Program Notes, 2010
by Durrell Bowman
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August 4 – Wednesday Upbeat!
Schumann – Andante and Variations, for two pianos, two cellos, and horn
Adler – Canto XIX, for solo guitar (East Coast premiere)
Chopin – Ballade No. 4 in F minor
Beethoven – String Quartet No. 3 in D major
Robert Schumann
German composer and music critic Robert Schumann (1810-56) was profoundly influenced by literature and by an arduous battle for the love of his life. However, he also increasingly suffered from mental problems, attempted suicide in his early forties, and spent his final years in an asylum. (Program notes for other concerts of this Festival provide additional information about Schumann's life and works. See the Table of Contents .)
In 1842-43, Schumann composed a considerable amount of chamber music. His works in this period included the:
- Piano Quintet in E-flat major (performed on July 2)
- Piano Quartet in E-flat major (July 9)
- Andante and Variations
Andante and Variations (Op. 46, original version, 1843)
This work was written shortly after Schumann's piano quintet and piano quartet. It is also a quintet, but scored for the unusual combination of two pianos, two cellos, and one horn. The Andante's theme has a binary (AB) structure. The second part inverts the opening of the lyrical first part. The theme appears in the two pianos, accompanied by the other instruments. The horn gets a moment to break through the work's piano-oriented texture in one of the variations: a hunting call. Similarly, one of the variations provides a kind of procession that features the cellos and horn. Another distills the theme to its bare essentials, with the cellos using pizzicato ("plucked") accompanying gestures. By comparison, several of the variations are faster and more intense. The work also includes an interlude that briefly quotes from one of Schumann's song-cycles. It ends with a gently wandering coda. The composer had mixed feelings about the work, initially withdrew it from his catalog, and modified it into a shorter version just for two pianos. However, Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann premiered the original version (with cellos and horn) in 1868.
Samuel Adler
German-born American composer and conductor Samuel Adler (b. 1928) studied with many important composers: Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Paul Pisk, Walter Piston, and Randall Thompson. He received an M.A. in 1950. He also studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood. He served in the US Army in the early 1950s and conducted one of its orchestras. In Dallas, he then followed in the footsteps of his Jewish cantor father by working at a temple, and he also conducted the Dallas Lyric Theatre. From 1957 to 1966, he served as a professor of composition at the University of North Texas. He then held a similar position at the Eastman School of Music from 1966 until his retirement in 1995. In 1997, he joined the composition faculty of the Juilliard School of Music. He has received many prestigious awards and honors and has taught master classes and workshops at universities and festivals in the US, Europe, Israel, South America, and Korea. Adler has also written books on choral conducting, sight-singing, and orchestration, as well as numerous articles. His more than 400 compositions include five operas, six symphonies, eight string quartets, a large number of concertos (including one for guitar), additional orchestral and instrumental works, chamber music, choral music, and songs.
Canto XIX, for solo guitar (2008)
This work is one of the most recent of Adler's series of 21 Cantos for various solo instruments that he has composed since 1970. These works function as concert etudes ("studies"), exploring the range of technical and performance possibilities particular to a given instrument. Canto XIX was written for Adler's friend and colleague, guitarist Ricardo Iznaola, who premiered the work in Dallas in 2009 and who performs its East Coast premiere at the Bowdoin Festival. The four-minute work is a toccata, a form that involves virtuosic, fast-moving material. It is quite energetic and demonstrates the strength of the solo guitar, as well as the flexibility and skill of the performer.
Frédéric Chopin
Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin (1810-49) was a musical prodigy and already a published composer of piano music before his eighth birthday. He graduated from the future Warsaw Conservatory in 1829, having been proclaimed "exceptionally talented" and "a musical genius." His early works include the Variations in B-flat (op. 2, 1827) on 'Là ci darem la mano' from Mozart's Don Giovanni and his two piano concertos (1829-30). Most of Chopin's works are from his later career in France and for solo piano. These include his nocturnes, mazurkas, waltzes, etudes, and Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major (performed on June 30). They also include his 24 Preludes (August 6) and his Ballade No. 4 in F minor.
Ballade No. 4 in F minor (Op. 52, 1842-43)
Chopin's earlier ballades are linked to the poetry of Polish-Lithuanian Adam Mickiewicz. This one, however, presents a more generic sequence of contrasting moods and thematic transformations. These range from simple statements to quite elaborate episodes. The work begins at a sort of aesthetic middle-ground, with a subtle, harmonically-vague passage. It then establishes its primary, arguably Slavic-sounding, theme in F minor. Alterations and elaborations of the theme ensue. These are sometimes subtly expressive, and at other times they are overtly agitated. A contrast occurs with a cheerful chordal section. However, this material is also elaborated and then combined with the first theme. The work's energy almost dissipates and then the initial theme reappears. The ending pursues further elaborations of the theme, but with added energy and complexity. The work is dedicated to Baronne Nathalie de Rothschild (of the wine-making branch of the family), who had just died in infancy.
Ludwig van Beethoven
German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was the most revolutionary figure to bridge from the late Classical era into the early Romantic era. His early training came from his court-musician father and others in Bonn. As a young man, he played viola in various orchestras, started composing commissions, met influential patrons, and moved to Vienna to study composition with Haydn. His growing deafness (already beginning by 1800) contributed to his acerbic personality. He had numerous additional personal difficulties, including failed romances, and his compositional activities waned through his early to mid forties. However, his late period then resulted in a renewed period of creative work, with a number of quite experimental compositions. His most important works include the relatively early Symphonies No. 3 ("Heroic"), No. 5, and No. 6 ("Pastoral"), as well as the much later Symphony No. 9 ("Choral"). His middle-period piano sonatas were ambitious and virtuosic, and his song cycle To the Distant Beloved was highly influential. His concertos include the Violin Concerto in D major (performed on August 6). Beethoven's influential string quartets include No. 3 in D major and No. 9 in C major ("Rasoumovsky 3" – July 16).
String Quartet No. 3 in D major (Op. 18, No. 3, 1798)
Beethoven held off on composing string quartets until 1798. He had briefly studied with Haydn several years earlier, and he prepared for creating his Op. 18 quartets by studying earlier works in that genre by Haydn and Mozart. Of the six (published in 1801 and dedicated to Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz), No. 3 was actually written first. In these works, Beethoven both learned from his predecessors and moved into new approaches. In particular, these quartets begin to feature an unprecedented independence of individual parts, although this is less the case in No. 3 than in some of the later ones. The first movement ("Quickly") mainly features the first violin, with harmonic support provided by the other three instruments. The harmonies at first emphasize D major, but then Beethoven explores an unexpected key area (A minor) that allows him to move into C major. The second, slower movement ("At a walking pace, with motion") is relatively conventional. The third movement ("Quickly") is a kind of minuet. However, the return of the main section (i.e., after the trio) is written out, instead of being literally repeated. This allows the composer to vary aspects of the minuet. Also, the fourth movement Finale ("Very Quickly") is in sonata form, instead of the more typical Classical-era approach of ending a four-movement work with a rondo.