Saturday, November 2, 2024
– 7:30pm –

Centennial Auditorium – Sterling High School

– The Symphony No. 2 by Beethoven anchors this annual concert in Sterling’s Centennial Auditorium. The new discovery on this concert is an overture by Spanish Basque composer Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga. Nicknamed “the Spanish Mozart,” he was a child prodigy and accomplished composer who died young. The program is completed with a romantic overture by Mendelssohn in tribute to a mermaid, The Fair Melusine.

Let us do the driving! In partnership with Community State Bank, we offer a bus from Clinton, through Fulton and Morrison to the concert in Sterling. Space is limited. Make a reservation by calling hosts Kathy and Dan at 563-503-4886.

Program Notes

Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga (1806-1826)
Dead before his 20th birthday, Arriaga’s shortened life is one of Western music’s
most tragic stories. Nicknamed “the Spanish Mozart”, he was born on his namesake’s
birthday, and shared his prodigious talent at both keyboard and composition. Arriaga
was born in Bilbao, Spain into a Basque family who encouraged his artistic talents. At
11 he started composing major chamber, orchestral and choral works, most remarkably
a two-act opera “Los Esclavos Felices” written at the age of 13 and performed
successfully in Bilbao. At 16 he was sent to study at the Paris Conservatoire where the
director praised him as “music itself” and awarded him prizes for counterpoint and
fugue. Absorbing all principles of harmony in only 3 months, he went on to become the
youngest professor ever appointed at the Conservatoire at age 18.
Arriaga’s feverish creativity seemed to have undermined his health and he died in
Paris 10 days short of his 20th birthday. Although never identified, a lung infection,
probably tuberculosis, and exhaustion undoubtedly led to his early demise. He was
buried in a communal grave in Montmartre and his works remained largely unknown for
the next 100 years. More recently, his works are now being published, although some
remain lost. Three excellent string quartets and the powerful “Symphony in D” have
been recorded, but, sadly, his opera remains in only a few fragments.


Overture in D Major
Arriaga’s music is known for its exceptional fluency, power and technique. Although
a contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, his style reverts to earlier classical
composers. His only symphony, the D Major, is unique in both its structure and its
orchestration, a blend of neo-classicism and romantic qualities.
His Overture in D Major follows a classical sonata form, beginning with a series of
emphatic chords followed by a slow, gentle adagio. The main allegro begins with a
vigorous and rhythmic theme played by the strings. A second pastoral theme is
introduced by the flute over the col legno (tapping of the strings with the wood of the
bow), followed by a brief but richly varied development, surprisingly accomplished for
such a young composer. After a recapitulation of the main themes, the piece closes with
a potent and powerful coda.


Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Born in 1809, Felix Mendelssohn was a German composer, pianist, conductor and
teacher, one of the most celebrated figures of the early Romantic period. Although
largely observing Classical models in his work, Mendelssohn moved into key aspects of
Romanticism, the artistic movement that exalted emotion and imagination over rigid
forms and tradition.
An extremely precocious composer, he wrote numerous works during his boyhood,
including 5 operas, 11 symphonies and various shorter compositions. He made his first
public appearance in Berlin at age 9. Studying in Paris, by age 16 he reached full
stature as a composer with Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream, and had also
become active as a conductor. Founding the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, he put
Leipzig on the map as the musical center of Germany.
Worn out by his strenuous career and the death of his beloved sister and lifelong
inspiration, Fanny, he died in 1847 at the age of only 38, one of the first great 19th
century Romantic composers.


Marchen von der Schopenhauer Melusine
Mendelssohn’s 1833 concert overture, The Fair Melusine, was inspired by a popular
legend from medieval European folklore. Melusine was a water sprite cursed to turn into
a serpent from the waist down for one day every week. She fatefully agrees to marry a
knight and live in the human world on the condition that he must not seek her out on her
“serpent day”. Of course, human nature prevails, the knight breaks his promise and she
returns to the water for eternity.
Mendelssohn was very fond of this work, and made a point of saying his overture did
not represent a telling of the story, but rather a reflection of its themes and moods.
The overture begins with gently rippling currents suggesting a sense of the sunny,
blissful serenity of Melusine’s watery home, a flowing motif introduced by the clarinet.
Forty years later, this burbling motif was souped up by Wagner to represent the Rhine
river in his Ring Cycle, and has become the cliched manifestation of anything aquatic in
countless movies. Soon, this fluid dreamscape takes an abrupt turn towards stormy
passion, a sense of two worlds colliding. The drama comes to a sudden end as the final
bars sink into the watery depths.


Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Beethoven began writing his Symphony No. 2 in D Major during one of the most
productive yet depressed periods of his life. By the beginning of the 1800s, a growing
deterioration in his hearing was causing a major crisis for him. A prominent Viennese
physician urged him to move to the village Heiligenstadt where he could rest and bathe
in its curative spa. But his hearing continued to fade, and the isolation contributed to his
increasing despondency. Documentary evidence of his complete despair, even
contemplation of suicide, exists in his famous Heiligenstadt Testament, yet his
remarkable resolve turns to triumph and continued composing. “For some time now my
physical strength has been increasing more and more, and therefore my mental powers
also…I will seize Fate by the throat; it shall not crush me completely,” he writes. The
resulting Symphony No. 2 generates a cheerful enthusiasm, demonstrating the
composer’s resolve to seize the day despite tragic obstacles. Composer Hector Berlioz
later commented, “Everything in this symphony smiles!”


Symphony No. 2 in D Major
The symphony begins darkly enough, moving to D minor midway through the
introduction, setting in motion Beethoven’s dramatic use of contrasts and colorful
instrumental treatment, roaring to a climax over a rising chromatic bass line. The
expansive Larghetto movement takes on the air of a nocturnal serenade, yet transitions
into off-beat and forte crashes in the following Scherzo, reflecting the sense of humor
Beethoven’s contemporaries often attributed to him. The joking spirit carries over into the
powerful Allegro molto finale, enlivened with sudden outbursts and rhythmic surprises. It
ends with a monster coda on the heels of unaccompanied violins, described by one
critic as “a wounded dragon, raging and striking in vain”. In this remarkable work,
Beethoven clearly expends his incredible energy to overcome both personal and
musical boundaries.

Notes compiled by Karin Anderson-Sweet