BRANDENBURG CONCERTO No. 3 in G, BWV 1048
I Allegro
II Adagio
III Allegro
Composed: about 1718
Premiered: Weimar, Germany, 1721
The six concerti grossi that Bach pulled from a drawer and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg appended to a job application in 1727 are certainly masterpieces, but they also show us the less attractive side of Bach's personality, as he blatantly tried to pass them off as new works written specially for the Margrave. The Margrave saw clean through the ruse, and ignored both the application and the gift. The Margrave realized that the soloists required by the Concerti were exactly those of Bach's existing band at Cöthen; despite Bach's flashy French dedication offering the new works to him, this was old stuff. In the case of the Third Concerto, for strings alone, it was very old stuff, as it dated back to Bach's time at Weimar, ten years previously. To pile on further insult to the Margrave, it isn't even, strictly speaking, a concerto grosso. There is no real group of concertino soloists set off against a larger ripieno section; in effect, everybody is a soloist in what is really an extended sinfonia rather than a true concerto. The second movement, on the page, is all of two measures long - a short cadence, intended for the first violinist to improvise a cadenza over while everyone else prepares for the very difficult finale.
Arguably not a concerto, arguably short a movement - but still vital, crucial Bach. The first movement (one hopes the Margrave missed this) is actually a reworking of the sinfonia of one of Bach's cantatas, Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (“I love the Highest with all my heart”), with a rondo-like ritornello structure. The concertino/ripieno contrast of the true concerto grosso is replaced by a kaleidoscopic rotation of different groups of players; at one time or another, they are all soloists, a technique left dormant after Bach until Stravinsky revisited it in our own time. After the mysterious two-measure Adagio (not so much a movement as a pause for breath), the players take off on another kaleidoscopic rethink of the entire grosso genre in a headlong dash of rapid passage work.
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)
HORN CONCERTO No. 1 in E flat, Op. 11
I Allegro
II Andante
III Allegro - Rondo
Composed: 1883
Premiered: Meiningen, Germany, 1883
It is one of the jests of history that Richard Wagner's most eminent follower and successor, Richard Strauss, should be the son of his worst enemy - Franz Strauss, first horn of the Munich Court Orchestra and later first horn of the first Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. The elder Strauss detested the abrasive little Saxon with his big ideas and endless “music dramas,” and rarely lost an opportunity to tell him so; rehearsals often deteriorated into endless exchanges of insults. Strauss was, however, the greatest living horn player, and was the obvious - only - choice to play the vitally important first horn parts of the Ring and the other key Wagner epics. So, when the 18-year-old Richard came to write his first concerto, it would be for his father, and he would write him a solo part that would have made even Wagner blanch. Franz would later say that he had only once split a note in his entire public career - when he played this work. Once.
Only the opening fanfare suggests the later Strauss of the tone-poems and operas, though there are details buried in the construction that hint at the future; the horn's first entry sounds like it should be the first subject, only for it to be instantly discarded until it reappears in another form in the third movement. There are fleeting glimpses of material from all three movements in all three movements, but the young Strauss had yet to develop the tools for weaving such threads together. The obvious stylistic model here is Mozart (with harmonic echoes of the early Romantics, the last composers that the two Strausses could agree on); the work is even in the same key as three of Mozart's horn concerti. However, the three movements are played without a break. Perhaps this outrageous modernist gesture was one of the reasons that Franz Strauss - incredibly - refused the dedication of his son's work, and brusquely suggested that it should be dedicated to Oscar Franz, another eminent horn player (and friend of Wagner). The first performance was conducted by Hans von Bülow, with whom Strauss Senior had a legendary drag-out argument at the first performance of Wagner's Meistersinger. Von Bülow, rather than work with Franz Strauss again, chose Gustav Leinhos as his soloist. Only days before he died, old Strauss grudgingly accepted the dedication of the piano reduction of the concerto, then grumbled about its difficulty.
PYOTR ILLYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
SYMPHONY No. 4 in F minor, OP. 36
I Andante Sostenuto-Moderato con anima
II Andantino in modo di canzona
III Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato
IV Allegro con fuoco
Composed: 1877-8
Premiered: Moscow, Russia, 1878
It is customary to read into the Fourth Symphony a musical account of the composer's disastrous three-month marriage to Antonina Milyukova, which failed, fast, on just about every grounds from the composer's homosexuality to the distressing fact that Miss Milyukova was a gold-digging fraud mainly concerned with the money that he didn't actually have. Alas for the legend, the Symphony was all but complete on the day that Pyotr met Antonina, so she could have nothing to do with it. Another source of inspiration may have been the composer's preposterous suicide attempt, in which he waded into the Moskva River in September, 1877, hoping to catch pneumonia and die. A glance at the calendar (September?) reveals why he lived to complete the Symphony. We can reasonably conclude, however, that Tchaikovsky was a man with problems, and this is certainly reflected in the Symphony,
The Symphony is dedicated to Tchaikovsky's patron, Nadezhda von Meck, though she is not explicitly named. The two never actually met, though Tchaikovsky did visit her house long enough to complain about the atrocious playing of her young French house pianist (one Claude Debussy). In a letter to Nadezhda, he explained the arresting opening of the Symphony:
“The introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, undoubtedly the main idea. This is fate, that fatal force which prevents the impulse to happiness from attaining its goal, which jealously ensures that peace and happiness shall not be complete and unclouded, which hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles, and unwaveringly, constantly poisons the soul.”
The resemblance to Beethoven's fate-knocking-at-the-door Fifth Symphony motto is no coincidence, then (in fact, Tchaikovsky wrote bluntly to a former student “In essence my symphony imitates Beethoven's Fifth”). There is a vital difference, though. Beethoven used his “fate” motif (if that is what it was) as the basis of nearly every important figure in the entire symphony, while Tchaikovsky tends to bring Fate crashing through the window of the first movement like the 101st Airborne whenever there seems to be a danger of things going too well.
Fate is announced not merely by the opening fanfare of the first movement, but also in glum, repeated unison A-flats and two huge lightning-strike chords that hang in the air, dissipating the slow, syncopated-chord pattern that begins the movement proper. Almost in spite of itself, the music evolves a waltz-like melody, swept in by the strings after the lightning bolts. “Fate,” like an angry neighbor complaining about the noise, bursts in frequently.
Tchaikovsky told Madame von Meck that the sad, regretful-sounding slow movement actually represents returning home after a hard day's work, too tired to think of anything much more than rest and the dim prospect of more labor tomorrow. Even Fate is too tired to knock; the exquisite oboe solo is left to cope with its misery.
The third movement, the composer tells us, “is made up of capricious arabesques, of the elusive images which rush past in the imagination when you have drunk a little wine and experience the first stage of intoxication”. The strings play pizzicato throughout.
The finale is “a picture of festive merriment of the people. Hardly have you managed to forget yourself and to be carried away by the spectacle of others' joys, than irrepressible 'Fate' again appears and reminds you of yourself.” Despite this, the music, quoting the folksong In The Field Stood A Birch Tree, struggles to its feet and ends in an affirmative blaze.
Summing up his symphony, Tchaikovsky told Mme von Meck: “If you cannot discover reasons for happiness in yourself, look at others. Get out among the people. Look what a good time they have simply surrendering themselves to joy.” The New York Post, after the first American performance, suggested naming it A Sleigh Ride Through Siberia.
They were both right.
(To top of page)
