Program Notes: Heavenly Harp, Charming Tchaikovsky
Featuring Barbara Poeschl-Edrich
January 16 and 18, 2004
Rossini: Sonata No. 5
Handel: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra
Debussy: Danses sacr&3233;e et profane
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings
Rossini: Sonata No. 5 in Eb
Rossini is said to have composed his six sonatas for strings at the age of twelve in 1804. The fifth of the set opens with a movement marked Allegro vivace, but the gentle, lyrical theme with which it begins seems to belie its tempo indication. Only later does a busy passage for the violins (heard in the introduction and reprised in the recapitulation) really live up to the designation “vivace”. That opening statement, by the way, looks forward to Rossini’s operas in that it sounds as if it might serve as the introduction to an aria or ensemble. Quite early on in the Allegro a figure is heard in the double bass, which reminds us that these sonatas were written for the bass player Agostino Triossi. The remaining movements are a serene Andantino and a genial, ambulating Allegretto.
Handel: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra in Bb, Op.4 No. 6
As a further means of enticing audiences to hear his operas and oratorios, Handel would insert into the evening’s entertainment a concerto or two for which he himself would perform the solo part. As Peter Eliot Stone wrote, “Handel thereby became one of the first in a long line of great composers to write concertos that would demonstrate his abilities as a performer. The organ concerto, a secular virtuoso piece, was his personal innovation.” These concerti would then be collected together for separate publication, and Handel’s Opus 4, a set of six concerti for the organ, is one such collection. Number 6, however, was also specifically designed for the harp, probably intended for the Welsh harpist William Powell. The first performance of this particular concerto occurred during Act I of Handel’s ode Alexander’s Feast on February 19, 1736. Two other concerti were also performed on that occasion, a concerto grosso (known ever since as the “Alexander’s Feast” Concerto) and another organ concerto, which was published along with this one in 1738 as Op.4 No. 1. The scoring for No. 6 is calculated to avoid overwhelming the harp soloist: it calls for only two flutes and strings (which play pizzicato in the first movement).
Debussy: Danses sacreé et profane
In 1897 the house of Pleyel, piano and harp manufacturers, developed a new type of harp (they called it a “chromatic” harp) that had one string for each semitone as opposed to the older Erard harp, which produces sharps and flats by means of pedals (and remains the standard harp used today). In order to improve sales, Pleyel commissioned a new work from Debussy in 1904. (Erard, not to be outdone, responded by commissioning a work from Ravel, which turned out to be that composer’s Introduction & Allegro. Thus two great masterpieces resulted from a bit of healthy capitalist rivalry.) Debussy’s work addresses the needs of Pleyel by its use of parallel chromatic chord sequences, which are easier to play on the Pleyel harp. He met the commission with a pair of dances that he styled Sacred and Secular (“profane”). Always fascinated with the Iberian peninsula, as was Ravel, Debussy based the first, “sacred” dance on a keyboard piece by his friend the Portuguese composer Francisco de Lacerda (1869-1934), while the second theme of the “secular” dance is a Spanish melody that Debussy also used in two of his Preludes for solo piano: Sérénade interrompue (1910) and La Puerta del vino (1913). Hard as it is to understand today, the composer Gabriel Fauré found the music “frankly unpleasant” (harmonically); but the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla approved of the manner in which Debussy adapted Spanish modes in a fresh and individual way. Other influences make themselves felt as well: the Danse sacrée also evokes the ancient harp, and the Danse profane is essentially a French waltz.
Tchaikovsky: Serenade in C, Op.48
Tchaikovsky wrote his Serenade in the fall of 1880 at the same time as the ubiquitous “1812 Overture” and himself thought it much the finer score. Compare this work for strings with the earlier Rossini, and at once it becomes clear that its scope and gestures are broader, and it possesses a greater density of sound, as is evident from the very opening measures. We have here a slow introduction to the main body of the first movement, a device that is more at home in a symphony than in a serenade. (Mozart’s serenades frequently begin with such slow introductions, but 19th-century serenades almost never do. In fact, Tchaikovsky expressly stated that this movement was a tribute to and imitation of Mozart.) After this Andante non troppo introduction, the Allegro moderato is ushered in with a sweeping figure that, again, might have come from a symphony, or might be reminiscent of the grand gestures of the ballet, for that style also infuses this work to a considerable extent. The second subject is a scurrying idea whose industrious mood dominates the remainder of the movement, although at the end the material of the slow introduction recurs.
In the second movement, Tchaikovsky makes use of his beloved waltz form, a dance type that so often inspired the composer to his most felicitous invention. With this movement the connection to the ballet is most overt. This waltz is so popular that it is commonly played as a stand-alone piece. The third movement begins with an elegiac passage (in fact, Tchaikovsky specifically titles the whole movement “ëlëgie”) that sounds to this listener like a harbinger of the resplendent music for strings that has been so important a trend in British music in the 20th century (beginning with Vaughan Williams and his Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis). When the main melody begins, we find ourselves again in the world of ballet. This section is marked by a loving tenderness and grace less elegiac than sweetly romantic. Later the “English” material comes back and leads into a passage marked by abrupt chords that sounds much like operatic recitative, and then we come to a beautiful segment that is quintessential Tchaikovsky, expressive of deep tragedy and stamped with his individual and inimitable hand print. A quiet restatement of the opening theme concludes the elegy. Moving directly from this music to the buoyancy of the finale might have been too jarring, so Tchaikovsky circumvents any possibility of unsettling change by preceding the cheerful finale with a quiet, dulcet introduction. The final descending chords of this Andante section, repeated slowly, are a foretaste of the quick theme of the Allegro con spirito, which combines the spirit of a children’s song with the flavor of a Russian folk song-perhaps it is both. Certainly the sound of massed Russian balalaikas is evoked in the pizzicatos that follow. The second subject is more broadly lyrical, but it isn’t long before the Russian children come skipping back, and their chatter pervades the rest of the movement up to the point where the dramatic statement from the very beginning of the Serenade makes another appearance; but even that very grown-up music is caught up in the children’s revelry, and it is they who have the last word.
