Gazebo Dances
John Corigliano
b. New York, N.Y. / February 16, 1938
John Corigliano is one of the finest and most widely recognized American composers. Among the dozens of citations, doctorates, and other honors he has received, are included all of the most important music awards: several Grammy’s, a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 2 (2001), a Grawemeyer for his Symphony No. 1 (1991), and an Academy Award for his score to François Girard’s 1997 film The Red Violin. One of the few living composers to have a string quartet named after him, Corigliano’s work has been performed by some of the most visible orchestras, soloists and chamber musicians in the world, and recorded on the Sony, RCA, BMG, Telarc, Erato, Ondine, New World, and CRI labels.
The composer writes, "Gazebo Dances was originally written as a set of four-hand piano pieces dedicated to certain of my pianist friends. I later arranged the suite for orchestra and for concert band, and it is from the latter version that the title is drawn. The title, Gazebo Dances, was suggested by the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts are given on summer evenings. The delights of that sort of entertainment are portrayed in this set of dances, which begins with a Rossini-like Overture, followed by a rather peg-legged Waltz, a long-lined Adagio, and a bouncy Tarantella.
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Sergei Rachmaninoff
b. Oneg, Russia / March 20, 1873
d. Beverly Hills, Calif. / March 28, 1943
After Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4 drew a frosty reception, he determined to make his next (and as it turned out, final) work for piano and orchestra more approachable. As other composers have done (including Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Blacher, Lutoslawski, and Lloyd Webber), he turned for inspiration to the last of violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin.
He composed Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – a set of two dozen variations on Caprice No. 24 – in a fever of inspiration between July and August, 1934 at his summer residence, a villa on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. The premiere took place in Baltimore on November 7, with the composer as piano soloist and Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. It won a huge success, by far the greatest of Rachmaninoff’s latter-day works.
It begins playfully, presenting not the theme itself, but the first variation. Aptly, it is the violins which perform Paganini’s catchy tune. In the seventh variation, Rachmaninoff introduces the Dies irae (Day of Wrath). This somber theme, drawn from the medieval plainchant Mass for the Dead, portrays the fearsome day of final judgement. Berlioz had used it in the nightmarish finale of Symphonie fantastique and Liszt as the basis of his Totentanz (Dance of Death). Rachmaninoff, for reasons he never explained, quoted it in not only here, but in numerous works composed throughout his career.
The rhapsody’s emotional climax arrives in the eighteenth variation. It is lyrical, ultimately fervent outpouring of emotion, ingeniously based on a simple inversion of the beginning of Paganini’s theme. Across the remaining six variations, Rachmaninoff builds wave upon wave of increasing excitement, crowned by a thunderous statement of the Dies irae in the brass. But it is the soloist who has the final word, banishing the storm of sound and fury with a sardonic quip from Paganini’s ghost.
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, "Unfinished," D. 759
Franz Schubert
b. Vienna, Austria / January 31, 1797
d. Vienna / November 19, 1828
Schubert composed this haunting work during the autumn of 1822, a time of great turbulence in his life. Not only had he been seriously ill, he was also undergoing a major shift in creative direction. This symphony reflects both his distressing personal circumstances and his problematic efforts to broaden and deepen his art. It is by far his most dramatic and soul-searching orchestral creation.
He completed the first two movements in every detail. After composing and partially orchestrating sketches for a third movement, a scherzo, he set the symphony aside, composed the “Wanderer” Fantasy for piano solo, and appears never to have returned to the symphony again. Several theories have been advanced to explain this. One suggests that Schubert came to feel that the two finished sections communicate everything he wished to say at the time. The existence of the sketches for the scherzo, however makes this unlikely. Another is that he found the sketches so inferior to the first two movements that he stopped working, blocked by creative uncertainty. The most probable explanation is a simple one: something interrupted him. When he had dealt with that situation, numerous other, more pressing and/or interesting projects kept him from returning to the symphony. Eventually, he saw no further point in doing so.
He considered the two completed movements a suitable gift to the Styrian Musical Society of Graz, to thank them for an honorary membership. He gave the music to a friend, Josef Huttenbrenner, to pass along to Josef’s brother Anselm, the society’s artistic director. Instead of scheduling the symphony for performance, Anselm kept it to himself, possibly out of jealousy toward Schubert, whose musical gifts far surpassed his own.
Forty-three years passed before conductor Johann Herbeck heard about the piece from Josef Huttenbrenner. He traveled to Graz to persuade Anselm to part with it (which he managed to do only through a promise to conduct one of Anselm’s orchestral works). Herbeck led the premiere, in Vienna, on December 17, 1865, finally bringing this great work to the public, who has adored it ever since.
In the South (Alassio), Op. 50
Sir Edward Elgar
b. Broadheath, England / June 2, 1857
d. Worcester, England / February 23, 1934
In November 1903, Elgar and his wife embarked upon a two-month holiday in the town of Alassio on the Italian Riviera. This exuberant and richly scored overture presents his impressions of the region and its history. He conducted the premiere in London during March 1904. Precise inspiration came during an afternoon stroll near Alassio: “I was by the side of an old Roman way. A peasant stood by an old ruin and in a flash it all came to me – the conflict of armies in that very spot long ago, where now I stood – the contrast of the ruin and the shepherd.”
The exultant opening theme was originally inspired by his friend George Robertson Sinclair’s bulldog Dan, previously immortalized in the “Enigma” Variations. Next comes a gentle portrait of “a shepherd with his flock straying about the ruins of the old church – he piping softly & reedily and occasionally singing.” This is followed by a massive, menacing march-like section that Elgar intended to portray “the relentless and domineering forces of the ancient day, and to give a sound-picture of the strife and wars, the ‘drums and tramplings’ of a later time.” The loveliest sort of contrast follows in a nocturne-like interlude. The theme, inspired by Neapolitan song, is introduced by solo viola. Numerous requests led to its separate publication under the title In Moonlight. Elgar develops all the main themes and crowns them with a truly grandiose conclusion.
© 2010 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
