By Aaron Grad

Apollon musagète [1928]

IGOR STRAVINSKY

For string orchestra. Approximately 30 minutes.

CORE Musicians: Eric Wyrick, Violin I; Richard Rood, Violin II; Danielle Farina, Viola;

 Julia Lichten, Cello; Donald Palma, Bass.

Igor Stravinsky burst onto the world stage with three legendary ballets for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913), all on Russian folk themes. By the time the world warmed up to the primitive force of those early masterpieces, Stravinsky had already moved on to a smoother neo-classical style and more austere subjects for his dramatic works. One area of focus was ancient Greece and Rome, first in Oedipus Rex (1927) and revisited in Apollon musagète (1928), Persephone (1934), Orpheus (1947) and Agon (1957).

The commission for Apollon musagète (later shortened to Apollo) came from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who asked Stravinsky to create a work for the 500-seat theater built in her name at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. There was room for only a small cast of dancers and musicians, which led Stravinsky to create a scenario for Apollo and three muses (out of the original nine) and a sparse accompaniment of strings. The ballet premiered on April 27, 1928, with choreography by a Ballets Russes alumnus, Adolf Bolm. The bigger event of the season, however, was Apollo’s European premiere on June 12 by Diaghilev’s company in Paris. That production featured choreography by a 24-year-old newcomer who would soon become a transformative force in ballet: George Balanchine.

In Greek mythology, Apollo is associated with light and truth, as well as music and poetry. Philosophers and aesthetes — most notably Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy — have used the term “Apollonian” to describe art that exhibits order, balance, clarity and precision. When Stravinsky played some of his Apollo music on the piano for Diaghilev, the impresario immediately recognized its “Apollonian” brilliance. “It is, of course, an amazing work, extraordinarily calm and with greater clarity than anything [Stravinsky] has done,” wrote Diaghilev to his partner and the ballet’s eventual star, Serge Lifar. “Filigree counterpoint around transparent, clear-cut themes, … music not of this world, but from somewhere above.”

Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33 [1877]

PYOTR IL’YICH TCHAIKOVSKY

For solo cello and orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings. Approximately 18 minutes.

CORE Musicians: Eriko Sato, Violin I; Eric Wyrick, Violin II; Christof Huebner, Viola; Eric Bartlett, Cello; Jordan Frazier, Bass; Elizabeth Mann, Flute; Matthew Dine, Oboe; David Singer, Clarinet; Dennis Godburn, Bassoon; Angela Cordell, Horn.

Tchaikovsky composed the Variations on a Rococo Theme in December of 1876, amidst the turmoil of a failed opera production in St. Petersburg and a particularly nasty review in Vienna from the feared critic Eduard Hanslick. Prone to insecurity even at the best of times, Tchaikovsky asked for advice from the new work’s intended cello soloist, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen. Just 28, Fitzenhagen was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and principal cellist for the Imperial Russian Music Society. He also fancied himself a composer, and his “corrections” to the work of his well-established colleague show surprising aplomb. Fitzenhagen rearranged the order of the variations, removing one entirely, and rewrote most of the solo part. Tchaikovsky accepted the changes, and the hybridized version entered the popular canon, thanks to Fitzenhagen’s numerous concert appearances and an1889 publication. 20th-century scholarship (aided by X-rays) revealed Tchaikovsky’s original music under Fitzenhagen’s emendations, and a reconstructed version debuted in Moscow in 1941. By then, Fitzenhagen’s edition had cemented its reputation among cellists and audiences, and it continues to be the customary choice for performances.

The Variations on a Rococo Theme make a nod to the18th century and especially Mozart, whom Tchaikovsky adored. The “rococo” theme is Tchaikovsky’s own invention, and it has little relation to the ornate style that emerged from France under Louis XIV (think opulent palaces and the trill-happy music of Couperin). Following a stately orchestral introduction, the cello introduces the light-stepping theme, balanced into two repeated sections. The theme ends with a harmonically adventurous codetta, first in the winds alone and then shifting to the strings. That material returns various times to link the connected variations, and it brings Tchaikovsky’s Romantic voice into dialogue with the Classical ideals in this piece.

The first two variations maintain the theme’s flavor and pulse, adding increasing decoration and commentary; then the third variation breaks away to a singing melody, one of those heartbreaking tunes that Tchaikovsky seems to unfurl with such ease. The fourth and fifth variations return to an outgoing, virtuosic character, culminating in an extended cadenza. The sixth variation, a minor-key andante, bookends the earlier slow section, and trails off in an ascent of ethereal harmonics. The final variation follows the work’s only pause, and enters with a rustic, pulsing intensity. It builds through quick call-and-response phrases and breathless figurations, linking directly to the energetic coda and a rousing conclusion.

Rondino, WoO 15 [1793]      

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

For 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons and 2 horns. Approximately 7 minutes.

Beethoven moved from Bonn to Vienna in November of 1792, shortly before his 22nd birthday. The elector of Bonn had released Beethoven from his performing and composing duties, and even provided a modest stipend; he expected the young musician to study for a time with Haydn, then return to serve the court that had employed three generations of the Beethoven family. Beethoven did work with Haydn for most of 1793, but he soon cut ties with Bonn and established a performing career in Vienna, where he captivated the aristocracy with his firebrand keyboard virtuosity.

Surviving evidence suggests that Haydn instructed Beethoven solely in counterpoint, rather than free composition. Still, Beethoven produced fine music in his first year in Vienna, works that predate his Opus 1, a set of three piano trios issued in 1795. (The “WoO” appellation on this piece and others outside of Beethoven’s regular catalog stands for Werk ohne Opuszahl, meaning a work without an opus number.) He completed a wind octet in 1793, and also fashioned an independent Rondo for the same group of instruments, using music that he had at first conceived as the octet’s finale. That movement re-emerged in 1830, published posthumously under the title Rondino.

The diminutive Rondino ambles at a relaxed Andante tempo, and lingers mostly in subdued piano and pianissimo dynamics. The most characteristic material goes to the horns, which lead the opening thematic statement, a central minor-key episode, and a colorful conclusion. Beethoven creates a sense of distance by having the horns play phrases that they then echo with mutes inserted, a novel sound effect from a burgeoning master of orchestral shadings.

Selections from The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 [1801]         

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

For orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. Approximately 23 minutes.

CORE Musicians: Susan Palma Nidel, Flute; James Austin Smith, Oboe, David Singer, Clarinet; Frank Morelli, Bassoon; Angela Cordell, Horn; Carl Albach, Trumpet; Maya Gunji, Timpani; Todd Phillips, Violin I; Eriko Sato, Violin II; Shmuel Katz, Viola; Melissa Meell, Cello; Jordan Frazier, Bass.

Other than a youthful attempt from his Bonn years, Beethoven’s only ballet was The Creatures of Prometheus from 1801. The ballet’s creator, Salvatore Viganò, was a famous dancer and choreographer visiting from Italy, and he enlisted Beethoven upon the recommendation of Empress Maria Theresa, to whom Beethoven has dedicated his septet (Op. 20) the previous year. The program booklet for the March 28 premiere at Vienna’s Burgtheater included this description of Viganò’s scenario, adapted from Greek mythology:

The foundation of this allegorical ballet is the fable of Prometheus. The philosophers of Greece allude to Prometheus as a lofty soul who drove the people of his time from ignorance, refined them by means of science and the arts, and gave them manners, customs and morals. As a result of that conception, two statues that have been brought to life are introduced in this ballet; and these, through the power of harmony, are made sensitive to all the passions of human life. Prometheus leads them to Parnassus, in order that Apollo, the god of the fine arts, may enlighten them.

At the time Beethoven composed Prometheus, he was grappling with a terrible secret: the onset of deafness. He finally unburdened himself to a friend that June, writing, “I must confess that I am living a miserable life. For almost two years I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people: I am deaf. If I had any other profession it would be easier, but in my profession it is a terrible handicap. As for my enemies, of whom I have a fair number, what would they say?” This period also marked a new evolution in Beethoven’s style, towards what scholars have since dubbed his “middle period,” a transition fully established by the “Eroica” Symphony from 1803-04. Beethoven recycled some material from Prometheus into that groundbreaking symphony, and he used the same fragment as the basis of a set of piano variations from 1802 (Opus 35).

Beethoven’s personal turmoil is nowhere evident in the score to Prometheus, an Apollonian work of grace and refinement, and a capstone on the Classical legacy of 18th-century Vienna. The Overture proclaims its entrance with a series of stout chords, beginning with a surprisingly adventurous dominant chord, which then resolves to the stable tonic chord. (He had used the same progression for the quiet opening of the Symphony No. 1 a year earlier.) After an elegant Adagio melody led by the oboes, the rollicking Allegro molto spins out a perpetual-motion theme in the violins, contrasted in the tidy sonata form by a secondary theme of staccato arpeggios introduced by the woodwinds. The offbeat accents and playful contrasts of harmony and dynamics reveal Beethoven’s debt to Haydn.

 © 2009 Aaron Grad.

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