Program Notes

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908)

Flight of the Bumblebee (1899)

It’s not just a speed test. Flight of the Bumblebee originated as a zippy orchestral interlude in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of Tsar Sultan, a fairy-tale opera blessed with terrific music and saddled by a ridiculously convoluted plot. It doesn’t get performed much save for that little interlude. Tidbit: the ‘bumblebee’ of the title is actually Tsar Sultan’s son, who in Harry Potter lingo is an ‘animagus’ – i.e., he can turn into an animal and back again, in this case a bumblebee, in which guise he flies in search of his father.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863)

It’s all too easy to characterize Camille Saint-Saëns as a French Mendelssohn. To be sure, the points of contact are many. Both men were astounding child prodigies who went on to become A-list pianists, organists, and composers. Both fashioned their compositions with exquisite craftsmanship. Both moved easily in high society and both enjoyed brilliantly successful careers. And both have been charged with squandering their protean gifts by pandering to the bland tastes of the well-born and well-heeled.

That’s a bum rap. Neither Mendelssohn nor Saint-Saëns even remotely resembled those purring tune-spinners who pussyfooted their way through Europe’s aristocratic salons. Both added significantly to the symphonic and chamber repertory, for example. Saint-Saëns went Mendelssohn one better by becoming a ranking composer of opera – consider Samson et Delilah, that cornerstone of French Romantic musical theater. His Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso provides a superb example of his craft at its best: lyrical, exciting, virtuosic, and amazingly taut. Not one gesture is wasted, not one sonority is added just for empty effect. Saint-Saëns tailored it specifically for the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, which probably accounts for the work’s distinctly Iberian flair.

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

Tzigane (1924)

As of early 1924 Maurice Ravel was in a rut; he hadn’t produced a new composition in a year. His current project, a sonata for violin and piano, was barely crawling along. But there was a solution to his paralysis. Two years earlier he had attended a private recital in England, in which the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Aranyi performed Béla Bartók’s first violin sonata with the composer at the piano. Intrigued by both piece and performer, Ravel asked d’Aranyi to play gypsy pieces for him, which she did well into the wee hours.

A painstakingly slow writer as a rule, Ravel could zip right along when the spirit moved him. In April 1924 he became so moved and produced the Tzigane (Gypsy) for d’Aranyi in just a few days, barely in time for the scheduled April 26 premiere. Fortunately, d’Aranyi was a quick study, resulting in a rousing success.

There were some who wondered the Tzigane might be satirical, given its spot-on evocation of virtuoso gypsy salon pieces from Liszt, Joachim, Hubay, and the like. Others took aim at what they heard as artificiality. But Ravel meant every note of the dazzling virtuoso pastiche. “Doesn’t it ever occur to these people that I can be ‘artificial’ by nature?” he replied.

Franz Liszt (1811–1886)

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (1851, orch. 1857 by Liszt and Franz Doppler)

Liszt’s 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies date mostly from the 1850s. It was once an article of faith that the Rhapsodies were not Hungarian at all, but were made up largely of Romani (Gypsy) melodies. Modern research, however, points to many of the melodies as being authentically Hungarian, albeit as interpreted by Romani musicians.

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is easily the best known of the set, and also offers a superb example of the two primary components of a Hungarian rhapsody: a darkly dramatic lasson followed by an exuberant dancelike friska. Hackneyed though the work may have become via Warner Brothers or Disney cartoons, it remains enormously effective and easily able to surmount the many associations that it has acquired. The lasson, in C-sharp minor, is distinguished by its chiseled oratorical statements. Then comes the friska: major keys, bumptious rhythms, and fireworks galore. Something for everybody, in other words, in a surefire composition that deftly combines glittering spectacle with rock-solid musical integrity.

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

The Firebird Suite (1910/1919)

Sergei Diaghilev, flamboyant impresario of the Paris-based Ballets Russes, thought big. Maybe too big. He required a steady stream of hits to pay for his lavish productions and even more lavish lifestyle, not to mention his roster of high-voltage dancers. In 1909 he hit a brick wall with an ambitious project that was going nowhere fast, and the bills were piling up.

For his 1910 season Diaghilev had planned a ballet based on Alexander Afanasyev’s fairy tale The Firebird with a new score by Nikolai Tcherepnin. But Tcherepnin turned him down. Then Diaghilev offered the job to Anatoly Liadov, who accepted but did little except putter, fritter, and procrastinate. With disaster looming, Diaghilev fired Liadov and decided to take a chance on a kid he had hanging around. That little gamble on an untried young composer paid off spectacularly. At its 1910 premiere The Firebirdknocked ‘em dead, established the Ballets Russes as a primal force in modern ballet, and launched Igor Stravinsky into overnight celebrity.

The ballet’s instant success is no mystery. The story is just your basic fairy tale; Stravinsky’s score makes all the difference. Steeped in Ukrainian and Russian folk music and blessed with an exceptionally vivid orchestration, The Firebird employs short melodies similar to the leitmotifs of Wagnerian opera to accompany the various characters and situations, including the wondrous Firebird herself. Stravinsky mined his score for three concert suites, of which the 1919 version is easily the most popular.

In his sunset years Stravinsky was both grateful for and exasperated by The Firebird’s continued popularity. After all, he had evolved and it hadn’t. But there it was. In the early 1960s he was approached by a star-struck matron who gushed that of all his works, she liked The Firebird best.

Stravinsky replied: “What a lovely hat you’re wearing.”