New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Program Notes: Celebrate 116, September 17, 2009
Franz Schubert
Symphony No. 8 in B minor, “Unfinished”
1. Allegro moderato 2. Andante con moto
(Composed 1823)
The mystery surrounding the Unfinished Symphony has captivated people since the work was
discovered some forty years after Schubert’s death. It is obvious from the composer’s sketches for a
proposed scherzo that he intended a four-movement work. Why did Schubert not complete the
symphony? Was it because of associations with events and people that he preferred to forget? We can
speculate on the reasons for as long as Schubert’s music is held dear by the world. What is actually
known, though, is that the Symphony in B Minor was offered to the Styrian Music Society of Graz from
whom Schubert had received an honorary diploma. The score for the incomplete symphony was
handed to Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a representative of the Society, who held onto it until conductor
Johann Herbeck, who had heard of its existence from Anselm’s brother Josef in 1860, gave the first
performance of the work on December 17, 1865.
Schubert’s Eighth Symphony is one of the most glorious of all creations and has lived in the musical
consciousness of generations. Its wonderful lyricism combined with drama make its performance one of
the most powerful twenty minutes in the history of music. However, it has suffered from many
indifferent interpretations by conductors who seem bereft of any sense of drama and poetry. The
orchestra has grown in size and scope from that of the Sixth (“Little C”) Symphony and includes
trombones, which Schubert had also used in the lesser-known Seventh Symphony. The Eighth Symphony
is in sonata form and combines brilliant orchestral colouring and timbre with a romanticism that has not
been heard before from Schubert in this format. The breadth of the symphony is on a completely
different scale from what has preceded it, and one can only marvel at its originality at almost every turn,
from its setting in the key of B minor, to its sudden mood swings from heightened drama in massive
tuttis to poetic solos.
William Walton
Violin Concerto in B minor
1. Andante tranquillo 2.Presto capriccioso alla napolitana 3.Vivace
(Composed 1938/39)
In 1936 Jasha Heifetz took Walton out to lunch in London and commissioned him to write a Violin
Concerto for 300 pounds, a great honor from the greatest virtuoso of the day. Lady Walton recalls,
"William was delighted and accepted . . . As usual writing it gave him a lot of trouble he had refused a
lucrative offer to write music for a film of Shaw's Pygmalian to concentrate on the concerto. He said he
did not know how to make the violin part elaborate enough, and therefore worthy of Heifetz. In a panic,
he thought he had better give it instead to Fritz Kreisler to play. Eventually he was satisfied that he had
exhausted the possibilities of what one could do on a violin. Yet he always thought of it as a rather
intimate piece, a bit like the Elgar concerto. . . "
The concerto was originally intended for premiere at . . . the 1939 New York World Fair, but when . . .
Heifetz could not play there, it was decided to postpone the first performance. . . When Walton arrived
in America he took the concerto to Heifetz, who seemed more interested in planting in his garden, "He
didn't even play the piece through," Walton told Lady Walton later, "although he did later jazz up the
last movement a bit."
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New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Program Notes: Celebrate 116, September 17, 2009
The work's premiere was variously hailed as “a stirring performance of a work of character and quality . .
. personal, intense, direct, straightforward . . . The use of the violin is felicitous, from soaring cantilena to
brilliance."
Susana Walton goes on to relate: "William wasn't at the first performance, which took place in
Cleveland, Ohio [on 7th December 1939 . . .] War had been declared by then and [Walton’s] house in . . .
London was bombed flat. There had earlier been a bomb scare, in the middle of which the score of the
Violin Concerto had actually got lost . . . Heifetz's own copy of the score, complete with his bowing
marks, was later lost in the Atlantic, sank during a convoy crossing." Walton conducted the first British
performance in London on November 1st, 1941. . .
Substantial revisions to the orchestration were made in 1943. . . It was noted that “the Violin Concerto is
a declaration of love. . . The dreaming (sognando) opening theme sets the mood of a great work in
which the pyrotechnical demands on the soloist are reconciled with music of ultimate poetical
expressiveness. As in the earlier concerto, the first movement theme returns in the finale and the whole
work has an Italianate warmth and languor, with the rowdier side of Italy surfacing in the tarantella
scherzo."
The lady with whom Walton was in love was . . . Alice Wimborne. Walton said, "Women have always
been important to me . . . and I've been very lucky. Alice Wimborne—very beautiful, intelligent, kind,
very rich, a grand hostess, very musical…she had all the virtues. A marvellous woman."
Heifetz recorded the concerto shortly after its premiere and then re-recorded it in 1950, when he was
touring in England. For this recording, the composer was invited to conduct. Before the sessions
commenced, he made substantial changes in the orchestration but did not alter either the violin part or
the thematic material.
Excerpted from a note by British music historian and critic Ian Lace.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
1. Adagio molto–Allegro con brio 2. Andante cantabile con moto 3. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
4. Adagio—Allegro molto e vivace
Period of composition: 1799-early 1800. Date of Publication: December 1801, by Hoffmeister & Kuhnel,
dedicated to Baron Gottfried van Swieten. First Performance April 2, 1800 – Vienna.
Beethoven left Bonn in November 1792 to begin life as a pupil of Haydn in Vienna, but it was not until
eight years later that he produced his first symphony. The reason for this delay has traditionally been
put down to Beethoven's respect for Mozart and Haydn and his ambition to produce a work on equal
terms with these symphonic masters. However, Beethoven had considered symphonic composition
earlier in his life, producing extensive sketches for a symphony in C major in 1795-96 while he was
studying with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger. Earlier still there is a sketch in C minor labelled Sinfonia,
Op. 21, which was first performed on April 2, 1800, at the Burgtheater in Vienna along with the Septet,
and one of his piano concertos. A correspondent from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung was at the
concert and described the symphony as having, “considerable art, novelty and a wealth of ideas,” the
only flaw being “the wind instruments were used too much, so that there was more harmony than
orchestral music as a whole.”
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New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Program Notes: Celebrate 116, September 17, 2009
Stylistically, the symphony follows the pattern of Haydn and Mozart symphonies, but in many ways it is
very strange and different. It opens with a series of question marks in the wrong key; the slow
movement is a minuet, the minuet a scherzo and the finale is a real teaser.
The first movement opens with a slow introductory Adagio molto beginning with a series of dominant
(5th) chords which immediately make the listener sit up to respond to these question marks. It is not
until we arrive at the vigorous Allegro con brio that we reach the symphony’s tonic of C major (whose
first theme has been compared to that of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony). The other striking difference is
the dominance of the woodwinds, whereas his predecessors (Mozart and Haydn) had predominantly
used strings with occasional solos for the woodwind players. The slow movement isn't particularly slow,
being Andante cantabile con moto, and is almost the minuet that the third movement is not. It is in
sonata form and is lightweight with a real dance-like character.
The third movement is titled Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace, though it is nothing like a minuet but has
the character of a scherzo. Was Beethoven giving way to convention with his terminology?
The final movement has great wit—with its famous joke introduction (Adagio) in the unaccompanied
violins that seem to be teasing the rest of the orchestra and then playing “catch me if you can.” This
introduction had its origins in an abandoned 1795 sketch. The piece ends with a thoroughly
Beethovenian manner however, with the march-like coda.
Johann Strauss Jr.
Blue Danube Waltz, Op. 314
(Composed in 1866)
Johann Strauss Jr. is the first truly well-known composer in those classical genres associated with his
hometown—the Viennese waltz and Viennese operetta. The Blue Danube Waltz, the most popular of his
works, is among the most widely played and arranged pieces of its time, known to the most casual
listener from its use in films and on radio and television. It was first performed in its orchestral version
at the World Fair in Paris in 1867 and is always the encore for the New Year’s Day Concerts in Vienna.
The younger Strauss’s real success began in 1849 after Johann Strauss Sr. died. Johann Jr. merged his
father's orchestra with his own and took up his father's contracts. His career moved along smoothly for
the next several years, but in 1853 he became seriously ill and turned over conducting duties to his
younger brother, Josef, for six months. After Johann’s recovery he fully resumed both his conducting
and his composing activities, eventually gaining the respect of such composers as Brahms, Wagner, and
Verdi for his seemingly limitless imagination for using melodies.
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