JULY 21, 2015 @ 7:30 PM
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Franz Joseph Haydn, (1732-1809), Symphony No. 1 in D Major, 1759, Hoboken l/1
I. Presto
II. Andante
III. Presto
Richard Wagner, (1813-1883), Siegfried Idyll, 1870, WWV. 103
INTERMISSION
Ludwig Van Beethoven, (1770-1827), Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, 1813
I. Poco sostenuto- Vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto-Assai meno presto (trio)
IV. Allegro con brio
WQXR HOST: Annie Bergen
WQXR will broadcast every concert in this series live on 105.9 FM and via live stream at www.wqxr.org
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
MUSICAL NOTES
Notes on the Program – By Aaron Grad
Siegfried Idyll [1870]
RICHARD WAGNER
Born May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Germany
Died February 13, 1883 in Venice, Italy
For orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, and strings. Approximately 18 minutes.
Cosima Wagner was the illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt and his longtime mistress, a French-German countess. Raised in Paris by her grandmother, Cosima went on to marry her former piano teacher, the conductor Hans von Bülow. She was unhappy in her marriage, and neither her Catholic faith nor concerns over her two young children were enough to deter her from pursuing her infatuation with Richard Wagner, twenty-four years her senior and also married at the time the two met. They consummated their affair in 1864, and Cosima gave birth in April 1865 to Wagner’s daughter Isolde. The birth coincided with rehearsals for the premiere of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, conducted by none other than Cosima’s cuckolded husband.
Cosima spent long periods living in Wagner’s house at Tribschen, overlooking Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, and she bore him a second daughter, Eva, in February 1867. She finally asked von Bülow for a divorce and moved in with Wagner permanently in 1868. She gave birth to her third child by Wagner in June 1869, a boy they called Siegfried in honor of Wagner’s opera-in-progress by that name. The divorce was finalized in July 1870, and Richard and Cosima Wagner were married a month later.
Wagner capped that momentous year with an extraordinary birthday present for his thirty-three-year-old bride. On Christmas morning (she was actually born on the 24th, but she celebrated her birthday a day later), he woke up Cosima with the sounds of a fifteen-piece chamber orchestra piled onto the staircase outside her bedroom. She described the experience in her diary:
When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew ever louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it had died away Richard came in to me with the five children and put into my hands the score of his Symphonic Birthday Greeting. I was in tears, but so, too, was the whole household; Richard had set up an orchestra on the stairs and thus consecrated our Tribschen forever! The Tribschen Idyll—thus the work is called!
The title Wagner inscribed on the original score was Tribschen Idyll with Fidi-Birdsong and Orange Sunrise, presented as a symphonic birthday greeting to his Cosima by her Richard. “Fidi-Birdsong and Orange Sunrise” were references to the sights and sounds Wagner remembered from the early morning birth of their son, nicknamed Fidi. The familiar title Siegfried Idyll came later, when the cash-strapped Wagner offered this private memento for publication.
The opening melody of the Siegfried Idyll comes from a sketch Wagner made in 1864, not long after he began his affair with Cosima. The same theme appears in Act III of Siegfried, sung by Brünnhilde to the words, “Eternal I was, eternal I am, eternal in sweet, Yearning bliss, yet eternal for your sake!” The Idyll also incorporates a traditional lullaby, Schlafe, Kindchen, schlaf, which Wagner transcribed in 1868. Most of the work retains a sweet, dreamy quality; it makes only one powerful surge, with triumphant music fashioned after a leitmotif associated with the title character in Siegfried. (For the premiere, family friend and conductor Hans Richter taught himself to play trumpet just for that thirteen-measure passage.) A gentle version of the same Siegfried motive brings this magical Idyll to a hushed conclusion.
Symphony No. 1 in D Major [c. 1757-59]
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria
Died May 31, 1809 in Vienna, Austria
For orchestra consisting of 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, and strings. Approximately 11 minutes.
Joseph Haydn did not come from a particularly musical family, but he showed early promise when he began singing for the church choir in Rohrau, a small village in lower Austria. At six he moved to a nearby town to live and study with a relative who ran a school and choir, and at eight he was recruited for the choir school at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, where he also studied keyboard and violin. His education ended when his voice broke at seventeen, and he left school to scrape by as a freelancer in Vienna, giving lessons and performing while continuing to teach himself composition.
Haydn’s first stable job was to serve as Kapellmeister to one Count Morzin, possibly starting in 1757, which is also the date Haydn later assigned to his Symphony No. 1. Other sources dispute the ordering of the symphonies and cite 1759 as the start of the Morzin tenure; regardless, the Symphony in D Major was among Haydn’s earliest efforts in the fledgling genre, at a time when Baroque heroes Handel and Telemann were still alive, and when the Classical style was in its infancy.
The man we would come to call “the father of the symphony” was not the first to write such a work. Haydn’s model was the Italian opera overture, or Sinfonia, typically constructed in three sections. The Symphony No. 1 in D Major resembles that Italian model, with fast outer movements surrounding a slow movement. The first movement, set in a spry Presto tempo, launches with a rising, drawn-out crescendo, a type of effect popularized by the crack orchestra in Mannheim, Germany. The movement maintains the balance, proportion and lightness we expect from a Haydn symphony, and there are hints of his signature wit in the surprising shifts of momentum and harmonic detours.
The Andante (“Walking”) tempo and energizing triplets propel the slow movement forward with distinctive gusto. The telltale motive is a falling arpeggio outlining a triad—usually major triads, but also some well-timed minor triads that amplify the drama. The closing Presto movement, set in a rollicking triple meter, is a forerunner of Haydn’s many hunt-inspired finales. The frequent scooping into melodic notes from a half-step below gives the movement a folksy, chuckling attitude.
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 [1812]
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born December 1770 in Bonn, Germany
Died March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria
For orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximately 36 minutes.
In 1811, the ailing Beethoven took his doctor’s advice and summered in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz. The trip succeeded in refreshing Beethoven’s health and spirits, and soon he started on a new symphony, his first in three years. He completed the Symphony No. 7 the following spring, and began work immediately on his Eighth Symphony. His return visit to Teplitz in 1812 was a more heartbreaking affair: He penned unsent love letters to his mysterious “Immortal Beloved,” possibly Antonie Brentano, a married woman from Frankfurt; he also had a disappointing introduction to his literary hero, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, about whom Beethoven complained, “He delights far too much in the court atmosphere, far more than is becoming in a poet.”
With the Napoleonic Wars disrupting concert life in Vienna, the Seventh Symphony did not reach the public until the end of 1813. On December 8, Beethoven conducted a benefit concert for wounded soldiers from the Battle of Hanau, featuring the premiere of Wellington’s Victory, or, the Battle of Vitoria, a bombastic orchestral account of the conflict, complete with six trumpets, ten percussionists creating martial sound effects, and triumphant variations on God Save the King. Beethoven’s “Battle Symphony” stole the show, but the debut of the Seventh Symphony made an impression, too, with the audience demanding an encore of the Allegretto movement.
The symphony begins with an introduction, the structure favored by Haydn in his late symphonies. Typically this would be a slow introduction, but Beethoven’s Poco sostenuto tempo has unusual forward drive, its momentum reinforced by repeated notes and rising scales. The introduction is also of an unprecedented length, lasting nearly four minutes before a single repeated pitch links into the lively Vivace continuation, set in a triple meter infused with the snap of dotted rhythms.
The second movement again defies the expectation of slow music, appearing as a nimble Allegretto in A minor. It explores a distinctive rhythmic stamp (long, short-short, long, long), advancing a simple theme while expanding the scoring from lower strings to the full orchestra. A contrasting major-key section with broad phrases and pulsing pizzicato intervenes twice, but variants of the opening figure return each time as the heartbeat of the music, even when it is reduced to a skeletal final statement.
The Presto third movement is a Scherzo in all but name, Beethoven’s supercharged answer to Haydn’s minuets. It features cheeky rhythmic play and sudden dynamic contrast, as would be expected from a palate-cleansing third movement; more surprising is the strangely earnest trio section, with winds intoning a hymn-like chorale over droning violins. Instead of the typical three-part structure in which the trio appears once as a central departure, here it enters twice and then echoes again in the movement’s coda.
The Allegro con brio finale ushers in more foot-stomping rhythmic drive, pounding hard on the accented off-beats. It is no wonder that Richard Wagner called this symphony “the apotheosis of the dance”—each movement is a celebration of relentless, infectious rhythms.
© 2015 Aaron Grad.
Orpheus is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the NY State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NY State Legislature; and the NY City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Orpheus is represented in North America exclusively by Baker Artists, LLC, and in Europe by Konzertdirektion Schmid. Orpheus has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, EMI Classics, BMG/RCA Red Seal, Decca, Nonesuch, Verve, Avex Classics, and its own label Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Records.
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
A standard-bearer of innovation and artistic excellence, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is one of the world’s foremost chamber orchestras. Orpheus was founded in 1972 by Julian Fifer and a group of like-minded young musicians determined to combine the intimacy and warmth of a chamber ensemble to the richness of an orchestra. With 71 albums, including the Grammy Award-winning Shadow Dances: Stravinsky Miniatures, and 42 commissioned and premiered original works, Orpheus rotates musical leadership roles for each work and strives to perform diverse repertoire through collaboration and open dialogue.
Performing without a conductor, Orpheus presents an annual series at Carnegie Hall and tours extensively to major national and international venues. The 2014-2015 Season will include debut appearances by pianist Fazil Say and violinists Jennifer Koh and Augustin Dumay, and also includes three newly commissioned works. The season will also continue an ongoing exploration of Beethoven in performance with pianist Jonathan Biss, while new looks at favorites from the Orpheus catalog of recordings, including Haydn’s Symphony No. 80, Grieg’s Holberg Suite, and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, demonstrate how these musicians have evolved over decades of playing together.
Orpheus has trademarked its signature mode of operation, the Orpheus Process™, an original method that places democracy at the center of artistic execution. It has been the focus of studies at Harvard and Stanford, and of leadership seminars at Morgan Stanley and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, among others. Two unique education and engagement programs, Access Orpheus and Orpheus Institute, aim to bring this approach to students of all ages.
Access Orpheus, Orpheus’ educational initiative, shares the orchestra’s collaborative music-making process with public school students from all five boroughs in New York City. Because of declining resources for arts education, many public schools do not have access to fulltime arts teachers to provide music instruction and exposure to art and culture. Access Orpheus helps to bridge this gap with in-class visits, attendance at working rehearsal, and free tickets for performances at Carnegie Hall.
Orpheus Institute brings the Orpheus Process and the orchestra’s musicians to select colleges, universities, and conservatories to work directly with musicians and leaders of tomorrow. Students in all fields of study learn from Orpheus’ creative process and in areas of collaboration, communication, creative problem solving, and shared leadership. In the coming seasons Orpheus will continue to share its leadership methods and performance practices as the ensemble provides its audiences with the highest level of musicianship and programming.