Subscription Concerts 2022-2023Program C
No. 1981 Subscription (Program C)

Contemporary of Claude Debussy (1862–1918) and Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), the French composer Roussel received a fully-fledged musical education only after leaving the Navy at age 25, though he had displayed his extraordinary musicality from childhood. His style was first affected by the Impressionism before showing the neo-Classical tendency: at any rate, Roussel’s originality had always resided in his rather horizontal, linear mindset (he was a renowned professor of counterpoint) and powerful rhythms.
First performed in 1934 in Paris, Sinfonietta (meaning "little symphony") is from Roussel's mature period. He composed the second and third movements first, then the opening. This is possibly how he assured the structural symmetry with the outer movements of the same duration. The fast-slow-fast movement arrangement recalls us of symphonies by early-Classical composers such as C. P. E Bach (1714–1788), J. S. Bach's son. Roussel's first movement is a vigorous D-minor sonata. Without preamble, violins give the punchy first
theme which contrasts well with the slower melodious second theme introduced by violas. The graveness of the middle movement is suddenly replaced by the liveliness of the D-major finale in rondo form having a sonata-like thematic dualism.

[Kumiko Nishi]

The Paris-born composer Poulenc was a favorite of the times during the inter-war years: he was only twenty when "Les Six" was formed in 1919. This avant-garde group consisted of Poulenc and five young composers admiring Erik Satie (1866–1925). The motto was to be simple, clear and light against all sorts of German late-Romantic excess: their output was often playful and spiced up with popular elements particularly from jazz, "music hall" (vaudeville theater) and cabaret. These features and the image of "Les Années folles" (Roaring Twenties) tag along with Poulenc's overall creation even today, however, he actually departed from this early phase without delay to go his own way within the neo-classical framework, burnishing his
musical wittiness, lucidity and, so to speak, urbane lyricism and melancholy.
He wrote Sinfonietta in 1947 on a commission from the BBC reusing materials of his discarded string quartet (composed in 1945–1947). This is not a “small” symphony like
Roussel's Sinfonietta, at least in respect of the length and the orchestral size: the title's humble suffix might be to secure itself against undeserved criticism for the absence of Beethovenian minute motivic/thematic development and firmly-structured form that the term "symphony" evokes. The first movement in G minor is a free sonata with a frequent change of meter and key. The serious first theme bursts into flame on strings at the beginning and the second theme, tinged with melancholy, is soon sung by the winds. The next movement is a lighthearted F-major scherzo in A–B–A form. Following the exquisitely melodious third movement in A-flat major, the F-major finale headed "Prestissimo et très gai" (very fast and very joyful) offers a Haydnesque rondo crammed with various moods. The make-believe gorgeous coda
with harp is ended by an abrupt waggish goodbye.

[Kumiko Nishi]

The French composer Ibert is known for his inspired orchestral piece Escales (Ports of Call) (1922), Flute Concerto (1933) and numerous film scores. His Divertissement (Divertimento) (1930) is a suite based on his incidental music for the 1929 production of Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat) (1851). This French comedy written by Eugène Labiche (1815–1888) has been staged regularly and adapted many times for the screen, an example of which is René Clair's silent movie (1927). The hero is Fadinard, a man on the road horseback to his house to prepare his wedding. Halfway, his horse eats an Italian straw hat hung on a tree. It belongs to a married woman flirting with her lover behind a bush, so she insists on Fadinard finding an identical one for fear her husband discovers her affair. Fadinard's search for a hat is hilariously hampered by his wedding attendees upon his heels…
Divertissement sounds sometimes low-grade purposefully for the comic effect while it keeps up the elegance, characteristic of the composer. The high-spirits of Introduction are accentuated by the brass and percussion. The anxious flute melody opens Procession during which a drum roll leads to a parody of Mendelssohn's Wedding March. The eerie Nocturne is followed by Waltz, a caricature of Viennese waltz redolent even of The Blue Danube, where the heavy-footed brass overplay the facetiousness. After the Parade approaches gradually, gives festive tunes and leaves gradually, Finale starts with a higgledy-piggledy piano cadenza. The whistle suggests the wedding attendees in wild confusion marched off to the police station before the suite ends in an uproar.

[Kumiko Nishi]