No. 2053 Subscription (Program C)

Poland’s national hero Frédéric François Chopin (1810–1849) was born to a French father and a Polish mother near Warsaw. A child prodigy, the future Poet of the Piano received elementary piano lessons from his mother and sister before studying composition under Józef Elsner privately and at Warsaw’s High School of Music. Elsner encouraged his talented pupil to extend his own individuality, which laid the groundwork for Chopin’s highly personal artistry.
Chopin’s works, mostly piano music, are marked by melodic beauty that he owes to his strong attachment for Italian operas and their flowing, ornamental “Bel Canto” singing style. He was an unequaled pianist and improviser himself, which is reflected in the graceful virtuosity, inventive harmonic twists and ornaments found in his piano writing. Finally, we must not forget his ties with the musical heritage of his beloved mother country. Polish folk dances’ elements, particularly their rhythms, provide his music with colors and liveliness. His two youthful piano concertos blend those characteristics with influences from older composer-pianists such as Johann Nepomuk Hummel and John Field.
No. 2 in F minor is Chopin’s first piano concerto (but published as his second). The rising star penned it in 1829 at age 19, after he gave successful concerts in Vienna performing his Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni and Rondo à la Krakowiak, both for piano and orchestra. He premiered No. 2 during his public concert debut in Warsaw in March 1830. The highly-anticipated event, sold out, gathered 900 audience members.
An extensive orchestral introduction opens No. 2 announcing the tense first theme on violins and the idyllic second theme on an oboe, before the pianist’s dramatic entrance. The intimate middle movement, evoking a nocturne, expresses Chopin’s love for the soprano Konstancja Gładkowska according to his letter to a friend. The final rondo movement is famous for its rhythms of mazurka, a Polish folk dance, and the utilization by violins and violas of the col legno technique of striking the strings with the bow’s wood.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Born in the Danish Island of Funen in 1865, Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) is considered one of the most essential Nordic composers alongside Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) from Finland, the same age as him, and Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) from Norway. Nielsen studied composition at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen under his compatriot Niels Gade, Grieg’s teacher as well. Nielsen then started his career as an orchestral violinist while composing, before serving as a conductor with the Royal Theatre in the capital and the Orchestra of the Copenhagen Music Society.
Nielsen left us a vast catalogue including six unconventional, inventive, beautiful symphonies (first heard on his native soil during his lifetime between 1894 and 1925), concertos, two operas and a profusion of songs and choral works.
The Symphony No. 4 was penned between the summer of 1914 and the beginning of 1916. At the time, both the composer and the world surrounding him stood at the crossroads, even though Denmark remained neutral during World War I. While going through a marital crisis, Nielsen gained self-confidence as a composer and conductor more than ever following the successful premieres under his own baton of his Symphony No. 3 Sinfonia Espansiva and Violin Concerto in 1911. Three years later, he left a conducting position at the Royal Theatre to be a freelance musician for the first time since 1889, which allowed him to spend more time composing the Symphony No. 4.
Nielsen conducted the premiere of No. 4 in Copenhagen in 1916, which was followed immediately by its performances in Stockholm and Berlin. No. 4 was even blessed with the British premiere by the London Symphony Orchestra under the composer’s baton in 1923. Alongside the Symphony No. 5, No. 4 is considered today one of Nielsen’s greatest works.
Regarding the subtitle The Inextinguishable given by the composer himself, the program notes for the premiere and the comments made by Nielsen on various occasions are informative. According to them, the subtitle is an attempt “to suggest what only the music itself has the power to express fully: the elementary will to life.” “Music is life, and like it[, ] inextinguishable,” stated Nielsen.
No. 4 is a single-movement symphony composed of four contrastive parts. The most distinctive features are its unpredictable unfoldment, even in the first part in sonata form, and a vital role played by two sets of timpani. Violins and the first timpani assume the calm transition from the kaleidoscopic first part to the pastoral second part. The grievous slow third part begins with a lament sung by violins backed with the first timpani. The second timpani finally appears right before the last Allegro part where two sets of timpani have a heated exchange. The symphony concludes in E major with the support of the second timpani’s powerful cadence.

[Kumiko Nishi]