Program 1

Overture to I Vespri Siciliani (“The Sicilian Vespers”)
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Composed 1853-1855.
Premiered on June 13, 1855 in Paris.

The story of The Sicilian Vespers concerns the Easter Monday uprising on March 30, 1282 by the people of Palermo against the French forces occupying their island. The ringing of the bells for Vespers on that day was the signal for the start of the revolt. The libretto of Scribe emphasized the theatrical elements of the story — its crowd (i.e., chorus) scenes, grandiose settings and murderous ending. (Wagner, living in Paris at the time after having been run out of Germany for his part in the 1848 revolution in Dresden, called the opera “a night of carnage.”) The text, built on the formulas of French grand opera that reveled in spectacle, allowed Verdi little chance to exploit the operatic style of direct expression that he had developed in Rigoletto (1851), La Traviata and Il Trovatore (both 1853), and, except for the Overture, little of the music that he supplied for it reaches the heights of his middle-period masterpieces. The Overture, the last Verdi wrote in the sonata-with-slow-introduction form characteristic of Rossini’s theatrical prefaces, borrows several themes from the opera, one of which he pilfered from Giovanna d’Arco of 1845.


Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor, Op. 85
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Composed in 1918-1919.
Premiered on October 27, 1919 in London, conducted by the composer with Felix Salmond as soloist.

It seemed that Elgar’s world was crumbling in 1918. The four years of war had left him, as so many others, weary and numb from the crush of events. Many of his friends of German ancestry were put through a bad time in England during those years; others whom he knew were killed or maimed in action. The traditional foundations of the British political system were skewed by the rise of socialism directly after the War, and Elgar saw his beloved Edwardian world drawing to a close. (He resembles that titan among fin-de-siècle musicians, Gustav Mahler, in his mourning of a passing age.) His music seemed anachronistic in an era of polychords and dodecaphony, a remnant of stuffy conservatism, and his 70th birthday concert in Queen’s Hall attracted only half a house. The health of his wife, his chief helpmate, inspiration and critic, began to fail, and with her passing in 1920, Elgar virtually stopped composing. The Cello Concerto, written just before his wife’s death, is Elgar’s last major work, and seems both to summarize his disillusion over the calamities of World War I and to presage the unhappiness of his last years.

Large sections of the Concerto are given over to the solitary ruminations of the cello in the form of recitative-like passages, such as the one that opens the work. The forms of the Concerto’s four movements only suggest traditional models in their epigrammatic concentration. The first movement is a ternary structure (A–B–A), commencing after the opening recitative. A limpid, undulating theme in (Moderato) is given by the lower strings as the material for the first and third sections of the form, while a related melody (with dotted rhythms) appears first in the woodwinds in the central portion.

The first movement is linked directly to the second (Allegro molto). It takes several tries before the music of the second movement is able to maintain its forward motion, but when it does, it proves to be a skittering, moto perpetuo display piece for the soloist. It is music, however, which, for all its hectic activity, seems strangely earth-bound, a sort of wild merriment not quite capable of banishing the dolorous thoughts of the opening movement. The almost-motionless stillness of the following Adagio returns to the introspection of the opening movement. It, in the words of Herbert Byard, “seems to express the grief that is too deep for tears.” The finale, like the opening, is prefaced by a recitative for the soloist. The movement’s form following this introductory section is based on the Classical rondo, and makes a valiant attempt at the “hail-and-well-met” vigor of Elgar’s earlier march music. Like the scherzando second movement, however, it seems more a nostalgic recollection of past abilities than a display of remaining powers. Toward the end, the stillness of the third movement creeps over the music, and the soloist indulges in an extended soliloquy. Brief bits of earlier movements are remembered before a final recall of the fast rondo music closes this thoughtful Concerto.


Overture to La Forza del Destino (“The Force of Destiny”)
Giuseppe Verdi

Composed in 1861.
Premiered on November 17, 1862 in St. Petersburg.

The story of La Forza del Destino is set in 18th-century Spain. Alvaro has accidentally killed the father of his beloved, Leonora, during the lovers’ attempted elopement. Separately, they flee. Leonora’s brother, Carlo, swears vengeance on both her and their father’s murderer. Leonora first seeks refuge at a convent, and then goes to live as a hermit in a cave. Carlo and Alvaro meet during a military encounter, and Carlo discovers the true identity of his adversary just after Alvaro is carried away, wounded. Alvaro joins the Church as a monk, but is followed by Carlo who enrages Alvaro to the point of a duel. They fight near Leonora’s cave, interrupting her prayers, and she goes to see what is causing the commotion. The lovers recognize each other, and Alvaro cries that he has spilled the blood of yet another of her family. She rushes off to help her fatally wounded brother, but Carlo, with his last bit of strength, stabs Leonora, and she dies in Alvaro’s arms.

The Overture, utilizing several themes from the opera, reflects the strong emotions of the work, though it does not follow the progress of the story. It opens with a stern summons of six unison notes, after which appears the agitated theme that Verdi intended to represent Fate. This motto recurs throughout both the Overture and the opera as a symbol of the workings of destiny on the principal characters. The brief introduction is followed by an expressive, lyrical melody for woodwinds over pizzicato string accompaniment under which are heard the mutterings of the Fate theme. The violins then give an impassioned phrase from Leonora’s Act II prayer. The Fate theme reappears in a menacing guise before the woodwinds sing a reminder of the priest’s melody. Another of Leonora’s themes, given by clarinet over a rustling harp background, is interrupted as the brass intone a chorale. Leonora’s melody continues in a slower setting for full orchestra, and is then treated to another variation in staccato eighth notes combined with the Fate motive. An energetic coda brings this stirring Overture to a close.


Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Composed in 1841; revised in 1851.
Premiered on December 6, 1841 in Leipzig, conducted by Ferdinand David.

“I often feel tempted to crush my piano — it is too narrow for my thoughts,” wrote Schumann in 1839 to Heinrich Dorn, his former composition teacher. “I really have very little practice in orchestral music now; still, I hope to master it.” To that time (Schumann turned thirty the following summer), he had produced only songs and small-scale works for solo piano, with the exception of an abandoned symphony of 1832. Within a year of his words to Professor Dorn, Schumann received strong encouragement from three sources to act on his ambition to launch into the grander genres of music. First, the redoubtable Franz Liszt had taken up Schumann’s piano works, especially the brilliant Carnaval, and convinced his young colleague that he was capable of bigger things. Liszt fired off several letters in 1838 and 1839 encouraging Schumann to forge ahead, even offering to arrange performances and seek out a publisher for him. Liszt was the brightest star in the European musical firmament at the time, and Schumann could hardly help but be swayed by his advice.

As the second impetus toward undertaking an orchestral work, Schumann had discovered the wondrous Symphony No. 9 in C major of Franz Schubert among the papers of the late composer’s brother in 1839. Schumann was ecstatic over his find, and he talked Mendelssohn into conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of the work.

Schumann’s third source of encouragement was his beloved wife, Clara. Their long-hoped-for marriage finally took place in September 1840, and Clara, one of the greatest musicians and pianists of the 19th century, was soon coaxing her new husband to begin a symphony. Her urging had an immediate effect. The year 1841 was one of almost unmatched creativity for Schumann, during which he wrote not one, but two symphonies, the first movement of what became his Piano Concerto, a hybrid orchestral work called Overture, Scherzo and Finale (Op. 52) and sketches for a C minor symphony which was never completed. He began the D minor Symphony in May, as soon as he finished the one in B-flat major (No. 1, “Spring”), and was able to present the manuscript as a gift to Clara for her birthday on September 13, 1841, also the day on which their first child was baptized. Schumann felt unsure of the orchestration of the new Symphony because of his limited background in writing for instruments, however, and, after hearing a trial performance of the work in December, he decided not to publish it. The score went into his desk drawer, where it lay untouched for a decade.

In 1851, after he had written two more symphonies (hence, this D minor Symphony became known as “Number 4,” though it was the second he composed), Schumann undertook a revision of the score. He excised some passages and changed the orchestration by heavily reinforcing many of the lines. Because of the interrelationships of the movements, he toyed for a while with the title “Symphonic Fantasy,” but settled instead on calling the first published version Introduction, Allegro, Romanze, Scherzo and Finale, in One Movement. He wanted to indicate by his cumbersome title that this composition was a new approach to the problem of form, in which several moods or movements were collected into a single long arch of music. He insisted that there be only momentary pauses between movements, and he even connected the third movement directly to the finale, as had Beethoven in his Fifth Symphony. Schumann strengthened the relationships among the movements by transforming in each a “motto” phrase heard at the outset of the Symphony, as well as interchanging some thematic material among the movements.

The Introduction is somber and slow-moving, with the “motto” (a half-dozen scale notes turning around a central pitch) presented immediately in the second violins. The tempo quickens and the Allegro begins with a bounding theme for violins and high woodwinds that encompasses the “motto.” The movement continues, passionate and eloquent, with the bounding main theme almost constantly in evidence. Hardly before the recapitulation has begun, it is abruptly truncated to make way for the wistful Romanze, based on a haunting tune sung by the oboe. Following a lovely, limpid section marked by shimmering triplet figures in the solo violin, the oboe melody returns briefly but stops on an inconclusive harmony which resolves only as the tempestuous Scherzo begins. The gentle Trio recalls the Romanze. With no break, the hushed expectancy that began the Symphony returns, and here serves to usher in the Finale. The bounding main theme of the opening movement reappears, as do other musical ideas previously encountered. There is an invigorating rhythmic energy about this closing movement that carries the music forward and gives a sense of arrival, as though the Finale were the goal of all that had preceded it. (It is, of course.) As if the exuberant mood that begins this movement were insufficient to cap the structure, the tempo is twice increased in the closing pages to provide a thrilling final climax to this grand Symphony.