Clinton Symphony Orchestra

Join us as the Clinton Symphony Orchestra kicks off their 66th season on Saturday, September 21 at 7:30 pm. The concert, entitled “From the Countryside” will take place in the Centennial Auditorium of Sterling High School in Illinois. More information about the concert may be found here. A featured piece on the concert is Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Please enjoy the following program notes:

Aaron Copland—Appalachian Spring

When Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was born at the turn of the twentieth century, the one piece of serious music considered to be “American” was written by a Czech composer. As head of the newly-founded New York Conservatory of Music, Antonín Dvorak had composed a symphony to illustrate to his students—and to America’s classical composers—how to incorporate native American influences into their compositions, so that their works were reflective of American culture rather than the European trends of Wagner and Brahms.

Dvorak’s Symphony No 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” was viewed by many as incorporating slave melodies and Native American music into, particularly, the second and third movements, respectively. Sensitive to any suggestion that he might have copied verbatim from native musical sources, Dvorak vehemently denied doing so, stating that he only sought to capture the essence of the American spirit in his work. Long after his American sojourn, he explained to one music journal writer

…I am sending you Kretschmar’s analysis of the Symphony [No 9], but the nonsense-that I made use of “Indian” and American motifs leave out, because it is a lie, I only sought to write in the spirit of these American folk-melodies.

Only after World War I did American composers take seriously the task of presenting idiosyncratic American music to world audiences. The most notable instances was Broadway composer George Gershwin’s venture into classical music with his jazz-infused scores: Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Piano Concerto in F (1925), and An American in Paris (1928).

Fresh from his studies in Europe, Aaron Copland sought in his early works in the 1920s and ‘30s to fashion a music that truly embraced the singularities of a unique American tradition in subjects and tonalities. His first attempts were, like Gershwin’s, jazz-inspired, but had negligible impact in forwarding his career. However, when he turned his considerable skills to western-themed subjects, to writing in his “vernacular style”, as he put it, he struck a chord with critics and the public that brought him broad recognition. His two notable ballets of that period were Billy the Kid (1939) and Rodeo (1942), both for the Martha Graham Dance Company and funded by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation.

Copland began working on Appalachian Spring in late 1942, following the success of Rodeo; again, the score was for the Graham Dance group and commissioned by the Coolidge Foundation. His fee was a quite generous five-hundred dollars.

When he started composing for the ballet, Copland had no clear idea of what the story concept was. According to the composer, Graham gave him only the barest of hints, “the legend of American living.” Happily, Copland’s inspiration arrived in the form of a book by Edward Deming Andrews, The Gift to be Simple—Songs, Dances and Rituals of the American Shakers. Copland stated that the book’s title song jumped out to him immediately. But his Ballet for Martha, stressed the characteristics of Graham herself:

I was thinking primarily about Martha and her unique choreographic style, which I knew well. There’s something prim and restrained, simple yet strong, about her which one tends to think of as American. Appalachian Spring would never have existed without her special personality. The music reflects…the unique quality of a human being, an American landscape and a way of feeling.

The ballet is set in the Pennsylvania countryside during the early nineteenth century. The bride-to-be and her future husband along with their neighbors are celebrating the construction of the couple’s new farmhouse. The young couple depict the joy and apprehension that await them, while the neighbors attempt to moderate their naive expectations with anecdotes of human frailty and fate. But the couple end the celebration in the quiet and calm of a new resolve.

Copland made liberal use of the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”, composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Bracket. Copland later learned to his chagrin that the Shakers had never resided in the part of Pennsylvania referenced in the ballet. The title of the ballet was chosen by Graham shortly before its premiere, suggested by a Hart Crane poem, “The Dance,” from his book The Bridge.

Copland’s original orchestration of thirteen instruments was determined by the venue for the ballet—the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.:

There simply wasn’t room for any more instruments in that little pit in front of the stage, so there could be no question of scoring the ballet for a larger orchestra.

The ballet was first performed at a concert on October 30,1944, at the Coolidge

Auditorium in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. with Graham in the lead role of the bride, as part of a festival of chamber music celebrating Mrs Coolidge’s eightieth birthday. The suite that Copland subsequently prepared in 1945 is a reworked version of the original, scored for full orchestra.

In total, four versions of Appalachian Spring exist in performing editions, dating from 1944 (13-player complete), 1945 (orchestral suite), 1954 (orchestral complete) and 1972 (13-player suite).

Appalachian Spring received the Pulitzer Prize for music as well as the Music Critics Circle of New York Award for the outstanding theatrical work of the 1944-45 season.

Program notes are graciously written by William Driver.

The Clinton Symphony Orchestra will be in concert at 7:30 pm on Saturday, April 27. Our featured guest will be pianist Lorraine Min. The concert will open with Franz Shebert’s Overture to Rosamunde. Please enjoy the following program notes written by William Driver.

Schubert – Rosamunde

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828) wrote the incidental music to the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress, for a friend Helmina von Chézy. Already ridiculed for her libretto to Carl Maria Weber’s Euryanthe, the Viennese critics likewise derided Chézy for the ineptness of her writing. The romantic drama made it through two performances with the only saving graces being the incidental music that Schubert composed for the venture. Despite the success of the music, Schubert saw little merit in arranging a suite from the music, but instead used some of the score in other works such as a string quartet.

Bits and pieces of the original score were published as independent works over the years, but a unified version of the complete incidental music (Gesammtausgabe) was not made available until after the discovery of the original manuscript by Arthur Sullivan and George Grove in a closet in Vienna in 1867. Breitkopf & Härtel issued the completed score in 1891.

Schubert wrote no specific overture for Rosamunde. Instead he dusted off an overture to his unperformed 1820 opera Alfonso und Estrella for the opening night of the play, but when the Rosamunde manuscript was published in 1891 as Op. 26, it was not with the Alfonso und Estrella Overture, which had actually introduced the play in the theater, but with a still earlier one which Schubert had composed in 1820 for a different play by a different writer, called The Magic Harp.

Thus, the Overture to Rosamunde may be said to have served a double duty for two independent works.

In addition to the performance of Lorraine Minn, the Clinton Symphony will present Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor. The concert is at 7:30 pm on Saturday, April 27, and will take place at the Clinton High School’s Vernon Cook Theater.

Please enjoy the program notes for this piece, written for us by William Driver.

Antonin Dvořák

If one keeps in mind the few face-to-face meetings that Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) and Johannes Brahms actually had in the nearly two decades of their friendship, then it is difficult to understand the degree of affection the two had for each other. They were in every way the opposite in temperament. Brahms was the intellectual, often brusque composer of complex, penetrating music that stimulated the brain; Dvořák, on the other hand, was the more outgoing, more approachable composer of easily comprehended music that moved the heart. Brahms was disinclined to offer music advice or review the work of the younger composers he associated with in Vienna, such as Karl Goldmark, Hans Rott, and Hugo Wolf, but he appeared eager to assist Dvořák in the preparation and publication of his works.

In one early correspondence, the older composer was quite blunt in his assessment of Dvořák’s hasty treatment of his music notations:

…I would give a good deal to be able to discuss individual points with you personally. You write somewhat hurriedly. When you are filling in the numerous missing sharps, flats and naturals, then it would be good to look a little more closely at the notes themselves and at the voice parts etc.

Brahms was not a father-figure to Dvořák, but he did act as the younger composer’s bigger brother. Dvořák would often send his manuscripts to Brahms to proofread and amend, and Brahms would then forward the works to the publisher Simrock. This was true even when Dvořák was in the United States as director of the New York Conservatory of Music of America from 1893 through 1895. Brahms reviewed and polished Dvořák’s major works from the New World: String Quartet,String Quintet and the Cello Concerto, for instance. The Cello Concerto so enchanted Brahms that he uttered the comment that if he had known a cello concerto could have been written like Dvořák’s, “I would have written it myself.”

Following an enthusiastic performance of the Slavonic Rhapsody No 3 by the Vienna Philharmonic in November 1879, conductor Hans Richter commissioned Dvořák to write a symphony for the following concert season. Bear in mind that Dvořák had already composed five symphonies, yet none had stirred any interest outside his native Prague. He sought out his mentor for advice on composing a symphony that would grab the attention of audience and critics alike in a sophisticated cosmopolitan capital such as a Vienna or a London. Brahms gave advice, advice which the Czech composer followed almost to the letter: Write the symphony in clearly recognizable symphonic form (i.e., follow the Beethoven or German model), avoid overuse of provincial rhythms and melodies, and keep a ‘serious’ tone about the overall work.

Dvořák made sure this new symphony would meet the standards laid down by Brahms. In fact, he took the extraordinary step and modeled his Sixth Symphony on a work of the master himself – more specifically to the latest Brahms Symphony No 2. The framework Dvořák devised proved so successful that he used it as the basic guide for his last three symphonies.

In 1884, the London Philharmonic commissioned a new symphony from Dvořák.

Dvořák began work on his Symphony No 7 in D minor immediately on receiving the commission. On the first page of the manuscript, he cryptically wrote that “This main theme occurred to me upon the arrival at the station of the … train from Pest in 1884.” The London premiere in April 1885 was one of the great triumphs of Dvořák’s career, and critics since have often regarded his Seventh as his greatest symphony. The symphony would not be performed by the Vienna Philharmonic until 1887, when it was greeted with a cool reception. Writing to Dvořák, the conductor Hans Richter phrased things euphemistically: “Your Scherzo capriccioso [a lighter, less serious work] went down well in Vienna; unfortunately, the symphony [No. 7] was not appreciated as much as I had hoped, or anticipated, given the flawless performance from the Philharmonic: our Philharmonic audiences are often, well, peculiar, to say the least!” Indeed, it would take several more years for Dvořák to finally win acceptance from the Viennese public.

Despite the London success of the symphony, the publication of the Symphony No 7 in D minor was a hardship for Dvořák. Fritz Simrock, Dvořák’s German publisher, seemed to relish frustrating the composer and brought up several conditions that Dvořák had to meet to insure publication. First, Simrock demanded a piano duet arrangement be published at the same time as the symphony. The publisher insisted that the score be published in German only and Dvořák’s name ‘Antonin’ be in the German variation of ‘Anton’. Finally, Dvořák was told that the dedication to the London Philharmonic Society would have to be omitted. To add to the troubling negotiations, Dvořák asked Simrock for an advance:

I have a lot of expense with my garden, and my potato crop isn’t very good.

Too, Dvořák insisted that he be paid commiserate with other composers – he wanted double the three thousand Marks that Simrock offered. Only when Dvořák threatened to sell the rights to another publisher did Simrock bow to the composer’s wishes of six thousand Marks.