=====================================================================
This week’s podcast features
three works from three composers we normally associate with opera, not the
concert hall.
Georges Bizet's earliest
compositions, chiefly songs and keyboard pieces written as exercises, give
early indications of his emergent power and his gifts as a melodist. From those
student days, the Symphony in C has been warmly praised by later commentators
who have made favourable comparisons with Mozart and Schubert.
After his early Symphony in
C, Bizet's purely orchestral output is sparse and considered unremarkable. The
work I chose to open the program, the overture Patrie, has been
dismissed as: "an awful warning of the danger of confusing art with
patriotism". For you to decide if you agree with that poor assessment.
Wagner composed his only
symphony (also in C) in the brief space of six weeks at the beginning of the
summer of 1832. The composition shows the influence of the symphonies of
Beethoven and also of the late symphonies of Mozart; the orchestration is in
the style of Weber and Beethoven. The work shows the composer's inexperience
(he was less than 20 years old when writing it).
Early performances took place
in November 1832, January 1833, and August 1833. The score was subsequently
thought to have been lost, but the parts from the 1832 Prague performance were
found in a trunk which had been left behind by Wagner when he fled Dresden in
1849. The work was performed again at Christmas 1882, two months before Wagner's
death. Wagner later wrote (referring to himself in the third person…) "If
there is anything at all in this work which shows the mark of Richard Wagner,
it is the fact that it is not polluted by the hypocritical stance which was to
appear later and which Germans find very difficult to get the better of, and
the fact that, from the outset, he remained true to himself and was unwilling
to be deflected from his proper course."
Gian Carlo Menotti wrote many
operas but did pen some piano and orchestral works. He was a traditionalist and
romanticist at a time when most western composers were preoccupied with new
styles marked by the avant-garde experimental spirit and theoretical rigor;
there was little room for traditional tonality and lyricism in the classical
music world at the time.
Menotti’s profound interest
in the voice and belief in connecting with his audience through accessible
musical language is also tangible in his instrumental works. The Violin
Concerto, rich with drama, lyrical melody, and orchestral color, is far more
accessible that instrumental works by other composers of the time. The concerto
was written in 1952 after a commission by the violinist Efrem Zibalist, who
premiered the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall later that
year. The premiere was a success, as can be read in a review by Louis Biancolli
of New York World-Telegram & Sun: “It is a fresh and vigorous piece of
music, overflowing with energy and melody and whatever else it takes to
complete a three-movement concerto without becoming apologetic.” Yet, after the
initial success, the work was largely neglected.
I think you will love this
music too.
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-13714543-1559693247-2238.jpeg.jpg)