Strauss, Bruch, Tanaka & Strauss

Don Juan, Op. 20
Richard Strauss
b. Munich, Germany / June 11, 1864
d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany / September 8, 1949

Don Juan is Strauss’ second tone poem, written immediately after the completion of Macbeth. By the time he put the finishing touches on it, he had taken up the position of assistant conductor at the opera house in Weimar, Germany. Naturally he planned to perform Don Juan there, but his wish nearly came to grief when the members of the orchestra balked at the high technical demands it placed on them. One of them cried out during a rehearsal, “Good God, in what way have we sinned that you should send us this scourge!” Strauss remained calm throughout the preparations. At one point he told them, “I would ask those of you who are married, to play as if you were engaged, and all will be well.” The sensationally successful premiere on November 11, 1889, and the many other performances which quickly followed, catapulted the 25-year-old genius into the world’s musical spotlight.

Inspiration for Don Juan lay in dramatic verses written in 1844 by Austrian author Nicolaus Lenau. Reflecting the growing psychological and moral complexity of the time, Lenau depicted Don Juan as more than simply the heartless, high-born rake of earlier treatments. Lenau made him something of a philosopher, too, seeking through his many conquests the “ideal woman.” Disillusioned and weary of his aimless, unsatisfying life, this Don Juan allows himself to be killed in a duel. Whether one chooses to approach Strauss’ Don Juan as dramatic narrative or absolute music, it has much to commend it. It overflows with energy and ardent emotions, and demonstrates that Strauss’ command of the orchestra had already reached a masterly level.

Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46
Max Bruch           
b. Cologne, Germany / January 6, 1838
d. Berlin, Germany / October 2, 1920

Concert and operatic music based on folk melodies became hugely popular in the mid-nineteenth century. Nationalism even inspired composers to set folk music from other lands. Bruch is a prime example. In addition to the Scottish Fantasy, he created works derived from Swedish, Irish, Russian, and Welsh materials. “As a rule, a good folk tune is more valuable than 200 created works of art,” he wrote. “I would never have come to anything in this world if I had not, since my twenty-fourth year, studied the folk music of all nations with seriousness, perseverance, and unending interest. There is nothing to compare with the feeling, power, originality and beauty of the folk song...This is the route one should now take – here is the salvation of our unmelodic times...”

He became acquainted with The Scots Musical Museum, an exhaustive collection of authentic melodies. The first fruits of this encounter were his Twelve Scottish Folk Songs for voice and piano, followed by the Scottish Fantasy, which he composed in Berlin during the winter of 1879-1880. A friend later cited an additional influence, recalling that Bruch created it under the influence of Sir Walter Scott’s stirring adventure novels, such as Ivanhoe and Waverley.

Bruch shaped it with the skills of a particular violin soloist in mind, Pablo de Sarasate, but it was another eminent soloist and colleague of Bruch’s who was destined to give the premiere. Joseph Joachim played the first performance, under Bruch’s direction, in Liverpool, England, on February 22, 1881.
       
In addition to Bruch’s own original themes, the fantasy makes use of traditional Scottish airs, some of which are known by several different names. First movement: Auld Rob Morris; second movement: Hey, the Dusty Miller; third movement: I’m a’ doun for lack o’ Johnnie; and fourth movement: Scots wha hae.

Rose Absolute
Karen Tanaka
b. Tokyo, Japan / April 7, 1961

Karen Tanaka is acclaimed as one of the leading living composers from Japan. She has been invited as a composer-in-residence at many important festivals, and her music has been widely performed throughout the world by major orchestras and ensembles, as well as at international festivals and on the radio.

Her musical education began with piano lessons when she was four years old and continued with formal composition lessons from the age of ten. In 1986, she moved to Paris to study composition with Tristan Murail, then worked with Luciano Berio in Florence from 1990 to 1991. A series of important commissions from Japan, including the orchestral piece Initium (1993), Wave Mechanics (1994) and Echo Canyon (1995), confirmed her as one of the leading living composers from that country. During the same period, there were increasing performances and broadcasts around the world.

Her recent works, such as The Song of Songs, Night Bird, and Metal Strings, develop new directions in her musical language, using the latest technology and reflecting different aspects of contemporary culture. In recent years, her love of nature and concern for the environment have influenced many of her works, including Frozen Horizon, Water and Stone, and the tape piece, Questions of Nature.

Since 2000 she has had significant premieres, including the orchestral works Guardian Angel for the Brooklyn Philharmonic; Departure for the BBC Symphony Orchestra; Lost Sanctuary for the NHK Symphony Orchestra; and Urban Prayer for Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano.

The composer has written the following introduction to Rose Absolute:

“Rose Absolute was inspired by a perfume of the same name, created by the French perfumery Annick Goutal, located near the Place Vendôme in Paris. Rose Absolute is the most beautiful and pure rose of roses. The image of this composition, sounds and colors came to my mind instantly when I visited the shop and was handed a beautiful bottle of the perfume with a lovely scent of roses. The piece was written as a floral bouquet for a lover, as my personal, romantic present.”

Rose Absolute was commissioned by the Michael Vyner Trust in England. It was first performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, on December 1, 2002.

Final Scene from Der Rosenkavalier
Richard Strauss

The bruising operatic dramas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) seem to have purged a taste for such ghoulish material from Strauss’ system. For his next stage project, he pulled a complete about-face and produced the delicious, supremely tuneful “comedy for music” Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose). The premiere took place in Dresden in 1911. Admirers of the previous operas were taken aback by this startling shift in style, but audiences gave the new score a swift and eager embrace. The music combines Classical charm à la Mozart with nineteenth-century dance rhythms (including the waltz, which hadn’t been invented yet, but who cares?), all clothed in Strauss’ ripe, late-Romantic orchestration.

The plot unfolds in Vienna during the eighteenth-century reign of Empress Maria Theresa. The Marschallin, a worldly woman in her thirties, is having an affair with a young nobleman, Octavian. When Octavian falls in love with Sophie, a more suitable match for him, the Marschallin graciously steps aside and permits true, young love to take its course. At this concert you will hear some of the glorious waltz music, then the ecstatic trio that concludes the opera, sung by the Marschallin, Sophie, and Octavian.

© 2012 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.