February 3, 2024

Boulder Chamber Orchestra

Jennifer Hayghe - Piano

Program Notes

Jean Sibelius - Waltz Trieste

For many listeners, orchestral meditations such as the “Valse triste” serve as a kind of touchstone to Sibelius’ work despite their brevity. The reason is the almost magical intensity of the work’s “mood and color,” to quote Huscher’s phrase. They convey a dark, haunted quality. Sibelius was not the only composer to give the waltz a dark or a serious subtext. Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance showed that the pliancy of the waltz’ 3/4 time signature could be suited to sustained, serious musical expression, like a tone poem. Such apotheoses of the waltz evolved from Weber’s concert waltz to Maurice Ravel’s gorgeous yet devastating La Valse (1920), which leads the dancer into a death spiral.

Sibelius’ “Valse triste” (Sad Waltz) is equally melancholy. Originally composed for a 1903 production of the play Kuolema (Death) by Arvid Järnefelt, the waltz captures the sense of haunting memories recollected in old age. Here is how the scenario for the waltz was described in the original program note:

It is night. The son, who has been watching beside the bedside of his sick mother, has fallen asleep from sheer weariness. Gradually a ruddy light is diffused through the room: there is a sound of distant music: the glow and the music steal nearer until the strains of a waltz melody float distantly to our ears. The sleeping mother awakens, rises from her bed and, in her long white garment, which takes the semblance of a ball dress, begins to move silently and slowly to and fro. She waves her hands and beckons in time to the music, as though she were summoning a crowd of invisible guests. And now they appear, these strange visionary couples, turning and gliding to an unearthly waltz rhythm. The dying woman mingles with the dancers; she strives to make them look into her eyes, but the shadowy guests one and all avoid her glance. Then she seems to sink exhausted on her bed and the music breaks off. Presently she gathers all her strength and invokes the dance once more, with more energetic gestures than before. Back come the shadowy dancers, gyrating in a wild, mad rhythm. The weird gaiety reaches a climax; there is a knock at the door, which flies wide open; the mother utters a despairing cry; the spectral guests vanish; the music dies away. Death stands on the threshold.

Richard Wagner - Siegfried Idyll

Siegfried Idyll was composed in silence and secrecy for Cosima Wagner's 33rd birthday to commemorate the birth of their son Siegfried, also known as Fidi.

First performed within the smallest family circle and as a wake-up call to Cosima Wagner as she awoke, it was played on the morning of her birthday, 25 December, in the stairwell of the Tribschener Landhaus on Lake Lucerne with the original title: "Tribschener Idyll mit Fidi-Vogelgesang und Orange-Sonnenaufgang" (Tribschen Idyll with Fidi Birdsong and Orange Sunrise), by a small and exclusive circle of chamber musicians. Since the composition was considered a gift, Cosima Wagner refused her consent to its publication for a long time.

In the present day, this composition is one of the most beautiful and frequently played pieces in many contemporary symphonic performances. Cosima Wagner herself expressed herself  highly delighted and deeply touched by her husband's birthday surprise.

The name of the symphonic poem relates not only to Siegfried as a son, but also to the musical drama "Siegfried", the third part of the Ring of the Nibelung. Wagner mainly used motifs from this part of the Ring. It is his only contribution to the genre of symphonic poetry. Wagner described the composition as his only orchestral work for which he could present a complete programme.

The original version is scored for a chamber orchestra of flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet (only 13 bars) and string quintet. In the version published in 1878 and most often performed today, the strings are multiple.

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Concerto No. 5 in E-flat for Piano and Orchestra Op. 73

In May 1809, Napoleon’s troops attacked the city of Vienna, and throughout the following summer, the city shook with mortar fire. Ludwig van Beethoven, whose hearing was severely impaired, suffered both the stress of living under attack and constant painful assaults on his ears. In July he wrote his publisher, “Since May 4 I have produced very little coherent work, at most a fragment here and there. The whole course of events has in my case affected both body and soul … What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me: nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.” Despite the traumatic conditions, Beethoven continued to compose, producing what is arguably the most popular piano concerto ever written.

It is not clear how “Emperor” came to be associated with Beethoven’s final piano concerto (the nickname wasn’t his), although there is an apocryphal story about a French officer who, upon hearing the work performed in Vienna in 1812, exclaimed, “C’est l’Empereur!” If, as many have assumed, the emperor in question refers to Napoleon, Beethoven, suffering under Napoleon’s continuous bombardment, would certainly have disapproved.

By this point in his compositional career, Beethoven’s penchant for innovation in the opening measures of his concertos had become a signature, and the Fifth is no exception. After an introductory orchestral chord, the piano enters with a cadenza. Cadenzas, unaccompanied virtuoso passages filled with scales and trills created from fragments of thematic material, usually appear at the close of a movement. By opening the concerto with a cadenza full of musical foreshadowing, Beethoven telegraphs the themes and ideas of the opening movement to the listener. The seamlessness of the opening movement gives listeners a sense of inevitability, as if the music could unfold in no other way. Beethoven’s semi-subversive opening cadenza acts as a subliminal suggestion, planting the basic elements of later themes in our ears without our noticing.

In the Adagio un poco mosso, listeners may recognize the opening notes of Leonard Bernstein’s song “Somewhere” from West Side Story. We can picture Beethoven, surrounded by aural and emotional chaos, escaping from the turmoil of his surroundings into an ethereal sound world. All too soon Beethoven brings us back to earth as the whole orchestra drops down a half-step, from B to B-flat; it sustains that note while the piano storms into the Rondo with renewed vigor. Piano and orchestra execute a series of variations on this theme, each more elaborate than the next. The playful, humorous aspects of Beethoven’s personality reveal themselves here in the “false ending,” abrupt key changes, and generally buoyant mood throughout.

Johann Philipp Christian Schulz gave the premiere with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on November 28, 1811, with Friedrich Schneider at the piano. In its review, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported that “[the audience] could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition” in their excitement at hearing Beethoven’s greatest, and last, piano concerto.

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