Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program B
No. 2006 Subscription (Program B)

Spain fascinated French composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, whether they had visited there – like Saint-Saëns (Andalusian Caprice, 1904) and Chabrier (Spain, 1883) – or they used their imagination – like Bizet (Carmen, 1875) and Debussy (Evening in Granada from Estampes, 1903 and Iberia from Images for Orchestra, 1908) –. An exceptional case is Ravel, as he, born in a French Basque town close to the Spanish border, grew up listening to Spanish folk songs crooned by his Basque mother. Having once lived in Madrid, she was reportedly a fluent Spanish speaker. Proud of this cultural heritage, Ravel wrote some Spain-inspired masterworks including L’heure espagnole (Spanish Time) (1907) and Boléro (1928).
Spanish Rhapsody is Ravel’s very first orchestral piece put into print. The origin of this four-movement music was Habanera which was initially penned for two pianos in 1895. The French composer then wrote three more for the same formation in the early 1900s before orchestrating all four. Spanish Rhapsody was thus revealed in 1908 in Paris and made his polished scoring abilities widely known.
Because of the above-mentioned genesis, III Habanera is the only movement which doesn’t share the descending theme (F/E/D/C-sharp). This “cyclic” theme is constantly repeated during I Prélude à la nuit (Prelude to the Night) and ends II Malagueña in an impressive manner (malagueña is a flamenco dance from Málaga in Andalusia). The four-note melody reappears in IV Feria (Festival), a colorful and high-spirited music landscape.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Prokofiev left us two violin concertos contrasting in style. No. 2 was first performed in Madrid by the French violinist Robert Soetens and the Spanish conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós leading the Madrid Symphony Orchestra in December 1935. Those who are familiar with Prokofiev’s radical modernism from his early years could be tricked by the work’s comparatively conservative writing and classical construction with three rapid-slow-rapid movements. The historical background explains this, as it was penned around the time Prokofiev settled for good in his homeland – then the USSR – following an eighteen-year stint overseas. No. 2, along with the ballet Romeo and Juliet, is from Prokofiev’s transition to a more lyrical, melodious and conventionally tonal style of his Soviet era.
The concerto was a commission from fans of Soetens with whom Prokofiev as pianist was just touring in Europe. The first sonata movement in G minor begins with the violin’s monologue giving the Russian-folky five-beat theme against the background of 4/4 time. The slow middle movement in E-flat major gives also a metrical twist with the mellifluous principal theme alternating 12/8 and 4/4 time introduced by the violin solo at the outset. The lively finale in free rondo-like form (A–B–A–C–A–B–A–coda) in B-flat major / G major sounds Hispanic at times as if to regale the first audience in Spain with a local hue: the section A returns three times accompanied by castanets clacking.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909), Enrique Granados (1867–1916) and Falla – the three Spaniards who lived a page of their life in France are eloquent testimony to the intimate relations between the French and Spanish music worlds at the turn of the century. Born in Cádiz, Falla was trained in Madrid by the Catalan composer Felipe Pedrell (1841–1922) known as the father of the Spanish national school of music. From 1907 to 1914, Falla stayed in Paris where he met Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. The outbreak of World War made Falla return home to continue to compose in Madrid.
El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) is from the second Madrilenian period of the now-well-traveled Falla. Based on an Andalusian folk tale, it was originally a pantomime entitled El Corregidor y La Molinera (The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife) (1917) with music by Falla. He, encouraged by Diaghilev, made from it the fully-fledged ballet score: El sombrero de tres picos was first staged in London in 1919 by Léonide Massine and Ballets Russes, Diaghilev’s dance company, with the set and costume by Pablo Picasso.
The introduction opens with shouts of “Ole!”, castanets clacking and the singer warning “Young bride, lock your door securely!” Set in an Andalusian town, the two-act ballet features the Magistrate wearing a “three-cornered hat”, the symbol of power, the Miller and his beautiful Wife. A highlight of the first act is a seductive fandango, a Spanish folk dance. The Miller’s Wife dances it to make fun of the Magistrate who visits the mill to court her. She and her husband succeed in sending the womanizer away. The second act starts with neighbors dancing a seguidilla followed by the Miller dancing a farruca, both are Spanish folk dances. The festiveness is interrupted by the sudden arrest of the Miller – the dramatic opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is heard – which is plotted by the Magistrate who attempts to sleep with the Miller’s Wife. The trouble comes to a boisterous happy ending for the Miller couple dancing with their neighbors a jota, a rhythmical dance originally from Aragon, Spain.

[Kumiko Nishi]