Spring Concert Program Notes

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One of the most versatile and prolific of nineteenth-century French composers, Saint-Saens firmly resists the temptation to pigeonhole him in any one category. An admirer and defender of Wagner, enamored of the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and a friend of Berlioz, he started out his career as an advocate of modern music. But he also developed a strong interest in music of the past: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Rameau and earlier French composers. His own music retained a Classical thematic and formal clarity while reveling in the expanded harmonic and orchestral palette of the age. 

From the time of his study at the Paris Conservatory, Saint-Saens developed a reputation as an exceptional organist (indeed, Franz Liszt would call him the greatest in the world) and was appointed to Paris's Madeleine church in 1857. But he would also tour widely as a virtuoso pianist and conductor in later years, as well as publishing numerous essays on music and other subjects of interest, such as astronomy, archaeology and philosophy. And all the while he continued a prolific output as a composer.

In the year 1859, Saint-Saens met the violin prodigy Pablo de Sarasate, "youthful and fresh-looking as the spring and already a celebrity", who asked the composer to write a concerto for him. This turned out to be the First Violin Concerto in A Major, Op. 20, the beginning of a long association with the violin virtuoso that also resulted in the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863) and the Third Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 61 (1880). Both the First Violin Concerto and the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso were premiered on the same concert on 4 April 1867 to great success. 

With its attractive Spanish-flavored melodies and rhythms (a nod to Sarasate) and its skillful combination of lyricism and virtuosity, the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso has become the most popular of Saint-Saens's works for violin and a piece testing the mettle of violinists at every stage of development. As the title suggests. the work is laid out as a slow introduction followed by a faster section in rondo form, though the modifier capriccioso hints that all does not proceed as might be expected. Since the 17th century the word capriccio designated a work in which strict adherence to the rules gave way to the whim of the composer. On the formal level the expected alternation of the march-like rondo theme with contrasting material and the traditional solo/tutti alternation of the soloist and full orchestra are treated flexibly, as at one point just before the coda where the rondo theme appears as solos in the woodwinds over figurations in the solo violin. On another level, lyricism and virtuosity are often connected rather than contrasted, with a lyrical theme often leading to a virtuosic extension that itself often retains some degree of lyricism. Saint-Saens had no issue with virtuosity, saying "It is the source of color in music. It gives wings to the artist to help him escape from the prosaic and commonplace. The conquered difficulty is itself a source of beauty."

Reinhold Glière was born Reyngol'd Moritsevich Glier in the city of Kiev (Kyiv), the son of a German father and a Polish mother. He would change the spelling and pronunciation of his name, giving rise to the legend that he was of Franco-Flemish descent. His father, a wind instrument maker and performer on several instruments, certainly inspired the young Glière to take up violin. As his musical talent was recognized, he studied first at the music school in Kiev, moving to the Moscow Conservatory in 1894. There he studied violin with Sergei Taneyev and composition with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov.

Glière's career took him back to Kiev as a professor of the newly designated Conservatory there, then back to Moscow where he was a professor at the Conservatory from 1920-1941. Among his many students are such illustrious names as Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke), and Amram Khachaturian. He was awarded with several Glinka Prizes before the Russian Revolution and continued to be recognized in the Soviet era with the designation People's Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1938 and four State Prizes in Music between 1942 and 1950. Glière's style was firmly grounded in the Russian Romantic tradition and fully formed by the time of the Revolution. It fit well with what came to be the tenets of Socialist Realism in music, so, unlike many of his younger contemporaries, such as Shostakovich, Glière never experienced significant persecution by the state. Indeed, he seems to have adapted to the Soviet demands well, being active on several committees of the U.S.S.R. Composers' Union, and heeding the call to visit Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other far-flung places in the Soviet Union to help develop regional varieties of opera. He wrote several operas and ballets, the most famous of which, The Red Poppy (1927) contains the Russian Sailor's Dance, his best-known piece in the West. While he wrote no symphonies during the Soviet period, toward the end of his life he composed four significant concertos for harp (1938), coloratura soprano (1943), cello (1946), and horn (1951), and left a violin concerto unfinished at his death.

Glière graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1900 with the gold medal in composition. One of the works completed during this year was his First Symphony, a work that shows him deeply rooted in the Russian symphonic tradition of Borodin and Tchaikovsky. Alexander Glazunov found the work "obtrusively Russian" in style, clearly evident in the character of its themes and passages that seem inspired by previous Russian composers. Yet this is no student work in the sense of a mere study in symphonic writing. It is a fine first symphony and, while conventional on many levels, fully displays the melodic lyricism and orchestral brilliance that became hallmarks of Glière's style.

The symphony is laid out in four movements. The first begins with a slow introduction that introduces a motive in the woodwinds that will become the beginning of the first theme of the allegro. This theme is contrasted with a beautiful second theme introduced by the clarinet, with both themes taken through the usual symphonic procedures. Unusually, the slow introduction returns at the end of the movement.

The 5/4 meter of the second movement reminds one of the corresponding movement of Tchaikovsky's Sixth (Pathétique) Symphony. But whereas Tchaikovsky wrote a waltz, Glière wrote a true Scherzo, faster and with much delightful interplay between the strings and woodwinds. The pace slackens slightly for a more expressive Trio.

An expressive third movement is followed by a jubilant finale with an almost folk-like feel. The opening gesture, a statement by the horns alone immediately repeated by the full orchestra, is reminiscent of the similar opening to the finale of Haydn's Drum Roll Symphony (No. 103). And, like Haydn's finale, the momentum hardly lets up, leading to a powerful and exuberant conclusion.