Program Notes - Winter Concert

Concert Theme: DMCO Takes Flight

The Swan of Tuonela (1895)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

The Swan of Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen) is an 1895 tone poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It is the second part of Op. 22 Lemminkäinen (Four legends), tales from the Kalevala epic of Finnish mythology. The English horn is the voice of the swan and its solo is perhaps the best-known English horn solo in the orchestral literature. The music paints a gossamer, transcendental image of a mystical swan swimming around Tuonela, the island of the dead. Lemminkäinen, the hero of the epic, has been tasked with killing the sacred swan, but on the way he is shot with a poisoned arrow and dies. In the next part of the epic he is restored to life.

The Swan of Tuonela was originally composed in 1893 as the prelude to a projected opera called The Building of the Boat; Sibelius revised it two years later as the second of the four sections of the Lemminkäinen Suite (Lemminkäis-sarja), also known as the Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22, which was premiered in 1896. Sibelius revised the tone poem twice: once in 1897 and again in 1900.

Walt Disney intended to use the piece in a segment of Fantasia. It was planned out in storyboards but was never animated.

Flute Concerto in D major, Op. 10, no. 3 (1728)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

In 1728, Vivaldi's six Concerti a Flauto Traverso, Opera Decima [Op. 10] were published by Le Cène in Amsterdam. The third piece, nicknamed "Il Cardellino" ("The Goldfinch") was so-named because of the bird-song-like flutterings in the opening movement, an impression facilitated by the solo flute's interaction with two solo violins. Not a few of Vivaldi concertos are programmatic works, of which the most famous, of course, are the four works that comprise The Four Seasons. Indeed, the "Summer" concerto from that set includes musical reference to the goldfinch's song. In the Flute Concerto, RV 428, the avian references are clear and utterly beguiling. The pastoral second movement, in the gently rocking 6/8 rhythm of a siciliano, lulls one into a state of euphoric bliss before high energy resumes in the concerto's effervescent finale. [excerpted from Steven Lowe]

Can bird song inspire great music? It certainly caught the ear of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, widely celebrated for his exuberant, playful melodies. Vivaldi even named a 1728 flute concerto for a bird, the goldfinch. The flute is the instrument best suited to recreating the whistled sounds of songbirds. Vivaldi's Goldfinch concerto, or Il Cardellino, challenges the flute to imitate the bird's silvery trills and sweetly warbled phrases, even its plaintive notes.

The source of Vivaldi's inspiration, the European Goldfinch, is a tiny bird found throughout much of Europe, where it frequents gardens and roadsides. It has the looks to match its sparkling song, with its striking bright red-and-white face set off by wings boldly patterned in yellow and black. No wonder Vivaldi found the goldfinch irresistible. [www.birdnote.org, edited by CJ]

Le Coq d'Or Suite (posthumous)
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Rimsky-Korsakov completed his opera Le Coq d'Or (The Golden Cockerel) in 1907. Based on a fairytale story by Pushkin, Rimsky-Korsakov decided to create a work exposing the disastrous tsarist regime, and in 1906 he started work on his Golden Cockerel opera. It was finished in 1907. The opera was immediately banned by the Palace, and was not allowed to be staged, as the resemblance between the Czar and the foolish King Dodon was too close. Rimsky-Korsakov's health was probably affected by this, and he was dead by the time it was performed two years later.

Briefly, the opera's plot is this: The bumbling King Dodon (with the similarity to "dodo" almost certainly intentional) talks himself into believing that his country is in danger from a neighbouring state, Shemakha, ruled by a beautiful queen. He requests advice of the Astrologer, who supplies a magic Golden Cockerel to safeguard the king's interests. When the cockerel confirms that the Queen of Shemakha does harbor territorial ambitions, Dodon decides to pre-emptively strike Shemakha, sending his army to battle under the command of his two sons.

However, his sons are both so inept that they manage to kill each other on the battlefield. King Dodon then decides to lead the army himself, but further bloodshed is averted because the Golden Cockerel ensures that the old king becomes besotted when he actually sees the beautiful Queen. The Queen herself encourages this situation by performing a seductive dance - which tempts the King to try and partner her, but he is clumsy and makes a complete mess of it. The Queen realises that she can take over Dodon's country without further fighting - she engineers a marriage proposal from Dodon, which she coyly accepts.

The Final Scene starts with the wedding procession in all its splendor. As this reaches its conclusion, the Astrologer appears and says to Dodon, "You promised me anything I could ask for if there could be a happy resolution of your troubles ... ." "Yes, yes," replies the king, "Just name it and you shall have it." "Right," says the Astrologer, "I want the Queen of Shemakha!" At this, the King flares up in fury, and strikes down the Astrologer with a blow from his mace. The Golden Cockerel, loyal to his Astrologer master, then swoops across and pecks through the King's jugular. The sky darkens. When light returns, queen and cockerel are gone.

We will be performing two movements from the four-movement suite compiled by Alexander Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg after Rimsky-Korsakov's death. [adapted by CJ]

The Lark Ascending (1919)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Vaughan Williams composed the first draft of The Lark Ascending in 1914. Borrowing the term from Beethoven, he called it a Romance for violin. The title comes from the poem by George Meredith (1828-1909), with twelve lines of which Vaughan Williams prefaced the score. The work probably existed only in a version for violin and piano before he put it in a drawer when he enlisted in the Army in 1914 after the outbreak of First World War.

When Vaughan Williams returned to the composition in 1919, The Lark Ascending was one of the first works he revised. The work was premiered in 1920 with Marie Hall (to whom it is dedicated) as the soloist with piano accompaniment. She was also the soloist when it was first performed with an orchestra in 1921 with Sir Adrian Boult conducting.

Violinists welcomed the work into their solo repertoire and it was several times recorded in the pre-LP era. When The Lark Ascending was written, the sound of the lark in the clear air was a feature of the summer landscape. Nearly a century later, with the decline of the bird's population and the destruction of much of its habitat, it is a rarer joy. Perhaps the increasing popularity of this work is symbolic of a nostalgia for an England that is vanishing, for a time when, in the words of Siegfried Sassoon, "everyone was a bird; and the song was wordless, the singing will never be done." [Michael Kennedy (2004), ed. By CJ.]

Swan Lake Suite, Op. 20a (1875-76)
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Tchaikovsky's three ballets - Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker - form an unrivaled trilogy of great dance scores from the 19th century. Inspired by the example of Léo Delibes, whose Sylvia and Coppelia ballets redefined and elevated a genre hitherto entrusted more to hacks than to great composers, Tchaikovsky's first essay in the ballet arena was Swan Lake. He acknowledged composing the music for two reasons: much-needed money and a fondness for Delibes' attractive scores.

In August 1875, Tchaikovsky began working on the fledgling ballet, spurred by two friends and colleagues, Vladimir Begichev, stage manager of the Bolshoi Ballet, and Vasily Geltser, one of that company's star dancers. Though the score progressed quickly (Acts I and II were composed in two weeks according to the composer's brother Modeste), outside duties delayed completion of the ballet until the following spring. In retrospect it may seem odd that the estimable Bolshoi dancers found the score uninteresting musically, with some of the troupe claiming it to be undanceable. Traduced by poorly conceived sets, unimaginative choreography and poor playing from the orchestra, Swan Lake's premiere was not one for the ages. After 1883, when the increasingly tattered costumes apparently fell apart, Swan Lake essentially dropped from the repertoire until after the composer's death. It has become, of course, a certified classic both as a complete ballet and in excerpted form as a concert suite.

The suite does not necessarily follow the chronological sequence of the story. The first number, Scène, opens Act II and is based on a haunting oboe theme that serves as a pre-Wagnerian Leitmotif to represent the dancing of the swans. The brilliant Valse (from Act I) is danced during a celebration of Prince Siegfried's birthday. The Dance of the Swans from Act II is a multi-sectional sequence that further explores the waltz rhythm. It briefly diverts to a quasi-Oriental woodwind-driven section followed by a dance for four baby swans, including a stratospheric violin solo for the lovely swan-as-princess Odette, before returning to the waltz that opens this extended number. A Hungarian dance, Czardas, in moderate tempo concludes the suite. [Steven Lowe]

{N.B. The version of the suite we will be performing includes three movements following those listed above: A Spanish Dance, a Neapolitan Dance, and a Mazurka. CJ}

"Berceuse and Finale" from The Firebird (1919)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

In 1910, Stravinsky premiered The Firebird ballet with the Ballet Russe, and it became an international success. The new collaboration between Sergei Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and the brilliant dancer Nijinsky brought together what must be considered the most extraordinary minds in ballet history.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in 1882 in Russia, became a French citizen by 1934, and then a naturalized American in 1945. He died in New York in 1971. His early musical training was inconsequential (though his father was a respected Russian Basso) and thus he studied law. It was not until he joined with the great Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov that Stravinsky's musical talents became ignited. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev heard Stravinsky's music in 1908, and with continued encouragement Stravinsky wrote his first full-length orchestral work, The Firebird, which made him famous and provided the genesis for two more ballets, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring.

History recalls these first seasons of remarkable performances of the Ballet Russe as "Everything that could strike the imagination, intoxicate, enchant, and win one over seemed to have been assembled on that stage...."

Stravinsky was asked to write the music to this folk tale just months before its premiere. Previously it had been handed to the Russian composer Liadov (one of the Mighty Handful of Russian composers), but he procrastinated. Thus 27 year-old Stravinsky, unknown outside of Russia, was asked. His Firebird is considered one of his masterpieces.

The Firebird illustrates a popular Russian folk tale, summarized below: (Introduction) The czar's son, Prince Ivan, has an unexpected meeting with "a fabulous bird with plumage of fire" during a hunting excursion. In exchange for not being hunted down by Ivan, the fabulous Firebird bargains her freedom by giving Ivan a magic feather (The Firebird and Her Dance). Later, Ivan chances upon an enchanted castle with a courtyard full of lovely maidens (Round Dance of the Princesses). They warn Ivan of the evil Kastchei in the castle who, for his own amusement, turns travelers into stone. Ivan, undaunted, enters the castle, and is faced by the evil Kastchei. The magic feather shields him from harm, and the Firebird appears, sending Kastchei and his ogres into a mad dance (Infernal Dance of King Kastchei). The evil ones are left exhausted and eventually destroyed by the Firebird (Berceuse). Kastchei's victims are freed from their stone spells, and Ivan wins the hand of a lovely Princess (Finale).

In this work, Stravinsky created highly visual music, with an otherworldly array of sound effects and orchestral colors that magnify the mystical content of the story. In 1919, Stravinsky revised the suite to the ballet score, which is the one we perform on this program. [Max Derrickson]