75th Anniversary Concert Program Notes Daron Hagen Born: Milwaukee, November 4, 1961 Much Ado Much Ado is a traditional comedic overture in rondo form which lasts nine-and-a-half minutes. It was composed during the fall of 1999 in New York City to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of The Curtis Institute of Music. The tempo marking at the beginning of the piece is Galloping Headlong. To my mind, a comedy like Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is about the power of lies versus the power of the truth, or, if you will, style and artifice versus substance and sincerity. As my friend and frequent collaborator, poet Paul Muldoon said more pithily in the libretto of our opera Vera of Las Vegas: "'Truth is a business that needs illusion/some sleight of hand/if it's not going to fold/or belly up.' Deceit is a double-edged sword. It may work out for the better or it may do irreparable harm. Nevertheless, love conquers all, the Bard insists: 'Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, /Of dumps so dull and heavy; /The fraud of men was ever so, /Since summer first was leafy: /Then sigh not so, but let them go, /And be you blithe and bonny, /Converting all your sounds of woe/Into Hey nonny, nonny.'" What a merry, exhilarating play! Love conquers all-with the help of a little artifice: witty, wary Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into falling for one another. Both overhear conversations about how the other person is desperately in love but is afraid to reveal it. They succumb to the ruse and become hopelessly smitten-the revelation that they are an object of desire makes them giddy with joy, allowing them to open their hearts to each other. Their open-faced friends Hero and Claudio are to be married in one week. Meanwhile, the evil Don Jon conspires to break up the wedding by staging a tryst and accusing Hero of infidelity. Only through the mechanism of another ruse is Hero's honor restored and a double wedding managed. The humor of the play began with the flouting of Benedick by Beatrice; it ends with the spectacle of Benedick stopping her mouth with a kiss. It is significant that of all Shakespeare's plays, Much Ado should be the only one that closes with a dance: "Come, come, we are friends," commands Benedick: "let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels...strike up, pipers." -Daron Hagen © text copyright 2000, Carl Fischer LLC Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born: Salzburg, January 27, 1756 Died: Vienna, December 5, 1791 Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216 Mozart's five authentic violin concertos were all products of a single year, 1775. At 19, he was already a veteran of five years' experience as concertmaster in the Salzburg archiepiscopal music establishment, for which his duties included not only playing, but also composing, acting as co-conductor with the keyboard performer (modern conducting did not originate for at least two more decades) and soloing in concertos. It was for this last function that he wrote these concertos. He was, of course, a quick study at all that he did, and each of these concertos builds on the knowledge gained from its predecessors. It was with the last three (K. 216, K. 218, K. 219) that something more than simple experience emerged, however, because it is with these compositions that Mozart indisputably entered his maturity. These are his earliest pieces now regularly heard in the concert hall. The opening Allegro is one of Mozart's perfectly balanced sonata-concerto forms. The orchestral introduction presents at least four thematic kernels: the bold opening gesture; a mock fanfare; a subsidiary melody with long notes in the woodwinds; and a motive with quick, flashing notes in the violins. The soloist enters with the bold opening gesture and continues with elaborations upon the themes from the introduction. The subsidiary melody appears again in long notes from the oboe, but is quickly taken over by the solo violin. The flashing-note motive from the end of the introduction and the mock fanfare draw the exposition to a close. The development is largely based on the subsidiary theme. A recitative-like passage bridges to the recapitulation. The luminous sonority of the exquisite slow movement is created by muted strings, pizzicato basses and sustained wind harmonies. The description sounds clinical; the music sounds heavenly. Against this languorous orchestral backdrop, the violin enters like a sparkling shaft of light reflected through a brilliant gemstone. The sonata-form movement proceeds with an exquisite grace and refined elegance that no composer has ever surpassed. The finale is an effervescent rondo. The orchestra presents the principal theme, a happy, dancing tune in swinging triple meter. The soloist joins in at the first episode. The rondo theme bubbles up twice again (with an intervening episode) before the music comes to an abrupt stop. As though a door had been thrown open onto a party in an adjoining room, contrasting dance music intrudes: first a stately, almost pompous step for the elders, then a perky strain for the kids. The door closes, the earlier music resumes and the festivities move to a happy, if deceptive, ending. - ©2000 Dr. Richard E. Rodda Jennifer Higdon Born: Brooklyn, December 31, 1962 blue cathedral Blue...like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. In a school where talent and ability are not a question, the sky is the limit. Cathedrals...a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression...serving as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. In so many ways, Curtis fits this description perfectly; it is a house of knowledge-a place to reach towards that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. Coming to the writing of this piece at a unique juncture in my life, I found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make, especially at Curtis, where the pursuit of "the singing soul" is what music and life are all about. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the whole of the group...our journeys and the places our souls carry us. -Jennifer Higdon March 2000 Johannes Brahms Born: Hamburg, May 7, 1833 Died: Vienna, April 3, 1897 Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 In the popular image of Brahms, he appears as a patriarch: full grey beard, rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes. He grew the beard in his late 40s as, some say, a compensation for his late physical maturity-he was in his 20s before his voice changed and he needed to shave-and it seemed to be an external admission that Brahms had allowed himself to become an old man. The ideas did not flow so freely as he approached the age of 50, and he even put his publisher on notice to expect nothing more. Thankfully, the ideas did come, as they would for more than another decade, and he soon completed the superb Third Symphony. The philosophical introspection continued, however, and was reflected in many of his works. The Second Piano Concerto of 1881 is almost autumnal in its mellow ripeness; this Fourth Symphony is music of deep thoughtfulness that leads "into realms where joy and sorrow are hushed, and humanity bows before that which is eternal," wrote the eminent German musical scholar August Kretzschmar. The first movement of the Fourth Symphony begins almost in mid-thought, as though the mood of sad melancholy pervading this opening theme had existed forever and Brahms had simply borrowed a portion of it to present musically. The movement is founded upon the tiny two-note motive (short-long) heard immediately at the beginning. To introduce the necessary contrasts into this sonata-allegro form, other themes are presented, including a broadly lyrical one for horns and cellos and a fragmented fanfare. The movement grows with dark majesty to its closing pages. "A funeral procession moving across moonlit heights" is how the young Richard Strauss described the second movement. Though the tonality is nominally E major, the movement opens with a stark melody, pregnant with grief, in the ancient Phrygian mode. The mood brightens, but the introspective sorrow of the beginning is never far away, imparting a sense of comforting tears washing away great loss. The third movement is the closest Brahms came to a true scherzo in any of his symphonies. Though such a dance-like movement may appear antithetical to the tragic nature of the Symphony, this scherzo is actually a necessary contrast within the work's total structure since it serves to heighten the pathos of the surrounding movements, especially the granitic splendor of the finale. The finale is a passacaglia-a series of variations on a short, recurring melody. The passacaglia was a compositional technique highly favored by Baroque composers which fell into disuse with the changed requirements of the music of the Classical era. It had never been used in a symphony before this one, and it reflects both Brahms' interest in the music of earlier eras and his faith in the inexorable expressive powers of the old formal types. The theme, to which Brahms added a single chromatic note, was taken from Bach's Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Some 30 continuous variations follow, though it is less important to follow them individually than to feel the massive strength given to the movement by this technique. The opening chorale-like statement, in which trombones are heard for the first time in the Symphony, recurs twice as a supporting pillar of the finale. -©2000 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

The Music | Viewer's Guide | Who's Who | The Institution | Related Programs | Everybody's a Critic Philadelphia Performs! Home | whyy.org