Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra Classics #8 - 24-26 ...

Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Classics #8 - 24-26 February 2012
By Laurie Shulman ©2011
First North American Serial Rights Only
Norway’s greatest composer, Edvard Grieg, lends his name to this weekend’s concert,
which features Natasha Paremski as soloist in his beloved Piano Concerto in A minor. Taking
Grieg’s masterpiece as a launching point, JoAnn Falletta has devised an all-Scandinavian first
half, complemented by a major Russian symphony after intermission.
She opens with Carl Nielsen’s Overture to Maskarade, a comic opera first produced in
Copenhagen in 1906. “Nielsen is not performed that often, which is a shame because he is a
composer who can be both spectacular and profound,” comments Ms. Falletta. “Maskarade is a
lighter piece, and a wonderful curtain raiser for this concert.”
Nielsen may not be a household name in the United States, but he is as important to
Danish music as Grieg is to Norwegian music or Sibelius to Finnish music. He composed choral,
chamber, and symphonic music as well as operas. His six symphonies, which span the period
from 1892 to 1925, are central to early 20 th -century orchestral literature. Each one shows a
progressively more daring break with tradition.
The opera Maskarade falls right in the middle of that continuum. Nielsen adapted his
libretto from an early 18 th -century play by Ludvig Holberg. The plot centers around thwarted
love, mistaken identity, and the battle between generations, with everything getting sorted out in
the last act masquerade. Nielsen’s delightful overture captures the comic flair and joie de vivre of

the hero Henrik, who is a clever precursor to Beaumarchais’s Figaro.
Few works in the classical repertoire boast the perennial popularity of Edvard Grieg’s
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16. “This is the quintessential Scandinavian piano concerto, an
absolute masterpiece,” declares Ms. Falletta. “Grieg’s music is beautifully crafted, with all the
brilliance you want from a virtuoso piano concerto, yet it is still all about the music. Every
pianist plays it differently: some lingering on every phrase, others pushing forward. Music this
rich in content allows for a wide variety of interpretations.”
Grieg was born in Norway; however, like most 19 th -century Scandinavian composers, he
pursued his formal musical education in Germany, modeling his early works on those of
Mendelssohn and Schumann. Later, he worked with Niels Gade in Denmark, and the premiere of
his concerto in 1869 took place in Copenhagen. It was a pivotal work. After this concerto, he
realized that his Norwegian heritage must be a central component of his music. A hint of that
realization found its way into the finale. Grieg revised the concerto several times, continuing to
tinker with the orchestration until 1907, the year of his death. He must have realized how
important this work would be to his legacy. Few of his compositions with orchestra appears with
any regularity in the concert hall.
For Grieg was a miniaturist, ill at ease writing in large forms. Generally speaking, his
most successful compositions, such as the incidental music to Peer Gynt, consist of short dances
and other concise movements. That is not the case in this splendid concerto, which has dramatic
sweep and structural integrity along with a profusion of memorable melodies. Grieg’s muse was

definitely singing sweetly to him when he composed this work. From the piano’s dramatic
opening salvo, through the delicate Chopinesque tracery of the slow movement, to the vitality of
the finale, this concerto enchants and entertains. Grieg’s splendid coda to the last movement was
influential on generations of composers from Tchaikovsky to Rachmaninoff.
While his Piano Concerto falls squarely into the Austro-German romantic tradition, Grieg
planted a strong personal imprint on its music, particularly in his Norwegian-tinged finale.
Following intermission, Ms. Falletta and the VSO take on what is arguably Sergei
Prokofiev’s greatest symphony: the Symphony No.5 in B-flat, Op.100. “Prokofiev could be
dark, sardonic, and sarcastic in his music,” says Ms. Falletta. “All those qualities are present in
this symphony, along with energy, humor, and a little bitterness. It’s a major challenge for the
orchestra. For me, this symphony is about the power of life force, what is best in the human
spirit. I feel its progression as a victory over adversity.”
Prokofiev left Russia after Bolshevik Revolution and lived abroad for many years, first in
the United States, then in Paris. He missed his homeland, however, and elected to return to the
Soviet Union in the 1930s in spite of Stalin’s repressive regime.
Like Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony, the Prokofiev Fifth was composed during the
Second World War. Whereas the Shostakovich work is a salute to the suffering people of
besieged Leningrad, however, Prokofiev’s symphony dates from a period of increasing
optimism. The Allies had invaded Normandy and Soviet forces were about to initiative powerful
offensives against the Nazis from the eastern front. While not without its moments of conflict,

the Fifth Symphony is, as Ms. Falletta points out, an essentially affirming work. Certainly it
reflects Prokofiev at the height of his career: healthy, productive, and writing splendidly. Its
première in Moscow in January 1945 was the high point of his career in the USSR.
Extended notes by Laurie Shulman about each of the compositions on this concert are available
on the Virginia Symphony web site, www.virginiasymphony.org.
Overture to Maskarade
Carl Nielsen
Born 9 June, 1865 in Nørre-Lyndelse, Denmark
Died 3 October, 1931 in Copenhagen, Denmark
Denmark’s most celebrated musical figure, Carl Nielsen, only composed two operas, Saul
and David (1898-1901) and Maskarade (1904-6). Outside Denmark, they are rarely performed,
but both operas have been recorded several times, and the sprightly overture to Maskarade is
Nielsen’s most popular orchestral work apart from his six symphonies.
He based the opera on an 18 th -century comedy by Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754), a
Norwegian philosopher, playwright and historian known as the "Molière of the North." (He is the
same author who inspired Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite.) The overture shares the lighthearted
atmosphere of Nielsen’s comic opera, and the tunefulness of his many songs, which remain
popular in Denmark. We may think of this lively curtain raiser as a Danish analogue to

Bernstein’s beloved Candide overture: barely five minutes of champagne-popping high spirits.
Maskarade is a fun-loving sendup of 18 th -century convention.
Nielsen scored the overture for three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass
drum, and strings.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16
Edvard Grieg
Born 15 June, 1843 in Bergen, Norway
Died 4 September, 1907 in Bergen
The route to Norwegian nationalism
Norway’s celebrated musical son, Edvard Grieg, was sent to the German city of Leipzig
when he was 15 to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. One of his piano teachers there was the
great virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles. Though Grieg was not happy in Leipzig, he became immersed
in the very lively musical culture that mid-ninteenth-century Germany offered. Before settling
permanently in Norway, he also spent time in Copenhagen, where Niels Gade was the most
influential composer. Beginning in the 1860s, however, Grieg began to take a strong interest in
the folk music of his homeland. Thenceforth his music took on an increasingly Norwegian slant.
Today, Grieg is regarded as the most important composer that Norway has produced, and the
father of Norwegian nationalist music.

In spite of his celebrity in his homeland, Grieg's international reputation rests primarily
on the Piano Concerto, Op.16. As its opus number indicates, it is a relatively early work,
completed when the composer was only 25; he lived into his 60s. The concerto is important for
a number of reasons. It was the largest orchestral work that Grieg composed, and the last piece
that he wrote in the Austro-Germanic tradition before he discovered the wealth of Norwegian
folk music that was to so strongly influence the balance of his career. As such the concerto is
certainly a significant landmark.
Even if that were not the case, however, the A minor Piano Concerto would be a marvel.
Along with the Schumann Piano Concerto in the same key, with which it is frequently compared,
Grieg's masterpiece holds court as the quintessential romantic concerto. His biographer John
Horton calls it:
. . . the most satisfying and successful of Grieg's attempts at composing in the
larger traditional forms, and the one that is generally agreed to be the most
complete musical embodiment of Norwegian national Romanticism.
Like Schumann's concerto (which Grieg acknowledged he had studied carefully before
embarking on his own), Grieg's opens with a dramatic flourish for the soloist. He also follows
Schumann's lead by dispensing with the double exposition familiar in the Mozart concertos.
Thenceforth, the two works differ. Where Schumann's first movement is monothematic, Grieg's
has several distinct and contrasting theme groups, including a completely new melody that oboes
and bassoons introduce in the coda. The pianist's cadenza dazzles with romantic/heroic
passagework.
From Schumann to Chopin

The second and third movements diverge more substantially from the Schumannesque
model. Grieg's Adagio settles the dust kicked up by the blood and thunder of the first movement.
Muted strings introduce the lush key of D-flat major, joined first by bassoon, then upper winds,
before the soloist enters. D-flat is a distinctly Chopinesque key. Grieg's piano writing in the
opening pages is umistakably imprinted with the delicate filigree of his Polish/French
predecessor; so too are his harmonic travels on this extraordinary and passionate journey.
Norwegian folk dance makes an appearance
The finale gives us the most prophetic glimpse of Grieg's Norwegian voice, with which
he was to speak so eloquently during the next decades. Characterized by strong rhythmic profile
and a fiery, even pagan spirit, this movement is a halling, a Norwegian folk dance that Grieg
used in other works (including his Lyric Pieces for piano, Op.47). A switch to a relaxed and
lyrical section takes romantic liberties. Indeed, the tempo changes have a great deal to do with
the dramatic tension that makes the finale so effective.
He dedicated the concerto to Edmund Neupert, who played the Copenhagen premiere in
autumn 1869. A pianist himself, Grieg undoubtedly sought opportunities for display. His efforts
paid off handsomely, for the concerto was an immediate success and did much to establish
Grieg's international reputation. Yet, never fully satisfied, he continued to revise its orchestration
until the end of his life, refining the brass and woodwind parts. Most orchestras play the 1906-07
version, his final revision.
The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,

timpani, solo piano and strings.
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, Op.100
Sergei Prokofiev
Born 23 April, 1891 in Sontzovka, Ukraine, Russia
Died 5 March, 1953 in Moscow
Happy you conducting American premiere my Fifth Symphony. Work very close to my
heart. Sending sincere friendly greetings you and all members your magnificent orchestra.
–Telegram, Prokofiev to Serge Koussevitzky, 6 November 1945
‘Work very close to my heart.’ So consumed was Prokofiev by this symphony that he put
off the celebrated film director Sergei Eisenstein, because he was so immersed in composing.
“Now I’m busy with work on my Fifth Symphony, and my composition is flowing along in such
a way that I can’t interrupt and switch over to [Eisenstein’s film] Ivan the Terrible. I’m sure
you’ll understand me,” he wrote apologetically to Eisenstein on 31 July 1944. Prokofiev
promised to devote himself to the film score the next month, when he would return to Moscow
from his summer home, Ivanovo. By then, he had completed the symphony.
Just a few months later, Prokofiev was on the podium when the Fifth Symphony was first
performed in Moscow on 13 January 1945. It proved to be his swan song as a conductor.
Within four months, Europe and America were celebrating V-E day. Victory in the

Pacific Theatre followed in August. Barely three months after the end of World War II, during a
Soviet radio broadcast of an all-Prokofiev program on 4 November, 1945. Prokofiev said:
I wrote my Fifth Symphony in the summer of 1944 and I consider my work on
this symphony very significant both because of the musical material put into it
and because I returned to the symphonic form after a 16-year interval. The Fifth
Symphony completes, as it were, a long period of my works. I conceived it as a
symphony of the greatness of the human spirit.
Along with the Classical Symphony and Peter and the Wolf, the Fifth Symphony has proved one
of Prokofiev's most popular and enduring works. It is his only mature symphony to have caught
the popular imagination.
Prokofiev is perhaps best known for the ballet scores (Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella).
Pianists admire his magnificent contribution to the solo keyboard literature. But he was an
experienced orchestral composer, producing seven symphonies that span virtually his entire
creative life: the earliest, the Classical Symphony, Op.25 (1916-17) was preceded by two
juvenile symphonies and a number of other orchestral compositions. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 all date
from the mid- to late 1920s. Then ensued the 16-year hiatus mentioned in the radio quotation
above.
Soviet music and Prokofiev’s patriotism
His final three symphonies are all considered Soviet works because they were written

after he had returned permanently to his homeland. During the Stalin years, Soviet music was
under varying degrees of state supervision. For some composers, governmental restrictions
proved stifling; others flourished artistically while suffering politically. Prokofiev's late works,
those from 1946 to 1953, were uneven – but the quality of his music during the war years was
superb.
Despite the economic and circumstantial hardships of wartime, Prokofiev was especially
productive from 1939 to 1945. He was at the peak of his composing powers, and he was still in
good health. The Stalinist purges peaked in the late 1940s; the worst of that chilling period still
lay in the future. Among the major works he completed during the war were the opera War and
Peace, the ballet Cinderella, a string quartet, two piano sonatas, the flute sonata, five film scores
and the Fifth Symphony. The latter represents the most epic side of his musical personality. It is
the first overtly patriotic work not associated with theatre, film, voice, or some other
programmatic medium. In the Fifth Symphony, Prokofiev's admiration for the Russian people
speaks for itself through music alone.
Influences: predecessors and contemporaries
At 45 minutes, the Fifth is the largest scale of Prokofiev's seven symphonies. In it, the
late romantic tradition of Borodin (rather than Tchaikovsky), and to some extent Bruckner,
merges with that of his Soviet contemporary Shostakovich, whose influence is particularly
audible in the emotional third movement. It is a highly melodic work, with a broad emotional
spectrum that ranges from exuberant gamesmanship to heartfelt agony.

Despite the palpable "Russian-ness" of the music, Prokofiev eschews folk themes. He
favors slower tempi, contributing to an aura of veiled tragedy that suffuses the symphony. The
exceptions are the jaunty second movement scherzo, with its grotesque and fantastic elements,
and the characteristic finale that begs to be choreographed. His bitter wit is most evident in these
two movements, but the enduring message of this work is to be found in the intense drama of the
first and third movements. He considered the Fifth Symphony his finest composition.
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons,
contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, timpani, bass drum, military
drum, cymbals, harp, piano and strings.