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Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra | Brahms, Williams and Sibelius
July 5, 2023 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
£10.50 – £25.50For this summer concert they welcome the renowned international pianist Stephanie Gurga as soloist for the rarely performed Vaughan Williams Piano Concerto. The programme also includes Sibelius’ uplifting Symphony No. 2 and two of Brahms’ most well-known Hungarian Dances.
Hungarian Dances No 1 and No 5. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)The Hungarian Dances are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes, completed in 1879. They are among Brahms’s most popular works and were the most profitable for him.
In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Remenyi and accompanied him in several recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to ‘gypsy-style’ music such as the csardas, which was later to prove the foundation of his two sets of Hungarian Dances (published 1869 and 1880). Only numbers 11, 14 and 16 of these dances are entirely original compositions.
Nos 1 and 5 are the best-known of the dances. No 5 (Allegro – Vivace) is based on ‘Bártfai emlék’ (Memories of Bártfa) by Hungarian composer Béla Kéler, which Brahms mistakenly thought was a traditional folksong. A footnote on the Ludwig-Masters’ edition of a modern orchestration of Hungarian Dance No.1 (Allegro molto) states: ‘The material for this dance is believed to have come from the Divine Csárdás (ca. 1850) of Hungarian composer and conductor Miska Borzó.’
Piano Concerto in C major. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Piano Concerto in C is a concertante work composed by Vaughan Williams in two stages – movements 1 and 2 in 1926 and movement 3 between 1930 and 1931. During the intervening years, the composer began work on his Fourth Symphony and completed Job: A Masque for Dancing. The concerto shares some thematic characteristics with these works, as well as some of their drama and turbulence.
The three movements are: I. Toccata: Allegro moderato – Largamente – Cadenza. II. Romanza: Lento. III. Fuga chromatica con Finale alla Tedesca.
The first movement of the concerto begins with driving, energetic music from the soloist set against a threatening, rising theme in the orchestra. A faster, more scherzo-like idea, shared out equally between piano and orchestra, soon contrasts against the opening music. These two blocks of music alternate, forming the basis of the entire movement. It is as though the traditional dialogue between soloist and orchestra has been supplanted by a more generalised dialogue of musical types. At the movement’s climax, a brief and thunderous piano solo is joined by the full orchestra. However, the orchestra suddenly cuts off to leave the piano musing alone in a short lyrical cadenza. This leads without a break into the slow movement.
The Romanza is more delicate, providing the listener with hints of Vaughan Williams’s previous studies with Maurice Ravel. In this Vaughan Williams here quoted the theme from the Epilogue of the third movement of Arnold Bax’s Symphony No. 3.
Again, without a pause from the previous music, the closing movement begins with a fugue that is linked to a waltz finale by flights of virtuosity from the piano soloist. It closes with the ensemble repeating themes from the first two movements, and then abruptly closes.
The work was premiered on 1 February 1933 by Harriet Cohen with the BBC Symphony Orchestra directed by Sir Adrian Boult. The Finale was edited shortly thereafter, and the work was published in 1936. The concerto was not well received at first, being considered unrewarding to the soloist. Though the piece provides ample opportunity for virtuosity in all movements, Vaughan Williams treated the piano as a percussion instrument, with the texture at times impenetrably thick.
While the concerto was rated highly by some Vaughan Williams took the advice of well-meaning friends and colleagues and reworked the piece into a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, adding more texture to the piano parts.
Symphony No 2 in D major. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Sibelius began to compose his Symphony No. 2 whilst he was staying in Italy in 1901 shortly after the successful premiere of the popular Finlandia. He finished it in 1902 in Finland. Sibelius noted that he ‘admired [the symphony’s] severity of style and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs’ but also said that ‘My second symphony is a confession of the soul’.
The symphony was premiered in March 1902, with the composer conducting. After three sold-out performances, Sibelius made some revisions; the revised version was given its first performance in 1903. While critics were divided following the symphony’s premiere, the public generally admired the piece as its grandiose finale was connected by some with the struggle for Finland’s independence – it was even popularly dubbed the ‘Symphony of Independence’, as it was written at a time of Russian sanctions on Finnish language and culture. Sibelius’s reaction to this has been widely debated; some claim that he had not intended any patriotic message and that the symphony was only identified by others as a nationalist composition, while others believe that he wrote the piece with an independent Finland in mind.
The symphony is written in four movements:
I. Allegretto – Poco allegro – Tranquillo, ma poco a poco ravvivando il tempo all’allegro – Poco largamente – Tempo I – Poco allegro.
II. Tempo andante, ma rubato – Poco allegro – Molto largamente – Andante sostenuto – Andante con moto ed energico – Allegro – Poco largamente – Molto largamente – Andante sostenuto – Andante con moto ed energico – Andante – Pesante
III. Vivacissimo – Lento e soave – Tempo primo – Lento e soave – (attacca)
IV. Finale: Allegro moderato – Moderato assai – Meno moderato e poco a poco ravvivando il tempo – Tempo I – Largamente e pesante – Poco largamente – Molto largamente (in D major)
First movement: The work grows almost organically out of a rising three-note motif heard at the opening of the work, first unstable and pastoral, then appearing in many guises throughout the entire symphony (and indeed forming the basis for most of the material), including forming the dramatic theme of the finale. More phrases are invisibly introduced, although very much related, creating a jigsaw puzzle-like effect. It is only at the climax of the movement that the full theme is heard.
Second movement: From his villa in Italy, Sibelius wrote: “Don Juan. I was sitting in the dark in my castle when a stranger entered. I asked who he could be again and again – but there was no answer. I tried to make him laugh but he remained silent. At last, the stranger began to sing – then Don Juan knew who it was. It was death.” On the same piece of paper, he wrote the bassoon theme for the first part of the second movement, out of which stems a pizzicato string ‘walking bass.’ Two months later, he drafted the second theme, with a note reading ‘Christus,’ perhaps symbolizing the death and resurrection of the movement, or even of Finland. It has been suggested that the movement is almost ‘a broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent.’ The movement culminates with a towering, brassy theme, following by an ethereal, mist-like motif in the divided strings.
Third movement: An angry, restless scherzo with machine-gun figures in the strings is blistering and fast giving a sense of frenetic preparation. It is followed by a slow trio section, featuring a lyrical oboe solo accompanied by the clarinets and horns. After a trumpet blast, the scherzo is played again. The trio section returns at the end of the movement as it bridges to the final movement.
Finale: Without pause, the final movement begins gloriously with colossal, loud, regal, and triumphant themes, often drawn from the first movement of the symphony. The transitional material from between the last two movements is brought back a second time so the victory of the major key can be appreciated again. This movement, develops towards a triumphant conclusion, perhaps intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future.