Program Information

Artist Bios

ARILD REMMEREIT conductor
STEPHEN HOUGH piano

Program Notes

Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 1:30 pm | NJPAC in Newark

Saturday, October 10, 2009 at 8 pm | NJPAC in Newark

Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 3 pm | State Theatre in New Brunswick

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ARILD REMMEREIT conductor
STEPHEN HOUGH piano

MUSSORGSKY Night on Bald Mountain       Arr. RIMSKY-KORSAKOV 
                                           

SIERRA Sinfonía No. 4

~INTERMISSION~

RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Introduction and 24 Variations), Op. 43

STEPHEN HOUGH piano

HANSON Symphony No. 6

Andante

Allegro scherzando

Adagio

Allegro assai

Adagio

Allegro

BY LAURIE SHULMAN, ©2009

FIRST NORTH AMERICAN SERIAL RIGHTS ONLY

Night on Bald Mountain

Modest Mussorgsky

Born March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Pskov, Russia

Died March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg

Movie music?

Thanks to Walt Disney’s classic Fantasia (1940) and the disco movie Saturday Night Fever (1977), Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain is one of the best-known works in the classical literature. It was not always so. Incredible as it seems today, this brilliant, familiar piece only had one performance in England before World War II! Forever associated with the lightning bolts and spooky images of Disney’s animated realization, music lovers may be somewhat surprised at the confused tale that surrounds Mussorgsky’s original. Night on Bald Mountain has one of the most convoluted histories of any work by the composer.

Circuitous route to a popular piece

Before he was even 20, the ambitious Mussorgsky considered composing a three-act opera called St. John’s Eve, after Nikolai Gogol’s story; the next year he was writing to his friend Mily Balakirev about incidental music for a Baron Mengden drama called The Witches. By 1867, his plan had altered yet again. The work was now cast as a fantasy for piano and orchestra. Eventually Mussorgsky settled on the idea of an orchestral tone poem. He returned to Night on Bald Mountain several times, never satisfied with its final form. At his death, several versions survived. His friend Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov completed the orchestration we hear; it was published in 1886.

To his friend Vladimir Nikolsky, Mussorgsky had written in 1867: “In form and character my composition is Russian and original. Its tone is hot and chaotic.” Those words aptly describe the lurid program depicted in the music. It opens with the chatter and gossip of a group of witches waiting for their ruler. His cortege follows, and then the witches enact an unholy glorification of Satan. The piece concludes with a ghoulish witches’ Sabbath.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestration calls for woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo; four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bells, cymbals, bass drum, tam tam, harp and strings. Timing: approximately 12 minutes.

Sinfonía No. 4 (East Coast Premiere)

Roberto Sierra

Born October 9, 1953 in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico

Symphonic star

In the past 10 years, Roberto Sierra has become one of the most frequently performed living composers. With his Sinfonía No. 4, he is also emerging as one of America’s most important symphonists. While other composers have focused their energy on concertos for orchestra, solo concerti or 10-minute “curtain raisers,” Sierra has been keenly interested in exploring the symphony.

His first essay in the genre came in 2002; within four years, he had completed Sinfonía No. 2 (“Gran Passacaglia”) and Sinfonía No. 3, (“La Salsa”). Sinfonía No. 4, heard on this program in its East Coast premiere, is a further exploration of the symphony, which he believes remains a viable form. It is a logical outgrowth of his prior symphonies—and his music in other genres—in that it synthesizes traditional techniques and abstract formal challenges with elements of popular traditions. Foremost among the latter are Caribbean rhythms and instruments and the folk music of Puerto Rico.

Sierra is no stranger to New Jersey audiences. As recently as February of 2008, the NJSO presented the first performances by a major American orchestra of his Danzas Concertantes for Guitar and Orchestra, featuring soloist Manuel Barrueco. Sierra, who has long served as the Old Dominion Professor of Composition at Cornell University, has been very busy in the interim. His Missa Latina (a major 2006 work for soloists, chorus and orchestra of nearly 80 minutes’ duration), was performed earlier this year in Houston and Los Angeles and was recently released on a recording by the Milwaukee Symphony and Chorus. David Lockington led performances of his recent Carnaval in Grand Rapids, Michigan in July. Sierra’s chamber music was also performed at a half dozen music festivals in the USA and Japan this summer.

Consortium commission

This month, however, quite a few eyes and ears are on this new symphony, this season’s commission from the 12 orchestras nationwide that form the Sphinx Commissioning Consortium—a new initiative to highlight Black and Latino composers and encourage diversity in classical music. Giancarlo Guerrero (to whom the work is dedicated) and the Nashville Symphony plays the Sierra symphony’s official premiere performances October 1–3 in Tennessee. The Cincinnati Symphony presents the Midwest premiere coincident with these NJSO performances. Additional performances take place in 2010 in Richmond, Detroit, Miami and Grand Rapids.

About the music

Sinfonía No. 4 is cast in four movements, with the outer two movements loosely centered on the tonality of A minor. An augmented chord (in this case the pitches F-A-C#-F) occurs in some form in all four movements. The composer says the opening Moderalmente rápido introduces three principal materials: initial melodic gestures, chromatic chords supporting a series of contrasting melodic gestures and a vibrant rhythmic figure with bearing on both the harmonic and melodic materials. A strong pulse underscores this movement, lending it the feeling of a Baroque dance-based rhythm.

The two inner movements function roughly like a traditional scherzo and slow movement—but Sierra’s personality is audible in both. Rápido has frequent metric changes and some brilliant orchestral touches, including a prominent orchestral keyboard part and a lovely harp/celesta duet with violin figuration in swirling arabesques. The movement alternates between brisk and leisurely tempi. Ultimately the faster tempo prevails, accelerating to furioso at the movement’s conclusion.

Bolero—but not Ravel

Sierra’s Tiempo di bolero is not to be confused with the moderate triple-meter dance made famous by Ravel in his eponymous orchestral work. In fact, it opens in 4/4 time, presently switching to 3/8. According to Sierra, this movement evokes the slow bolero Latin ballads that became popular in the 1950s. The descending chromatic line (listen for pizzicato in the double basses) that underscores the bolero tunes subtly alludes to the Baroque passacaglia. In its alternation between two time signatures, the movement’s form echoes that of the second movement. However, Sierra employs a polyphonic texture in this bolero, superimposing the two sets of musical material in a complex sonic tapestry.

The finale abounds with syncopations and a high-profile role for percussion. Sierra has written, “The main idea is the vibrant Latin claves rhythm [that] supports all the melodic and harmonic materials from beginning to end.”

Sierra’s Sinfonía No. 4 is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, marimba, glockenspiel, bongos, bass drum, xylophone, vibraphone, snare drum, suspended cymbals, crash cymbals, congos, timbales, claves, cowbell, harp, piano and strings. Timing: approximately 21 minutes.

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Born April 1, 1873 in Oneg, Novgorod District, Russia

Died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills

An irresistible caprice

Niccolò Paganini’s greatest musical legacy has been the apparently unstoppable fount of works inspired by his 24th Violin Caprice, drawn from the collection that constitutes a cornerstone of the virtuoso violinist’s repertoire. Two 19th-century masters, Brahms and Liszt, were caught by the spell of the final Caprice; each composed a major work based on the sprightly melody. Rachmaninoff was similarly lured in the early 1930s. With the Brahms and Liszt works looming as models, he wrote his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini during the summer of 1931, while vacationing with his family in Lucerne, Switzerland. The piece was an immediate success at its premiere and has been an audience favorite ever since.

Rhapsody is related conceptually to his popular piano concerti, but is actually an extended set of variations on Paganini’s theme. Broadly speaking, it divides into three principal sections with the central D-flat major variation (No. XVIII in the score) functioning as the center of the “slow movement.” That famous theme, which is an inversion of Paganini’s, constitutes the emotional crux of the piece; it is the melody echoing in listeners’ ears as they leave the concert hall.

Gregorian chant in the concert hall

Rachmaninoff also incorporated the Gregorian chant Dies Irae in three of the variations, including the finale. He was fascinated with the ancient melody, also using it in his symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 (1909) and choral symphony The Bells, Op. 35 (1913); he would return to the medieval theme for his final orchestral work, Symphonic Dances (1940).

The score of the Rhapsody calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, glockenspiel, harp, solo piano and strings. Timing: approximately 23 minutes.

Symphony No. 6

Howard Hanson

Born October 28, 1896 in Wahoo, Nebraska

Died February 26, 1981 in Rochester, New York

Musical cold war: serialism vs. traditional tonality

In the 1960s, while the USSR and the United States grappled with the Cold War, classical music was embroiled in its own cold war. Proponents of serialism—the compositional approach derived from Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone system, applying its principles to dynamics and duration as well as pitch—dominated academic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. Tonal music was considered hopelessly old-fashioned and out of the mainstream. Composers who resisted serialism and avant-garde techniques such as electronic music were ostracized in certain circles.

Nevertheless, a substantial coterie of composers continued to write music rooted in tonality. Even those who dabbled in serialism, like Bernstein and Copland, ultimately retained their connection to traditional melody and harmony. Howard Hanson was another stubborn and loyal advocate to tradition, yet he continued to explore within that tradition and to expand his own vocabulary as a composer. His Sixth Symphony (1968) is a fine example.

Surprise work from a staunch romantic

Hanson was director of the Eastman School of Music for 40 years. Today, few listeners know any of his music beyond the “Romantic” Symphony (No. 2), The Mystic Trumpeter and the love theme from his opera Merry Mount, all written before 1935. The New York Philharmonic commissioned Hanson’s Sixth Symphony for its 125th anniversary in 1968, several years after Hanson’s retirement from Eastman. The work proves that Hanson remained vital, imaginative and a master of the orchestra.

A musical seesaw

The symphony’s six movements alternate between slow and fast. None of them exceeds six minutes, and the last three are little more than two minutes each. The relationship between the two tempi is one of polar opposites. Violence and diabolical energy characterize the fast movements (neither quality is generally associated with Hanson); the slow movements favor gentle pulsations and an elegiac character. What unites them is a recurrent motive (the pitches C, G and A), sometimes stated sequentially, as in the symphony’s opening gesture, and elsewhere sounded as a chord. In some form, this motive recurs in all six movements.

Hanson was a superb orchestrator, and the symphony abounds with instrumental color. The opening of the Allegro scherzando is a percussion trio for two snare drums and triangle. They introduce urgent, purposeful, quasi-military music: march-like, but with syncopations. Hanson’s signature lyricism surfaces in the third movement’s initial Adagio, with its Mahlerian strings and low brass choir.

The last two movements are played without pause, making the second Adagio a sort of slow introduction to the final Allegro. Echoes of both Copland and Sibelius are discernible in the Adagio, but the concluding Allegro, with its major role for timpani, is pure Hanson. Balancing tension and lyricism, this concise work shows that Hanson, in his early 70s, remained a vibrant voice in American music.

Symphony No. 6 is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two snare drums, triangle, xylophone, bass drum, suspended cymbal and strings. Timing: approximately 20 minutes.