CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The MET Chamber Ensemble

Weill Recital Hall
Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 5:00 PM

The MET Chamber Ensemble
James Levine, Artistic Director and Conductor
Judith Bettina, Soprano
Jennifer Black, Soprano
Matthew Plenk, Tenor

SCHOENBERG Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16 (chamber version)
SCHUMANN "Ich denke dein," Op. 78, No. 3
SCHUMANN "Liebhabers Ständchen," Op. 34, No. 2
SCHUMANN "Unterm Fenster," Op. 34, No. 3
SCHUMANN "In der Nacht," Op. 74, No. 4
SCHUMANN "Tanzlied," Op. 78, No. 1
PIERRE BOULEZ Dérive 1
PIERRE BOULEZ Improvisation sur Mallarmé I
MOZART Divertimento in D Major, K. 131

Program Notes:

PIERRE BOULEZ (b. 1925)
Dérive I for 6 Instruments

Dérive received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on May 15, 1986, with the New York New Music Ensemble: Robert Black, conductor; Jayn Rosenfeld, flute; Jean Kopperud, clarinet; Linda Quan, violin; Chris Finckel, cello; Cameron Grant, piano; and Daniel Druckman, percussion.

Composed in 1984 and revised in 1986, Dérive I is dedicated to Sir William Glock, the noted British advocate of new music, on the occasion of his retirement from the direction of the Bath Festival, on June 8, 1984. In Dérive I, Boulez reworked musical materials from an earlier celebratory work, Messagesquisse, composed in honor of the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, commissioner of such 20th-century classics as Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta; Strauss’s Metamorphosen; and Stravinsky’s Concerto in D.

For Messagesquisse, Boulez had devised a “musical cryptogram” on Sacher’s name, and he later used this set of notes as the basis of the six chords that are rotated in Dérive—spread out and changing slowly in the first half, more linear in the second half. Throughout, the pianist holds down all the notes of the piano’s lower octave, using the “Steinway pedal,” which allows them to resonate against the chords moving above. At the end, the music disappears into an instrumental tremolando. (Note: The French word dérive has several (not unrelated) connotations: “drift,” “leeway,” and “derivation.”)


PIERRE BOULEZ
Improvisation I sur Mallarmé: Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui

One of Mallarmé’s most celebrated sonnets, this poem would later, with a much fuller instrumental complement, become part of Pli selon Pli, Boulez’s “Mallarmé cycle,” which unfolded from 1957 until 1962. The poem is rigorously organized,and so is Boulez’s setting: For example, he sets the four odd-numbered lines (two quatrains) for voice and instruments alone, and the even-numbered ones (two tercets) for instruments alone. Similar considerations govern much of the work’s structure, generating a rich variety of tonal colors and densities.

Improvisation I sur Mallarmé received its US premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 31, 1960, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein.


ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874–1951)
Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 (chamber version)

On July 14, 1909, Arnold Schoenberg wrote to Richard Strauss, then active as a conductor in Berlin, describing his latest project: “They are short orchestra pieces (between three and five minutes in length), without any cyclical relationships … I can promise you something really colossal, especially in sound and atmosphere. That’s what they are all about—absolutely unsymphonic, completely the opposite of that, no architecture, no structure. Only a colorful unbroken succession of colors, rhythms, and moods. But—and this is the angle whereby you may perhaps risk it—very short!” Despite that vivid (and accurate) description of the pieces, Strauss was not impressed by the suggested “angle,” and returned the score with regret, saying that he found the pieces, “in content and sound, such daring experiments that for the present I cannot risk presenting them to a more-than-conservative Berlin audience.”

Initially scored for a very large orchestra, the Five Orchestral Pieces remained unperformed until September 1912, in London; though reviews reported hissing from part of the audience, the composer was invited to conduct a repeat performance himself in January 1914. By then Schoenberg had decided to revise the pieces in some details and to accede to his publisher’s suggestion of adding descriptive titles to the individual pieces, but this wasn’t fully accomplished until 1922. Much later, in 1949, he made a further revision, “reduced for normal-sized orchestra.”

Before that, however, during the lean years following the German-Austrian defeat in World War I, Schoenberg organized a “Society for Private Musical Performances,” dedicated to presenting exemplary performances of—and encouraging discussion of—new music from all over Europe. The Society functioned for about three years, beginning in fall 1918, and also sprouted a Prague branch, under the direction of Schoenberg’s colleague and brother-in-law, Alexander von Zemlinsky. Working with limited funds and forces, Schoenberg and his pupils undertook to make chamber-ensemble versions of large-scale works for use in these concerts. Among the arranged works—ranging from Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde—were the Five Orchestral Pieces. Schoenberg marked up a copy of the full score with indications for the rescoring, and his pupil (and later son-in-law) Felix Greissle worked out the details. (An alternate version with a horn added to the ensemble, apparently made later, was published as “arranged by Felix Greissle,” but certainly also had Schoenberg’s approval.) Though naturally lacking the dynamic and coloristic range of the orchestral versions, these chamber settings convey a remarkable percentage of the work’s daring imagination and expressivity, as well as the motivic and rhythmic means whereby Schoenberg achieves continuity and contrast.

The five pieces, with the titles assigned to them in the version used in this performance, are as follows:

Vorgefühle (Premonitions): Very quick. Several motives, presented at the start, are then developed over an ostinato figure, initiated by the cello and eventually permeating the ensemble until its collapse in the final pages.

Vergangenes (Yesteryears): Moderate quarter-note. Thematic material is introduced by cello, piano, and winds, then by clarinet and flute together. The textures grow more complex, with flowing lines counterpointed by more rapid figures, but eventually the original mood is regained.

Der wechselnde Akkord (Der Traunsee am Morgen) [The Changing Chord (Traun Lake in the Morning)]: Moderate quarter-note. A five-note chord, played by overlapping, alternating groups of instruments, eventually changes, one note at a time, creating a novel species of canon. The rhythmic movement grows faster and more complex in a middle section, after which the opening material returns, elaborated with coloristic details.

Peripetie (Peripetia): Very quick. The title refers to the Greek word for a sudden change in fortune, and the music juxtaposes pensive phases with violent gestures.

Das obligate Rezitative (The Obbligato Recitative): Moving eighth-note. A single long melodic line runs the whole length of this piece, passing through different instruments as it repeatedly surges upward and falls back.

The chamber version of the Five Orchestral Pieces received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Zankel Hall on February 13, 2005, with the MET Chamber Ensemble.


ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856)
Duets for Soprano and Tenor

Early in 1840, Robert Schumann began writing songs—a genre he had not touched for over a decade, despite his marked literary bent. The impetus clearly stemmed from the improved prospects for his marriage with Clara Wieck, which had been obstructed for several years by her jealous and manipulative father. Already in 1839, the engaged couple had begun to gather poems by their favorite writers, and between January and August of that year Robert composed—among others—the group published as Myrthen, Op. 25; the Heine Liederkreis, Op. 24; the Eichendorff Liederkreis, Op. 39; and the cycles Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben. The flood continued after the wedding until, in the following year, Schumann turned to orchestral composition. Many of these songs seem to mirror, directly or obliquely, his fluctuating emotions during the final stages of his and Clara’s extended and frustrating engagement, which ended with their marriage on September 12, 1840.

The vocal duet was a popular form of domestic music in the 19th century, though rarely pursued with the seriousness the masters of the German Lied applied to their solo settings. Both genres were composed primarily for intimate occasions, however, as song recitals were not yet a prominent feature of public concert life. Several approaches to the vocal duet were possible. One very common style, in which the two voices sang the poem together in harmony, is not much different from the solo song. More dramatic possibilities could be explored in dialogue duets, in which two characters sang in alternation or even overlapping. Canonic imitation was yet another textural option. And, as in the solo song, the piano accompaniment could easily play a prominent melodic or contrapuntal role as well.

“Ich denke dein,” Op. 78, No. 3. In 1849, Schumann experienced a remarkable upsurge in creativity, producing many songs, including a number of Goethe settings. Among them was this duet version of a poem to a distant beloved whose presence the lover senses throughout nature. The poem’s metrical structure is distinctive and spacious, the language of its four stanzas classically direct, but Schumann’s only partly strophic song (with the two voices rhythmically synchronized throughout) is harmonically restless, with many delayed melodic resolutions.

“Liebhabers Ständchen,” Op. 34, No. 2; “Unterm Fenster,” Op. 34, No. 3. Schumann’s 1840 songs included a group of duets for soprano and tenor, two of them based on poems by Robert Burns, in rather free German adaptations. (The texts in the present program book give the Burns originals, to preserve the informality of the interchanges.) Both deal with a situation not too distant from Schumann’s own at the time: a frustrated youth pleading to be admitted to his beloved’s chamber at night. (The chap known as Findlay in the Scottish version evidently makes a more convincing case than his Teutonic counterpart.) Schumann here uses the dialogue format imaginatively, the suitors often overlapping the maidens in their impatience, also reflected in the tempo changes. “Liebhabers Ständchen” moves in longer periods than the shorter-breathed “Unterm Fenster,” in accord with the poetry’s dimensions.

“In der Nacht,” Op. 74, No. 4. Another enthusiasm of Schumann’s 1849 songwriting was Emanuel Geibel’s collection of Spanish poetry (later also mined by Hugo Wolf.. This was the source for the Spanische Liederspiel, Op. 74, and the Spanische Liebeslieder, Op. 138, collections of songs for one, two, and four voices, written at the same time but published only after Schumann’s death. The six lines of “In der Nacht” are extended into a melancholy nocturne shared by lovers apart, perhaps dreaming together: first the soprano sings the poem, then the tenor repeats it (with minor melodic modifications) while she adds a counterpoint; at the end they sing together. The main melody, beginning haltingly, increases its breadth and range; its inflections, such as the deep drop at “hoffnungslose Kummer,” are poignant, and the mutual embrace of the voices in the central section is raptly erotic.

“Tanzlied,” Op. 78, No. 1. Schumann’s Op. 78, also from 1849, is another group of soprano-tenor duets. This “Dance Song” is a dialogue during a dance, a lively country waltz proposed by the piano, which often takes the melodic lead. Gradually the voices come together, concluding in harmony.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Divertimento in D Major, K. 131

The Divertimento in D Major received its first Carnegie Hall performance on March 10, 1914, with the Musical Art Society of New York conducted by Frank Damrosch.

Music played a prominent role in the activities of Salzburg’s archepiscopal court—and not only in its religious rituals. Assorted secular occasions also involved music: serenades for al fresco social functions in the summer; the so-called Finalmusik that celebrated the conclusion of the university’s academic year; and music for dancing or listening in all seasons. Labeled “serenade,” “divertimento” (diversion), “cassation” (a term of obscure origin, possibly derived from gasse, the German word for “street”), “notturno” (a serenade for after dark) and the like, these works, sometimes containing as many as eight or nine movements, were usually scored for ensembles ranging from 6 to 12 instruments.

The occasion for which the 16-year-old Mozart composed the Divertimento in D Major, K. 131, is unknown; but the surviving manuscript is dated “June 1772” in his hand. No contemporary performance has been documented, either then or later in his lifetime.

Of the six movements, only the first and last involve the full ensemble (tutti). (In the minuet movements, the initial minuet is repeated after each trio section.) The quartet of horns is an unusual feature for the period.

The eminent Mozart scholar Maynard Solomon has described this as “perhaps the earliest serenade-style work in which we clearly hear Mozart’s voice.” (He also noted that the title “Divertimento” in the manuscript score is not written in Mozart’s hand; it appears to have been added by Johann Anton André, the composer and publisher who in 1799 acquired Mozart’s musical estate from his widow Constanze.

Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation