MasterWorks 01: Dvorák New World Symphony
The 94th season opens with a work from our newly appointed LSO Composer-In-Residence. Followed by Maurice Ravel’s entertaining Piano Concerto in G, a jazz-inspired piece that reflects an admiration of George Gershwin and a connection to American musical idioms. The concert closes with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” a piece inspired by African American spirituals and Indigenous music Dvořák heard while living in America.
Conductor
Timothy Muffitt
Claire Huangci
Piano
Surge and Swell
Jared Miller (Composer-In-Residence)
Piano Concerto in G
Maurice Ravel
Piano Concerto in G Major
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Written: 1929–31
Movements: Three
Style: Post-impressionist
Duration: 23 minutes
One of the complaints leveled against Ravel’s music is that it lacks “sentiment.” In spite of all the brilliant writing, the sensuous tone color, the exotic melodies, the music misses heartfelt emotion. “I am Basque,” he admitted, “and while the Basques feel deeply they seldom show it, and then only to a very few.” Here is his forthright confession about what he felt his Piano Concerto should really be about:
"The music of a concerto should, in my opinion, be lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or at dramatic effects. It has been said of certain classics that their concertos were written not “for” but “against” the piano. I heartily agree. I had intended to title this concerto ‘Divertissement.’ Then it occurred to me that there was no need to do so because the title ‘Concerto’ should be sufficiently clear."
Ravel started work on a piano concerto for himself in preparation for a tour to the United States. Paul Wittgenstein, the great pianist who lost his right arm during the ‘Great War,’ interrupted him with a request to write a concerto for the left hand only. Ravel was intrigued by the idea and so he set to work on both concertos. “It was an interesting experiment to conceive and to realize simultaneously the two concertos,” Ravel conceded. He finished the Left Hand Concerto first and the two-hand concerto about a year later. But by then Ravel was too ill to perform it, “The concerto is nearly finished and I am not far from being so myself.” The Piano Concerto in G Major premiered with Marguerite Long performing and Ravel conducting.
Ravel claimed that this piano concerto “is a concerto in the most exact sense of the term and is written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns . . . It includes some elements borrowed from jazz, but only in moderation.” The three movements of the concerto do follow the standard templates that Mozart helped develop. The first and third movements both have contrasting themes with a central development section. There is the requisite solo cadenza for the piano in the first movement. The second movement is a beautiful thing (full of sentiment) that Ravel admits was composed with the “help” of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. In terms of highlighting brilliant and facile piano technique, this concerto does resemble those of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. But there the resemblance end. Mozart probably would not have started his concertos with a whip-crack! The smears of the trombone and the shrieks of the tiny piccolo clarinet belong to the nightclub, not the salons of Saint-Saëns. All of the “blue-notes” and jazzy rhythms seem more a tip of the hat to George Gershwin than to Mozart. The raucous good time that everybody has is just plain fun.
©2023 John P. Varineau
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 "From the New World"
Antonín Dvorák
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 "From the New World"
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Written: 1893
Movements: Four
Style: Romantic
Duration: 40 minutes
When Mrs. Jeannette Thurber, founder of the National Conservatory of Music in America (later known as the Juilliard School) needed a director for her new school, she went straight to the top. She wanted a figurehead rather than an administrator for her conservatory, and the world famous Czech composer Antonin Dvořák would do very nicely. She offered the position to him at a salary of $15,000 a year. (Wow!) Dvořák picked his family up and plopped them into the heart of New York City for three years, from 1892 to 1895.
The first work that Dvořák wrote while in America was his Ninth Symphony. He claimed that the title simply signified "Impressions and greetings from the New World" but that the work is not really "American" in character. He also said that he based the symphony on plantation, Creole, or southern tunes, and that he infused the symphony with “characteristics that are distinctly American.” Henry Burleigh, an African-American student at the National Conservatory often sang for Dvořák. He said that “one song in particular, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’ greatly pleased him, and part of this old spiritual will be found in the second theme of the first movement of the symphony.” Dvořák also said that Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha and even Native American music inspired the second and third movements.
The audience was well prepared for the premiere of the symphony. All of the leading daily newspapers in New York carried preliminary articles and analyses―complete with musical quotations! Following the first performance a debate raged in the papers about what aspects of the Symphony were American. In what was―hopefully―an attempt at humor, James Huneker wrote in the Musical Courier, “Its extremely Celtic character was patent to numerous people, and the general opinion seemed to be that Dvořák had not been long in discovering what a paramount factor the Irish were in the political life of the country.” Reading the various reviews, Dvořák commented, “It seems that I have got them all confused.”
A common theme or "motto" connects the four movements of the symphony. The violas and cellos play it first in the slow introduction of the first movement. Later the horns play it in the faster section. It is the primary theme of the first movement, contrasted with a more dance-like tune played by oboes and flutes. The second movement was inspired by Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha, specifically the "Funeral Scene in the Forest." Somber brass chords start and end this movement. (Incidentally, these chords reappear at the very end of the symphony.) The English horn plays the justifiably famous melody, and then the strings take over. The orchestra plays a more lively and jaunty middle section before the return of the English horn melody. The third movement is also based upon Longfellow, this time “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast,” in which the Indians dance. It has three main themes. The first melody, played by the woodwinds, always seems to come after the beat. The second melody is more sustained and flowing, and the third is a rollicking dance tune with its emphasis on the strong beat of each measure. Then comes the robust finale, full of martial flare that dissolves into a tender melody played by the clarinet. The final moments bring back the motto theme, played by the horns at the same time the trumpets play the fourth movement’s main theme.
More than a century after the premiere, scholars still debate the “American-ness” of this symphony written by a Czech. Dvořák’s explanation was: “I should never have written the symphony like I have if I hadn’t seen America.”
©2023 John P. Varineau
Program notes by John Varineau
