Saturday, September 21, 2024
– 7:30pm –
– “Beethoven and Friends” forms the general outline of this season’s concerts. We begin with his Symphony No. 1, premiered at the turn of the 19th century. During that same decade, Étienne Nicolas Méhul was writing in France. We open with the overture to his opera Joseph. Moving a century ahead, we include a Concerto Grosso by Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch for strings with piano obbligato.
Due to construction at Clinton High School, this concert will be at Zion Lutheran Church.
Please enjoy the following Program Notes regarding this concert:
Etienne-Nicolas Mehul, 1763-1817
Born June 22, 1763 in Givet, France, Etienne-Nicolas Mehul was a composer who influenced
the development of French opera and became one of the principal composers under revolution
and empire and a favorite of Napoleon. Although largely unknown to modern audiences, he was
lauded by composers such as Berlioz and Wagner as a mentor and innovator and is considered
by some to be as important as Beethoven in moving music into the Romantic Age.
Between 1787 and 1822, he composed more than 40 operas, produced mainly by the
Opera-Comique in Paris. His first opera to be performed, Euphrosine, premiered in 1790 as an
immense success and garnered him renown as a new talent to be watched. During the French
Revolution, Mehul composed a number of patriotic songs and propaganda pieces demanding
great choral and orchestral resources, the most famous of which is Chant du depart, a rousing
follow-up to La Marseillaise commissioned by the ruling National Convention. Rewarded by
becoming the first composer named to the Institut de France in 1795, he was also honored as
one of the first Frenchmen awarded Napoleon’s Legion d’honneur.
Mehul’s operatic success was not as great in the first decade of the 1800s, although works
such as Joseph (1807j became famous abroad, particularly in Germany. Despite his close
alliance with Napoleon, his public standing survived the transition to the Bourbon Restoration,
but worsening tuberculosis led to his death in 1817. He is regarded for his bold sense of
harmony and original gifts as a dramatist and orchestrator. His operas emphasized the
orchestra’s role; frequently, he chose a theme that was developed symphonically as the
dramatic action progressed.
Joseph
First performed in Paris in 1807, Joseph en Egypte is an opera-comique in three acts based
on the biblical story of Joseph and his brothers from the book of Genesis.
With librettist Alexandre Duval, he may have been trying to exploit the contemporary vogue for
operas on religious themes and the French fascination for Egypt after Napoleon’s expedition
there in 1798.
Joseph’s simple Old Testament story of betrayal and forgiveness was a critical success and
in 1810 it was awarded a prize for the best piece staged by the Opera-Comique in the previous
decade. Nevertheless, it only ran for a few weeks after the premiere, and later was more
favorably received in Italy, Belgium and Germany. The opera remained a favorite of composers
such as Wagner, Weber, Berlioz and Cherubini who considered Mehul a mentor and pioneer in
the use of thematic transformation.
Opening in Egypt after Joseph has already become a prominent minister, the overture
showcases Mehul’s skillful manipulation of melodic ideas creating an atmosphere of antiquity.
All of the characters in the story are written for male voice, giving the score a robust, dark
sound. Mixing musical numbers with spoken dialogue, it has been catalogued as an opera en
prose. In 1989 there was a new French production of Joseph in Paris to mark the bicentennial of
the French Revolution.
Ernest Bloch, 1880-1959
Ernest Bloch has been regarded as one of the most original composers of the 20th
century. A lesser-known composer from the early 1900s, his music was regularly performed in
his lifetime and reflected Jewish cultural and liturgical themes as well as European post-
Romantic traditions. He is particularly beloved of string players, for whom he wrote numerous
and wonderful pieces.
Born in Geneva in 1880, the son of a clock maker, Bloch spent a good part of his creative life
in America, studied violin and composition in Switzerland, Belgium, France and Germany, then
returned to Geneva where he entered the family business as a bookkeeper. Trying to establish
a conducting career, Bloch visited the United States in 1916 to conduct a tour of the Maud Allan
dance company. When the tour failed and he was stranded, he accepted a position teaching
theory and composition at the newly-formed David Mannes College of Music in New York.
In the following years Bloch established and maintained an important career as an educator,
founding the Cleveland Institute of Music, and then directing the San Francisco Conservatory.
He spent most of the 1930s composing and performing his music in Switzerland, returning to
the US in 1940 to teach at Berkeley until his retirement.
Bloch’s music is at once modern, yet accessible, often reflecting his Jewish heritage. In the
first decades of the 20th century, composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg imagined
changes as revolutionary as those occurring in European politics. It became fashionable to
dismiss traditional harmony and classical forms for atonal serialism. Bloch maintained that new
and exciting music could evolve not by throwing out the old, but by combining aspects of various
musical techniques.
Concerto Grosso No. 1
The Concerto Grosso is scored for string orchestra with a piano obbligato and was
composed in 1925 as Bloch was finishing up his directorship at the Cleveland Institute. Although
much of his music was inspired by Old Testament subjects and traditional Jewish life, Concerto
Grosso is a purely secular expression. Typical of a Baroque concerto, the movements are
structured around a ritonello that recurs throughout. Italian for “little return”, ritonello was first
seen in 14th century madrigals, and is characterized by recurring passages.
The first Allegro movement serves as an Introduction, opening with a robust series of chords
in the Dorian mode, one of Bloch’s favorite keys. Similar to a minor key, the Dorian is less sad
and more triumphant, “darkness with a hint of light”. The chords give way to melodic figures, the
meter constantly alternating between 4 beats and 2.
The second movement, Dirge, is much longer, less sounding like a tragic funeral but with more
of a dark, somber take. The third movement is a fun romp through two rustic dances
interspersed with pastorale sections, breaking away from the traditional Baroque prototype. The
final Fugue is serious and intense as Bloch out-Bachs Bach, presenting a fugue updated for
20th century ears. Solo strings, section strings, and piano take turns sharing musical textures as
a joyous middle section introduces another fugue. The returning theme from the Prelude brings
the piece to a joyously triumphant conclusion.
Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827
Long recognized as one of the greatest composers of Western classical music,
Ludwig van Beethoven fought the early onset of deafness to produce over 700 works,
including 9 symphonies, 35 piano sonatas and 16 string quartets. Popularly, he
personifies the idea of the creative genius struggling against convention and his own
physical limitations to push the boundaries of form and expression.
Born in Bonn, Germany in 1770, his musical talent was recognized early, and by the
age of 9 his teacher proclaimed that Beethoven “ would surely become a second
Wolfgang Mozart”. Beethoven grew up knowing and hearing the symphonies of Haydn
and Mozart, so it was not surprising that his first symphonies bore many of the
hallmarks of their classical style and he was hailed as their successor and the voice of
the future. His nine completed symphonies span the years 1800 to 1824, each one
distinctive in character and all innovative in different ways.
Symphony No. 1 in C Major
Beethoven wrote his First Symphony in the final years of the 18th century and premiered it in
the opening years of the 19th, timing befitting the shift from the Classical to the Romantic era.
The work bears the unmistakable signs of symphonic tradition established by his most influential
predecessors, Mozart and Haydn. Compared to his later revolutionary symphonies, the First
follows the typical classical forms, yet some sudden and unexpected shifts in tonality and
instrumentation point to Beethoven’s later ingenuity.
The Symphony No. 1 premiered on April 2, 1800 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, which the
composer had rented to promote his own music. Ironically, just as he was entering this
successful phase in his career, he was told his hearing problem was incurable and he even
considered suicide. Critics felt it displayed “Great artistry, innovation, and a wealth of ideas”,
although they felt Beethoven’s audacious addition of woodwinds a bit too much like music for
band, not orchestra. Other innovations include the use of timpani and an animated, relentless
pace in a movement traditionally poised, formal and dance-like.
Winds are prominent with opening chords in the first movement with pizzicato
accompaniment from the strings. Proceeding in a classical direction, the lyrical movement still
surprises with more dynamic contrasts and harmonic colorations than usual. The second
movement, Andante cantabile con moto, follows a simple theme as hushed trumpets and drums
add delicate color. Beethoven’s third movement, Menuetto is a far cry from the traditional stately
dance, rushing headlong into a sprightly scherzo, revealing his most prominent, individual voice.
Like the first movement, Beethoven teases his audience with a slow beginning before taking off
in an exciting Allegro molto e vivace. Violins conclude in high spirits starting softly and scaling
the heights into louder dynamics, dramatic and novel for the time. Also present is another
novelty: the General Pause, sudden cessation of all sound and then almost immediate re-entry
into high-octane movement.
Notes compiled by Karin Anderson-Sweet