Stockport Symphony Orchestra 12 October 2019
Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006): Peterloo Overture, Op. 97 (1967)
The bicentenary of the ‘Peterloo’ massacre has provided a welcome opportunity to reflect upon the bloody events of Monday 19 August 1819, when sabre-wielding cavalry charged a peaceful crowd of 60,000 – 80,000 protestors in St Peter’s Fields. With radicalism rising alongside escalating malcontent over lack of political representation and unpopular corn laws causing starvation, a ‘great assembly’ was called on a cloudless summer’s day. The Manchester Observer, key in organising the meeting, thought little of the threat of the local Yeomanry, described as ‘The fawning dependents of the great, with a few fools and a greater proportion of coxcombs, who imagine they acquire considerable importance by wearing regimentals’. The Government, however, having intercepted a letter planning the meeting, quietly dispatched considerable military forces to Manchester, fearing an insurrection. Ordered to disperse the crowd, the cavalry of the 15th Hussars charged, and amid 10 minutes of terror and chaos, 11 were killed and some 600 injured.
Malcolm Arnold’s depiction of the scene is more ‘tone poem’ than ‘overture’, giving a highly programmatic narrative of the day’s events. A melody of uncommonly optimistic nobility is abruptly interrupted by a pair of side drums in a repeated figure strongly reminiscent of the martial side drum solo of Carl Nielsen’s war-inspired fifth symphony. The scene dissolves into panicked chaos, with fragments of brassy imperialism. As quickly as it appeared, the chaos clears, leaving the field empty. A pleadingly reconciliatory oboe solo heralds the return of the dreamy first theme, now given to soaring violins and solemn brass. The city’s bells ring out, and the overture finishes in a blaze of optimism. 11 casualties may seem meagre, but as our own government plan for unrest and stockpile supplies for fear of loss of European imports, the events of 1819 cannot be ignored.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) – Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra Op. 102 (‘Double Concerto’) (1887)
1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Vivace non troppo
The relationship between Brahms and the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim was for many years a convivial and mutually beneficial one, the dashing young composer benefitting greatly from Joachim’s promotion of his work. When Joseph began divorce proceedings against his wife in 1880 for an alleged affair with the publisher Simrock, Brahms gave character support to his friend’s wife in court, unsurprisingly at the expense of the friendship with Joseph. The two barely spoke for years, until the rotund and bearded composer sent Joachim his radical ideas for a concerto for violin and cello, “Much as I have tried to talk myself out of it”. The work would prove to be Brahms’ last for orchestra, and though the reception to its premiere in Cologne was lukewarm, Clara Schumann noted warmly that it reconciled the pair and healed the rift.
Though radical in instrumentation, the concerto mostly obeys the established classical format of two quick movements flanking a slower central passage. Unusually, the soloists are given an early flourish, before the opening movement settles into conventional form. Two contrasting figures compete unconvincingly for dominance, one stormily anguished and the other softly smiling in the winds. There is dialogue aplenty between the individual soloists and with the orchestra, and though occasional autumnal sunshine is glimpsed, it is short lived and watery, and the storm has the last word.
The slow movement is built around a touchingly innocent and reverential unison theme, reaching a serene close before the bustling finale blusters into sight in a flurry of ersatz Hungarian high spirits. The agitated figure which opens the movement is passed between soloists and orchestra in an energetic rondo. The coda returns to autumnal hues, leaving a readily imaginable wan smile of an old man who has made amends.
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.