April 30, 2011 - Program Notes

Program Notes
by Michael Allsen

This final concert of our season begins and ends with profoundly political works. Finlandia—Sibelius’s most enduringly popular work—is a bold statement of patriotism written when the composer’s homeland was under the control of Imperial Russia. The Longview Symphony Orchestra is joined in this performance by string players from the Longview Area Youth Symphony Orchestra. Our closing work, Shostakovich’s great Symphony No.5, is a far more complex political statement by an artist who lived under the harsh artistic controls of Soviet Russia. Between these thoroughly serious pieces we play a wonderfully colorful, impressionistic suite of movements inspired by the Mother Goose tales—Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Finlandia, Op. 26

Finlandia was composed in 1899 and was first played in February of that year in Helsinki. The Longview Symphony performed it most recently in 2007. Duration 8 minutes.

No work of the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius is more immediately recognizable than Finlandia—a tone-poem that has become the anthem of his homeland. This is a product of the very late 19th century, when European political and musical nationalism reached their greatest peak. Most of Sibelius’ early works are fervently Finnish in some way—themes based on folk material, or subject-matter drawn from Finnish legends—but Finlandia’s nationalistic tone arises directly from its original circumstances. Throughout the 19th century Finland was ruled by Russia, and by the 1890s Russian control was becoming increasingly heavy-handed: the authorities were increasingly insisting on use of the Russian language in all official business, and Finnish culture was actively suppressed. Tensions reached the breaking point in February of 1899, when the Russians dissolved Finland’s legislature. To raise funds and to drum up nationalistic feeling, Finnish patriots staged the Press Pension Celebration: a thinly-disguised political rally, which included a series of seven staged tableaux on the legendary glories of Finland. Sibelius provided a prelude to each. The final tableau, titled Finland Awakes!, was a sensation, and whipped the audience into a frenzy. The text read (in part): “The powers of darkness menacing Finland have not succeeded in their terrible threats. Finland awakes...” Sibelius’s prelude music to Finland Awakes! was enough of a success that he later extracted it from the suite and published it separately as Finlandia. The work was immediately recognized as the perfect expression of Finnish patriotism—so much so that the Russian governors banned public performances of the work!

Finlandia begins ominously, with a passage that must represent the “powers of darkness.” The mood quickly changes as Sibelius introduces a patriotic hymn that sounds as if it must be a borrowed folk tune. This famous melody is Sibelius’ own, however. The main body of the movement (Allegro) introduces several heroic themes, based on the hymn or on an insistent brass fanfare. The work comes to a triumphant and crashing close with a final transformation of the opening hymn.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) Suite

Ravel composed the Mother Goose Suite as a set of four-hand piano pieces in 1910 and orchestrated the music as a ballet score in 1911. The orchestral version heard on this program was first performed in 1912 and was previously played by the Longview Symphony in 2004. Duration 17 minutes.

Ravel originally composed the Mother Goose Suite as a duet for two young piano students, Mimi and Jean Godebski, the children of his friends Cipa and Ida Godebski. Although Ravel’s original intention, that this music serve as an incentive for the children to practice, apparently failed with Mimi and Jean—Mimi was especially obstinate—the piece was soon performed in a recital by two students at the Paris Conservatoire, Christine Verger, age six, and Germaine Duramy, age ten. In 1911, the choreographer Jeanne Hugard asked Ravel to produce a ballet score, and he orchestrated the five movements, together with a newly-composed prelude and interludes. He later extracted the five original movements as an orchestral suite.

The Mother Goose tales were first published in 1697 by Charles Perrault, though there were many later additions to the collection. They were as well-known in Ravel’s time as they are today, and he drew on five of the most beloved stories for his pieces. The first movement, Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty, is only 20 measures long, but it concentrates a great deal of grace and beauty into that small space. A quiet evocation of an ancient processional dance, its melody is carried mostly by solo woodwinds above a quiet string and harp background.

The second movement, Little Tom Thumb, is about the well known tiny character. Ravel places a brief quotation from Ma mère l’oye at the beginning of this movement to set the scene:

“He thought that he could easily find his way home by the bread crumbs that he had dropped along the path, but he was very surprised when he found that he could not find a single crumb—birds had eaten them all.”

Raven creates a sense of bewilderment and searching with a background of constantly-shifting meter, and a plaintive melody passed from one instrument to another. The birds themselves chirp and twitter near the end as they gobble up the crumbs.

The third movement, Little ugly girl, Empress of the pagodas, also begins with a quotation:

“She undressed herself and went into the bath. The pagodes and pagodines began to sing and play on instruments. Some had oboes made of walnut shells and others had violas made of almond shells—for they had to have instruments that were of their own small proportions.”

This one needs some explanation. A pagoda was a Chinese figurine with a grotesque face and a movable head, a popular decorating accessory in 18th-century France. In the story, Laideronnette is a Chinese princess who has been cursed with horrible ugliness and wanders for years, her only companion an equally ugly green serpent. Eventually they are shipwrecked on the island of the pagodas, little porcelain people who take her as their queen. In the end, she marries the serpent (a handsome prince in disguise...of course), and they both get magical makeovers and return to their former good-looking selves. Ravel’s use of pentatonic melodies and the prominence of the glockenspiel, xylophone and gong give this movement a quasi-Oriental feel.

The fourth movement is titled The conversations of Beauty and the Beast. Here Ravel includes a pair of dialogues from the story:

“When I think of how good-hearted you are, you do not seem to me to be so ugly.”
“Yes, indeed—I have a good heart, but I am still a monster.”
“There are many men more monstrous than you.”
“If I were smart enough, I would invent a fine compliment to thank you, but I am only a beast.”

“Beauty, will you be my wife?”
“No, Beast!”
“Then I die content, having the pleasure of seeing you again.”
“No, dear Beast, you shall not die—you shall live to be my husband!”

In Ravel’s setting, the clarinet takes the part of Beauty, with a lovely lilting waltz, while the Beast is characterized by a grotesque contrabassoon theme. When Beauty declares her love, their melodies are combined. There is a magical moment, from the harp and triangle, and the Beast then reappears in the solo violin, showing that he has been transformed to his former state, a handsome prince (of course!).

The final movement, The fairy garden, is a set of free variations on a slow and lyrical melody presented by the strings. In the 1911 ballet score, Ravel describes this movement as an “apotheosis”—a slow procession of the Prince and Princess through the Fairy Godmother’s garden. The movement closes, suitably, with wedding bells.

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47

Shostakovich completed this work in 1937 and it was performed for the first time in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) on November 21, 1937, by the Leningrad Philharmonic under the direction of Yevgeny Mravinsky. This is its first performance by the Longview Symphony. Duration 50 minutes.

In these days, when the Soviet Union is a historical memory rather than a world power, totalitarian control by a state over the arts is thankfully rare around the world. In Josef Stalin’s Soviet state, however, it was a powerful and controlling reality. A manifesto outlining the principles of “Socialist Realism” appeared in 1933. This doctrine was originally intended to control the content and style of Soviet literature, but it was quickly adapted to the visual arts, film, and music. As explained in an article published by the Union of Soviet Composers: “The main attention of the Soviet composer must be directed towards the victorious progressive principles of reality, towards all that is heroic, bright, and beautiful. This distinguishes the spiritual world of Soviet man, and must be embodied in musical images full of beauty and strength. Socialist Realism demands an implacable struggle against those folk-negating modernistic directions typical of contemporary bourgeois art, and against subservience and servility towards modern bourgeoisie culture.” In practice, Soviet music of this period served the propaganda needs of the state, and was aimed at proletarian consumption. Composers abandoned “formalist” devices—unrestricted dissonance, twelve-tone technique, etc.—in favor of strictly tonal harmonies and folk music (Soviet composers produced dozens of works for balalaika ensemble and concertos for other folk instruments during this period).

Shostakovich struggled heroically within this system. There was a continuing pattern in his works of the 1930s and 1940s of perilously pushing the limits of official tolerance and then rehabilitating himself with a work that seemed to conform more closely to the Party line. In 1934, his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was a rousing success and continued to run for over 100 performances. In 1936, however, Stalin himself attended a performance and left the theater in a rage. Within a few days, a review of the opera appeared in Pravda, complaining of an “intentionally dissonant, muddled flow of sounds,” and angrily denouncing its anti-Socialist “distortion.” Shostakovich was quickly transformed from one of the young lions of Soviet music to a suspected Formalist, and articles published in Pravda and the bulletin of the Composers’ Union began to reveal “modernistic” and “decadent” elements in many of his works that had previously been blessed by the critics. The composer immediately cancelled the premiere of his Fourth Symphony, fearing that the dissonant nature of this score would push the authorities too far. He was so certain, in fact, that Stalin’s goons would appear at his door that he kept a small suitcase in his apartment, packed for his trip to the Gulag Archipelago. A hastily-composed ballet glorifying life on a collective farm was not enough put him back in favor with the Composers’ Union, but with the performance of his Symphony No.5 in November of 1937 Shostakovich regained a certain amount of his position in the hierarchy of Soviet musicians.

The usual story of the symphony’s composition is that it was written very quickly, between April and July 1937. But in a note to his recently-published critical edition of the score, Manashir Iakubov shows that in fact it was a much more extensive process lasting from April up through just a few weeks before the November premiere. [NOTE: Tonight’s performance is based upon this new edition, which restores a host of Shostakovich’s original tempo, dynamic, and expressive markings.]

On its surface, the Symphony No.5 seems to be a meek acquiescence—in fact Shostakovich humbly subtitled the work “The practical answer of a Soviet artist to justified criticism,” and it was composed in honor of the 20th anniversary of the 1917 revolution. In describing the Fifth Symphony at its premiere, Shostakovich wrote: “The theme of my symphony is the making of a man. I saw humankind, with all of its experiences at the center of this composition, which is lyrical in mood from start to finish. The Finale is the optimistic solution of the tragedy and tension of the first movement. …I think that Soviet tragedy has every right to exist. However, the contents must be suffused with positive inspiration…” All safely Socialist sentiments—but hearing the Symphony No.5, we are struck not so much by the triumph and optimism of the Finale, but by the deeply personal anxiety and sense of suffering that underlies the entire work.

The premiere was a phenomenal success and Soviet officials were quick to investigate what all the fuss was about. The Committee on Art Affairs dispatched two of its members to Leningrad to hear a later performance. They explained that tempestuous applause at the end was because the promoters had hand-picked the audience, excluding “ordinary, normal people.” But a subsequent performance for hand-picked Party officials and guests was just as successful. Official suspicion persisted— one musical official cited the “unwholesome stir around this symphony”—but in this case, Soviet authorities seem to have decided to put a positive spin on the affair and accept the popularity of this work at face value. Glowing reviews followed in the official press. The review by composer Dmitry Kabalevsky was typical: “After hearing Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, I can boldly assert that the composer as truly great Soviet artist has overcome his mistakes and taken a new path.”

The audiences at these early performances were probably more perceptive, however. Many members of the audience wept at the premiere, and the applause following the performance lasted nearly half an hour—facts that were reported in the official press as an emotional response to the symphony’s uplifting conclusion. As Shostakovich wrote some 25 years later (well after Stalin was safely dead and repudiated): “Someone who was incapable of understanding could never feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood—they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about.” This work is indeed a “response to criticism,” but it is a much more tragic and anguished response than the authorities chose to believe.

The tragic character of this symphony is established in the very opening bars (Moderato), in an angular, off-beat melody introduced by the low strings. Much of the beginning is devoted to an imitative exposition of this melody in the strings. A repeated rhythm appears in the lower strings, repeating incessantly beneath the second main theme, a lyrical melody in the first violins. This melody is built over the same large leaps as the opening theme, but here the effect is more melancholy than tragic. After flute and clarinet solos comment upon this theme, the horns introduce a more menacing march-like melody. This march increases in intensity until the climactic return of the opening theme. Near the close of the movement the second theme returns, now on a more hopeful note, in the solo flute.

For the main theme of the scherzo (Allegretto), Shostakovich parodies a melody from his Symphony No.4. The irony is obvious—here was a work that was unknown to the audience, and that, the composer felt, would never be performed. So the outward humor of this movement—bumptious bass lines, woodwind trills and tongue-in-cheek violin solos—overlays a bitterly sarcastic comment on Socialist Realism. A military-sounding waltz alternates with this main theme in the manner of a trio. At the end, he uses one of Beethoven’s favorite jokes: what seems to be yet another repeat of the trio, played hesitantly by a solo oboe, is brusquely tossed aside by the brass, and the movement ends abruptly.

The third movement (Largo) belongs entirely to the strings and solo woodwinds. Shostakovich divides the string section into eight parts throughout this movement, weaving complex counterpoint around a single somber melody. Flutes and harp introduce a second subject which is gradually woven together with the first. In a very beautiful central passage, solo woodwinds expand on the main themes above an effectively simple background of string tremolos. The movement builds gradually towards its climax, a return of the first theme in the full string choir, before fading away at the end. Though it is overshadowed by the broad opening movement and the powerful finale, the Largo may have been the movement that had the deepest impact at the premiere. Much of the weeping in the audience took place during the Largo, leading biographer David Fanning to suggest that the movement was “...a channel for a mass grieving at the height of the Great Terror, impossible otherwise to express openly.”

The finale (Allegro non troppo) is set as a rondo, and brings the symphony to a properly jubilant finish. The main theme is an almost violent march, which alternates with several quieter sections. Shostakovich brings back reminiscences of several moments from preceding movements, building towards a massive coda in D major. The composer’s own program note (and the official reviewers) described the finale as triumphant and exultant. Once again, Shostakovich’s intent in this movement may well have been sarcasm, rather than exaltation.

Program notes ©2011 by J. Michael Allsen