Subscription Concerts 2024-2025Program C
No. 2029 Subscription (Program C)

Born near Saint Petersburg, Russia, Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) was a private composition pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) while studying law at university. The young man then gained international fame with his three “primitive-style” ballet scores The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. They all were written for the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev’s dance company, Ballets Russes, to be premiered in Paris on the eve of World War I. Stravinsky since frequently changed styles—and countries of residence—, after which he is often dubbed “Chameleon.”
With the ballet score Pulcinella written in 1919–1920 as a commission from Diaghilev, Stravinsky got a head start in Neo-classicism. This movement spread quickly to revive idioms, forms and aesthetics of the past in modern light as a potent antidote against the over-emotional late-Romanticism and the highly progressive atonalism/serialism.
For this ballet premiered in 1920 in Paris, Diaghilev and his dancer Léonide Massine (who was in charge of the scenario and choreography) drew much inspiration from “Commedia dell’arte,” a traditional comedy that originated in 16th-century Italy. In vogue throughout Europe from the 17th century on, this comedy has several archetypal characters including Pulcinella, a clown in white costume with a black mask and crooked nose. In the Diaghilev/Massine version, Pulcinella, a lady-killer, ends up wedding his jealous girlfriend Pimpinella.
Initially, Diaghilev requested Stravinsky to arrange some pieces by the Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) for a full orchestra. Diaghilev, to his surprise, received instead an audacious re-creation for a compact orchestra and three singers: spiced up with modern rhythms, meters, harmonies and instrumentation, Stravinsky’s is full of originality and wittiness but also boundless respect for the past. The suite performed today is prepared by Stravinsky himself for an orchestra without vocalists in 1922. Later researchers revealed that some of the pieces he reworked—without knowing it—were actually by a few other 18th-century Italian composers. Domenico Gallo’s Trio Sonatas for Two Violins and Basso Continuo, in particular, assume an important role as the base for the several numbers such as opening noble Sinfonia and rhythmically-gripping Finale.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Born in Hamburg, northern Germany, Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) is one of the Romantic composers who pursued the past the most deeply, relying on forms and compositional techniques of the Classical era led to its heights by Beethoven (1770–1827). Brahms was even fascinated by Renaissance and Baroque music, especially J. S. Bach (1685–1750)’s, and acquired masterly contrapuntal writing. Though criticized for being behind the times by some of his contemporaries, Brahms’s seemingly traditional approach would strongly inspire future generations like Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951) so they could pave the way for modernism in music.
A catalyst for Brahms valuing past musical heritage was piano and music theory education he received from the Hamburg-based renown teacher, pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen (1806–1887), under whom the teenage Brahms developed a great admiration for Bach, Beethoven and other Classical composers. The programs of the first two piano solo recitals Brahms gave in 1848 and 1849 included indeed music of Bach and Beethoven.
Brahms then leaped into fame overnight at age 20, thanks to the glowing praise for him that the composer and critic Robert Schumann (1810–1856) released to the public in 1853. Now a promising composer, Brahms began to gestate his first symphony around 1855. However, he felt extreme pressure to extend the symphonic history, which seemed to be already concluded by Beethoven the giant. Also due to his highly self-critical nature, Brahms completed his No. 1 over twenty years later in 1876, on top of that, he revised it next year after hearing the premiere. Everything comes to those who wait: the conductor Hans von Bülow famously applauded it as “Beethoven’s Tenth.” This work indeed shows the greatest respect for Beethoven’s legacy, at once being a veritable “Brahms’ First” of his own voice.
Although a product of the Romantic era, Brahms’ No. 1 has the almost same instrumentation as Beethoven’s No. 5. The austere introduction opens Brahms’ No. 1, stating the C/C-sharp/D motif over timpani pounding. This chromatic three-note motto would recur in diverse forms throughout the symphony following Beethoven’s meticulous motivic development. The absence of minuet/scherzo movement may surprise listeners familiar with the genre of symphony: here Brahms strikes out in a new direction proposing a brief graceful interlude prior to the last movement. The finale’s dark introduction beginning in C minor reaches the C-major “Alphorn melody” blown by horns: from Switzerland, Brahms had sent a birthday card with this melody to his muse Clara (Schumann’s wife) penning below it the following words: “High on the mountains, deep in the valleys, I greet you a thousand times!” The ensuing main sonata section could be likened to a hymn to C major, with the lyrical first theme bearing a great resemblance to Beethoven’s An die Freude (Ode to Joy) tune from his Symphony No. 9.

[Kumiko Nishi]