Terezin Remembered

Terezin Remembered is a collection of cultural events commemorating the 65th anniversary of a story of the inextinguishable human spirit. Click here for a complete list of events. Included in this compendium are an art exhibit of works created by those incarcerated, a lecture, a chamber music concert consisting of works composed in the camp, and our Masterworks Series finale: a performance of Verdi's Requiem (plus a pre-concert symposium with survivors of the concentration camp). The only way to get your hands on a ticket to this concert is by contacting The Essex Resort and Spa about their special concert package. Call (800) 727-4295 and ask for the Terezin Remembered Package. You may also choose to attend the open rehearsal on the afternoon of May 1. Tickets are available through FlynnTix. Below is a video interview with Susi Learmonth, a member of the Upper Valley Friends of the VSO, whose family was interned at Terezin.



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Program Notes: March 20 & 21, 2010

Back by popular demand, guest conductor Sarah Hicks leads the orchestra as our music director and his wife share their artistry in Richard Danielpour’s moving tribute to the healing power of music. “Simple Gifts” refers to the Shaker melody Copland used in his beloved ballet; our concert package also contains hot-blooded music from Mozart and De Falla, and salutes to the vernal equinox.

Saturday, March 20, 8 PM Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington
Tickets

Sunday, March 21, 4 PM Paramount Theatre, Rutland
Tickets

Sarah Hicks, conductor
Jaime Laredo, violin
Sharon Robinson, cello

Keep reading for program notes. Visit the VSO's biographies page to read about our guest artists.


Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio, K. 384
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Mozart’s first great public triumph in Vienna was his comic opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, first produced on July 16, 1782. Mozart had just left what he called his “slavery” to the arrogant Archbishop of Salzburg, he was a success in the musical capital of the world, and he was in love. No wonder Seraglio is filled with youthful exultation! Carl Maria von Weber called it “a picture of what every man’s joyous, youthful years are to him, years the bloom of which he will never recapture.” This opera went far beyond the usual limits of the tradition with its long, elaborately written songs (hence Emperor Joseph II’s famous observation: “Too many notes, my dear Mozart.”) Despite the Emperor’s opinion, the work was a great success, and was taken into the repertories of many provincial companies (for which Mozart did not, however, receive any compensation).

The story of the opera is a Spanish nobleman’s attempted rescue of his fiancée from Turkish captivity. Turkish plots were popular in 18th century plays, operas, and novels, and Turkish music (Janissary music) had a special vogue in Vienna during Mozart’s day. The composer wrote to his father that the overture to his opera was very short and kept alternating loud and soft, with Turkish music in the loud passages. “It modulates on and on, from key to key, so that I don’t believe anyone could fall asleep, even if he hadn’t slept at all the whole night before.”


A Child’s Reliquary
Richard Danielpour (1956- )

The composer writes: “When I began composing A Child’s Reliquary in the summer of 1999, I had just learned of the tragic death of 18-month old Cole Carson St. Clair, the child of Carl and Susan St. Clair. Carl St. Clair is a great American conductor (the music director of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles) and a dear friend and colleague. I was stunned upon hearing this news and found that the music I began to write that summer was all a series of variations on, or around, the Brahms Wiegenlied (“Cradle Song”). I could not get the Wiegenlied out of my mind during that time, nor could I stop thinking about the child who had drowned in a strange accident before reaching his second birthday. In many ways, A Child’s Reliquary was about not only the death of this child, but also about the death of innocence. The work is entitled A Child’s Reliquary because the piece is not unlike a musical shrine, with the outer first and third movements evoking public and private aspects of mourning, while the middle movement represents a flashback or snapshot of somewhat happier times.”

The work, which was originally written for string trio, was commissioned by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio and premiered in April of 2000. It has been performed by the same group over twenty times in the U.S. and Europe since that time. In 2006, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra commissioned Danielpour to create the present orchestral version of the work.


Suite No. 1 from The Three-Cornered Hat
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Manuel de Falla was the most important Spanish composer of the 20th century. As a youth he was equally interested in literature and music, and later became quite well known for his articles about music and for writing his own librettos. He eventually leaned toward composition and enrolled at the Madrid Conservatory. In 1907 Falla took an engagement as an accompanist for a tour of France and settled in Paris for the next seven years. He returned to Madrid a well-established composer. In 1920, seeking a quieter lifestyle, he moved to Granada. Although not directly involved with the Spanish Civil War, he did attempt (unsuccessfully) to intervene in the execution of his good friend Federico García Lorca. He was all too happy to leave when offered a conducting post in Argentina in 1939, and lived the rest of his life there.

The Three-Cornered Hat, or El Sombrero de Tres Picos, was first conceived as a pantomime ballet in two scenes. It was based on the novella, The Governor and the Miller's Wife, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, and the music drew liberally from Andalusian folk music. Sergei Diaghilev, famed impresario of the Ballets Russes, saw the premiere in 1917 and commissioned Falla to expand the work to a full ballet. Pablo Picasso was engaged to create the sets and costumes, and the premiere took place on July 22, 1919 at London’s Alhambra Theatre.

The story is a humorous tale of a magistrate who becomes infatuated with the wife of a miller, has him arrested on trumped-up charges, and then tries to seduce her. It includes such time-honored theatrical comedy traditions as pratfalls, clothes-swapping, and seduction-as-revenge, with everybody happy at the end except possibly the lecherous magistrate. Falla extracted two orchestral suites from the score, both of which have become staples of the repertoire. The first includes music that sets scenes, introduces characters, and moves the plot along. The opening fanfare was intended to highlight Picasso’s bullring-inspired curtain, and leads directly into the opening scene of the ballet. A bassoon solo introduces the magistrate, who is teased and mocked by the dances of the miller’s wife. As she picks grapes from the vineyard she leads him in a dance that ends with him tripping and falling, and the miller rejoins her to reprise the fandango.

--Gabriel Langfur


Upon Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

An English composer of German parentage, Delius lived for most of his life in France, yet his music most often evokes a sense of the English landscape. He is sometimes called an “English Impressionist.” Sir Thomas Beecham, the British conductor who championed his music, is largely responsible for his fame. Delius’ family had discouraged him from pursuing music as a profession, but while working on an orange plantation in Florida for a couple of years, he studied music in his spare time. He proved to be a better composer than orange grower, and soon was supporting himself as a musician. His friend Edvard Grieg helped persuade his family to allow him to move to Paris and begin living the life of an artist. Delius’ writing was strongly influenced by Grieg, and in fact “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring,” one of his most popular works, is a sort of meditation on one of Grieg’s Norwegian Folk Tunes (No. 14, Op. 66). It dates from the happy period of his life before the ravages of syphilis rendered him almost a complete invalid. Interestingly, his mind and speech remained unimpaired even after he was blind and almost completely paralyzed, and he continued actively composing with the aid of Eric Fenby, his musical amanuensis. Often paired with his “Summer Night on the River,” the work breaks each melody into phrases, and lingeringly develops each phrase in various colors as the clarinet repeats the cuckoo’s familiar call.


Suite from Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Arguably Copland's best known work, Appalachian Spring was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge for Martha Graham's dance company. It was completed in 1944 and premiered that same year, with Martha herself dancing a principal role in the production. The following spring it received the Pulitzer Prize for music and the Music Critics Circle award for outstanding theatrical work of the season.

Copland's notes for the orchestral suite, which he arranged a year later, state: "…the music of the ballet takes as its point of departure the personality of Martha Graham." He mentions also that the title was chosen by Miss Graham, who borrowed it from one of Hart Crane's poems. Copland describes the action thus: "…A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, which their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”

The original score was for chamber orchestra, but the more frequently heard concert arrangement for full orchestra was intended for use in larger halls.

The movements of the suite are linked in a continuous whole. Towards the end of the piece is heard the famous Shaker melody “’Tis a Gift To Be Simple” with five variations. Although this is the only true quotation from American hymnody, the style and spirit of devotional music prevail throughout. This is in keeping with Copland’s own assertion that composers who use folk melodies must “re-express in their own terms the underlying emotional connotations of the material.”


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Vermont Music Now No. 11: Laura Koplewitz

VSO New Music Advisor David Ludwig interviews Vermont composer Laura Koplewitz. Keep reading to watch the video.



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Watch our orchestral youth concert, "Play Me a Story"

Thanks to RETN for filming the VSO's most recent orchestral youth concert, "Play Me a Story." You can watch it on their website by clicking here and check out when it is airing next. Find out more about our education programs, known as SymphonyKids, by visiting the VSO website. Keep reading!

The VSO is Stuck in Vermont

Seven Days video blogger Eva Sollberger waltzed her way into the Davis Center at UVM on February 6 to showcase the VSO for an installment of "Stuck in Vermont."

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Win 100 bottles of wine and a cooler!

The VSO is raffling off an instant wine cellar to support its activities around the state. Our volunteer leadership has been collecting bottles from local merchants, wineries, and private collectors for this exciting raffle. The prize also includes a storage cooler (total package value is $3500). Tickets are only $35 of 3 for $100. The drawing will be held on February 6. E-mail Mike@vso.org or call (800) VSO-9293 x 25 to purchase tickets. Keep reading for the official rules or go to our website.

VSO Instant Wine Cellar Raffle Official Rules

-- The winner will receive an “instant wine cellar” consisting of 100 bottles of wine and a wine storage cooler. The package has an estimated value of $3,500. There is no option to claim cash in lieu of the raffle prize.
-- No more than 350 raffle tickets at $35 will be sold. The chance of winning is dependant upon the number of tickets sold, and will be no less than 1 in 350. All net proceeds will support the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
-- The drawing will be held at the 32nd Annual Waltz Night on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at the Dudley Davis Center at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. The winner need not be present to win.
-- The winner is responsible for taking possession of the prize at Waltz Night, or at the Vermont Symphony Orchestra office in Burlington, Vermont, within 90 days of the raffle drawing, at which time the winner shall be the legal owner of the prize.
-- Ticket purchasers must be at least 21 years of age. It is illegal for persons under the age of 21 to purchase or consume alcohol.
-- Full-time and part-time employees of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, VSO musicians, and other contracted employees of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and their families are not eligible to enter the raffle.
-- Pursuant to current tax law, raffle ticket purchases do not qualify as charitable contributions.
-- The Vermont Symphony Orchestra is not liable for any loss, injury, or other issues related to the prize, its warranty, or its quality.
-- Prize is transferable, but solely by the raffle winner, and the winner must notify the Vermont Symphony Orchestra if a transfer is to take place, and who the new claimant will be. The transferee must be at least 21 years of age.
-- The prize winner is responsible for payment of all associated taxes, including income taxes, with respect to the prize, and agrees to provide the Vermont Symphony Orchestra with any related documentation requested.
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Program Notes: January 29-31

The VSO takes it on the road this month with a stellar program featuring a World Premiere of David Ludwig's Symphony No. 1, "Book of Hours," a performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto played by world-renowned pianist André Watts, and Mendelssohn's Hebrides. Jaime Laredo leads the charge in Bellows Falls (1/29), Burlington (1/30), and Rutland (1/31). Read the program notes and watch a multimedia program note on David's piece after the jump.


The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), Op. 26
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

By the time Mendelssohn was in his late teens, he had already achieved two compositional triumphs: his Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream and his Octet for Strings. His talents and gifts extended beyond music as well: in 1826 he enrolled at the University of Berlin, studying a variety of subjects from geography to aesthetics. He was quite a sketcher of landscapes, and he loved to travel.

It was on one particular trip to Scotland that Mendelssohn received the inspiration for The Hebrides. Along with his friend Karl Klingemann, Mendelssohn stopped first in Edinburgh, and then continued west to the Inner Hebridean islands, sketching landscapes as he went. On a sea voyage to the island of Staffa, Mendelssohn had his first glimpse of the spectacular Fingal's Cave, named for a hero of Scotch and Irish legend. Visitors can be rowed directly into the cave, two hundred and twenty-seven feet long, richly decorated with seaweeds, lichens, and stalactites, where the constant murmuring of the waves has given it another Gallic name, “the cave of music.” The story goes that Mendelssohn, upon first seeing the grandeur of the cave with its organ-like pillars of red-brown basalt and hearing the musical sounds made by the rushing water, immediately began to draft the opening melodies of the overture right there in the boat. In actuality, Mendelssohn's correspondence suggests that the themes occurred to him on the mainland of the Inner Hebrides before embarking. (While on board, Klingemann's writings confirm, Mendelssohn was much too seasick to be inspired!) In his letters, the composer refers to the work both as “The Hebrides” and “The Solitary Isle.” The first published score was entitled “Fingal’s Cave,” but the orchestra parts said “The Hebrides.” It has become customary to use both of the last designations.

The beginning motive, which reappears throughout, suggests the sound of waves rolling in and out of the cavern. In his three revisions of the piece, Mendelssohn tinkered extensively with the development section, which he worried "tastes more of counterpoint than of whale oil and seagulls." An exciting coda brings to a close a work which Wagner asserted to be "one of the most beautiful pieces we possess."


Symphony No. 1, "Book of Hours"
David Ludwig (1972- )

I. Matins & Lauds: i thank You God for most this amazing* – E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

 *“i thank you God for most this amazing” from COMPLETE POEMS, by E.E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage, used with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.  Copyright © 1950, 1978, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust.  Copyright © 1979 by George James Firmage.

II. Prime: from The Book of Hours – Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Ich lebe mein leben im wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dingen ziehen.
Ich werde den letzen vielleicht nicht vollbringen,
aber versuchen will ich ihn.

Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,
und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;
und ich weiß nocht nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm
oder ein großer Gesang.

I live my life in growing rings
which spread around the things about me.
I might never accomplish the last one,
but that is what I will try to do.

I make circles around God, around that most ancient tower,
and I circle a thousand years long;
and I still do not know: am I a falcon, a storm
or a great song.

III. Terce: Sand – Sara Goudarzi (b. 1976)
If my memories were sand
with every wave they'd start anew

And dance
unconscious of earlier strikes to their grain

And journey
                       to every shell
                                               coral
                                                           and cranny

They'd sit on a child's foot and play in the Sun

or castle in the blue

They'd forget the once river rock they were
banging head with every curve
shattering each day

If my memories were sand
they'd merrily play wave after wave
and forget each spot every few

©2004 Sara Goudarzi Reprinted with the permission of the author. This poem first appeared in The Adirondack Review.
 
IV. Sext: The winds have died, but flowers go on falling; – Ryokan (1758-1831)

The winds have died, but flowers go on falling;
birds call, but silence penetrates each song.

The Mystery! Unknowable, unlearnable.
The virtue of Kannon.

V. None: Zwielicht – (“Twilight”) Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857)
(Music from R. Schumann’s Liederkreis)
Dämmrung will die Flügel spreiten,
Schaurig rühren sich die Bäume,
Wolken ziehn wie schwere Träume -
Was will dieses Grau'n bedeuten?

Hast ein Reh du lieb vor andern,
Laß es nicht alleine grasen,
Jäger ziehn im Wald und blasen,
Stimmen hin und wieder wandern.

Hast du einen Freund hienieden,
Trau ihm nicht zu dieser Stunde,
Freundlich wohl mit Aug' und Munde,
Sinnt er Krieg im tück'schen Frieden.

Was heut müde gehet unter,
Hebt sich morgen neu geboren.
Manches bleibt in Nacht verloren -
Hüte dich, bleib wach und munter!

Twilight begins to spread its wings,
The trees stir ominously,
Clouds come like heavy dreams --
What does this gloominess mean?

If you have a favorite little deer,
Do not let it graze alone;
Hunters roam the forest and blow horns,
Voices wandering in and out.

 If you have a friend down here below,
 Do not trust him in this Hour;
 He might he seem friendly in eye and mouth,
 But he makes plans for war in treacherous peace.

 What today descends wearily down,
 Will lift itself tomorrow born anew.
 Many things at night go lost--
 Guard yourself--be awake and alert!

VI. Vespers: from the Book of John 1:5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

VII. Compline: Hashkiveinu (“Lay us down”) – traditional
Hashkiveinu Adonai Eloheinu l'shalom,
v'haamideynu malkeinu l'chayim,

ufros aleinu sukat sh'lomecha,
v'takneinu b'eitzah tovah mil'fanecha,
v'hoshieinu l'maan sh'mecha
V'hagen baadeinu,

v'haseir meialeinu oyeiv, dever
v'cherev v'raav v'yagon,
v'haseir satan mil'faneinu umeiachareinu,
uvtzeil k'nafecha tastireinu,

ki El shomreinu umatzileinu atah,
ki El chanun v'rachum atah

Ushmor tzeyteinu u-vo-einu,
l'chayim ulshalom,
mei-atah v'ad olam,
ufros aleinu sukat sh'lomecha,

Baruch atah Adonai, hapores sukat shalom aleinu,
v'al kpl amo Yisrael, v'al Yerushalayim.
 
Grant us, oh God, that we lie down in peace
and raise us up, our Guardian, to life renewed.

Spread over us the shelter of your peace.
Guide us with Your good counsel; for your Name’s sake, be our help.
Shield and shelter us beneath the shelter of your wings.

Defend us against our adversaries,
illness, war, famine, and sorrow,
Remove evil from before us and behind us.

For you, God, watch over us and deliver us. 
For you, God, are gracious and merciful.

Guard our going out and coming in,
to life and to peace, for eternity.
Spread over us the shelter of your peace.

Blessed are you, oh God, whose shelter of peace is spread over us.
Over all of your people of Israel and over Jerusalem.


A thousand years ago, you would find a “Book of Hours” in many homes.  It was an illuminated prayer book, helping the reader keep God in mind during the hours of the day with prayers, psalms, and biblical excerpts.  Some were quite simple, with modest illustrations and text.  Others were luxuriously decorated and adorned in gilt illumination.

I think about the importance of prayer in our lives–more as a function of hope than as of a religious expression, even though that is its principal source.  Prayer is common to all societies and to people in all walks of life, in some form or another.  There are basic kinds of prayer: supplication, exaltation, those that show our humility, and those that ask for great things from the ether.  But whatever the purpose, all prayer unites us as human beings.  As we seem to perilously catapult into the 21st Century, I decided that my first symphony should be like a contemporary Book of Hours; a kind of musical “magical realist’s” take on what this prayer book would look like today, and, ultimately, a reflection of hope.

Taking my musical cues from the form of a traditional “Book of Hours,” I set the piece in seven movements from the Liturgy of the Hours that the Book helped to maintain.  I then chose accompanying poems from different times, places, and cultures to inspire the piece.  Some are religious meditations, while others are taken directly from scripture.  Others, still, are modern invocations of desires or dreams.  And so, as the times of day are kept in these poems–from the early morning and bright breaking of dawn to the black of night–so too does my own Book of Hours take the journey from brightness to darkness over the course of its twenty-five minutes.

The first movement, informed by the Cummings poem “i thank You God for most this amazing,” opens with the idea of the quiet solitude before dawn, represented in orchestral unity.  This unison motive introduces each movement, one way or another, throughout the piece, but is not fully realized until the very end.  After the brightness of the first movement are the hopeful sentiments of Rilke’s poem from a collection of his early works–also called “The Book of Hours.”  Rings in the shapes of the music reflect the importance of the rings in his life-affirming words.  The third movement is more contemplative, as is the poem “Sand,” by the wonderfully gifted Persian-American writer Sara Goudarzi.  A bell is heard in the opening of the piece to bring the listener into focus on the words; string chords wash over each other in the background while a solo cello wanders through the music.

The fourth movement uses the words of Zen poet Ryokan as a departure point to invoke the driving sound of Japanese taiko drumming (with slight adjustments made to the timpani!).  This is a transition to the looming darkness of the fifth: an orchestration and arrangement I have made of Schumann’s “Twilight”–itself a setting of poem by his contemporary Joseph Eichendorff.  This darkness descends into a kind of madness in the sixth movement, which is a frenetic fugue inspired by the words from the opening of the Gospel of John.  At the end of the movement, the music plunges finally into chaos.

Order is found again at the last part of the work as the solo horn ushers in the final seventh movement, the “Hashkiveinu.”  This is a traditional Hebrew prayer--something of the equivalent of “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.”  I was both introduced to this liturgy and taught the translation and meaning of the words by Rabbi Daniel Sklar.  Dan also gave me a greater understanding of the importance of this text.  The night time prayer of antiquity was an earnest one–in the meagerness of life in ancient times even surviving the night was not a given.  How can we be sure that the sun will come up tomorrow?  But it does, and it always does, and so the ending of the Book of Hours is about not only the sun rising again, but of hope that we may continue to be reborn in our own lives, defiant of pain and violence, and stronger in our humanity together.

--David Ludwig





Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 73, “Emperor”  
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven actually wrote seven works which could be called piano concertos.  The first was a manuscript of 32 pages, composed when he was all of fourteen years old.  There is, as well, a version of his violin concerto that he arranged for piano and orchestra.  The five piano concertos we accept as representative works were all written after the young composer had made Vienna his home.  Between 1798, the year that Beethoven composed and performed his first piano concerto, and 1809, the year he composed his final piano concerto, considerable changes had take place in both Beethoven and Vienna.

In 1808, Beethoven had premiered his Piano Concerto No. 4, with himself as the maestro and soloist as usual.  The event was chilling, both physically and emotionally.  The program was four hours long, the theater was freezing cold, and the conductor/soloist was deaf.  An eyewitness account by Ludwig Spohr described the debut of the piano concerto:  “It was by no means enjoyment, for, in the first place, the piano was woefully out of tune, which, however, troubled Beethoven little, for he could hear nothing of it; and, secondly, of the former so much admired excellence of the virtuoso scarcely anything was left, in consequence of his total deafness.…I felt moved with the deepest sorrow at so hard a destiny.”

By 1809, Vienna too was suffering a hard destiny under the siege and occupation of Napoleon after his victory at Wagram.  Beethoven would find refuge in his brother Carl’s basement when the bombardment grew too loud, covering his head with pillows to protect what little hearing he had left.  His republican sentiments betrayed by the predations of Napoleon and his financial situation eroded by the devaluation of Austrian currency, Beethoven had no love for the French invaders.  Seated in his favorite coffee house one day, he shook his fist at the back of a passing French officer.  “If I as a general,” he said, ”knew as much about strategy as I the composer know about counterpoint, I’d give you fellows something to think about.”

So it came to pass that the premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 5 was two years after the composition of the work; it was neither conducted nor performed by Beethoven; and it was not in Vienna.  It was first heard in Leipzig on November 28, 1811, under the baton of Johann Philipp Christian Schulz, with Friedrich Schneider as soloist.  The Allgemeine Musik Zeitung of the following January called the work “one of the most original, imaginative, and most effective, but also one of the most difficult of all existing concertos….  It could not have been otherwise than that the crowded audience was soon put into such a state of enthusiasm that it could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition and enjoyment.”

The Vienna debut at the hands of Carl Czerny a couple months later was not as successful, with accusations thrown at Beethoven that he could be “understood and appreciated only by connoisseurs.”  It was this performance, however, which may have been the source of the concerto’s nickname, as a French army officer was supposed to have been overheard acclaiming the work as “an emperor among concertos.”  Most likely the nickname was endowed by an early publisher in an effort to convey the work’s “grand dimensions and intrinsic splendor.”  Certainly the name was not given by Beethoven:  he had no love for emperors of any sort, and was particularly stung by the behavior of his former hero, Napoleon.

I.  Allegro – After three sweeping introductory chords with piano flourishes, the principal theme is introduced by the orchestra.  A subsidiary theme is presented in pizzicato strings in Eb minor, and then heard in the horns in Eb Major.  The piano enters and offers its versions of the themes.  Development and dialogue lead to the point where a closing cadenza would be expected.  Here Beethoven instructs the pianist:  “Don’t make a cadenza here, but attack what follows immediately.”  It is actually Beethoven’s written-out version of a cadenza on the main two themes, and the orchestra accompanies the latter half of the cadenza in a closing coda.


II.  Adagio un poco mosso – Muted violins present a hymn-like melody, which is followed by “quasi-variations” in the piano (as Sir George Grove characterizes them).  After the third variation, the bassoons sustain a B-natural, and then the entire orchestra unceremoniously sinks a half step to a B-flat, over which the piano starts to toy with the rondo theme of the finale that follows.  There is no break between this movement and the finale.


III.  Rondo: Allegro – In a brilliant and unique invention, Beethoven presents interwoven rondo and sonata forms.  The surging opening theme is the refrain of a rondo, and the repeats of this first subject encompass the introduction and development of a second, more singing subject.  The intricacies of form are rendered invisible by the impression of complete spontaneity throughout the movement, which closes as piano chords descend and die away over a repeated rhythm in the timpani.

--Hilary Hatch


André Watts, piano

André Watts burst upon the music world at the age of 16 when Leonard Bernstein chose him to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic in their Young People's Concerts, broadcast nationwide on CBS-TV.  Only two weeks later, Bernstein asked him to substitute at the last minute for the ailing Glenn Gould in performances of Liszt's E-flat Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, thus launching his career in storybook fashion.  More than 45 years later, André Watts remains one of today's most celebrated and beloved superstars.

A perennial favorite with orchestras throughout the US, Mr. Watts is also a regular guest at the major summer music festivals including Ravinia, the Hollywood Bowl, Saratoga, Tanglewood and the Mann Music Center. Recent and upcoming orchestral engagements include appearances with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and the St. Louis, Atlanta, Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Dallas, Seattle and National symphonies. During the 2009/10 season he travels to Japan in July to appear as a featured artist at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo and returns in the fall for an extensive tour of recital and orchestral appearances.

André Watts has had a long and frequent association with television, having appeared on numerous programs produced by PBS, the BBC and the Arts and Entertainment Network, performing with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center among others.  His 1976 New York recital, aired on the program Live From Lincoln Center, was the first full length recital broadcast in the history of television and his performance at the 38th Casals Festival in Puerto Rico was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cultural Programming. Mr. Watts’ most recent television appearances are with the Philadelphia Orchestra on the occasion of the orchestra’s 100th Anniversary Gala and a performance of the Brahms Concerto No.2 with the Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz conducting, for PBS.

Mr. Watts’ extensive discography includes recordings of works by Gershwin, Chopin, Liszt and Tchaikovsky for CBS Masterworks; recital CD’s of works by Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt and Chopin for Angel/EMI; and recordings featuring the concertos of Liszt, MacDowell, Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens on the Telarc label. He is also included in the Great Pianists of the 20th Century series for Philips.

A much-honored artist who has played before royalty in Europe and heads of government in nations all over the world, André Watts was selected to receive the Avery Fisher Prize in 1988.  At age 26 he was the youngest person ever to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Yale University and he has since received numerous honors from highly respected schools including the University of Pennsylvania, Brandeis University, The Juilliard School of Music and his Alma Mater, the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. In June 2006, he was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl of Fame to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his debut (with the Philadelphia Orchestra).

Previously Artist-in-Residence at the University of Maryland, Mr. Watts was appointed to the newly created Jack I. and Dora B. Hamlin Endowed Chair in Music at Indiana University in May, 2004. Keep reading!

Two Musicians on our January Concert Program

Alan Jordan interviews Jeremy Levine, the VSO's principal timpanist, and Elizabeth Young Levine, a VSO violinist. They chat about our January concerts with André Watts in Bellows Falls, Burlington, and Rutland, traveling around Vermont with the VSO, and the music of David Ludwig (whose Symphony No. 1, "Book of Hours" will be premiered the weekend of January 29-31).

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Program notes: December 5 Masterworks Series

The VSO offers a five-concert Saturday Masterworks series at the Flynn Center in Burlington. All concerts begin at 8:00 p.m. and are preceded at 7:00 p.m. by Musically Speaking, a free pre-concert discussion that provides entertaining insight into the evening’s program. Anthony Princiotti conducts our second concert in the series, to be performed Saturday, December 5, at the Flynn Center in Burlington. Click "Keep reading!" to peruse the program notes.


Trittico Botticelliano
Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)

In 1900 Respighi left his job as an orchestral violinist in Bologna, Italy to travel to St. Petersburg. There he was to play first viola for the Russian Imperial Theater's season of Italian opera. More important, the move brought him within striking distance of his goal to receive instruction in composition and orchestration from his idol, Rimsky-Korsakov. At his earliest opportunity, Respighi called on the Russian master and found a throng of like-minded admirers. After glancing at one of Respighi's scores, Rimsky-Korsakov announced, "I can see nobody else today!" and closeted himself with his young pupil, becoming his instructor for the five remaining months of Respighi's Russian stay.

Encouraged by his early teacher in Bologna to recognize that music other than opera deserved to be written (revolutionary thinking in Italy!), Respighi became the great Italian orchestral composer of his time. Involved in scholarly interests as well, he revered the Italian legacy of Renaissance music and art. Trittico Botticelliano (Three Botticelli Pictures) is the composer’s musical impression of three paintings by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. An evocative blend of the classical and romantic, the work was commissioned by Washington arts philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1926 following a tour of the United States by Respighi as pianist/conductor.

I. La Primavera - "Spring.” The painting is a sylvan scene including shepherds, nymphs, the goddess Flora and the three Graces. In the tradition of Vivaldi, Respighi heralds spring with bird calls and a rustic dance melody.

II. L'Adorazione dei Magi - "The Adoration of the Kings.” This small painting is overwhelming in its visual offerings of richly-dressed pilgrims descending from fine horses to worship the Mother and infant Christ child. The music opens with a moving Siciliana, and the contrapuntal melodic line includes wisps of Gregorian chant.

III. La Nascita di Venere - "The Birth of Venus.” This famous painting depicts the nude Venus, born of the sea, standing in the middle of a scallop shell above the life-giving waters. The music evokes the play of the waves that Debussy captured in La Mer. The long and sensuous melody that represents Venus grows to an eloquent crescendo, then fades to a close.

--Hilary Hatch



Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Brahms kept his audience waiting for six years between his second and third symphonies. He did the bulk of the work on this piece in the summer of 1883 in Wiesbaden, where his new young love, contralto Hermine Spiess, lived. As different from the first two as they are from each other, the Third reflects a more personal and intimate side of the composer. Eduard Hanslick, oft-quoted reviewer of the period, promptly nicknamed the symphony “Eroica,” although he pointed out that the only heroic parts were the opening and closing movements, which frame movements that “quiver with the romantic twilight of Schumann and Mendelssohn.” The Third is the least frequently performed of Brahms’ four symphonies, possibly because it is the only one which does not have a rousing, triumphant ending. It is undeniably a masterpiece, however: a product of the mature artist at the height of his powers, a work that fairly bursts with vitality and strength.

Karl Geiringer’s biography of Brahms has this to say about the symphony:

Like the first two symphonies, the Third is introduced by a brief motto; this not only provides the bass for the grandiose principal subject of the first movement, but dominates the whole symphony. It assumes a particularly important role in the first movement, before the beginning of the recapitulation. After the passionate development, the waves of excitement calm down, and the horn announces the motto, in a mystic Eb Major, as a herald of heavenly peace. Passionless, clear, almost objective serenity speaks to us from the second movement. No Andante of such emotional tranquility is to be found in the works of the youthful Brahms. Particularly attractive is the first theme of the following Poco Allegretto, which (in spite of its great simplicity) is stamped with a highly individual character by its constant alternation of rhythms. Further, Brahms contrived to make the concise three-fold form of the movement more effective by orchestrating the da capo of the first part in quite a different manner. Such a mixture of simplicity and refinement is characteristic of Brahms in his later years. The Finale is a tremendous conflict of elemental forces; it is only in the Coda that calm returns. Like a rainbow after a thunderstorm, the motto, played by the flute, spans the turmoil of the other voices with its message of hope and freedom.

Symphony No. 2 in c minor, Op. 17, “Little Russian”
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

In the summer of 1872, after an exhausting year of working too hard, Tchaikovsky visited his sister, Alexandra, in the rural village of Kamenka, in the Ukraine. Inspired by the peasant songs he heard, he started work on his second symphony. Tchaikovsky put the finishing touches on the piece in Moscow in November of that year, and wrote to his brother, “Modi, my conscience pricks me. That is my punishment for not having written to you for so long. But what can I do when the symphony, which is nearing completion, occupies me so entirely that I can think of nothing else? It seems to me my best work, at least so far as correctness of form is concerned, a quality for which I have not so far distinguished myself.” Tchaikovsky showed the manuscript to Rimsky-Korsakov and the other members of the Russian ultra-nationalist group known as “The Five”—Mussorgsky, Borodin, Balakireff, and Cui—and received enthusiastic praise from them.

The premiere was a success, yet Tchaikovsky, ever his own severest critic, was not satisfied. Seven years later, he undertook a major overhaul. He wrote to his friend and patroness Madame von Meck, “How I thank the fate that made Bessel fail in his contract and never print this score! How much seven years can mean when a man is striving for progress in his work! Is it possible that seven years hence I shall look upon what I write today as I look at my music written in 1872? I know it is possible because perfection—the ideal—is boundless.”

I. Andante sostenuto; Allegro vivo. The slow introduction begins with a melancholy French horn solo, a melody taken from the Ukrainian variant of the folk song, “Down by Mother Volga.” The main theme presents a stormy, vigorous motive which contrasts with the lyrical, gently yearning second theme. An energetic development section develops both themes to a brilliant climax, after which the slow horn solo is heard once more.

II. Andantino marziale, quasi moderato. The slow movement begins with the tragic wedding march from the last act of Tchaikovsky’s opera Undine, composed in 1869 and later destroyed by the composer, save for this excerpt and a few other fragments. The central section of the movement is based on “Spin, My Spinner,” a Russian folksong that Tchaikovsky included in a compilation of folksongs published in 1868.

III. Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace. The nimble scherzo’s rhythmic drive is punctuated by a whimsical trio featuring the woodwinds in a contrasting duple meter.

IV. Finale: Moderato assai. This movement is a set of variations--harmonic, contrapuntal, and instrumental--on the Ukrainian melody, “The Crane.” A slow introduction presents the short melody, but propulsive energy is the hallmark of the movement. The exuberant, nearly frenzied, ending inevitably reminds the listener of a fiery Cossack dance.

The designation “Little Russian” was given to this symphony by the critic Nicholas Kashkin, the Ukrainian region having been known in Tsarist days as “Little Russia.”
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Vermont Music Now No. 10: Gwyneth Walker

VSO New Music Advisor and accomplished composer David Ludwig interviews Vermont composer Gwyneth Walker on this latest episode of Vermont Music Now. Ms. Walker expounds on her many years as a professional composer, making her living solely from the craft. She gives advice on the business of composing and the classical music industry. Click "Keep reading!" to watch.

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