European Doctors' Orchestra 27 November 2016
The Sage, Gateshead
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950): Danzón No. 2 (1993)
The origins of the danzón can be traced from the 18th century Anglo-French contradanse, which followed European colonialism to Cuba, and evolved into the habanera. This in turn was adapted in Cuba in the late 1870s into the genre of danzón, a sequence dance for couples. Cuban cultural influence on the east coast of Mexico subsequently led the dance to Veracruz, where the 43 year-old Arturo Márquez discovered the form in 1993 while travelling in the region.
The Danzón No. 2, now the most famous of his eight efforts in the genre, was premiered in Mexico City in 1994. It owes much of its present success to Gustavo Dudamel and his Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, for whom it became a signature tune on the 2007 world tour on which they rose to international fame. The symphonic setting of such a rustic, folksy dance form is incongruous by the composer’s own admission, though he is true to its musical language as far as possible. Together with works such as Moncayo’s Huapango and a handful of other works, it now lies at the heart of a small but enormously popular subgenre of orchestral music.
The ten-minute work opens with a slow, smoky setting of the main tune for solo clarinet with piano and clave accompaniment, before erupting into a riotous variation for full orchestra. Prominent solos follow in the dance sequence for violin, piccolo and trumpet, with frequent reappearances of the hauntingly nostalgic opening theme. The wildly passionate rhythms prove irrepressible, though, closing the short work in a blaze of Latin fire.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943): Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op. 43 (1934)
After the disastrous 1897 premiere of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 1, overseen by a probably intoxicated Glazunov, the young composer sank into a three-year depression before being treated by Dr Nikolai Dahl, a neuropsychiatrist, erstwhile student of Charcot and keen amateur violist. The following years were hugely fruitful artistically, until the bourgeoisie Rachmaninov family fled the revolution for Finland on an open sleigh on 22 December 1917. After settling in New York the following spring and driven at least initially by financial necessity, an exhausting performing schedule left little time for composition. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is one of only a handful of enduringly popular works from this final period of Rachmaninov’s life.
The Rhapsody might more accurately be described as an elaborate set of 24 variations on the last of Paganini’s Caprices for solo violin, although the musical cogency of the work is such that attempts are often made to delineate the 24 variations into traditional concerto form. The precise boundaries of this hypothetical “Piano Concerto No. 5” are unclear, but the crisp, A-minor early numbers can be seen as an opening movement, while the more overtly Romantic central passages and quicker, more forceful latter variations can serve as a slow movement and finale respectively.
Curiously, the Paganini theme is first explicitly stated after its first variation at the work’s opening. There follows a series of sparkling, progressively more elaborate turns on the theme, before the abrupt appearance of the ‘Dies Irae’, from the traditional Requiem Mass, on the piano. Both this and the Paganini theme are further reflected upon in a series of moods, in turn grotesque, demonic and wistful. By far the most famous variation is the joyous No. 18, which emerges from the impenetrably dark B-flat minor of its predecessors, as an exact inversion of the Paganini theme, transposed into the major key. Quite literally, the theme is played upside down, making for a tune as lusciously romantic as any from Rachmaninov’s more fruitful Russian years.
The passionate atmosphere is not sustained, however. In place of a traditional final movement is an ever more scintillating succession of variations. The bravura and huge technical demands of No. 24 are such that Rachmaninov himself was said to require a crème de menthe before performing it. With a full orchestral statement of the Dies Irae, the music thunders through its climax before a brilliantly unexpected last word.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Symphony No. 5, Op. 100 (1944)
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Andante
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Allegro marcato
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Adagio
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Allegro giocoso
“And then, when Prokofiev had taken his place on the podium and silence reigned in the hall, artillery salvos suddenly thundered forth. His baton was raised. He waited, and began only after the cannons had stopped. There was something very significant in this, something symbolic. It was as if all of us – including Prokofiev – had reached some kind of shared turning point”. So wrote the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter of the moments before the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s fifth symphony in January 1945, just as the Soviet army had reached the Vistula River on their march into Germany.
This was Prokofiev’s first symphony since his return in 1936 to what had become the Soviet Union following his departure amid the tumult of revolution in 1918. In the interim he had achieved stardom in New York and Paris, and was welcomed back to Moscow as a national hero. He produced several great works during the war years, but to write the fifth symphony retreated to a country estate formed by the Soviets to permit their artists to work in peace. Prokofiev, now at the peak of his fame, took just a month to write the new symphony. Despite obvious war references in the brass and percussion writing, it is significantly more optimistic than Shostakovich’s 1940 Leningrad symphony, with the composer describing it as “A hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit... I cannot say that I deliberately chose this theme. It was born in me and clamoured for expression. The music matured within me. It filled my soul."
A week after the symphony’s triumphant premiere in 1945 alongside his Classical symphony and Peter and the Wolf, the composer’s uncontrolled hypertension led him to collapse in his apartment. The resultant head injury confined him to bed for weeks, where he lay slipping in and out of consciousness through a slow convalescence. His fortunes continued to decline; in 1948 he was unexpectedly denounced by the state, debts accumulated and his wife Lina was sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour for ‘espionage’. In 1949 his doctors restricted him to an hour of composition per day, and in 1953 his death near Red Square was overshadowed by the death of Stalin on the same day.
The symphony begins with a serene, rising theme from the flutes, quickly punctuated by the dotted “Ta-dah” rhythm in the horns which later comes to define the movement. The second theme, again introduced by woodwinds, is similarly idle in outlook, before a protracted struggle between light and dark in the development. The thunderous coda seems to give the upper hand to the latter, before an unexpectedly triumphant climax has the last word.
The scherzo features some of Prokofiev’s most alluringly charming writing alongside remarkable melodic generosity for the woodwinds. The opening minutes rollick along, propelled by insistently militant percussion. In the waltz-time central passage, further melodies are tossed around the orchestra in a style which immediately brings to mind some sort of frenzied burlesque ballet scene. The martial first theme then reappears, as dashing as ever, before seeming almost to burn itself out at the movement’s end.
After the breathless hijinks of the first two movements, the Adagio, in a wandering F-major, initially offers a brief sense of redemption. The tension rises inexorably, however, leading to a tortured central climax where the dotted “Ta-dah” rhythm is elaborated upon by brass and percussion. Here, briefly, is perhaps a glimpse beyond the “free and happy man” invoked by Prokofiev and a window onto the political horrors of the age.
The fourth movement dawns with a cello reflection on themes from early in the symphony, before launching into a dashing Allegro giocoso in which further virtuosic woodwind solos tumble out over frenetic string rhythms in rondo form. In a rare moment of serenity, a warmly valedictory theme emerges softly in the lower strings. The final pages of the symphony see this taken up triumphantly by the heavy brass and percussion; Prokofiev’s final word, though, is to expose this as an ironic, false victory in one of the repertoire’s more ambiguous conclusions.
phant last word.