Johann Strauss II (1825-1899):

Fruhlingsstimmen (1883), op. 410

Johann Strauss the Son (The Waltz King), spent most of his life in his native Vienna. However, he was a regular traveler, making journeys as far afield as Boston and New York (in 1872). He also spent quite a lot of time in Hamburg, Germany, where much of his music was composed. It was there that this delightful tribute to the Voices of Spring was written.

William Bolcom (born 1938):

Spring Concertino for Oboe and Small Orchestra

William Bolcom, originally from Seattle, is one of the best known and most successful of America's modern generation of composers. He entered the University of Washington at age 11 and has since won many prestigious prizes for composition, including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize. He has studied in France with Messiaen and Milhaud and, in the latter case, also at Mills College in California. As a pianist, and composer, he has been a leader in the revival of ragtime music. He has also made many recordings as a pianist, including the complete works of George Gershwin. Since 1973, he has been a professor at the University of Michigan. He also frequently performs with his wife, singer Joan Morris.

The Spring Concertino, written for Harry Csargos and the Midland, MI, Symphony Orchestra is a simple, lyrical piece in one multi-tempo movement. The whole spring-like mood turns on the sprightly character of the difficult oboe part, the light orchestration and G major-ish feel of whole concertino. After a 2/4 introduction, the mood changes to a siciliano in a slow 6/8. The jazz waltz which follows directly, leads to a short cadenza and a reprise of opening, ending with a short coda

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971):

The Rite of Spring (1913)

About once every orbit of Halley's comet, a piece of music so shakes the musical foundations that its effect is felt throughout the musical world for years to come. Symphony Pro Musica presented one such work at last year's Spring concert: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This time, we present another: Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring). The story of the first performance at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées on May 29th, 1913 is well known: a riot broke out in the theatre. The audience, many of whom left their seats to make a bolder statement, was so noisy with their suggestions as to how the performers should proceed that the orchestra could not be heard, not even by the dancers! Such was the effect on the composer that he took ill with typhoid fever a few days later and took several weeks to recover! Subsequent performances were better received although some critics continued to pour scorn on the work. Eight years later when the production was revived, the music had already been accepted as a modern day classic and from that point on Stravinsky's place among the great composers was assured.

Igor was one of several children born to Fyodor Stravinsky, a Bass at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Rimsky-Korsakov liked Fyodor's voice so much that he extended the part of Varlaam in Boris Godunov was especially for him. As middle-class parents in the time of unrest towards the end of Czarist Russia, the Stravinskys hoped for Igor to study law and enter the civil service. Igor had other ideas: he began to compose and was fortunate to be able to show his work to Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter advised him against entering the Conservatory where his music would likely be misunderstood, but until his death in 1908, Rimsky-Korsakov became Stravinsky's mentor. In 1906, Igor married his first cousin, Katarina.

The three ballets which Dyaghilev commissioned for the Ballet Russe in Paris - The Firebird, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring - were the works which established Stravinsky's reputation. The Firebird was such an immediate success that he took his family to Paris in 1910 where they lived until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, whereupon they moved to Switzerland. In 1920 they returned to France where Stravinsky became a citizen (later on, he was to be naturalized again - this time as an American). Soon after the death of his wife and daughter, as the second set of war clouds gathered, he set sail, more or less permanently, for the USA. At first, he spent his time in New York and at Harvard. In 1940, he was remarried in Bedford, Massachusetts to Vera de Bosset. He spent most of the last twenty years of his life in Hollywood, finally succumbing to illness in New York in 1971. At his widows's suggestion, he was buried in Venice, close to the grave of Dyaghilev.

Stravinsky conceived of The Rite in a flash of inspiration while on vacation in the Russian countryside. "I saw in imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring," he wrote in his autobiography. Since we do not have the benefit of dancers, each section of the music is described. Also, for the benefit of those who cannot listen to The Sorcerer's Apprentice without seeing Micky Mouse, I have included the scenes associated with each relevant section in Fantasia within []. The orchestra called for is huge: at least five of each woodwind, including at times, two each of bass flute, English horn, bass clarinet and contrabassoon. This arrangement by Jonathan McPhee, Music Director of the Boston Ballet, is, however, for a relatively modest orchestra.

The Rite of Spring - Pictures of Pagan Russia in Two Parts

Part I: The Adoration of the Earth

Introduction: a solo bassoon in the upper register emerges, to be joined by other winds and later strings. Apparently, early listeners did not recognize the bassoon playing such high notes - no doubt Stravinsky had planned it thus to maximize the sense of time travel. [Total blackness giving way to galaxies and stars].

The Augurs of Spring; Dance of the Maidens: opens and later continues with 32 harsh double-stopped chords in the strings contrasting with a rather plaintive melody in horn and flute [Volcanoes erupting on an otherwise barren earth].

The Abduction Game in which the virgin to be sacrificed is chosen: a frenzied crescendo ending in a flute trill which leads to...

Spring Rounds: a rather slow dance of great intensity with a variation on Frère Jacques as as its main theme.

Games of the Rival Villages: a pleasant, melodic interlude leading to...

Procession of the Elder: a very rhythmic, percussive section, culminating in...

The Elder's Sacred Kiss of the New-flowering Earth: a short, quiet, slow section for bassoons, basses and tympani followed by a pianissimo kiss in the strings.

Dance of the Earth: opens with a thunderous crescendo on the bass drum and gong and concludes the first part.

Part II: The Sacrifice

Introduction: Flutes and Clarinets with a gentle pulsation [amoebas, fish, dinosaurs] leading to a syncopated piano trumpet duet [pterodactyls].

Mystic Circles of the Maidens: six solo violas with a big hymn-like melody begin this section which is one of the most beautiful [dinosaurs of various types] but segues into...

Glorification of the Chosen One: a total contrast with powerful on and off-beats [Tyrannosaurus Rex fights and kills Stegosaurus].

Evocation of the Ancestors: a rather rhythmic hymn-like phrase (in 4+3+2+3+1 meter) which is answered by...

Ritual Action of the Ancestors: a pulsating accompaniment to English horn and flute [Sun, desert, hadrosaurs]. The clarinet and bass clarinet lead us into...

The Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen One): an impossibly complex rhythm interspersed with Trombones and Trumpets calling out a slightly varying six-note descending scale (which Stravinsky may have picked up from the Black Woodpecker which is native to the East European forests). The intensity of the music increases until, exhausted, the chosen one expires.


© 1992 Robin Hillyard, Symphony Pro Musica