Stockport Symphony Orchestra 15 June 2019
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) – Capriccio Espagnol Op. 34 (1887)
Much of Rimsky-Korsakov’s reputation as the master orchestrator of his age rests on the success of his symphonic tone poems, and his ability to create a compelling sound world unique to a scene. In his youth, Rimsky-Korsakov’s naval training set his eyes toward the horizon, inspiring works such as Scheherazade and Capriccio Espagnol. A contemporary Russian fondness for Spanish music, arising from Glinka’s travels in the early 1840s, made a Spanish-themed symphonic suite a shrewd choice for such an adventurous orchestrator, though his own experiences of Spain were limited to three days in Cadiz as a naval cadet. The five-movement suite was composed for the players of the St Petersburg Imperial Opera, with virtuosic solos for the composer’s favoured players. It was originally intended for solo violinist with orchestra before evolving into a more egalitarian form in which every corner of the orchestra is celebrated.
The opening Alborada dance is an Asturian celebration of the sunrise, featuring clarinet and violin solos. The Variazioni introduces a melody in the horns, which is then developed around the orchestra before the Alborada makes a reappearance in a subtly different form. After a short pause, the fourth movement, Scena e canto gitano (Scene and gypsy song), places a series of five cadenza flourishes for brass, violin, flute, clarinet and harp above an exotic palette of percussive rolls, before a soaring string melody appears. The finale, headed Fandango asturiano follows immediately after, finishing the suite in a riotous romp through the Alborada theme.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) – Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102 (1957)
1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Allegro
More than almost any other composer or artist, Shostakovich has become famous for the dissonance between what he thought and what he actually wrote. Writing in the era of Stalin and lucky to survive two state denouncements, he was acutely aware of the need to toe the Party line, and so the true meaning of his work is usually hidden behind impenetrably cryptic shadows. The second Piano Concerto is an exception, the product of a period of relative security in which Shostakovich sought to rehabilitate himself into society following the death of Stalin in 1953.
The appetite for pedagogical music at the time was probably higher than it ever will be, led by the archly pro-establishment figure of Dmitry Kabalevsky. Though politically entirely at odds with Kabalevsky, Shostakovich published his share of music for children, including his Children’s Notebook collection, for his daughter Galina, a concertino for two pianos and the second piano concerto. Written for his son Maxim’s nineteenth birthday, the concerto is full of charm and Haydnesque humour, with a smattering of father-son ‘in-jokes’ parodying Maxim’s technical piano exercises. Like Mahler, Shostakovich was keenly aware of the powerful juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy, writing of his desire “To defend the right of laughter to appear in what is called ‘serious’ music”. While the symphonies and string quartets contain plenty of sardonic humour, this concerto is an unabashed essay in high spirits, even if the composer was scathing of its artistic merits.
The first movement opens with a jauntily facile woodwind theme, above which the piano quickly appears, playing in unison octaves, as it frequently will later in the concerto. Martial side drum figures announce a more driven theme; the resemblance of this to What shall we do with the drunken sailor has been frequently noted, though the likelihood of Shostakovich being familiar with the sea shanty is far from certain. After the music busily drives itself into a frenzied climax, the woodwind and Sailor themes reappear, and the piano vigorously hammers the movement into its closing bars, Shostakovich unmistakeably treating it as a percussion instrument.
The brief Andante is perhaps a half a century away in outlook, framed as an elegantly searching elegy for soloist and strings, with feet firmly in the era of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. The tolling piano bells which close the movement then seamlessly carry it into the finale, once again striding into full circus mode with erratic time signatures conjuring images of tightropes and precarious balancing acts. The music may be outwardly simple, the piano writing often single voiced rather than traditionally harmonised, but its fiendish vivacity necessitates virtuosic skill to pull off with the requisite swagger.
Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988) – Symphonic Overture No. 3 (1954)
Though well represented on disc, the music of José Manuel Joly Braga Santos is seldom programmed outside Portugal. Alongside his output of six symphonies, three operas and symphonic overtures and a requiem, he enjoyed a successful career as conductor, lecturer and critic. Born and trained in Lisbon, his early music derives significant inspiration from modal Renaissance music and the folk music of the rural Alentejo region in the South, while his latter years turned more towards the chromaticism being explored by his colleagues elsewhere in Europe. As his aim in composition, he modestly set himself the task of “[contributing] toward a Latin symphonism and to react against the predominant tendency, of the generation that preceded me, to reject monumentalism in music”.
The three symphonic overtures were written in the same bucolic vein of Vaughan Williams, Holst and Bax, though with irresistible Iberian flair and a sense of an altogether more attractive climate. The third of the overtures, subtitled To Elisa de Sousa Pedroso, is full of memorable tunes. After a slow introduction, a rollicking theme is driven forwards by side drum with a cinematic sense of sweeping landscapes and seas. The pensive muted brass themes of the opening minutes make a brief reappearance, but it is the euphoric gallop which has the last word, the last pages blazing into the sunset amid thundering timpani. As an introduction to the music of Joly Braga Santos, this is a strong starting point; the fourth symphony is a good next step.
Edward Elgar (1857-1934) – Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’, Op. 36 (1899)
Among the most famous of Elgar’s music, the Enigma Variations have entertained and puzzled listeners since their first performance. The work began life inconspicuously one October evening, with the tired composer sitting down to improvise at the piano after dinner. His wife, Alice, was struck by an innocuous but attractive theme, and the couple amused themselves imagining their friends represented as various guises of the theme. The next June, Hans Richter premièred the Variations in London, followed shortly after by immediate success in Düsseldorf, where Richard Strauss exclaimed “Here for the first time is an English composer who has something to say”. The work has remained popular since, even putting aside the frequent misappropriation of Nimrod for any occasion of vague solemnity.
The 14 variations on this theme each represented personal meaning to Elgar to varying degrees of seriousness, but the exact nature of the ‘Enigma’ itself remains debatable, the truth having probably died with Elgar, his wife, and his friend August Jaeger (the subject of variation 9). In Elgar’s own words, “The ‘Enigma’ I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed… further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played . . . So the principal ‘Theme’ never appears…” Attempts at solving the riddle have nominated as the ‘hidden tune’ such disparate melodies as Pop Goes the Weasel, Auld Lang Syne, God Save the King and Rule! Britannia, none with any particularly convincing explanation. An alternative explanation, that the enigma is actually an abstract concept such as the friendship between the composer’s circle of companions, bears perhaps slightly more credence.
The work begins with an introspective G-minor setting of the Theme, which Elgar probably associated with himself, writing that “It expressed… my sense of the loneliness of the artist”. Variation I (C.A.E) is the composer’s beloved wife, Caroline Alice. Touchingly, he described this as “A prolongation of the Theme with… romantic and delicate additions”. The livelier Variation II (H.D.S-P.) imitates the warm-up routines of Elgar’s pianist friend Hew David Steuart-Powell. The Oxford don and amateur actor Richard Baxter Townshend is represented in Variation III (R.B.T.), with his stage portrayal of an old man’s frail voice and bicycle bell. In the blustering Variation IV (W.M.B.) we hear the bossy country squire William Meath Baker “Forcibly read[ing] out the arrangements for the day” to his friends before leaving the room with a slam of the door. Variation V (R.P.A.) is more expansive in its string theme, but punctuated by witty woodwind contributions, describing the amateur pianist Richard Penrose Arnold and his tendency for “Serious conversation [to be] continually broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.” Elgar seamlessly transitions to Variation VI (Ysobel), an attractive and stately melody for viola which portrays a violinist friend who suffered that great misfortune of being requested to switch to viola due to a local deficit of violists.
The mood instantly changes with the rambunctious Variation VII (Troyte), with the “Uncouth rhythm of the drums” suggesting the titular architect’s “Maladroit essays to play the pianoforte”. The softer tones of Variation VIII (W.N.) are more a description of the elegant 18th century house of elderly Winifred Norbury and her sister, than of the sisters themselves. Leading into Variation IX (Nimrod), Elgar leaves a single G hanging in the air, while the chord underneath changes, introducing the most famous music in the Variations, and possibly in the composer’s whole catalogue. The music is in honour August Jaeger, Elgar’s publisher and intimate friend and advocate through struggles with self-doubt and depression. The title is taken from ‘Jaeger’ meaning ‘hunter’ in German, and Nimrod, ‘the mighty hunter’ of the Book of Genesis.
A fresh, lighter atmosphere pervades Variation X (Dorabella), which describes the stutter of Dora Penny (niece of WMB in Variation IV). Her name can be heard spelled out musically by the oboe’s recurring descending motif. Variation XI (G.R.S.) is an entertaining imitation of Dan, the bounding pet bulldog of George Robertson Sinclair (Hereford Cathedral organist). The opening bars represent the dog falling into the Wye, before swimming upstream and climbing ashore with a “Rejoicing bark”. Variations XII (B.G.N.) and XIII (*** Romanza) are cut from softer cloth. The first is a tribute to amateur cellist Basil Nevinson (with an attractive line for solo cello), but the identity of the second remains debated. Elgar alluded to a lady on a sea voyage, and gives the clarinet a quotation from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. When The Hallé premièred the Variations under Hans Richter, it was suggested that the timpanist, Wilhelm Gezink, use half-crown coins on his drums to recreate the throbbing sound of a ship’s engines. The identify of this mysterious woman is variously suggested as being Lady Mary Lygon, en route to Australia, or the composer’s first love, Helen Weaver, emigrating to New Zealand. Variation VIX (E.D.U.) provides a grand finale to the Variations, returning to music of grandeur and nobility. ‘Edu’ was Alice Elgar’s pet name for her husband, and both she and Jaeger make reappearances in this triumphant last word.