Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Fri 6 June 2025

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

The remarkable Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) was a fine composer in his own right as well as one of the most important figures in nineteenth century Russian music, especially in terms of giving encouragement to his fellow artists. The leader of the nationalist group known as ‘The Five’, he also enjoyed the confidence of Tchaikovsky, to whom he made several suggestions which resulted in significant projects. Among these were the Manfred Symphony and the Fantasy Overture after Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

In 1869, following the completion of his own King Lear overture, Balakirev recommended to Tchaikovsky that he should compose a concert piece on the subject of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, even going so far as to write down a few bars of music which could be used in relation to the feuding Montagues and Capulets. Tchaikovsky undertook the project readily enough, but decided to create his own musical material. However, after the first performance in 1870, he was dissatisfied with the results. It was only when he returned to revise the score, a full ten years later, after he had composed the Fourth Symphony, Swan Lake and Eugene Onegin, that Romeo and Juliet became known in the version which is familiar today. In this final form it soon made such a strong impression that when the composer went on his various conducting tours of Europe and America, its popularity compelled him to feature it on practically every programme.

That the music is constructed in sonata form is less important than the sequence of characters and events it contains. For Tchaikovsky’s plan was to capture the essential moods and characters of the drama rather than attempt to retell the story in music. The opening music is a character-study of Friar Laurence, while the other themes clearly outline their relationship to the strife between the Montagues and the Capulets, the love of Romeo and Juliet, the resumption of inter-family hostilities, the poignancy of the tragic final scene. In 1893, the last year of his life, Tchaikovsky drew upon material from the work to compose a further setting of the love scene, now in the form of a duet for tenor and soprano. In the event this scene had to be completed by Sergei Taneyev. Had Tchaikovsky lived longer, he might have turned his Romeo and Juliet into a full-scale opera.

© Terry Barfoot

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Piano Concerto

1. Allegro molto moderato
2. Adagio
3. Allegro moderato molto e marcato

The majority of Grieg’s orchestral works are arrangements of existing songs or piano pieces, and the Piano Concerto is his most successful essay on the larger scale. He wrote it in 1868 at the age of twenty-five, though he made revisions at various times: the definitive edition heard today was made only towards the end of his life. Its premiere took place in Copenhagen on 3 April 1869 with Edmund Neupert as soloist, and the orchestra of the Royal Theatre, conducted by Holger Simon Paulli.

The music is to some extent modelled on Schumann. As a student in Leipzig, one of the great German musical centres, the young Grieg naturally developed an interest in the Classical musical forms, writing a symphony and in due course this concerto, which has justly become one of the most popular works in the concert repertory.

The Piano Concerto, Grieg’s op 16, is in the key of A minor, and opens with a bold introductory gesture which makes an immediate impression. This contrasts strongly against the tender lyricism of the second subject, allowing Grieg to generate a substantial musical construction that finds room both for Lisztian virtuosity and tender poetic feeling. The soloist is given a striking cadenza, releasing in turn an energetic coda to bring the movement to its close.

Grieg’s special qualities as a composer of intimate miniatures are reflected in the beautiful Adagio, whose tone is set by the initial theme on muted strings. The piano writing is at once delicate and decorative, until a new theme is introduced in the central section. Thereafter the mood changes, while the first theme becomes more emotionally intense upon its return.

The finale adopts the halling, a Norwegian dance-rhythm (a fast dance, originating from the town of Hallingdal), and the themes too reflect a nationalist style. At the heart of the movement, surrounded by all this activity, there lies a magically poetic episode featuring a solo flute and the piano too. And it is to this wonderful tune that Grieg turns in order to build the concerto’s expansive and exultant conclusion.

© Terry Barfoot

César Franck (1822-1890): Symphony in D minor

1. Lento — Allegro non troppo
2. Allegretto
3. Allegro non troppo

In common with many other composers, Franck was deeply influenced by Liszt’s use of cyclic form and his equally important development of the symphonic poem genre. Cyclic form, a strong unifying device involving the reappearance or metamorphosis of a theme or themes throughout an extended work, had been thoroughly exploited by Liszt in his thirteen symphonic poems, piano sonata and other works. An even more profound influence upon Franck was the music of Wagner, whose highly developed harmonic language intoxicated many composers, especially those of the French school.

Although Belgian-born, Franck settled permanently in Paris in 1844 and thus is usually grouped with the late nineteenth-century French composers. In Paris he worked as a church organist at St. Clotilde and a revered teacher who did not try to mould his students in his own image, but encouraged their individual strengths. Franck’s circle of pupils and champions included Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc and Vincent d’Indy.

As a composer Franck was a late developer. His finest works, including the Violin Sonata, the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, the Piano Quintet and the Symphony, date from the last fifteen years of his life. In earlier life he was a child prodigy, blossoming first as youthful piano virtuoso and subsequently as organist-teacher.

Franck’s Symphony in the key of D minor, composed between 1886-8, is an important contribution to the repertoire of French orchestral music. It blazes with fervent sincerity and conviction, and is genuinely uplifting, while also a particularly successful example of cyclic form. The symphony was first performed on 17 February 1889, by the orchestra of the Société des concerts of the Paris Conservatoire, conducted by Jules Garcin.

The symphony begins with a sombre theme on lower strings. This opening Lento section is not simply an introduction but an integral part of the work in two ways. Firstly, the slower tempo and its material return at strategic points later in the movement and, secondly, the actual opening theme proves to be an all-important motto, recurring not just in this movement but also in the finale. The ensuing Allegro non troppo begins with a faster version of this same motto theme. After a return to the Lento, now in F minor, the faster tempo breaks out again, and the main section of the movement is under way. A sweetly lyrical second subject on first violins is followed by a further theme of jubilant character. A succession of pauses leads to the vigorous development section. The recapitulation confirms the importance of the opening Lento, now heard with close imitation by trumpets and cornets. The impressive coda, apparently inspired by the equivalent section in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, is built upon repetitions of a ground bass, and the movement ends with a further reference to the motto theme.

The delightful central Allegretto combines something of the character of a stately minuet with a gentle, dance-like scherzo. After sixteen bars of pizzicato strings and harp have established the harmonic framework, the cor anglais introduces the first theme. First violins begin the scherzo section with a mysterious fluttering theme which is actually a subtle variant of the cor anglais melody. Franck subsequently uses this theme as accompaniment, firstly beneath a new clarinet melody, then combined with the return of the cor anglais theme.

The Allegro non troppo finale begins exuberantly with a joyful and extrovert melody, which eventually gives way to a contrasting second theme in the form of a dialogue between brass and a combination of strings and woodwind. A quiet string passage now leads to a reprise of the cor anglais melody from the second movement, then development of the finale’s own themes. Further tentative recollections of the second movement are heard before the recapitulation triumphantly arrives. Now other themes are recalled, including a grandiose treatment of the cor anglais theme. Eventually the original motto is heard softly with harp arpeggios, before repetitions of a strong bass line lead inexorably to the gloriously affirmative culmination of the symphony.

© Philip Borg-Wheeler