Concert 5
Location:
St. Luke's Episcopal Church
· 99
Pierce St.
· East Greenwich, RI
Date: June 14th at 7:00 pm
CARL NIELSEN (1865-1931) Serenata Invano
Serenata
Invano, written for clarinet, bassoon, French
horn, cello and double bass is a seven-and-a-half minute, lighthearted
work that paints a picture of a group of male musicians performing under
the window of an attractive young lady. Nielsen developed his
exceptional compositional gifts as a working musician. In 1889 he became
a member of the orchestra of the Royal Theater as a second violinist,
and as he advanced his career as a composer, Nielsen managed to maintain
his place onstage for many years, becoming the orchestra's associate
conductor in 1908.
Carl Nielsen had many close associates in the orchestra,
but was great friends with the principal bass player, Ludvig Hegner. During
the summer of 1914, Hegner and some of his orchestra mates chose to go
on tour with a chamber music program featuring the Beethoven Septet.
Hegner begged Nielsen to compose a work that would use some of the same
instruments as Beethoven's Septet--combining strings and winds. Since
Nielsen had decided to leave the orchestra that past June, he was now
facing life as a freelancer for the first time in 25 years. He happily
accepted the work offer and quickly composed a light-hearted
programmatic quintet. This single movement work has three sections that
clearly depict the scenes he envisioned.
"Serenata in vano is a humorous trifle," the
composer wrote. "First the gentlemen play in a somewhat chivalric and
showy manner to lure the fair one out onto the balcony, but she does not
appear. Then they play in a slightly languorous strain (marked Poco
adagio), but that hasn't any effect either. Since they have played in
vain (in vano), they don't care a straw and shuffle off home to
the strains of the little final march, which they play for their own
amusement."
SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Quintet, Op. 39 in G minor
“Like the Gurgle of an
Emptying Bottle”
Chamber music plays a very
small part in Prokofiev’s compositional output. Penning the G Minor Quintet was
the result of working for a living--it was a commission. Prokofiev was living in
Paris at the time and received the good news that he would be paid to write for
Boris Romanov, a dancer and choreographer in Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe troupe.
Though the commission was for a very small ballet, titled Trapeze, Prokofiev
was not burdened with having to compose to a predetermined story or plot.
Therefore, the piece could work as a ballet or as a pure chamber work. It has
lived-on mostly as a chamber music work, but is still occasionally performed as
a ballet. This six-movement work could remind you of some of his friend, Igor
Stravinsky’s “Russian Period” works...like Le Sacre du Printemps, which was
written in 1913.
In 1919, Prokofiev was present
at the American premiere of some Stravinsky songs based on popular Russian folk
poetry. He wrote to Stravinsky sharing of his enjoyment of the work, most
notably the song Uncle Armand where “the oboe and clarinet are like the gurgle
of a bottle emptying. You express drunkenness through your clarinet with the
skill of a real drunkard.” These are the two wind instruments used in this
quintet that we are performing! While Stravinsky’s soul, like that of his puppet
Petrushka may from time to time visit this quintet, it is nonetheless a
provocatively playful, brightly colored work. It could be described as a
glimpse into Paris during the 1920's. Pretty good for some 'circus music,'
no? The concert version of this work for five players was first performed in
Moscow in 1927. The ballet production was not performed in the then “Soviet
Union” until 1972.
LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20
The 18th century was a great
era for wind music. Most royal courts and countless aristocratic households
hired wind bands or Harmoniemusik. While only the richest courts chose to
have full orchestras, the wind band timber and volume - pairs of oboes,
bassoons, horns, and (sometimes) clarinets - became the most popular ensemble
for entertainment and prestige, both inside and out. Popular in courts and
villages, Harmoniemusik composers found audiences for both light, popular
fare or more complex and sophisticated works. Mozart's wind serenades (K. 375 &
K. 388) and his Quintet for Piano and Winds (K 452) rank among his greatest
compositions.
The Beethoven piece we'll be
performing, his Septet, Op. 20 for winds and strings, strives toward the lighter
serenade tradition. In his day, the audience response was immediate! Music
lovers embraced this piece and it became one of the most popular compositions
during his lifetime.
As a youngster, both in
Bonn and after moving to
Vienna in 1792, Beethoven played into the
popularity of wind music. He wrote steadily and freely for a variety of wind
ensembles until 1800. Beethoven included his first symphony on a public concert
in April of 1800 with the Septet and the press loved the remarkable prominence
of his wind writing. After 1800, both the decline of royal and aristocratic
cultural life, as well as the rise of the civic-sponsored indoor public concerts
contributed towards a clear shift away from wind popularity. Beethoven chose to
abandon independent wind compositions after 1801 - happy to write great woodwind
parts into his symphonies and concertos.
Beethoven wrote this youthful
Septet in that day's popular style--incorporating two slow movements and two
dances. The breezy nature of the melodic material and wind-string dialog reflect
the lighter vein in which he composed. He starts the opening Allegro con brio
in a bright, lyrical style. Beethoven became known for integrating the
distinct sections of sonata allegro form. Cleverly, he has material from the
opening four bars of the introduction recur in the exposition, development and
coda.
He opens the charming
sonata-form Adagio cantabile with a singing theme in the clarinet,
which then changes to counterpoint during the violin repetition. Listen for the
horn solo and its dramatic modulation near the end of the development,
announcing the recap and the return of the clarinet's opening theme. While
Mozart and others often used two minuets in their serenades, Beethoven looks
ahead with both a Minuet (3rd movement) and a lively
19th-century Scherzo for the fifth movement. In between,
Beethoven's desire for structural innovation appears in the 4th-movement
Andante theme and variations. Not content with the usual variations
in melody, he concludes that music with another extensive coda. After a
colorful, minor-mode introduction, Beethoven shares with us a high-spirited
Presto ending, complete with horn calls.
