Oregon Symphony, the Cascade Festival of Music, and has also contributed to NPR’s Performance Today, (now heard on American Public Media). Ms. Schwartz holds a B.A. in music from the University of California and an M.M. from Boston University. She can be contacted at schwartzelizabeth@yahoo.com.