Sibelius I
Thursday - August 5, 8:00 pm

Lisa Pegher, Percussion
Elgar - Introduction and allegro, op. 47
Macmillan - Veni, veni, Emmanuel
Sibelius - Symphony no. 1, op. 39, E minor

Program 2

Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Composed in 1905.
Premiered on March 8, 1905 in London, conducted by the composer.

When the London Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1904 by a band of disgruntled musicians who quit Henry Woods’ popular Promenade Concerts Orchestra, A.J. Jaeger of the music publisher Novello and Company asked his friend Edward Elgar to contribute a piece for the ensemble’s inaugural season. In October 1904, Jaeger inquired, “I hope you can write the Symphony Orchestra a short new work. Why not a brilliant quick String Scherzo, or something for those fine strings only? a real bring-down-the-house torrent of a thing as Bach could write. It wouldn’t take away from your big work for long. You might even write a modern Fugue...” Elgar was riding the greatest wave of success of his life at the time, not only receiving a cartful of honorary doctorates from universities on both sides of the Atlantic, but also having his name appear on the Queen’s List for knighthood that year. He decided to tackle the work for the new orchestra, and started it right after the Christmas holidays. On January 26, 1905, he wrote to Jaeger, “I’m doing that string thing in time for the Symphony Orchestra concert. Intro: & Allegro — no working-out part but a devil of a fugue instead. G major and the second divvel in G minor with all sorts of japes and counterpoint.” Elgar completed the work on February 13, 1905, and conducted the premiere only three weeks later (March 8th) with the fledgling LSO. The exceptionally fine quality of the Introduction and Allegro was not immediately recognized by the audience, but Alice, the composer’s wife and one of his shrewdest critics, said, “Many people think it is the finest thing he has written.” Time has proven her correct.

Elgar derived a special inspiration for his music from his tours in England and abroad, and a charming travel anecdote is linked with the composition of the Introduction and Allegro. When he was working on the piece, Elgar made a visit to the valley of the River Wye in central Wales, and heard some natives singing a simple song as they went about their work on the banks. This episode recalled to him a previous alfresco musical experience during a Welsh holiday in 1901 when he was considering writing some sort of “Welsh” overture. He was wandering by the seashore, when, as he later wrote, “On the cliff, between the blue sea and the blue sky, there came up to me the sound of singing. The songs were too far away to reach me distinctly, but one point common to all was pressed upon me, and led me to think, perhaps wrongly, that it was a real Welsh idiom — I mean the fall of [an interval of] a third.” He noted down a theme using that melodic shape, but never composed his overture. The song in the Wye Valley in 1905, however, triggered his memory of the earlier sketch, and he resurrected it for use in the Introduction and Allegro. This brief, lovely tune first appears quietly in the solo viola soon after the piece begins.

The Introduction and Allegro is among the greatest works for string orchestra in the concert repertory. Its form resembles the opening movement of a symphony, but instead of a development section (Elgar’s “working-out” mentioned above) there is an elaborate fugue. Though the scoring is for string quartet and string orchestra, there is little feeling of the Baroque concerto grosso style, with its contest between smaller and larger sounding bodies. The two groups are rather used for the expansion of the tonal resources they offer — echoing, trading themes, enriching the textural palette. The slow introduction in G minor opens with a short, bold statement for the full ensemble. After the quartet presents a quicker motive that becomes the main theme of the Allegro, the solo viola sings Elgar’s “Welsh tune,” which is then taken up by the entire orchestra. Another hearing of the bold opening gesture and a quiet recall of the “Welsh tune” leads to the Allegro (G major). There are three large theme groups in this expository section: a flowing melody that describes a perfect arch shape; a skittering succession of 16th notes traded between quartet and orchestra; and a grand tune (marked “nobilmente” in the score) based on the opening measures of the piece. In place of a development is a wonderful, sturdy fugue (G minor), a contrapuntal tour-de-force that is one of the great achievements in Elgar’s music. A recapitulation of the three theme groups from the exposition occupies much of the remainder of the work, with a coda built on a grand statement of the “Welsh tune” and the main theme of the Allegro. The Introduction and Allegro, with its blend of superb orchestration, formal ingenuity and textural richness, is one of the masterpieces of British music.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel,
Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra
James MacMillan (born in 1959)

Composed in 1991-1992.
Premiered on August 10, 1992 in London, conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste with Evelyn Glennie as soloist.

Scottish composer James MacMillan, born in Kilwinning, Ayshire on July 16, 1959, was educated at the University of Edinburgh (B.Mus., 1981) and the University of Durham (Ph.D., 1987), where his principal teacher was John Casken. After working as a lecturer at Manchester University from 1986 to 1988, MacMillan returned to Scotland, where he has since fulfilled numerous important commissions and taught at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He has also served as Artistic Director of the Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust, Affiliate Composer of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Visiting Composer of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Artistic Director of its contemporary music series, Music Today. His compositions, many of which incorporate traditional Scottish elements and bear some stamp of either his religion (Catholicism) or his politics (socialism), include a chamber opera (Tourist Variations), concertos for piano (The Berserking) and percussion (Veni, Veni, Emmanuel), orchestral scores, chamber works and pieces for solo voices and chorus. Of his creative personality, MacMillan noted, “There are strong Scottish traits in my works, but also an aggressive and forthright tendency with a strong rhythmic physicality, showing the influence of Stravinsky, Messiaen and some minimalist composers. My philosophy of composition looks beyond the introversion of the New Music ‘ghetto’ and seeks a wider communication while in no way promoting a compromising populism. The ‘modernist’ zeal of the post-World War II generation of composers who attempted to eschew any continuation of tradition is anathema to me. I respect tradition in many forms, whether cultural, political or historical, and in keeping up a continuous, delicate scrutiny of old forms, ancient traditions, enduring beliefs and lasting values one is strengthened in one’s constant, restless search for new avenues of expression. The existence of the influence of the old alongside the experiments of the new should not appear incongruous. Therefore, in ideological terms, my works express the timeless truths of Roman Catholicism alongside a fierce social commitment. And musically one can hopefully sense the depths of times past integrating with attempts at innovation.”

Of his Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, the composer wrote, “The Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra Veni, Veni, Emmanuel [‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’] was started on the first Sunday of Advent 1991 and completed on Easter Sunday 1992. These two liturgical dates are important, as will be explained below. On one level, the work is purely abstract, in that all the musical material is drawn from the 15th-century French Advent plainchant of the same name. On another level, it is a musical exploration of the theology behind the Advent message.

“Throughout the work, soloist and orchestra converse as two equal partners, using a wide range of percussion instruments, including tuned, untuned, skin, metal and wood sounds. Though the work is in one continuous movement and much of the music is fast, it can be thought of as an arch of several sections centered upon the ‘Gaude, Gaude’ passage. It begins with a bold, fanfare-like ‘overture’ in which the soloist presents all the instrument types used throughout. When the soloist moves to gongs and unpitched metal and wood instruments, the music melts into the main part of the first section — music of a more brittle, knotty quality, propelled by various pulse rates evoking an ever-changing heartbeat.

“Advanced by drums and carried through a metrical modulation, the music is thrown forward into the second section, which is characterized by fast ‘hocketing’ [i.e., quick alternation] of chords between one side of the orchestra and the other. Eventually the music winds down to a slow central section which pits cadenza-like expressivity on the marimba against a floating tranquility in the orchestra, which hardly ever rises above pianissimo. Over and over again the orchestra repeats the four chords that accompany the words ‘Gaude, Gaude’ [‘Rejoice, Rejoice’] from the plainsong’s refrain. They are layered in different instrumental combinations and at different speeds, evoking a huge, distant congregation murmuring a calm prayer in many voices.

“A huge pedal crescendo in E-flat provides a transition to section four, in which material from the ‘hocket’ section is reintroduced under a vibraphone solo. Gradually one becomes aware of the original tune floating slowly behind all the surface activity. The climax of the work presents the plainsong as a chorale followed by the opening fanfares, providing a backdrop for an energetic drum cadenza. In the coda, the all-pervasive heartbeats are emphatically pounded out on the drums and timpani as the music reaches an unexpected conclusion.

“The heartbeats that permeate the whole piece offer a clue to the human presence of Christ. Advent texts proclaim the promised day of liberation from fear, anguish and oppression, and this work is an attempt to mirror this in music, finding its initial inspiration in Luke 21: There will be signs in the sun and in the moon and among the stars; on earth, nations in agony, bewildered by the clamor of the ocean and its waves; men dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.

“At the very end of the piece, the music takes a liturgical detour from Advent to Easter — right into the Gloria of the Easter Vigil in fact — as if the proclamation of liberation finds embodiment in the Risen Christ.”

Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)

Composed in 1898-1899.
Premiered on April 26, 1899 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer.

By the time he was 34, when he finished his First Symphony, Sibelius was already a feted national hero. He came to maturity when his native Finland was searching for its national cultural and political identity after centuries of domination by Sweden and Russia, and his music gave vent to the aspirations of his countrymen at the time when the Czar’s representatives forbade inflammatory, patriotic words. To invest his works with a powerful nationalistic message, he turned for inspiration to the epic compilation of Finnish legends, the Kalevala. A series of stirring works based on those old stories preceded the First Symphony — En Saga and Kullervo (1892), the Karelia Suite (1893), and the Four Legends, which include the haunting Swan of Tuonela (1893-1895). Finlandia was born in the same year — 1899 — as the E minor Symphony. As early as 1897, Sibelius was granted an annual sustenance stipend from the Finnish Senate as recognition of his contribution to the life of the nation so that he would be free to continue his creative work.

The First Symphony shows the influence both of Sibelius’ study of German music in Berlin and of the Russian dominance of Finland’s artistic life. Coming, as it does, in the last year of the Romantic century, the Symphony looks back for its formal precedents to the orchestral works of the great masters of the German tradition, specifically Beethoven and Brahms. In melodic material, instrumentation and certain points of style, however, it turns further east, to the music of Borodin and, especially, Tchaikovsky, whose Sixth Symphony had been composed only six years before and performed in Helsinki in 1894 and 1897. Sibelius even told his wife, Aïno, of Tchaikovsky that “there is much in that man that I recognize in myself.” Against this Russo-German background, Sibelius placed his own strong musical personality in establishing himself as a symphonist with a work given to broad emotions and dramatic gestures in an expansive, Romantic mood.

The first movement is introduced by a bardic clarinet solo played above a timpani pedal point. (It is with such orchestral touches that Sibelius admitted trying to evoke the topography of his homeland, in this case, the solitary reddish granite blocks jutting from the sea along Finland’s Baltic coast.) The sonata form proper is begun with the entry of the strings proclaiming the main theme, a typically Sibelian melody begun with a sustained note intensifying to a quick rhythmic flourish. A richly lyrical theme for violins and cellos follows. The second theme, related to the main theme in shape and rhythm, is given by the woodwinds. The development section utilizes the thematic material heard in the exposition, to which are added the stern brass chords so characteristic of Sibelius’ orchestral technique. The recapitulation includes most of the material from the exposition given in a heightened setting.
The Andante, warm and lyrical, opens with a nostalgic melody for violins and cellos. The central section is led by the horn choir playing a serene theme above the undulating accompaniment of the harp and strings. The long closing section elaborates the opening theme. The Scherzo, in the traditional three-part form (A–B–A), comprises brassy, energetic outer sections surrounding a slow, sustained, contrasting Trio. The finale begins with the solo clarinet melody that opened the Symphony. Though the movement is marked “Quasi una Fantasia,” it follows sonata form, with an expressive second theme for strings in slower tempo. The functions of development and recapitulation are fused.
Of Sibelius’ first two symphonies, Milton Cross wrote, “[They] do not have subtlety of expression. They are Russian in their overindulgence in dramatic statements, Slavic in their haunting, poignant melodies of peasant energy. They wear the heart on the sleeve. But what they lack in subtlety, they make up in dramatic effect. They have an overwhelming emotional impact.”