Program Notes: March 4, 2001
Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina, conceived while the fate of Boris Godunov was still being decided by the censors, concerns one of the central conflicts of Russian history, between the "old believers" and the "new Russia" established by Peter the Great. But the Prelude, subtitled "Dawn on the River Moscow," is more modest in scope, content to establish a wonderfully evocative, almost pictorial scene, typically Russian in its warm setting of folk-like material. Also typically Russian is the sense of the foreboding that builds up gradually but inexorably from the modest opening, telling us that this particular "dawn" holds tremendous import.
French musicians formed the Societé Nationale de Musique, with its motto ars gallica, in the aftermath of France's stinging defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), and Edouard Lalo was one of many who answered their call for a renewal of French instrumental music. Both his popular Symphonie espagnole and tonight’s Cello Concerto date from this period, and have since ranked among his most popular works. Indeed, one may almost hear a political call to arms in the orchestral outburst that launches the opening movement, which is answered by the cello with appropriate heroism. But there is ample room in the concerto for other moods, as in the alternately lovely and delightful Intermezzo, or the reflective pondering that occasionally emerges in the fiery finale. Many have heard, as well, a Spanish element in the work, traceable perhaps to Lalo's (fairly distant) Spanish lineage.
Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique–his first major work as a composer–as a kind of musical love-letter to Harriet Smithson, an English actress he had never met, but whose performance as Juliet had held him entranced. And a bizarre love-letter it is, for he creates a musical image of her (what he calls an idée fixe, or "fixed idea") and proceeds to set forth a scenario in which he murders her for being unfaithful, is executed, and endures at his funeral a witch’s sabbath during which she returns as the guest of honor to dance on his grave. Among the wealth of fantastic detail in this rich score are a musical version of heart palpitations when the idée fixe first appears, a graphic double-bounce of the head as the guillotine blade drops (which cuts short his final thoughts of her; notice that the idée fixe breaks off midway through), ghoulish laughter at the beginning of the finale, and a three-stage conversion of the Dies irae ("Day of Wrath," which Berlioz quotes from the Requiem Mass) into a jaunty dance-tune. Throughout, it seems clear that the idée fixe is a projection controlled entirely by Berlioz’s imagination, never truly existing as a believable woman, even in musical terms; no wonder, then, that although he eventually met and actually married Ms. Smithson, the marriage was not a success.
--- Raymond Knapp
BERLIOZ’S SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE: PROGRAM FROM THE PUBLISHED SCORE
A young musician of unhealthily sensitive nature and endowed with vivid imagination has poisoned himself with opium in a paroxysm of love-sick despair. The narcotic dose was too weak to cause death, but it has thrown him into a long sleep accompanied by the most extraordinary visions. In this condition, his sensations, feeling, and memories find utterance in his sick brain in the form of musical imagery. Even the beloved one takes the form of melody in his mind, like an ever-returning idée fixe that he hears everywhere.1st movement: Visions and Passions. At first, he thinks of the uneasy and nervous condition of his mind, of sombre longings, of depression and joyous elation without any recognizable cause, which he experienced before the beloved one had appeared to him. Then he remembers the ardent love with which she suddenly inspired him; he thinks of the almost insane anxiety of his mind, of his raging jealousy, of his re-awakening love, and of religious consolation.
2nd movement: A Ball. In a ball-room, amid the confusion of a brilliant festival, he finds the beloved one again.
3d movement: Scene in the Country. On a summer evening, he is in the country musing when he hears two shepherd lads playing the ranz des vaches (a tune used to call flocks together) in alternation. The shepherd-duet, the location, the soft whisperings of the trees stirred by the zephyr-wind, remembered hopeful prospects--all these sensations unite to impart a long unknown repose to his heart and lend a smiling color to his imagination. And then she appears once more. His heart stops beating as painful forebodings fill his soul: "What if she should prove false to him?!" One of the shepherds resumes the melody, but the other answers him no more. ... Sunset ... distant rolling of thunder ... loneliness ... silence.
4th movement: March to the Scaffold. He dreams that he has murdered his beloved, that he has been condemned to death and is being led to the scaffold. A march that is alternately sombre and wild, brilliant and solemn, accompanies the procession. ... The tumultuous outbursts are followed without modulation by measured steps. The idée fixe returns; for a moment a last thought of love is revived--which is cut short by the death-blow.
5th movement: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath. He dreams that he is present at a witches’ dance, surrounded by horrible spirits, amid sorcerers and monsters in many fearful forms, all come to attend his funeral. Strange sounds are heard-- groans, shrill laughter, distant yells, which other cries seem to answer. The beloved melody is heard again, but it has lost its noble and shy character, and become a vulgar, trivial, grotesque kind of dance. It is she who now comes to attend the witches’ sabbath. Friendly howls and shouts greet her arrival ... she joins the infernal orgy ... bells toll for the dead ... a burlesque parody of the Dies irae ... the witches’ round-dance .. the dance and the Dies irae are heard together.
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