Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program C
No. 1998 Subscription (Program C)

Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), like Beethoven’s Ninth symphony for Japanese concert goers and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker for North American families, is a December feature in German-speaking countries. One of the reasons is that the libretto by Humperdinck’s sister, an adaptation of the famous tale of the Brothers Grimm, embraces Christian elements of which the most noticeable is the fourteen angels’ pantomime (Act 2). Furthermore, this Christmas classic has no vicious stepmother nor cruel abandoning of her stepchildren unlike Grimm’s version: the title roles here, still in poverty, simply lose their way in the woods and do not frighten a young audience.

This “Märchenoper” (fairy-tale opera) was premiered in Weimar on December 23, 1893. While known for its inventive folk-inspired melodies, it shows influences of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) with its thick orchestration and effective utilization of leitmotifs (recurrent melodies associated with a certain character, emotion, etc.). Incidentally, Humperdinck had served as Wagner’s assistant in Bayreuth in 1881–1882 for preparing the premiere of the master’s Parsifal.

A delicious digest of Hänsel und Gretel, the Prelude is packed with leitmotifs used in the ensuing three acts. It begins gently with horns announcing the pietistic “Evening Prayer (or Benediction)” theme, while the following faster section starts with a trumpet fanfare derived from the “Witch’s Spell” theme. The “Prayer” theme plays an important role again during the peaceful close of the Prelude, just like in the opera’s cheerful happy ending.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (Fantastical Symphony) was premiered in Paris in 1830, only three years after Beethoven died. Back in 1828, the young man had heard the Classical titan’s Third and Fourth symphonies in Paris. The French romanticist recalled this electrifying experience later, writing “Beethoven opened before me a new world of music, as Shakespeare had revealed a new universe of poetry.” His Symphonie fantastique eventually “opened a new world” too, as a pivotal transition from the Classical symphony to the Romantic symphonic (tone) poem, a programmatic genre that Franz Liszt (1811–1886) would soon invent.

Symphonie fantastique is indeed programmatic, as the subtitle (“Episode in the Life of an Artist … in Five Sections”) and the program notes* penned by the composer clarify it. Moreover, it is autobiographical for “an Artist” is Berlioz himself who then had an obsessive one-sided love for the Irish Shakespearian actress Harriet Smithson (1800–1854). To depict the “fantastical” or even eccentric program, Berlioz employed a recurrent melody (representing the artist’s beloved) that he called “idée fixe” (fixed idea) foretelling Wagner’s above-mentioned leitmotifs. Also, Berlioz’s novel instrumentation under the influence of the operatic scoring was ideal for his fanciful drama.

I Rêveries (Reveries)– Passions has the pensive introduction followed by the faster section announcing the idée fixe on a flute and violins: the young protagonist falls in love with a dream woman at first sight. Sumptuous II Un bal (A Ball) is known for the first utilization of harps in the history of symphony, while pastoral III Scène aux champs (Scene in the Fields) supplies an ingenious acoustic perspective offering a dialogue between an on-stage English horn and an off-stage oboe. IV Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold) lets the broken-hearted artist, overdosed on opium, dream of himself killing his beloved and thus being sent to the scaffold. Dead, he sees himself in his V Songe d’une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath) payed a visit to by the beloved’s spirit pictured by a grotesque idée fixe on a shrill clarinet sound. The backstage bells tolling the hero’s death precede the brassy, demoniac Dies irae (Day of Wrath) melody from the Catholic Mass for the Dead.

[Kumiko Nishi]