Symphony No. 49 in F minor, “La Passione”
Joseph Haydn
b. Rohrau, Lower Austria / March 31, 1732
d. Vienna, Austria / May 31, 1809
Haydn composed his first 15 or so symphonies during the three-year period he spent with his first employer, Bohemian nobleman Count Karl Joseph Franz von Morzin. In 1761, after Count Morzin disbanded his orchestra due to financial difficulties, Haydn took up the position of Vice-Kapellmeister to the even wealthier and more influential Esterházy family. His numerous responsibilities included composing operas, symphonies, chamber, and vocal music and maintaining the court orchestra and library. Having a superb orchestra to work with provided a crucial tool in his quest to expand the contents and meaning of the symphony. What more could a composer ask than to have his new pieces played immediately by a crack ensemble?
Between approximately 1768 and 1772, he composed a number of urgent, dramatic works in minor keys, this Symphony among them. This is often referred to as his Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period, mirroring an emotionally similar and slightly later movement in German literature.
Symphony No. 49 (1768) may possess links to Easter. Its nickname, which was applied anonymously at a later date, has several other possible sources, including an origin in incidental music for a stage drama, or simply its deeply serious character. Its sequence of movements is unusual. It opens with a dark, grieving slow section, one that the eminent Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon feels may suggest “the winding line of penitents before the Cross.” Haydn follows it with three quick movements. For maximum effectiveness and to skirt any possibility of monotony, he places the stately Minuet (its gentle central Trio is the symphony’s sole music in a major key) between two brisk, fiercely dramatic movements.
Totentanz (Dance of Death) for piano and orchestra
Franz Liszt
b. Raiding, Hungary / October 22, 1811
d. Bayreuth, Germany / July 31, 1886
Like many artists of his era, Liszt held a deep fascination for the macabre. He created numerous works in a sinister vein, such as his Mephisto Waltzes, Dante Sonata and Faust Symphony. Totentanz is perhaps his finest work in this mode, as well as his final, most tightly constructed, and stylistically advanced piece for piano and orchestra. In its paradoxical combination of the diabolical and the spiritual – a fiery virtuoso work on the most solemn of liturgical subjects – it is entirely representative, both of its composer and its era.
He began writing it in 1839. The previous year he had viewed, in Pisa, Italy, The Triumph of Death, a fourteenth-century century fresco that boldly depicts the blessings of heaven and the torments of the damned. The resulting composition (final revision, 1859) consists of atmospheric, highly demanding variations on the Dies irae (Day of Wrath). This forbidding theme, drawn from the medieval Latin Mass for the Dead, portrays the fearsome day of the final judgment. It has cast a spell of fascination on several composers. Hector Berlioz had featured it in the Finale of his Symphonie fantastique (1830). Liszt attended the premiere of that work with Berlioz and later transcribed the entire Symphony for piano solo. He clearly felt, however, that the musical possibilities of the Dies irae had yet to be explored fully. So did Sergei Rachmaninoff, who later quoted it in several compositions, including The Isle of the Dead, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Symphonic Dances. The premiere of Totentanz was given in 1865 in The Hague, Netherlands by pianist Hans von Bülow (husband to Liszt’s daughter Cosima until she left him for Richard Wagner).
The Dies irae theme appears immediately on the trombones, over the funereal tread of the solo piano. Much of what follows is indeed demonic and dramatic, with plentiful keyboard pyrotechnics, startling shifts in dynamics, and ghoulish use of low-voiced orchestral instruments. Yet Liszt doesn’t neglect the heavenly side of his inspiration. Perhaps indicating that he has more on his mind than a straightforward, black-and-white contrast of good and evil, he interweaves substantial passages of lyricism and meditation, as well as flourishes of dark humor.
Concerto for Orchestra
Béla Bartók
b. Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary / March 25, 1881
d. New York, N.Y. / September 26, 1945
In 1940, to avoid being trapped in his native Hungary by the advancing Nazi forces, Bartók emigrated to the United States. Friends had secured him a job cataloguing Columbia University’s collection of folk songs from Eastern Europe. That position was eventually terminated, and the composer’s continuing poor health made it impossible for him to earn money by continuing his career as a piano soloist. Bartók found himself virtually destitute, but his proud nature would not allow him to accept anything resembling charity.
Two old friends came to his rescue. Violinist Joseph Szigeti and conductor Fritz Reiner persuaded Serge Koussevitzky, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to commission a new work from Bartók. The composer would only accept half the fee in advance, fearing that he would not live to complete the requested piece. Bartók composed the Concerto for Orchestra between August and October 1943. Its creation gave his spirits a much needed boost, as did the highly successful premiere, which Koussevitzky conducted on December 1, 1944.
“The title Concerto for this symphony-like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat single instruments or groups in a concertante or soloist manner,” Bartók explained. “The general mood represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.”
The first movement opens with an emotionally clouded introduction, then plunges into a restless, thrusting principal section. A powerful climax spotlighting the brass leads to a defiant close. The Concerto’s two scherzo-like movements are its most unique features. The first, Game of the Pairs, showcases the poker-faced side of Bartók’s sense of humor. Two bassoons introduce the droll principal theme. Variations on it are then played in turn by pairs of oboes, clarinets, flutes, and trumpets. A solemn brass chorale provides contrast, before the game resumes its course. The Concerto’s emotional heart lies in the following Elegy. After woodwinds and harp have set the ethereal mood, Bartók gradually builds a searing central climax. He brings this section full circle by ending it as calmly and forlornly as it began.
The second Scherzo, Interrupted Intermezzo, is less subtle but just as amusing as the first. The oboe introduces the cheeky first subject, followed by a warm, folksy tune on the strings. A dance like rhythm begins to insinuate itself, leading to the “interruption” proper, a banal idea first heard on the clarinet. Bartók took it from the opening movement of Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. This piece had recently been smuggled out of Russia past the Nazi blockade. It was being broadcast relentlessly, more as a gesture of political support than for musical reasons. Bartók came to dislike it intensely, and he took this opportunity to thumb his nose at it.
A grand flourish by the horns introduces the concerto’s exuberant Finale. The strings execute swirling, moto perpetuo figurations, intertwined with heroic brass fanfares and stamping Hungarian dance rhythms.
© 2008 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
