Program Notes
Masterworks IV
A Grand Finale
May 14, 2010

Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, Op. 23a               Samuel Barber

When Samuel Barber received a commission from the Ditson Fund of Columbia University immediately after World War II to create a ballet for Martha Graham, he chose for it one of the most enduring and powerful stories of world literature, that of Medea. Miss Graham’s company provided the following synopsis of the ballet’s action for its early performances: “In Greek mythology, Medea was the Princess of Colchis and renowned as a sorceress. She fled with the hero Jason to Corinth and lived with him there and bore his children. But Jason was ambitious and when he was offered the hand of the Princess of Corinth in marriage, he abandoned Medea. Maddened by jealousy, Medea sent the Princess as a wedding gift a poisoned robe which killed her when she put it on. Then Medea destroyed her own children and left Corinth in a chariot drawn by dragons. The action is focused directly upon the central theme of the myth: the terrible destructiveness of jealousy and of alliance with the dark powers of humanity as symbolized by magic.” From the ballet’s complete score, Barber derived a one-movement tone poem, Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, which treats the emotional and musical themes associated with the title character.

Adagio for Strings                                                                                 Samuel Barber

While residing in Italy on an American Prix de Rome, Barber wrote a Symphony in One Movement, which was premiered in Rome in 1936 and given its first American performance in Cleveland by Artur Rodzinski early the next year. Rodzinski also played the Symphony at the Salzburg Festival in 1937, making it the first American work to be heard at that prestigious event. The chief conductor of the Salzburg Festival at that time was Arturo Toscanini, who was to begin his tenure with the NBC Symphony later that year. Toscanini asked Rodzinski if he could suggest an American composer whose work he might program during the coming season, and Rodzinski advised that his Italian colleague investigate the music of the 27-year-old Samuel Barber. By October, Barber had completed and submitted to Toscanini the Essay No. 1 for Orchestra and an arrangement for string orchestra of the slow movement from the Quartet (Op. 11, in B minor) that he had written in Rome in 1936 — the Adagio for Strings. The Adagio, with its plaintive melody, rich modalism, austere texture and mood of reflective introspection, enjoyed an immediate success and is among Samuel Barber’s greatest legacies.

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467              Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“We never go to bed before one o’clock and I never get up before nine.... Every day there are concerts; and the whole time is given up to teaching, music, composing and so forth. I feel rather out of it all.” Father Leopold Mozart had reached a rather brittle 66th year when he sent these lines to his daughter, Maria Anna, from Vienna on March 12, 1785, just two days after Wolfgang had premiered his C major Piano Concerto (K. 467) at the Court Theater. Leopold reported that the new C major Concerto had an excellent reception at its first performance — the applause, he allowed, was “deafening,” and the audience was even moved to tears.

The orchestral introduction of the C major Concerto opens with a soft, martial strain for unison strings answered by the winds. Other themes follow in abundance before the entry of the soloist, who accompanies the return of the martial melody as the main theme of the exposition. A brief excursion into the shadowy key of G minor by the pianist leads to the second theme in the bright, expected G major. Musicologist Alfred Einstein estimated that the development, “with its modulations through darkness to light, is one of the most beautiful examples of Mozart’s iridescent harmony and of the breadth of the domain embraced in his conception of C major.” The unison strings tiptoe in once again with the martial theme to begin the recapitulation. The Andante is one of Mozart’s most sensually beautiful creations. The muted strings, the pulsating triplet rhythms of the accompaniment that gently oppose the meter of the melody, the exquisite scoring, and the rich harmonic palette fill this music with a dreamlike quality. The sparkling rondo-finale joins the rollicking spirit of opera buffa and the intensity and wealth of expression of the symphony with the virtuoso elements of the concerto.

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27                                     Sergei Rachmaninoff

Early in 1906, Rachmaninoff decided to sweep away the rapidly accumulating obligations of conducting, concertizing and socializing that cluttered his life in Moscow in order to find some quiet place in which to devote himself to composition. His determination may have been strengthened by the political unrest beginning to rumble under the foundations of the aristocratic Russian political system. The uprising of 1905 was among the first signs of trouble for those of his noble class (his eventual move to the United States was a direct result of the swallowing of his family’s estate and resources by the 1917 Revolution), and he probably thought it was a good time to start looking for a quiet haven. A few years before, he had been overwhelmed by an inspired performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger he heard at the Dresden Opera. The memory of that evening and the aura of dignity and repose exuded by the city had remained with him, and Dresden, at that time in his life, seemed like a good place to be. The atmosphere in Dresden was so conducive to composition that within a few months of his arrival he was working on the Second Symphony, the First Piano Sonata, the Op. 6 Russian folk songs and the symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead. The Second Symphony was unanimously cheered when it was premiered under the composer’s direction in St. Petersburg on January 26, 1908.

The Symphony’s majestic scale is established by a slow, brooding introduction. A smooth transition to a faster tempo signals the arrival of the main theme, an extended and quickened transformation of the basses’ opening motive. The expressive second theme enters in the woodwinds. The development deals with the vigorous main theme. The second movement is the most nimble essay to be found in Rachmaninoff’s orchestral works. After two preparatory measures, the horns hurl forth the main theme. Eventually, the rhythmic bustle is suppressed to make way for the movement’s central section, whose skipping lines embody some of Rachmaninoff’s best fugal writing. The Adagio is music of heightened passion that resembles nothing so much as an ecstatic operatic love scene. Alternating with the joyous principal melody is an important theme from the first movement, heard prominently in the central portion and the coda of this movement. The finale bursts forth in the whirling dance rhythm of an Italian tarantella. The propulsive urgency subsides to allow another of Rachmaninoff’s wonderful, sweeping melodic inspirations to enter. A development of the tarantella motives follows, into which are embroidered thematic reminiscences from each of the three preceding movements. The several elements of the finale are gathered together in the closing pages.

©2010 Dr. Richard E. Rodda