Program Notes: October 17, 1999
With his incidental music to The Wasps of 1909, Vaughan Williams enjoyed one of his early successes as a composer, roughly coincident with such milestones as On Wenlock Edge and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The lasting success of the work derives from a number of sources, all quite audible in the Overture: his recent studies with Ravel, which contributed to the piquant orchestral effects; the engaging political satire of Aristophanesís play, which provided specific inspiration; and the emergence at around this time of the distinctive musical "voice" we associate with Vaughan Williams, which drew upon both other nationalist traditions (especially Russian) and English folk idioms.
By 1802, the still-young Beethoven was so despondent over his increasing deafness that he wrote a will, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. In its detailed account of the high personal costs of his affliction, this remarkable document sets forth precisely the themes that he would explore in his Third, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Symphonies, the very heart of the symphonic repertory. These themes involve three vital connections that his deafness seemed to place in mortal jeopardy -- to nature, to the rest of humanity, and to God -- and include, most centrally, his heroic resolve to persevere in the face of adversity. Beethoven made the latter the explicit theme of the first of these works, the Eroica Symphony, which he completed in 1803 and presented nearly two years later to its first public audience -- who were duly astonished at being confronted with a piece more than double the customary length of symphonies at that time. While the symphony owes a good deal to Napoleon, who was its inspiration and intended dedicatee, there is enough common ground between Napoleon and Beethoven for us to understand the true subject of the symphony to be as much the one as the other. Both Napoleon and Beethoven arose from modest beginnings to assume preeminence; so, too, do the outer movements of the symphony erect heroic structures of imposing grandeur from the humblest of materials: a simple horn-call in the first movement and an unassuming folk dance in the finale. And, while it is specifically a French tradition that Beethoven follows in writing a funeral march for the slow movement, we sense here, especially as projected in the intensely expressive central fugue, a grief too vividly immediate for us not to hear this monumental movement as one of Beethovenís most personal statements.
About his Clarinet Concerto, composer Dan Welcher writes:
When clarinetist Bill Jackson first asked me to write a concerto for clarinet and orchestra in 1984, I had just completed my Quintet for clarinet and strings. That work, lasting thirty minutes and using just about every idea I had for solo clarinet (or so I thought at the time), had occupied me for the better part of a year. I couldnít imagine that I had anything further to say with this instrument, and I told Bill so. He wouldnít be dissuaded, though, and after another four years he tried again. I had heard him play the Quintet by this time and those performances coupled with my longtime admiration for him as a jazz and symphony player led me to change my mind.
The result is a work that, while not a "jazz concerto", takes advantage of the rather checkered history of the clarinet. Cast in two lengthy movements and scored for a rather small orchestra, it is a sort of uptown big brother to my 1974 Flute Concerto. The first movement, mostly serious in nature, is a Fantasia. The second movement, entitled "Blues and Toccata" (on the name "Benny Goodman"), is just what it says it is. The first half of the movement is a slow 5/4 song, with a repeated bass line as an ostinato. The "Toccata" is another ground-bass ostinato, this time a jaunty and metrically shifty pattern which is repeated ten times. In the middle of the movement, however, jazz gives way momentarily to a rather polite rock ní roll episode, functioning as a "trio" in the middle of the movement. A parody of the "call and response" chorus from the forties brings the Concerto to an amusing and rousing finish.
--- Raymond Knapp
Please enjoy these additional links about the composers and compositions.Dan Welcher
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