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III. Storytelling Through Music
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| Saturday, March 17, 7:30 p.m. |
Hudson High School
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| Sunday, March 18, 3:30 p.m. |
Congregation B'nai
Shalom, Westborough
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Dvorak
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Symphonic Poem
The Water Goblin
with a mime performance by the Hudson High School Advanced Performance Class, Wendy Sweet
and Paul Johnson, directors |
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Copland
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Old American Songs
with the Pro Musica Youth Chorus,
Jan Patterson, Director |
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Poulenc
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The Story of Babar
with narrator Margo Miller |
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The Water Goblin Op. 107 (1896)
 In his 55th year, the year following writing his great Cello Concerto,
and three years after his last symphony, From the New
World, Dvorak had two major ambitions remaining. First,
he still longed to be a successful opera composer and so far, his four full operas and four operettas had been
somewhat disappointingly received. Second, he was determined to leave behind a truly Czech musical legacy in addition
to his internationally acclaimed symphonies and other music. Perhaps consciously or unconsciously he was thinking
of the way in which his much revered predecessor Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) was still loved by the people, particularly
for the cycle of six symphonic poems Ma Vlast (My Fatherland) and the opera, The
Bartered Bride.
So it was that, at the height of his orchestral abilities, and with a desire to reduce his traveling and settle
down to a more comfortable life, Dvorak embarked upon a set of several symphonic poems inspired by the ballads
of Czech folklorist Karel Erben (1811-1870). He worked on these more or less exclusively for the two years 1896-7,
completing four Erben-based poems and one based on his own ideas (The
Hero's Song). They take consecutive opus numbers 107-111,
of which The Water Goblin
is the first. His other great ambition was realized by his ever-popular folkloric opera Rusalka (presented
by SPM in 1998), which was completed in 1900 and bears the opus number 114.
The Erben ballads are, naturally, steeped in the rustic folklore of the Bohemian people, complete with witches,
maidens, goblins, kings, as well as ordinary country folk. The typically gruesome stories, like many traditional
European fairy tales, can be interpreted, depending on your point of view, either as great folk literature, as
morality tales, or maybe just rather lurid entertainment. Dvorak was clearly a great believer in their literary
importance and had earlier set one of them, The Spectre's
Bride, to music as a cantata.
Vodnik
(The Water Goblin), unlike his namesake in Rusalka, is a thoroughly selfish predator of young women. Don't be fooled by
his rather pleasant theme in the opening measures. The three stressed beats are destined to take on more on more
ominous tones throughout the piece. In general, though not in this first theme, Dvorak used a rather direct technique
of setting the poems to music: his themes are deliberately designed to fit the rhythms and inflexions of the poetry.
This is no doubt very significant to those who know the ballads well in the original Czech. You, our audience,
must make do with the stage interpretations, together with these notes. To return to our eponymous anti-hero, he
is in such high spirits as he sits in a poplar above the lake because he is planning the watery abduction of his
future wife. Our heroine, a nameless country girl, expresses her longing to go to the lake while her mother, forewarned
by a dream, begs her to stay at home. True to the spirit of folk-lore, the girl ignores her mothers protestations
and almost immediately after arriving, the plank she steps on gives way and, as she falls deeper and deeper into
the water, is accompanied by the Water Goblin, who takes her for his wife. They live cheerlessly at the bottom
of the lake where the girl's only comfort is their infant son. After a while, she pleads to be allowed to visit
her mother. At first irritated, the goblin eventually agrees on condition that she be back before the ringing of
the bell for vespers. But she fails to return at the appointed hour and the goblin goes to the mother's cottage
to ask for the girl's return. When he is ignored, he exacts his cruel revenge…
I bought me a cat;
I bought me a cat; Simple Gifts; The Little Horses; Zion's Walls; At the River; Ching-a-ring Chaw
 Aaron Copland, born in New York not long after his father and mother
had emigrated from Russia, became perhaps the most American of American musicians, eagerly embracing the sounds
and culture of his native country, especially in song and dance. Although he dabbled a little with Jazz, it is
his music of the ordinary people for which he is best remembered: especially Fanfare
for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, and Rodeo. No
matter what the subject matter, though, he always imparts his own brilliant style of harmony and orchestration
to any composition. The two sets of Old American Songs,
from which we sample here, are a case in point. As the
name implies, these are all traditional songs, mostly from the 19th century and, if accompanied at all, were not
accustomed to performance with the coloration and dynamics made possible by a full orchestra. Therefore, he had
considerable license to make the orchestration really telling. As always he accomplished this perfectly with a
mixture of light and heavy scoring, humor and gravity, and an uncanny knack for making the vocal line float effortlessly
over the instruments.
The first of these, the familiar I bought me a cat is a children's nonsense song learned from playwright Lynn Riggs who
learned it as a boy in Oklahoma. Simple Gifts is based on the much-loved Shaker melody "The Gift to be Simple"
from the period 1837-1847, which he had earlier used with great sensitivity in Appalachian Spring. The Little Horses is
a children's lullaby of the southern states from a collection "Folk Song USA" by J & A Lomax. Zion's Walls
is a revivalist song with words and melody by John McCurry, the compiler of The
Social Harp. Copland used this melody again a year or
two later, with breathtaking effect in "The Promise of Living" from his lovely opera about ordinary people
in the mid-west: The Tender Land. The next, At the River, is based on a hymn tune by Rev. Robert Lowry (1865). Finally, we hear
Ching-a-Ring Chaw,
a minstrel song from the Harris collection of U.S. Poetry and Plays.
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (1945) (Orchestrated by Jean Francaix, 1962)
 Poulenc was born to a well-to-do family January 7th, 1899. He had a prodigious
talent for piano but was largely self-taught in composition, although he did spend one year in performance studies
at the Paris Conservatoire. Nevertheless, his piano composition "Mouvements perpétuels" at age
19 made himself a very favorable reputation. In his twenties, he was considered one of Les six, a somewhat
loose group of young French (or almost French) composers, of which Poulenc, Milhaud and the Swiss Honegger are
the only ones regularly performed today. Their aims were to develop music away not only from the German style and
but also from the French impressionist style of the times. As a member of that group he was much influenced by
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Erik Satie (1866-1925) who in turn was something of a disciple and friend of Debussy.
However, it was Satie who was to play a major role in leading Poulenc towards a clearer and more classical style.
Poulenc was always a great innovator and excelled at songs, piano solos and chamber ensembles, especially some
excellent wind chamber music. His music nearly always shows a great sense of fun and joie de vivre. Yet, perhaps
his greatest single work is the very serious opera Dialogues
of the Carmelites which was composed after the reawakening
of his Catholic faith.
 The
Story of Babar the Little Elephant really begins in
1931, when Cecile de Brunhoff told her children how a little, orphaned elephant became king of the forest. The
children in turn related the story to their father, the painter Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937), who made a picture
book of the tale. Thus was born Babar, one of the best-loved children's book characters of the twentieth century.
Jean de Brunhoff wrote five more Babar stories before his death from tuberculosis. His son, Laurent de Brunhoff
continued the series.
The next event in our story occurs fourteen years later. Poulenc was sitting at the piano one day, idly improvising,
when the young daughter of his cousin thrust her copy of The
Story of Babar on to the music desk, saying "play
this instead!" With great equanimity it would appear, he began to improvise some music to the text, and that
became the basis of the piano score as we know it today. Writing in 1945 to his friend Henri Sauguet, Poulenc notes
that he has devised a subtitle: Dix-huit coups d'oeil
sur la queue d'un jeune éléphant (eighteen
glances at the tail of a young elephant). Given his sense of humor, it is tempting to conjecture that this may
not have been unconnected with the publication the previous year of Messiaen's Vingt
Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus.
 Next we jump to 1959 when the composer
Jean Francaix (b. 1932) undertook to orchestrate Babar for Poulenc, who was too busy. The charming result, published
in 1962, is as much due to Francaix' skill in orchestration as it is to Poulenc's playful composition. Francaix
chose muted strings to play the opening lullaby that Babar's mother sings to him in the forest. The "ride
on his mother's back" begins with a ponderous march followed by rich string harmonies that capture the wonder
of the baby elephant's view so high above the ground.
The music for Babar's escape from the hunters is somewhat reminiscent of Prokofiev's Peter
and the Wolf. Likewise, the use of car horns to invoke
the hustle and bustle of urban life may remind some listeners of Gershwin's An
American in Paris. Throughout the work, birds are represented
by flutes, but Francaix uses various other instruments to portray the main character, Babar. The tuba is, of course,
the obvious choice and can be heard as Babar on his best behavior, thanking the elegant old lady for buying him
clothes, and somewhat more boisterously, dancing a Viennese waltz with Arthur and Celeste at a tea-shop. One can
imagine the other patrons grabbing to save the china as the elephants bump into tables.
 However,
Babar is also portrayed by the contrabassoon (when doing exercises with the old lady each morning), the trombone
(the long slide a nostalgic "sigh" for his mother) and clarinet (singing the blues). The trumpeting of
the elephants who welcome Babar's return to the forest is of course played by trumpets, who provide the party music
after Babar's wedding and coronation. The epilogue, like the beginning, uses muted strings to play a type of "night
music". A twinkling harp sets the concluding mood for the bride and groom, who are gazing at the stars, contemplating
their future together.
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