Santa Cruz County Symphony 2008/09 Season
Concert 2 Program Notes
November 1, 2008, 8pm
Santa Cruz Civic
Pre-concert talk by Don Adkins at 7pm in the Auditorium

Overture for the Royal Fireworks (1749)
George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)

            The War of the Austrian Succession was brought to a close by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. George II, king of England, had pursued this war in support of Maria Therese’s claim to the Austrian throne and Britain’s interests on the continent and was now anxious to be perceived as the architect of peace in Europe. A huge pyrotechnic display was scheduled for April 27, 1749 as a part of the celebrations organized to promote King George’s success. The royal masters of ceremonies hired the famous Italian theatrical designer Giovanni Servandoni to create allegorical scenes culminating with a picture of King George bringing peace to Mars, Neptune and, most importantly, Britannia. The King was at first reluctant to include music in the spectacle but agreed only if “warlike instruments”, which did not include strings, were used. Handel was the most eminent composer of the time and the natural choice for the festivities but insisted on using strings as well.
            Charles Frederick, “Comptroller of His Majesty’s Fireworks as well as for War as for Triumph”, received a letter from the Duke of Montague, Master General of the Ordnance in semi-literate English: “Now Hendel proposes to lessen the nomber of trumpets, &c. and to have violeens. I dont at all doubt but when the King hears it he will be very much displeased. If the thing war to be in such a manner as certainly to please the King, it ought to consist of no kind of instruments but martial instruments. Any other I am sure will put the King out of humour, therefore I am shure it behoves Hendel to have as many trumpets, and other martial instruments, as possible, tho he dont retrench the violins, which I think he shoud, tho I beleeve he will never be persuaded to do it.” Handel was apparently not persuaded and provided a score for 24 oboes, nine horns, nine trumpets, three sets of timpani, 12 bassoons, a contrabassoon and a serpent. Since the total number of instrumentalists was reported at 100, Handel appears to have doubled the size of the group with the addition of strings playing the same parts as the winds.
            A public rehearsal was held the week before, attracting a paying audience of 12,000 that made it “impossible to cross London Bridge for the press of carriages, chairs and people.” The final performance was not perfect as noted by an eye-witness: “The rockets succeeded mighty well, but the wheels, and all that to compose the principal part, were pitiful and ill-conducted ... and then, what contributed to the awkwardness of the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, and being burnt down in the middle of the show.” Another reported that “very little mischief was done but two persons were killed.”
            The Music for the Royal Fireworks is a Baroque dance suite: an overture followed by a series of dances and airs for instruments. The overture is in the French style as developed by Lully for the court of Louis XIV. The opening represents the entrance of the king with a majestic pace punctuated by uneven, “dotted” rhythms. The second section changes to a more light-hearted mood with an energetic melody that appears at first to be a fugue. The first majestic section then returns to finish the overture. Although it would be fun to hear what an orchestra with 24 oboes and 12 bassoons sounds like, modern performances of Handel’s orchestral suites are almost always orchestrated for a conventional symphonic orchestra. Tonight’s version is by Hamilton Harty, a British composer and conductor who frequently performed his orchestrations of Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks during the 1920s and 1930s.

Violin Concerto In D Major, Op.77 (1878)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

 One of the more sustained public disagreements in music history was that between the supporters of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt and those of Johannes Brahms. The “New German” school led by Liszt and Wagner found traditional forms inadequate to express the emotions of their time. They felt they not only left behind the sensibilities of the classical period but pointed to the future with their new attitudes toward structure and other elements of composition. The more traditionally aware composers such as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms attempted to preserve the legacy left by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven while infusing the older structures with new meaning. While Wagner was exploring new paths with his music dramas, Brahms expanded the past with his symphonies, concertos and chamber music. As we now look at the two men, they both fit into the fashion and attitudes of the time, Wagner in his all-consuming world of opera and Brahms in the world that included the concerto.
            The influence of Robert and Clara Schumann's attitude toward the solo concerto had a profound effect upon Brahms. Unlike the prevailing attitude that called for virtuosic displays with minimal musical meaning, they felt that the virtuosity of the concerto should always be in the service of expressing emotion. Schumann's beautiful Piano Concerto In A Minor was a widely accepted argument for this approach. All of Brahms’ concertos, including the Violin Concerto, also follow this credo. Even though his music provided more than enough technical difficulties for any soloist, the musical considerations were always being served by the technical demands.
            Brahms often asked his most trusted friends and colleagues for assistance and criticism of his major works. Because he was a pianist and felt uncomfortable with string techniques, he often called upon his good friend Joseph Joachim for advice. Joachim was Hungarian and the most famous of violin virtuosi in his day. They both met in their early twenties when Joachim noted a facet of Brahms' otherwise generous spirit: “He is egoism incarnate, without himself being aware of it. He bubbles over in his cheery way with exuberant thoughtlessness.” Joachim introduced Brahms to the Schumanns, the single most important event in Brahms’ life. Joachim often helped with the finishing touches on the string parts of Brahms’ early chamber and orchestral works, including the Violin Concerto.     
            The sketches were written in August 1878 in the Austrian village of Portschach where, according to Brahms: “The air so bristles with melodies that one has to be careful not to tread on them.” Brahms immediately sent the solo part to Joachim with the following note in his typical self-deprecatory style: “I wanted you to correct it - - and I didn't want you to have any excuse of any kind: either that the music is too good or that the whole score isn't worth the trouble. But I shall be satisfied if you just write me a word or two, and perhaps write a word here and there in the music, like ‘difficult,’ ‘awkward,’ ‘impossible,’ etc.” The manuscript that Joachim notated is still in the State Library in Berlin and shows numerous suggestions to the solo part in Joachim’s hand. As he usually did with his friend's suggestions, however, Brahms chose to ignore almost all of the changes except for fingerings, bowings, and a few moments of relief in difficult passages.
            The original plans for the concerto were for a four-movement structure. A slow movement and a scherzo were actually composed and then discarded. It is possible that the scherzo was used in the Piano Concerto No. 2 and parts of the slow movement for the Violin Concerto, but we do not know for sure because Brahms was in the habit of ruthlessly destroying all manuscripts that didn’t live up to his exacting standards. The twinkle that many people noticed in Brahms’ eyes can be heard in his only words concerning the fate of these two mystery momements: “The middle movements have gone, and of course they were the best! But I have written a poor Adagio for it instead.”     
            Brahms conducted the premiere with Joachim as soloist in Leipzig on New Year’s Day 1879. Demonstrating his high regard for Joachim’s musicianship, Brahms left the cadenza of the first movement open for the soloist to improvise, a throwback to the classical period and the last instance of this practice in a major concerto. Joachim wisely chose to write the cadenza in advance, a cadenza which is still considered the best choice among several others. After a warm reception from the Leipzig audience Brahms wrote to Simrock, his publisher: “It is well to be doubted whether I could write a better concerto.”     
            Because Brahms did not publish the concerto immediately, Joachim monopolized performances in Germany and England for the first few months following the premiere. He continued to make suggestions for small alterations to the score based on his practical experience with the different orchestras. Audiences in general found the concerto, as they did many of his large orchestral works, to be austere and pedantic. The great conductor Bulow, usually a sensitive and far-sighted musician, called it a concerto against violin. The technical difficulties allowed Joachim to continue to dominate performance of the concerto well into the late 1880s.      Although pieces like this concerto could not stem the tide of progressivism led by Wagner and Liszt, the romantic spirit of Brahms led many young composers such as Strauss and Schoenberg into the 20th century. Schoenberg, in his 1933 radio commentary Brahms the Progressive, viewed Brahms as an even more important link between traditional and modern music than Wagner. Armed with (and distanced by) today’s perspective, it is difficult for audiences to hear anything more than one of the greatest violin concertos ever written.

Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 (1800)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

            The years between Haydn’s last symphony of 1795 and Beethoven’s first in 1800 did not see the creation of any symphonies that are still played today. Haydn was the undisputed master of the symphony and his last symphonies were quickly published, in both legal and pirated editions, and performed throughout Europe. Any composer who wrote a symphony during this time was sure to be compared to Haydn, a losing proposition for everyone. Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792 with the intention of studying with Haydn and establishing his reputation as a composer and pianist. He left his hometown of Bonn with 10 years of experience in the professional music world and a stack of unpublished music. The reasons why his lessons with Haydn were less than satisfactory are not clearly known but it appears that Haydn was an indifferent teacher at best and the two men conflicted on several personal levels including politics and religion. It is interesting that Beethoven did not sign his first contract with a publisher until Haydn was in London for the year. In the next five years, his published works included five string trios, six string quartets, two cello sonatas, three violin sonatas and ten piano sonatas.

            By the time Beethoven wrote his first symphony, he was considered the exciting new talent in town. He was highly sought after as a pianist who not only played his own compositions but also the works of others including J.S. Bach and Mozart. His improvisations were considered to be the most exciting feature of his recitals and his expressive playing of slow pieces was unmatched. He was not yet the older, more eccentric Beethoven we usually imagine but a younger, more energetic and sociable man who was a stylish dresser and often moved in aristocratic circles. Haydn, now heading toward retirement, probably viewed his popularity and quick trajectory into high society with some resentment. It wasn’t until Haydn’s death that Beethoven would speak of him only with respect and affection.

            This symphony was written with the Viennese audience in mind. Beethoven wanted to present a work that would challenge yet not alienate audiences comfortable with Mozart and especially Haydn. The opening chord, a mild dissonance, was fairly shocking to an audience used to hearing music open with an unadorned major or minor chord. A critic who was normally supportive of Beethoven’s adventurous spirit stated that “such a beginning is not suitable for the opening of a grand concert in a spacious opera house.” The expected Minuet of the third movement turned out to be the more rapid Scherzo favored by Beethoven. The last movement began with a simple major scale that gradually edged up to the beginning of the Allegro theme. Several years later the highly respected Daniel Gottlob Türk actually omitted this opening scale passage because he believed the audience would react negatively. Berlioz thought it was “musical childishness, not Beethoven.” These types of unexpected features plus Beethoven’s usual sprinkling of unexpected dynamic outbursts were coupled with standard features familiar to the public. Beethoven even acknowledged his debt to the local masters by presenting his symphony on a concert that included a late Mozart symphony and an aria and duet from Haydn’s The Creation. This concert also included a Beethoven piano concerto with the composer at the piano, a septet composed by Beethoven and dedicated to the empress and some piano improvisations by Beethoven.

            The audience was not enthusiastic about the surprises of the new symphony and the critics mostly agreed. One liked its “art, novelty, and wealth of ideas” but declared that there was “too much use of wind instruments.” Another critic labeled it “a caricature of Haydn pushed to absurdity.” Its first performances in Leipzig and Paris were panned by the critics. In just a few years, however, most audiences and critics were willing to accept the unique genius of Beethoven. A Viennese critic wrote in 1806: “The symphony is a masterpiece that does equal honor to his inventiveness and his musical knowledge. Being just as beautiful and distinguished in its design as its execution, there prevails in it such a clear and lucid order, such a flow of the most pleasant melodies, and such a rich, but at the same time never wearisome, instrumentation that this symphony can justly be placed next to Mozart’s and Haydn’s.”

~Don Adkins

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