© 2013 Mary Eichbauer
Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Overture to Manfred, op. 115. Composed
1848-49. First performed in Leipzig on 14 March 1852, with the composer
conducting. Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3
trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani and strings.
George Gordon, Lord Byron, was a notorious nonconformist, but he was also
one of the most talented poets of his generation. Besides the unfinished epic poem
Don Juan, Byron wrote a large body of work in his brief, adventurous life. Lady
Caroline Lamb, a spoiled socialite who carried on a brief, unhappy affair with Byron,
famously called him “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” He wrote Manfred, a
Dramatic Poem, after his marriage dissolved amid rumors that he had carried on an
incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. (He was very close to
Augusta, but whether their relationship went as far as incest is not known.) The
rumor mill disgusted him; he left England and never returned, dying at 36 in 1824
while trying to help Greece win its freedom from the Ottoman Empire.
The title character of Manfred is a powerful magician, able to summon spirits
and make them do his bidding, but he is unable to find forgiveness for an unnamed
(apparently sexual) crime that caused the death of his beloved, Astarte. The
suggestive parallels with Byron’s own life make the work seem confessional, but the
truth is undoubtedly more complex. Byron’s relationships with women were often
unhappy and short, but he formed passionate, and happier, attachments to male
friends. Although he possessed great physical beauty, he also had a disability, known
as a “clubbed” foot, which caused him to walk painfully, with a noticeable limp.
It was probably his sense of living outside the bounds of social propriety and
physical “normalcy” that caused Byron to create in his works the tormented,
transgressive “Byronic hero,” a gifted character who suffers from larger-than-life
torments and desires. He is a seeker and an exile who flees human society, yet
considers himself above it. Many others—notably Goethe (in Faust)—had written
about similar characters, but Byron put his unique stamp upon the type of the
Romantic anti-hero.
Schumann greatly desired to write operas based on literary themes.
Unfortunately, critical reaction to his only opera, Genoveva, based on a medieval
French legend, discouraged him from further attempts. He was deeply moved by
reading Manfred, however, and decided to compose an overture and incidental
orchestral and choral music meant to dramatize parts of the play. (Manfred, with its
long soliloquys, quick scene changes, and supernatural trappings, is not really suited
to stage performance.) Schumann’s incipient mental illness (he was beginning to
hear voices) may have attracted him to Byron’s tragic history, as well as to
Manfred’s themes of despair and suffering rewarded (perhaps) by redemption.
Three startling chords open the piece, followed by a sad and languorous
melody that sets the scene, gradually quickening. A trumpet call turns the music
wilder and more anticipatory. A yearning theme appears, with strings and winds
calling and answering like two lonely voices. Gentler music alternating with the
yearning theme brings a reminder of more tender emotions. But the yearning theme
always returns, growing more and more stormy and passionate. Time after time,
emotions build to a climax, then give way to more tender passages, with a less
driven, more faltering tempo. The intrusion of notes by the horns briefly suggests
redemption, but strings bring back the wild sadness. Gradually, strains of hope,
represented by muted brass, play against the yearning theme, which itself grows
quieter. Despite the faltering pace, we hear a continually agitated undercurrent of
strings, slowing gradually. Winds return with the redemptive theme, but sadly. The
overture ends softly and quietly with a repeated note that is almost like a dirge.
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). Fantaisie for Flute and Orchestra in E minor, op.
79. Composed 1898. Flute and piano version first performed at the Paris
Conservatory on 28 July 1898. Orchestrated by L. Aubert in 1957. Scored for 2
oboes, 2 clarinets (optional), 2 bassoons, 2 horns, strings and solo flute.
Born in the remote countryside in the south of France, Gabriel Fauré was lucky
enough to have his musical talent recognized early, and he was sent to a private
music school in Paris. Towards the end of his studies, which were mainly concerned
with training him to become a choirmaster, he encountered the composer SaintSaëns, who introduced him to contemporary secular music and taught him
composition.
When Fauré’s studies were completed, he worked as an organist and
choirmaster in a small town, but soon tired of the countryside and returned to Paris,
where he took up similar duties. Never an ambitious man, Fauré did not seek riches
and fame from his work, but struggled to find time to compose while earning a living
arranging music for church services.
Later in life, he found more time to compose, especially when teaching at, and
then directing, the Paris Conservatory. His music, which sounds so pleasantly lyrical
to us now, was long considered radical and too complex, and for most of his life he
received praise mostly in avant-garde circles. At his retirement, he received all the
honors due him and finally became widely known in his old age.
While teaching at the Conservatory, he, like the other instructors, composed
certain works for school concourses. The Fantaisie for Flute and Orchestra started
life as a brief piece for flute and piano meant to test and showcase students’
accomplishments. This compact work contains a host of difficult techniques and a
whole range of emotional changes over a short span of time. As a virtuoso
showpiece, the Fantaisie gradually became so popular that it was orchestrated in
1957, well after Fauré’s death.
We start in a melancholy mood, hearing a rhythmic bass ground preparing
the way for a sweet, plaintive flute melody that climbs quickly, creating anticipation,
rising to a climax and then falling away. The Allegro section of the work is cheerier,
with playful, rising scales against pizzicato strings. This section displays the
flautist’s agility, again creating excitement in advance of the stirring coda to the
piece, which demands great virtuosity. Rising, and then falling, scales and melodic
leaps come in quick succession, leading to an upbeat conclusion.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36.
Composed 1877-78. First performed in Moscow on 22 February 1877. Scored
for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3
trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and strings.
During the period in which Tchaikovsky composed his Symphony No. 4, his life was
deeply influenced by two women: his patron, Mme. von Meck, and his wife, Antonina
Ivanova Milyukova. Both were obsessed with him—Mme. von Meck mainly with his
music, Antonina with his person and his talent. He and Mme. von Meck agreed never
to meet, but conducted a long and productive correspondence between 1876 and
1890, during which time she provided him with an income that allowed him to
compose without fear of penury. He and Antonina—quite unwisely—decided to
wed.
Mme. von Meck was Tchaikovsky’s long-distance muse who encouraged his
career, while his close encounter with Antonina ended in trauma. Antonina, a
seamstress whose brother had been at school with Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest,
had fallen in love with Pyotr before he even really knew who she was, and had then
become for a time his student at the Moscow Conservatory. It seems that
Tchaikovsky, who was gay, thought that a marriage would shield him from the
scandal and innuendo he feared more than almost anything. But if he thought he had
fully informed her about his sexual orientation in advance, he was mistaken.
Apparently she either did not or could not comprehend what he was saying.
(Imagine trying to frankly discuss one’s sexual orientation at a time when the only
descriptive words for it were associated with moral failing and vice.) Tchaikovsky
realized almost immediately what a huge mistake he had made and ran away from
her. Out of fear that she would damage Tchaikovsky’s reputation, his brother and
other friends spread rumors about Antonina, saying that she was simple-minded
and mentally ill. In all probability, she was an obsessive person who was no
intellectual match for her husband-in-name-only. Having completely misunderstood
his character and needs, she had no idea what she had gotten herself into.
Like opposite poles of a magnet, these two women exercised contradictory
pulls on Tchaikovsky, perhaps accounting in part for the vastly different moods of
the various parts of this symphony. Tchaikovsky gave Mme. von Meck a “program”
or narrative for the symphony’s meaning, but only after she insisted. To others, he
said that it was a response to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, beginning with its
famous four-note theme representing Fate knocking at the gate, and ending with an
expression of triumph over adversity. With Antonina, Tchaikovsky had had his own
encounter with Fate, or rather, he had been forced to face his own Fate, his
difference. Mme. von Meck gave him the freedom to compose as he would and to live
his life without interference, and the redemptive playfulness and joy of the final two
movements is remarkably different from its beginning.
The long opening movement, played Andante sostenuto (slow and sustained),
has three distinct themes, each with its own emotion and mood. The first is
Tchaikovsky’s version of a “Fate” theme—a striking fanfare, played by the brass
section, which takes on a somber, authoritative, and threatening cast. The fanfare
trails off slowly as other instruments enter, and the strings begin a waltz-like theme,
taken over by the winds. The waltz becomes a storm, interspersed with islands of
quiet sadness. Solo winds play a descending theme against lyrical strings at a
walking pace. This is the Moderato assai, quasi Andante (moderate, almost andante),
section of the movement. A third, Italianate, theme starts up in the strings with the
timpani stalking in the background, refusing to allow the airy theme to become too
joyous. Strings and winds take turns with the theme and also with a minor-key
melody that works against the light, Italian theme. The energy rises, and we seem to
have left sadness behind, until the opening fanfare breaks out again, with its sense of
portent. Winds cry out against a disjointed melody in the strings, and we hear the
sad waltz again. A storm breaks out with brass playing remnants of the fanfare
above a wild rout in the strings until the entire orchestra takes up the sad waltz
theme. Solo bassoon repeats the Italianate theme, but somberly. Oboe and other
winds repeat it, calling back and forth. The stalking timpani, and the two melodies
working against each other return. The Fate theme returns once more, followed by a
variation on the Italianate theme, which suddenly quickens into a march. The waltz
theme is played once more, with great force, to end the movement.
The oboe is the great star in the second movement, marked Andantino in
modo di canzona (andantino in a singing style). The bittersweet melody played by
that instrument is taken up by strings, and then a second melody is added to it.
These sad and gorgeous melodies are passed around the orchestra and developed
by ensembles and solo instruments. A third theme arises about halfway through the
movement, somewhat melancholy, but also passionate and yearning. Tchaikovsky’s
inventive weaving of these themes, and the way he brings back the initial melodies
in the strings as winds play solo embellishments, gives the movement an emotional
structure. Solo clarinet and then solo bassoon are given the melody. A warning from
the brass near the end of the movement reminds us of the foreboding fanfare as the
movement trails away.
The third movement comes as a complete and surprising change of mood.
Scherzo: pizzicato ostinato is a “joke,” a common gesture for a symphonic third
movement, but this one requires the strings to put down their bows and pluck the
strings in a complex and cheerful tune, passed between sections. Finally they are
joined by winds, in a “trio” section, playing a jaunty melody. Suddenly the brass joins
the fun, playing Allegro with solos and embellishments by other instruments
(notably by the piccolo, who has a brief but notoriously difficult solo). Strings return
to their pizzicato melody, imitated by winds. Strings pluck chords to accompany the
winds playing the melody, and the movement ends with a playful scale passed
around down the string sections, from high to low.
The Finale is played Allegro con fuoco (with fire), and from the opening
cymbal crashes, we feel the passion and triumph. After a brash theme based on
ascending and descending scales, a slow melody, based on a Russian folk song, starts
with solo oboe, and is finally taken up by the deepest brass instruments, to return to
the oboes in a playful version. Tchaikovsky breaks the simple melody up and plays
with it. Variations on the sweet, melancholy tune alternate with the brash opening
theme. Close to the end, the Fate theme makes one more appearance. We seem to be
descending into sadness again, but a drumroll by the timpani leads to a quickening
pace, and the movement picks up the irrepressible opening melodies and rushes to
its triumphant conclusion.