The Program
JUAN
CRISÓSTOMO ARRIAGA
Symphony in D Minor
About the
Composer
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was born in Bilbao, Spain, to a musical family. His
father and uncle were accomplished amateur musicians, and pushed Juan to become
a professional. He started composing at 11 years old; by the time he was 15, he
had written nearly two dozen pieces, including an opera. In 1821, he traveled
to France and was admitted into the Paris Conservatoire, where he excelled in
the study of counterpoint and became an assistant to celebrated pedagogue
François-Joseph Fétis. He died, reportedly of a pulmonary infection, in January
1826—just shy of his 20th birthday.
About the Music
One of his last works, Arriaga’s only symphony reveals the voice of a young
composer exploring the genre by emulating previous masters—in this case,
Beethoven and Schubert. His symphony shows that as a young Spanish composer,
Arriaga had already assimilated the practices of late-Classical and
early-Romantic forms and styles.
A Closer Listen
The slow introduction to the first movement begins in D major instead of the
home key of D minor. The first theme (in the minor key) is stormy and
tempestuous; the second theme, back in the major, is comparatively calm. The
second movement is in sonata-allegro form—the favored form for first and final symphonic movements at the time, though
less common for middle movements. The third movement is, as expected, a minuet
and trio. The best feature of the finale is the fugato: Imitative, overlapping
entrances weave a delicate counterpoint. Here, Arriaga shows off the results of
his study with Fétis.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
BÉLA BARTÓK
Divertimento for Strings
About the
Composer
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was a child
prodigy; he made his public debut as
a pianist and composer at age 11. His first orchestral work was a tone poem
similar to those by Richard Strauss (whom Bartók met in 1902), but his works
were also influenced by the music of Debussy and Brahms. Beginning around 1908,
however, Bartók’s compositions began to reflect his affinity for Hungarian
folksong. That year, he traveled with his friend Zoltán Kodály through the
countryside to collect indigenous melodies. Bartók integrated these into his
own works, not only by quoting folk tunes, but also by adapting traditional
harmonies and dance rhythms.
With Hungary allied with Nazi Germany,
Bartók fled to the US in 1940, where he struggled personally and
professionally. In 1944, after years of ill health, he was diagnosed with
leukemia. His last work was a commission from Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston
Symphony Orchestra—the Concerto for Orchestra. That same year, Bartók finished
the Violin Sonata and his Third Piano Concerto; a viola concerto was left
incomplete at his death.
About the Music
Bartók was at the height of his
compositional powers during the
tumultuous years between 1934 and 1940, turning out chamber, orchestral,
vocal, and piano masterworks. Since the mid-1920s, his style had evolved from a
folk-inflected, kinetically powerful, Modernist
style toward a simpler, more melodic (yet no less driving) idiom
influenced by Baroque music. After visiting Italy a number of times in 1925 and
1926, he returned with a new passion for the Italian Baroque; however, his true musical love was J. S. Bach.
The Divertimento for Strings
showcases Bartók’s interest in 18th-century forms and styles, namely the
concerto grosso—a musical form that pits an ensemble against a smaller group of
soloists. Commissioned by Paul Sacher, the divertimento was composed in a mere
two weeks while the composer was living in Switzerland. It was the last of his
works to be premiered in Europe before he fled to the US. Despite the looming
prospect of war—Germany invaded Poland only two weeks after the divertimento
was completed—Bartók composed the work quickly and easily.
A Closer Listen
The first movement falls into three sections, the first of which presents a
variety of folk-like tunes. In the middle section, groups of instruments
exchange with one another and with the whole ensemble. The third section
recapitulates the opening music. Though the first movement generally maintains
high spirits, the ending is more sedate as it prepares for the introspective
adagio that follows. The rondo finale features a recurring folk tune as its
theme that alternates with contrasting episodes. One of these episodes bears
the true hallmark of Bach’s own music: a fugue. But the serious-minded
counterpoint is swept away by a sparkling cadenza for solo violin, and the
movement ends with a polka.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
LUDWIG VAN
BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73, “Emperor”
About the
Composer
Beethoven’s life story is the stuff of legend—partly due to the personal and
social crises that he lived through, and partly because historians tend to
embellish his biography with fictional speculation and crude psychoanalysis.
The confirmed events are as follows: Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, the
son of a court musician. Owing to his father’s alcoholism, he was forced to get
a job at age 13 in the court orchestra and to take over the family finances. In 1792, Beethoven went to Vienna, where he
studied for a time with Joseph
Haydn. He made a living in music salons, and was touted as a great
pianist and improviser. Instead of relying on aristocratic patronage, Beethoven
lived on commissions.
From 1800, his emotional and psychological outlook was clouded by the onset of
deafness; it appears that he even contemplated suicide, the evidence contained
in a famous letter of 1802 known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. By 1815, he
was almost completely deaf and had to rely on his inner ear to guide him in
composing. He never married, though he did end up with a family. When his brother
Kaspar died, Beethoven became embroiled in a prolonged battle with his
sister-in-law for custody of his nephew. He won, but their relationship was so
strained that in 1826, the boy attempted suicide. Beethoven died the following
year at age 57.
About the Music
In 1809, Beethoven was planning to move from Vienna to Kassel, where he was
assured a steady salary that would grant
him the freedom to compose as he wished without relying on public concerts and
good reviews. To keep him in Vienna, however, a group of patrons pledged their continued financial support. One of his benefactors was Archduke
Rudolf, to whom the Fifth Piano
Concerto is dedicated.
Times were tough, though; Beethoven was worried about more than his
finances. When Napoleon laid siege to the city that year, Beethoven fled to the
basement of his brother’s house, hiding from the din of warfare and covering
his ears with pillows in hopes of preserving what little hearing he had left. “What
a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around
me, nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.” Still, in the midst of such chaos, Beethoven managed to continue composing; the tumultuous years of Napoleon’s assault on Europe were
the most productive of the composer’s career.
A Closer Listen
The opening of the Fifth Piano Concerto is shocking—or would have been to
audiences at the time. The orchestra typically presents the two main themes of
the first movement before the soloist enters to iterate the same themes. Here,
however, the pianist not only comes in too early, but replaces thematic
exposition with a bold cadenza. In a sense, the concerto is over before it even
begins—the pianist has won the purported contest. Thus the “Emperor” is not a
conventional piano concerto in the sense of pitting a heroic soloist against
the stubborn orchestra; instead, the movement is propelled by a discursive
exploration of texture and timbre. Beethoven expands the tonal range of the
score by using three themes (instead of the usual two) that move far afield: The
second of the themes, in B minor, lies a tritone away from the home key of
E-flat major—basically, as far away tonally as it can be.
The second movement, with a hymn-like theme that is inventively decorated and
varied, flows into the third, an elaborate rondo in seven sections. The brass
and timpani, which were silent in the Adagio un poco mosso, return with full
force. There’s even a passage for solo timpani toward the end of the movement,
during which it engages in a stunning, martial dialogue between piano and
percussion. As musicologist Leon Plantinga points out, the “Emperor” Concerto
bears the mark of its times and perhaps
warrants its epithet: The work “bristles with musical topoi of a military cast
and with modes of expression we easily identify as ‘heroic.’”
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation