 André Watts, piano
Beth Sanders, oboe
Peter Bay, conductor
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"A formidable technical arsenal, s still more-powerful intellect. It would be hard to ask more of a pianist and musician." - The Washington Post
Date, Time & Location
March 14 & 15, 2008
8:00 p.m.
Riverbend Centre
Directions to Venue
Program
| Francaix |
 |
L'Horloge de Flore (The Flower Clock) |
| Roussel |
|
Suite in F |
| Saint-Saëns |
|
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22 |
| Debussy |
|
La Mer (The Sea) |
Program Notes
Jean Françaix
b. 23 May 1912 in Le Mans, France; d. 25 September 1997 in Paris.
L'Horloge de Flore (The Flower Clock). Composed 1959, age 47.
Jean Françaix (the name sounds like français) was sufficiently precocious that Maurice Ravel wrote to his father, "Among the child's gifts I observe above all the most fruitful an artist can possess, that of curiosity: you must not stifle these precious gifts now or ever, or risk letting this young sensibility wither" (quoted in New Grove). After studies in composition with Nadia Boulanger and in piano with Isidore Philipp, Françaix achieved his first international exposure in 1932 at the age of 20, when his Eight Bagatelles for piano and string quartet were performed at the ISCM Festival in Vienna, with the composer playing the piano part.
Françaix was a prolific composer whose more than 200 compositions include operas, ballets, and film scores, though there is a distinct emphasis in his output on instrumental works, especially concertos. He was asked by Francis Poulenc in 1962 to orchestrate his L'Histoire de Babar le pétit éléphant. He also was a brilliant pianist who made numerous appearances throughout his career as a performer.
The first known mention of a floral clock or flower clock comes from Carolus Linnæus, the 18th-century Swedish botanist known as the father of taxonomy. It would be a flower bed with flowers whose blooms open at specific hours of the day without influence from the weather or the length of the day. The movements in Françaix's suite for solo oboe and chamber orchestra have titles indicating an hour of the day and an appropriate flower. The music, sophisticated yet delightful, demonstrates Françaix's neo-classicism. The harmony is colorful but rooted in traditional tonality.
Albert Roussel
b. 5 April 1869 in Tourcoing, France; d. 23 August 1937 in Royan, France.
Suite in F, Op. 33. Premiered 21 January 1927 in Boston, age 58.
Music was a part of Roussel's life and education as he grew up, but at the age of 18 he passed the entrance examination to the École navale (France's naval academy) and spent seven years as a sailor, with tours of duty in the Near East and China. He tried fitting music into his spare time, but, unsatisfied with that, on 14 June 1894 he sent his letter of resignation to the navy. His first large-scale composition, a choral work with orchestra and three soloists titled Évocations, influenced by Indian modes that he had heard in his naval days, was a big success at its first performance on 18 May 1912. He had gained the attention of the public and from that point made a successful and international career as a composer.
Nicole Labelle in New Grove characterized Roussel's career as one of "evolution, not revolution." While various stylistic currents can be detected in his music, he was thoroughly independent, following his own path.
The Suite in F, whose premiere was the first of three Roussel premieres to be conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, is according to Labelle the first of Roussel's fully mature compositions. While the sonority is frequently dissonant, the connection to tonality is still clear, especially evident in the bass line, and the moods of the music are distinctly happy. One can hear hints of the Baroque dance suite, however the basic dance suite had four movements, not three, and Roussel apparently wasn't too worried about carefully following the movement types. The first movement has churning "motor music" that we know from Bach's preludes. The Sarabande, a slow and serene type of dance, here gets quite agitated as it unfolds. The character of this Gigue approaches that of a tarantella, making for a rhythmically vigorous finale.
Camille Saint-Saëns
b. 9 October 1835 in Paris; d. 16 December 1921 in Algiers, Algeria.
Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor, Op. 22. Composed and premiered in 1868, age 33.
Saint-Saëns was a child prodigy after the manner of Mozart, though he was as brilliant academically as he was musically. He made his debut as a pianist at the age of ten in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, playing from memory Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 15 in B-flat, with his own cadenzas, and the Beethoven Concerto in C minor. Enthusiasm for math and natural sciences continued into adulthood, and he published articles in those subjects. When as a young adult of 23 he received 500 francs from a publisher for his Six Duos, Opus 8, he used the proceeds to buy himself a telescope.
As a young composer and performing pianist he had a special interest in the music of Liszt and the earlier operas of Wagner, which were new at the time in the operatic world. Liszt, who thought highly of Saint-Saëns as a pianist and organist, became a friend and mentor. But Saint-Saëns had a great passion as well for earlier composers including Bach and Handel, also preparing editions of works by Mozart and Beethoven and contributing to a Complete Works edition of Gluck.
Saint-Saëns composed five piano concertos, which he played himself, among which the Second is the most frequently performed today. The outer movements of this concerto are in the key of G minor, but the minor mode here certainly does not portray some dark night of the soul. Even the opening movement--starting with the solo piano unrolling an arpeggio-laden cadenza and invoking the character of Bach's fantasias for keyboard instruments--is somber without indulging in Romantic histrionics. The later movements are brilliant showpieces and great fun. The sparkling second movement, unmistakably in the manner of a scherzo, quickly disperses any storm clouds that might have gathered during the first. The third movement, a galloping tarantella, is a clear instance of music in a light-hearted minor key.
Claude Debussy
b. 22 August 1862 in St. Germain-en-Laye, France; d. 25 March 1918 in Paris.
La Mer (The Sea). Premiered 15 October 1905 in Paris, age 43.
Debussy was admitted to the Paris Conservatory at the age of 10, though he was not a stellar pupil, winning a first prize in his years of study there only in accompanying. He produced numerous compositions, many of them songs, or mélodies. In 1884 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata L'enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Son) , which won Debussy two years of studies in Rome with lodging in the Villa Medici. Now in his twenties, Debussy had little patience for academic environments and was impatient to return to Paris in 1887.
He lived hand-to-mouth for a number of years, nevertheless spending enjoyable and profitable time with literary stars around Paris. These relationships certainly helped refine Debussy's literary taste, which bore fruit in his drawing inspiration from and choosing to set texts of remarkably high quality.
While Debussy produced plenty of works in the course of his career, compositions for orchestra came slowly. There are hints that the tedium of orchestration was irritating to him, even though every one of his mature compositions with orchestra demonstrates his special gift for orchestration. Many consider La Mer his greatest orchestral composition, though there would surely be plenty of listeners to speak in behalf of the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune or the Nocturnes.
La Mer is also arguably as close as Debussy came to composing a symphony, and, especially considering it in the context of symphonies composed in France before the turn of the 20th century, it is quite symphonic. The outer movements of La Mer are organized around the key of D-flat; the middle movement is in E. There are no classical structures here such as sonata form, but each movement develops from a couple of bits of material that through extensive variation lend the music an organic unity. Debussy also employs a cyclic thematic structure, a device especially favored by French symphonists, where material appears in two or more movements as a means of binding the movements of the symphony together more closely. This applies in La Mer to the chorale-like theme played softly by the brass section near the end of the first movement; it returns in a stronger dynamic just before the wildly ecstatic conclusion of the work, producing a satisfying sensation of the music coming full circle.
While there is no question that La Mer is "program" music, its program is limited to the work's title and the titles of the three movements. In English these are: (1) From Dawn Until Noon on the Sea; (2) Play of the Waves; and (3) Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea. There is no narrative or plot. There is no music portraying high tide, nor is there a dolphin theme or a seagull motive (though, to be sure, there are passages that such labels would suit nicely). And yet, in a mysterious way, every phrase breathes a sea-salt air, falls into a spacious ebb-and-flow rhythm, or holds below its surface awesome, potentially destructive power.
The excellence of this work is such that it is packed from start to finish with varied and marvelous moments to be savored. Catch all that you can. Just be sure to keep your life jacket on and go with the flow.
©2008 David Mead
MAESTRO'S CHOICE RECORDINGS
Purchase Maestro Bay's recommended recordings from Amazon.com and help support the ASO.
Oboe Concerto
Chabrier: España, rhapsody; Bourrée fantasque
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1/Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2
Respighi: Pines of Rome; Fountains of Rome; Debussy: La mer [Hybrid SACD]
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