PROGRAM NOTES
By Steven Ledbetter
GEORGE GERSHWIN
An American in Paris [tone poem] for Orchestra
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1898, and died in Beverly Hills, California, on July 11, 1937. He composed his orchestral tone poem An American in Paris in 1928; the work had its first performance on December 13 that year in Carnegie Hall, with Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic. The score calls for three flutes, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, side drum, cymbal, bass drum, triangle, bells, xylophone, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, celesta and strings. Duration is about 14 minutes.
The overwhelming success of Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 sparked Gershwin’s interest in further explorations of the ground where classical, jazz and popular traditions meet. At the time there were few composers tilling that particular soil; most of them came from the classical wing and felt a little ill‑at‑ease amongst the elements of jazz. Gershwin was moving in the other direction, from a position of being completely at home in the popular realm to encounters with more demanding large‑scale musical forms, in which he consciously attempted to fuse elements of traditions that had been largely separate until then.
An American in Paris found its first inspiration in a short visit that Gershwin made to the French capital in 1926. He walked all over the city, soaking up the atmosphere and inventing the title of the work and its opening theme, which a friend of the composer’s described as “jaunty...just in the tempo of his own walking.” He even bought some authentic Parisian taxi horns in an auto parts store, with the intention of using them in his new score. But he found himself stuck, and the work was put aside while he composed the shows Oh, Kay!, Strike Up the Band, Funny Face and Rosalie.
In March 1928, George and his brother Ira returned to Paris where George spent a great deal of time listening to recent European music and making the acquaintance of Berg, Weill, Ravel, Poulenc, Ibert, Prokofiev, Milhaud, Walton and others. He purchased the complete works of Debussy and studied them carefully. In fact, while An American in Paris was still in progress, he told a journalist that it would be “the most modern music I’ve yet attempted...in the manner of Debussy and the Six, though the themes are all original.” Those “original” themes are memorable tunes that immediately stick in the ear and help hold An American in Paris together, starting with the jaunty walking theme (the hapless tourist needs to dodge those Parisian taxis more than once!), a nostalgic blues theme, and a lively and rhythmic passage of great high spirits.
Gershwin disclaimed any particular program for the piece, simply noting that it captured certain general impressions, “so that the individual listener can read into the music such episodes as his imagination pictures for him.” For all his interest in larger musical forms and in building his own technical abilities, Gershwin still built his concert works of the 1920s largely on the basis of their sheer melodic verve rather than the solidity of the overall architecture. The materials are welcome when first presented and equally welcome whenever they return, with subtle changes of harmonization or other detail. He worked out An American in Paris first of all in a version for piano four‑hands and eventually orchestrated it himself (something he had not been able to do with Rhapsody in Blue). Its ebullient combination of elements in different styles, its range from nostalgic homesickness to high spirits, its colorful orchestration, and its great tunes make Gershwin’s tone poem as welcome today as it was nine decades ago.
SAMUEL BARBER
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 14
Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on March 9, 1910, and died in New York City, on January 23, 1981. He composed the Violin Concerto in the spring of 1939, on a commission from Samuel Fels. Albert Spalding gave the first performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy, on February 7 and 8, 1941. In addition to the solo violin, the score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, plus timpani, percussion, piano and strings. Duration is about 25 minutes.
Barber’s musical technique was formally developed during the eight years he spent as a student at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where he joined its first class in 1924 (when he was just fourteen). There he studied piano, composition (with Rosario Scalero), conducting (with Fritz Reiner) and voice. His style was always conservative, emphasizing the long lyrical line and relatively traditional tonal harmonies. Though changes in the American musical world after World War II gradually made Barber feel that he was an outsider who had been passed by, his music has been heard more frequently again in recent years and appreciated for its craft and expressive directness.
Barber composed his Violin Concerto quite early in his career, after he had sprung to instant prominence when Arturo Toscanini performed two of his works (Toscanini had a reputation for not being interested in American music, so his support for the young composer was doubly impressive). This led to his first major commission, from Samuel Fels, the maker of Fels Naptha Soap and a trustee of the Curtis Institute. Fels’s adopted son was the violinist Iso Briselli; it was for him that Fels offered Barber $1000, in the spring of 1939, for a violin concerto.
Barber worked on the piece during the summer in Switzerland. He had intended to spend the fall in Paris, but the outbreak of war on September 1 made it imperative to return home. He completed the finale in the early fall. Unfortunate differences of opinion between Barber and Briselli threatened to break the contract and leave the composer without his full fee (he had been paid half in advance). When Briselli saw the first two movements in draft, he complained they were “too simple and not brilliant enough,” but this did not bother Barber much, because he intended to close with a virtuosic finale that would provide plenty of flash.
Yet when the finale was delivered, Briselli objected again. Briselli had hoped for a more extensive virtuosi movement (which, he thought, Barber had promised him for the finale). He was thinking of works of Tchaikovsky and Glazunov, big virtuoso showpieces with fiendishly difficult cadenzas. This was not Barber’s aim at all. So they agreed to abandon the project, with no hard feelings on either side, and Briselli relinquished the right of the first performance. The composer also expressed regret that he did not produce something that satisfied his classmate. Fels had already paid half of the commissioning fee, which he allowed Barber to keep, but the composer agreed to forego the second half. Despite the contretemps, Barber and Briselli remained friends and admirers of one another.
A few years after the 1941 premiere in Philadelphia, Barber made a few alterations to the score to strengthen the climax in the slow movement and clarify what he found to be some “muddy orchestration” in the finale. When he heard Ruth Posselt play the revised version with the Boston Symphony at the beginning of 1949, he declared that it was “much improved,” though in fact he had merely touched up a few orchestral passages. The revised version is always performed now.
Barber plays to his strengths as a lyricist throughout the first two movements. The soloist enters in the first bar, singing sweetly, and the movement continues to unfold with only a few outbursts from the orchestra, mostly growing out of the contrasting figure, lightly syncopated, first heard in the clarinet soon after the opening.
The slow movement is one of the great lyrical effusions in American music. Of course Barber had already written his famous Adagio for Strings (that was one of the works Toscanini had performed) and thus demonstrated his command of the long, lush melodic line, which is also characteristic of this movement. The solo violin here waits through a preparatory passage in the orchestra highlighting the sweet sadness of what is to come, and then enters pensively, building quickly to a subdued passion that dominates the flow of the movement. Gradually, the movement builds to its expressive climax, then sinks back to the delicate world from which it sprang.
The finale is the shortest movement of all, but its lean athleticism provides a superb foil to the sweet and dreamy romanticism of what preceded it and provides a most effective close.
AARON COPLAND
Symphony No. 3
Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1900, and died in Sleepy Hollow, New York on December 2, 1990. He composed his Third Symphony on a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation, working on the piece over a two year period from the summer of 1944, completing the orchestration while staying on in the Berkshires after the 1946 Tanglewood season. Serge Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere on October 18 and 19, 1946. The score calls for three flutes and piccolo; three oboes and English horn; two clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet; two bassoons and contrabassoon; four horns, four trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani, percussion (bass drum, tam-tam, cymbals, xylophone, glockenspiel, tenor drum, woodblock, snare drum, triangle, slapstick, ratchet, anvil, claves, tubular bells), two harps, celesta, piano and strings. Duration is about 43 minutes.
Copland’s Third Symphony was his first abstract orchestral score in over a decade, since the completion of the Short Symphony of 1932‑1933. He had, of course, written a great deal of music in that busy decade, but it had either been intended for the ballet or films (therefore designed to color and illustrate a dramatic situation), or it had been designed specifically for a limited purpose (such as the Outdoor Overture for a school ensemble or the Lincoln Portrait for a popular concert by André Kostelanetz). Thus, the Third Symphony was Copland’s first essay in years in what is generally regarded as the most significant and demanding of orchestral genres. He was determined to do justice to the challenge, both for his own musical satisfaction and because of his close relationship at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky, through whom the commission was offered. Copland could be a very fluent composer, but in this case he was determined not to rush into the piece; he began slowly and worked steadily, with some necessary pauses, for more than two years.
Already familiar with Mexico from a number of visits in the 30s, Copland chose to spend the summer of 1944 in a secluded spot in Topoztlan, far from intrusion by telephone or radio. Before his return home in October, he had drafted the first movement. His retreat in 1945 was a shorter one, to Bernardsville, New Jersey, where, between March and October, he completed the first two movements. The third movement was begun in the fall of 1945 in Connecticut. Before coming to the first post-war Tanglewood season in July 1946, Copland completed drafts of the last two movements at the MacDowell Colony in Peterboro, New Hampshire. Finally, with the premiere drawing close, he stayed on in a converted barn in Richmond, Massachusetts, where he lived for several summers, to finish the orchestration after the close of the Tanglewood season before the first performance in mid-October.
No musical genre arouses greater expectations from a composer’s audience than the symphony, long regarded as the summit of orchestral creation. And Copland’s Third is his largest purely instrumental score. Though he was surely concerned (as all creative artists must be) to please himself first of all, Copland was naturally aware that his new symphony would be appearing in a musical milieu very different from that of his earlier symphonic works.
The preceding decade had seen a proliferation of serious large-scale compositions by American composers, and notable American symphonies were no longer exceptionally rare. Copland himself had helped effect this change, for by bringing talented composers to the attention of Serge Koussevitzky, he had paved the way for performances that had in turn generated new compositions. Already the Third Symphony of Roy Harris (1939) had been hailed as the “great American symphony.” Similar acclaim greeted the Third Symphony of William Schuman (1941). Now the best-known and most popular composer of his generation was to appear with a Third Symphony. Though unlikely to worry about critical puffery regarding the “great American symphony,” Copland certainly knew that something substantial would be expected of him.
The gentle mood is abruptly broken as the horns introduce the principal motto of the second movement (Allegro molto), which traces the outline of the principal fanfare motive, with two steps filled in. This sets off a brilliant, sardonic scherzo in which the tiny opening motive is rarely absent. A contrasting middle section, whose lyrical oboe tune in 3/4 time has suggested to some listeners the kind of cowboy song that Copland had already employed in Billy the Kid and Rodeo. This cowboy song, though, is original Copland. The scherzo returns, only to bring the cowboy song along with it in a vigorous full-orchestra canon between strings and winds before the final explosion.
The third movement begins gently and quietly with a new version of a theme first heard in the trombones in the first movement, now heard pianissimo in the first violins, the beginning of a slowly developed conversation leading to a lovely flute theme that undergoes extensive development. A slightly faster section, in which clarinet and bassoon inaugurate a duet, becomes an extended passage, light on its feet and filled with the spirit of the dance.
The movement dies away on a sustained chord of A-flat. The woodwinds gently sing out phrases from the fanfare, in a chorale-like harmonization. A sudden shift to C major brings in the brass, harps, and timpani with the beginning of the actual Fanfare for the Common Man, now played in its entirety. As it dies away, the oboe begins in an improvisatory mood that turns into a long, imaginative phrase of bustling sixteenth notes. A joyous dance ensues, seeming to come from an entirely different world, light and sparkling throughout. Only when the trombones and trumpets return with a new statement of the fanfare theme do we realize that the entire dance is a counterpoint to it. The mood of joy dominates as the dance continues, though wrenched into silence at one point by a violent dissonance in the full orchestra. No sooner is that past than the piccolo pluckily begins again with the figure that had introduced the joyful passage. Followed by the other woodwinds, the piccolo and flutes lead the re-established dance. Elements of the fanfare gradually reappear until a final ringing affirmation brings the symphony to a close.
No doubt the time and circumstances of its composition had a lot to do with its mood and character, but the imagination and craft that Copland brought to this, his largest orchestral score, place it firmly among the ranks of the finest symphonies yet produced by an American.
© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com)