KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Lucas Richman, Music Director
2014-2015 - Seventy-Ninth Season
Lucas Richman, Music Director
Natalie Leach Haslam Music Director Chair
Thursday & Friday evening
October 16 & 17, 2014~ 7:30 p.m.
Tennessee Theatre
Symphonie Fantastique
Sponsored by
Sameer Patel, conductor
Mussorgsky
A Night on Bald Mountain
DukasThe Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Intermission
BerliozSymphonie Fantastique, Op. 14
I. Reveries, Passions. Largo; Allegro agitato e appassionata assai
II. A Ball. Valse. Allegro non troppo
III. Scene in the Country. Adagio
IV. March to the Execution. Allegretto non troppo
V. Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath. Larghetto; Allegro
This concert will air on WUOT 91.9 FM on Tuesday, November 11, 2014 at 8:00 p.m.
This concert will be rebroadcast on Monday, July 13, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.
Performances of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra are made possible in part by grants from the City of Knoxville, the
Knox County Government and by contributions to the Knoxville Symphony Society’s Annual Support Drive. This project
is funded under an agreement with the TENNESSEE ARTS COMMISSION. Latecomers will be seated during the first convenient pause in the performance. The use of recording devices and/or cameras is strictly forbidden. Please remember to
turn off all electronic devices and refrain from text messaging during the concert. Programs and artists subject to change.
viii
Program Notes: Symphonie Fantastique
Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer
A Night on Bald Mountain (orch.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) (1867)
Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo,
Russia, on March 21, 1839, and died in St.
Petersburg, Russia, on March 28, 1881.
Instrumentation: The Nikolai RimskyKorsakov orchestration of A Night on Bald
Mountain is scored for piccolo, two flutes,
two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four
horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, harp, bass drum, cymbals, orchestra
bells, tam-tam and strings.
Duration: 12 minutes
According to Russian legend, a
Witches’ Sabbath occurs each year on June
23, St. John’s Night—the night before the feast
of St. John the Baptist. Satan presides over
the demonic celebration on Mount Triglav—
also known as “Bald Mountain” or “Bare
Mountain”—located near Kiev.
Russian composer Modest
Mussorgsky completed his orchestral work,
A Night on Bald Mountain, in June of 1867.
Mussorgsky explained his program for the
work:
So far as my memory doesn’t
deceive me, the witches used to gather on this
mountain, gossip, play tricks and await their
chief—Satan. On his arrival they, i.e., the
witches, formed a circle around the throne on
which he sat, in the form of a kid, and sang
his praise. When Satan was worked up into
sufficient passion by the witches’ praises, he
gave the command for the sabbath, in which
he chose for himself the witches who caught
his fancy.—So this is what I’ve done. At
the head of my score I’ve put its content: 1.
Assembly of the witches, their talk and gossip;
2. Satan’s journey; 3. Obscene praise of Satan
(annotator’s note: In the score, this section
is actually entitled “Black service”); and 4.
Sabbath. If the work is performed, I wish
this program to appear on the bills for the
enlightenment of the audience.
At the height of the Sabbath, a distant
church bell sounds. The spirits disappear, and
A Night on Bald Mountain concludes with the
arrival of dawn, and the return of peace.
§
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)
Paul Dukas was born in Paris, France, on
October 1, 1865, and died there on May 17,
1935. The first performance of The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice took place in Paris, as part of a
concert by the Société Nationale, on May 18,
1897.
Instrumentation: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes,
two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons,
contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two
cornets, three trombones, timpani, orchestra
bells, suspended cymbals, triangle, cymbals,
bass drum, harp and strings.
Duration: 12 minutes
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is not only
the best-known work of French composer,
Paul Dukas; it remains one of the most
familiar of all concert pieces. The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice, an instant success at its 1897
premiere, continued to enjoy tremendous
popularity for the next several decades.
Then, in 1940, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was
immortalized on the silver screen, courtesy of
the Walt Disney animated classic, Fantasia.
In the film, Mickey Mouse portrays the hapless
apprentice, whose misadventures are set to
Dukas’s brilliant score, performed by Leopold
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The great German poet, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), provided
the inspiration for Dukas’s magical
orchestral scherzo. In a ballad, entitled
Die Zauberlehrling, Goethe tells the story
of a magician’s apprentice. The apprentice
has observed his master’s ability to bring a
broomstick to life in order to do the sorcerer’s
bidding. The apprentice has divined the
sorcerer’s magical incantation. And so, when
the sorcerer departs, the apprentice animates
the broomstick and orders it to fetch water.
The broomstick complies, but much too
enthusiastically—soon, the magician’s house is
overflowing with water! The apprentice tries
to stop the disaster by chopping the broom in
half with an axe, but that causes two brooms
to emerge and further inundate the house with
water. Finally, the sorcerer returns, and with
a wave of his hand, restores calm.
All of the action of Goethe’s poem is
masterfully portrayed in Dukas’s scintillating
music.
§
Symphonie fantastique, Opus 14 (1830)
Hector Berlioz was born in La Côte-SaintAndré, Isère, France, on December 11,
1803 and died in Paris, France, on March
8, 1869. The first performance of the
Symphonie fantastique took place at the
Paris Conservatoire on December 5, 1830,
with François-Antoine Habeneck conducting
the Orchestra of the Société des Concerts du
Conservatoire.
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Program Notes: Symphonie Fantastique
Instrumentation: The Symphonie fantastique
is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes,
English horn, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets,
four bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two
cornets, three trombones, two tubas, timpani
(two players), bass drum, cymbals, suspended
cymbals, snare drum, low bells (offstage), two
harps and strings.
Duration: 49 minutes
In September 1827, Hector Berlioz,
then a 23-year-old student at the Paris
Conservatory, attended productions by an
English touring company of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. In those
performances, Harriet Smithson portrayed
the tragic heroines, Ophelia and Juliet.
Berlioz immediately fell in love with the young
and beautiful Irish actress.
Berlioz did everything within
his power to have Smithson take notice
of him, but without success. In February
of 1830, Berlioz wrote to his sister, “I am
about to commence my grand symphony
(Episode in the Life of An Artist), in which
the development of my infernal passion will
be depicted.” On April 16 of that same year,
Berlioz announced that his Symphony was
complete.
The premiere of the Symphonie
fantastique took place at the Paris
Conservatory on December 5, 1830, with
François-Antoine Habeneck conducting the
Orchestra of the Société des Concerts du
Conservatoire. The drama, innovation, and
sheer audacity of the young composer’s vision
stunned the audience. Eventually, Berlioz and
Smithson wed, but the marriage proved to be
an unhappy one, ending in divorce.
Berlioz, a gifted and prolific writer,
provided the following program notes for his
Symphonie fantastique.
A young musician of morbidly
sensitive temperament and lively imagination
poisons himself with opium in an attack of
lovesick despair. The dose of the narcotic,
too weak to kill him, plunges him into a
deep slumber accompanied by the strangest
visions, during which his feelings, his
emotions, his memories are transformed
in his sick mind into musical images. The
Beloved herself becomes for him a melody, a
cyclical theme (idée fixe) that he encounters
and hears everywhere.
(Annotator’s note: The idée fixe is
introduced approximately five minutes into
the opening movement by the flute and first
violins.)
x
I. Reveries, Passions (Largo;
Allegro agitato e appassionato assai)—At
first he recalls that sickness of the soul,
those intimations of passion, the apparently
groundless depression and intoxication he
experienced before he met the woman he
adores; then the volcanic love that she inspired
in him, his delirious anguish, his furious
jealousy, his return to tenderness, his religious
consolation.
II. A Ball (Valse. Allegro non
troppo)—He meets his beloved again in the
midst of the tumult of a glittering fête.
III. Scene in the Country (Adagio)—
On a summer evening in the country, he hears
two shepherds piping back and forth a ranz
des vaches (the traditional melody of Swiss
shepherds for summoning their flocks); this
pastoral duet, the peaceful landscape, the
rustling of the trees gently rocked by the wind,
some prospects of hope he recently found—all
combine to soothe his heart with unusual
tranquility and brighten his thoughts. But
she reappears, he feels his heart tighten, he is
smitten with sad foreboding: what if she were
to prove false?…One of the shepherds resumes
his simple tune; the other no longer responds.
The sun sets…distant roll of thunder…
solitude…silence.
IV. March to the Execution
(Allegretto non troppo)—He dreams he has
murdered his Beloved, that he has been
condemned to death and is being led to the
scaffold. The procession advances to the
sound of a march that is now somber and
agitated, now brilliant and solemn, in which
the muffled sound of heavy steps is suddenly
juxtaposed with the noisiest clamor. At the
end, the idée fixe returns for a moment like a
final thought of love, suddenly interrupted by
the death blow.
V. Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath
(Larghetto; Allegro)—He imagines himself at
a Witches’ Sabbath, among a hideous throng of
ghouls, sorcerers and monsters of every kind,
assembled for his funeral. Ominous sounds,
groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries that
other cries seem to answer. The Beloved’s
melody reappears, but it has lost its noble
and timid character; it has become a vulgar
dance tune, unworthy, trite and grotesque:
there she is, coming to join the Sabbath…A
roar of joy greets her arrival…She takes part
in the infernal orgy…The funeral knell, a
burlesque parody of the Dies irae…the witches’
round…the dance and the Dies irae are heard
together.