PROGRAM NOTES
BY LAURIE SHULMAN, ©2008
FIRST NORTH AMERICAN SERIAL RIGHTS ONLY
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a
Benjamin Britten
Born November 22, 1913 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England
Died December 4, 1976 in Aldeburgh, England
Shortly after World War II ended, London’s Sadlers Wells Opera made plans to reopen with Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. Because Britten was relatively unknown as an opera composer, the decision was courageous and risky. Peter Grimes would be his first full-length opera.
He already had extensive experience composing vocal and choral music, and an instinctive flair for drama. With tenor Peter Pears in the title role, the premiere of Peter Grimes was a huge success, establishing Britten as a composer of international stature and re-establishing England as a major center for opera for the first time since Henry Purcell.
Britten and the sea
George Crabbe’s poem “The Borough” (1810), the inspiration for Britten’s opera, is dominated by the image of the cold, grey sea. Britten grew up near the sea and eventually took up residence in Aldeburgh, where Crabbe’s poem takes place. The Suffolk setting and the seascapes lend a decidedly English character to this music. Three of the six instrumental interludes in Peter Grimes are portraits of the sea; two are psychological portraits of Peter and one, the “Storm” interlude, is both.
About the music
“Dawn” opens with a tense unison melody in the violins, answered first by harp and clarinet; early morning sunlight and light breezes dance on the surface of the water, and the gulls swoop down. Then low brasses and timpani respond; the ocean swell of the larger waves is omnipresent and inexorable.
“Sunday Morning” evokes church bells and the bustling streets of a small seaside town whose church life dominates activity on Sunday. Discord in the horns and an ambivalence between major and minor modes characterize this movement. Polytonal clang imbues “Sunday Morning” with a piquant flavor.
“Moonlight” is indebted to Britten’s teacher, Frank Bridge (1879–1941), whose orchestral suite The Sea (1911) Britten knew and admired. Lower strings, bassoons and horns combine to suggest the ocean swell. Moonlight glittering on the sea come to life through the higher range instruments—flutes, harp and some percussion. Britten suggests the grandeur of the sea with fine orchestral color.
“Storm” depicts both the chaos of Peter’s tormented mind and nature’s havoc wrought by the elements in a gale. We hear the relentless high wind and rain pelting on anything in their path. Similarly, the disorderly state of Peter’s thoughts as his mind slips away from him fills our ears with violence and anguish.
Britten scored the Sea Interludes for two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets (second doubling E-flat clarinet), two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (including gong and church bells), harp and strings.
Timing: Approximately 16 minutes.
Symphony No. 4, “Magma” (2002)
North American Premiere
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Born October 16, 1959 in Kärdla, Hiiumaa Island (Estonia)
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is proud to welcome Dame Evelyn Glennie this weekend in the North American première of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Magma. Tüür composed the concerto at Glennie’s request and dedicated it to her. She was the soloist at the work’s premiere and has recorded Magma with Paavo Järvi (son of NJSO Music Director Neeme Järvi) and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.
Baltic minimalist
Tüür is little known in this country, but he is celebrated in Europe as one of the so-called “Baltic minimalists.” Like Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Christopher Rouse, he has roots in rock music and percussion. Tüür also studied flute and, eventually, composition at the Tallinn Conservatory. He cut his teeth as a composer writing for his rock band, In Spe, incorporating elements of Renaissance and Baroque music with more earthy pop/rock traits. In the 1980s, he shifted to minimalist techniques, employing repetitive rhythms and exploring subtle textural changes. Like many composers of his generation, he also went through a serialist phase, and he still uses 12-tone technique in some pieces.
Hard rock, molten rock, jazz rock
Magma takes its name from molten rock, which metamorphoses into a different substance and texture in different atmospheres and temperatures (see sidebar). Although it is performed without pause, it consists of four principal sections that correspond loosely to the traditional four movements of a symphony. An improvised, unaccompanied cadenza bisects the half-hour score.
The opening segment alternates sliding strings and brassy “big bang” music that Tüür calls “chord pyramids.” Glockenspiel and upper winds evoke the sounds of nature. Tüür likes to block his orchestral sections. Massed strings, brass and winds tend to function as mini-choruses, often in complex rhythmic patterns that require razor-sharp metric coordination. He keeps his soloist so busy, however, that we don’t always notice how complex the other instrumental parts are. Magma is a virtuoso work for full orchestra as well as the soloist.
Following the soloist’s improvised cadenza, Tüür moves to a more lyrical section that functions as a slow movement. The vocabulary of brass bleats and sliding strings brings us back to earth. Fluttering woodwinds reassert the sounds of nature, but the general atmosphere is distinctly calmer. The concertmaster has a gorgeous solo with marimba obbligato. Magma concludes with a Latino-flavored finale whose dance-like beat is governed by driving conga.
Instrumentation: a symphony of percussion
Magma synthesizes extensive solo percussion into the orchestral fabric, dispensing with orchestral percussion. The orchestra comprises three flutes, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons (second doubling contrabassoon), three trumpets, four horns, three trombones, tuba, and strings.
Ms. Glennie is responsible for three percussion stations allocated as follows:
1st set: bass drum, tam tam, mark tree, three bell plates, chimes, vibraphone, four octobans (electronic tuneable drums), four cymbals, cowbell (without stand), three tom-toms
2nd set: High-hat, pedal bass drum, six tom-toms, four miniature cymbals, cowbell (on stand), three wood blocks, mark tree, tam tam, two metal wind chimes
3rd set: marimba, two congas, four temple blocks, small cymbal
Timing: Approximately 31 minutes.
SIDEBAR: IN THE COMPOSER’S WORDS: ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR on Magma
Magma: an alloy rich in silicon and containing many oxides, water and diffused gasses, all of which is burning hot in the Earth’s interior.
The tension within Magma, figuratively speaking, is formed through the contact between an impenetrable granite mass and crystalline transparent clouds. We encounter the contrast at the beginning: the chord pyramid of full orchestra starts from the low registers and rises to flow into brilliantly cold spheres of music. The transformation is carried out by the rapid glockenspiel passages, surrounded by woodwinds and strings. The woodwinds start with short, fast motives, evenly extended to create a textural effect similar to digital delay. The string instruments create a long drawn out background senza vibrato. The base for the two contrasting blocks is identical and consists of six 17-pitch scales. The rest of the piece contains many variations and synthesis of these scales. The modification to the scales takes place horizontally and vertically.
The next part is more static until the next chord pyramid. Another passage for glockenspiel, vibraphone and woodwinds follows, now more intense, and then the pyramids sound a third time. The development uses serial and heterophonic principles. The soloist, on vibraphone, produces a resonance to the woodwinds and, using the rototoms or bongos, creates a resonance to the sound mass of the strings before tackling the drum set. The accumulating tension culminates in the soloist’s improvisational solo that absorbs into the next chord pyramid. The tempo relaxes and a descent occurs into cool depths: a reflection of the crystalline clouds described in the beginning in an endless dark void. Thereafter, the marimba introduces the congas. All that follows builds gradually to the final culmination.
In Magma, special emphasis has been placed on different harmonic constructions. Color harmony, meaning that certain instrument groups present harmonic passages that are constructed using specific chords and other instrument groups present other passages using other chords and so on, is combined with sonorous conception which in turn is united with the concept of harmonic thronging. Complex rhythmic patterns interchange with patterns closer to rock and jazz. A longer line of melody, emerging in the final third of the work, could be seen as a result of the continuous lengthening of different motifs and their synthesis.
I am deeply grateful to the phenomenal percussion soloist Evelyn Glennie, who suggested to me that I write a percussion concerto for her. The piece has now turned into a symphony with a solo percussionist. Many words of gratitude go also to de Filharmonie who commissioned the work.
–Erkki-Sven Tüür
(Translated to English by Mehis Kivilo; edited by Laurie Shulman)
Variations on an Original Theme (“Enigma”), Op. 36
Sir Edward Elgar
Born June 2, 1857 in Broadheath, England
Died February 23, 1934 in Worcester, England
“Land without music”
During the 19th century, England was disparagingly referred to by Germany as “das Land ohne Musik”—the land without music. Edward Elgar was both catalyst and symbol of a major renaissance in English composition, and his Enigma Variations (1899) catapulted him to fame both in his own country and on the continent.
Born into a musical family, Elgar learned to play violin, organ and bassoon as a child. His father owned a music shop, tuned pianos and played in the local orchestra. By the 1870s, young Edward knew he wanted to be a composer, but practical considerations steered him toward his father’s various businesses. Not until the Enigma Variations did he gain recognition from his contemporaries as a composer.
A collection of monograms: clues to the enigma?
The inner page of the score bears the inscription “Dedicated to my friends pictured within.” Over the first page, the word “Enigma” appears. Each of the 14 variations is titled either with a monogram or a nickname that identifies one of the composer’s friends. Thus, the “C.A.E.” of the first variation is the composer’s wife, Caroline Alice Elgar; Variation II’s “H.D.S.-P.” is Hew David Steuart-Powell, the pianist in Elgar’s trio, and “B.G.N.” is Basil Nevinson, the cellist and subject of Variation XII, and so forth. Many of Elgar’s circle in Worcestershire achieved a measure of immortality in his piece.
The variations are a trove of brilliant character sketches, despite Elgar’s insistence that his work was absolute music to be considered independently of those who had inspired it. William Meath Baker, the “W.M.B.” of Variation IV, is said to have been a decisive, athletic man who went about life with great physical flourishes punctuating his activities; his variation is appropriately resolute. Isabel Fitton, the “Isobel” of Variation VI, was Elgar’s viola student. Her lyrical, gentle variation features a viola solo and allegedly satirizes technical problems in her string playing that she never overcame.
Contemporaries described Arthur Troyte Griffith (“Troyte,” Variation VII) as an argumentative type. Elgar paints him with vigorous timpani, then brasses in animated dialogue with rapid violin triplets; this is a true virtuoso variation, enough to convince us that Troyte was a formidable opponent in debate!
“Dorabella” (Variation X) was Elgar’s pet name for Dora Penny, the youngest member of his circle included in the Enigma Variations. Her nickname was a conscious allusion to Mozart’s Così fan tutte; her variation has the airy delicacy of the ballet music from Ponchielli’s La Gioconda or Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The variation’s sprightly, chirping fillips of woodwinds and strings invite choreography; it comes as no surprise that Frederick Ashton created a ballet from Elgar’s piece in 1968.
Technically, what makes the Enigma Variations so marvelous is the combination of splendid orchestration, careful gauging of key changes and brilliant transitions from one variation to the next. Spiritually, what binds it is the overriding affection Elgar had for his friends. Variation XIV, “E.D.U.” (Alice’s pet name for her husband was “Edu”) binds the set together in exuberant conclusion, as if to say, “Lucky me, that my life is enriched by these wonderful people.” Whether heard as an independent piece of music or in the context of Elgar’s musical portrait gallery, The Enigma Variations is one of the masterpieces of the repertoire, and Elgar’s finest composition.
Elgar’s score calls for a large orchestra of two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, organ ad lib. and strings.
Timing: Approximately 29 minutes.
SIDEBAR: THE UNSOLVED ENIGMA
When the Enigma Variations first appeared, listeners mistakenly believed that the identities masked by the variation titles were the enigma of the subtitle. The composer promptly debunked this theory in his own program note for the piece, writing:
The enigma I will not explain—its “dark saying” must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme “goes,” but is not played.
This cryptic clue has led to countless theories about the hidden, unstated theme, with guesses ranging from “God Save the King” and “Auld Lang Syne” to “Ta ra ra boom-de-ay” and “Home Sweet Home.”
In 1991, the English pianist Joseph Cooper came forth with a new theory—that the enigma was derived from Mozart’s slow movement to the Prague Symphony. Last December, another Englishman, Dr. Clive McClelland of Leeds University, proposed that Elgar’s theme derived from the hymn “Now the Day is Over,” by Sabine Baring-Gould, the wordsmith of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
No satisfactory solution has been universally accepted, and the secret of the enigma remains one of music’s great unsolved mysteries. Perhaps Elgar was not referring to a melody at all, but rather a place implied by the “spelling” of the notes in his theme, much as Robert Schumann did with the town of Asch in Carnaval.
SIDEBAR: THE NIMROD VARIATION
Elgar took delight in expressing his friends’ personalities in musical terms. To his friend August Johannes Jaeger, he wrote in October 1898:
Since I’ve been back I have sketched a set of Variations on an original theme; the Variations have amused me because I’ve labelled ‘em with the nicknames of my particular friends—you are Nimrod. (“Jaeger” means hunter in German; Elgar’s reference is to Nimrod, the mighty hunter in the Book of Genesis. –L.S.) That is to say I’ve written the Variations each one to represent the mood of the ‘party.’ I’ve liked to imagine the ‘party’ writing the variation him (or her) self and have written what I think they would have written—if they were asses enough to compose—[it’s] a quaint idea & the result is amusing to those behind the scenes & won’t affect the hearer who ‘nose nuffin.’ What think you?
Jaeger was also Elgar’s advocate at the London music publishing house of Novello, and he did much to promote Elgar’s music and encourage his friend. Elgar returned the support by making Jaeger’s the central variation of the set, the pivotal slow movement with the greatest emotional impact.
“Nimrod” is said to have been inspired by an evening walk during which Jaeger waxed poetic about Beethoven’s slow movements. Surely it is no accident that Elgar placed this variation in E-flat Major, Beethoven’s heroic key. Many listeners have also perceived a strong similarity between the “Nimrod” variation’s opening theme and that of the famous slow movement to Beethoven’s “Pathétique” Sonata, Op. 13.
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