Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Fri 7 June 2024

Kara Karayev (1918-1982): The Seven Beauties Suite

Introduction: The Seven Portraits
The Indian Beauty
The Byzantine Beauty
The Maghrebian Beauty
The Chinese Beauty
The Most Beautiful of the Beauties
Waltz

Kara Karayev’s The Seven Beauties, was the first full-length Azerbaijani ballet, premiered on 7 November 1952 at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, in Baku. It was an instant success, taken up by other ballet companies across the USSR.

Literature provided Karayev with an important source of ideas for his music. Among his favourite authors was the twelfth-century Persian Sunni Muslim poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141 – 1209), whose epic poem The Seven Beauties, written in 1197, provided the inspiration for a symphonic suite of the same name (1949), which Karayev subsequently recast as a ballet. The scenario, which draws on incidents from several of Nizami’s poems, focuses on the love between Aysha, an artisan member of a downtrodden people, and Bachram Shah, their feckless ruler, whom his evil Vizir manipulates in his lust for power.

Early in the ballet, Bachram Shah seeks shelter from a storm in an old castle; there a hermit shows him portraits of seven beautiful women from different countries. As dawn breaks the portraits come to life and dance for him; the experience leaves him bewitched. For this scene, Karayev creates a sequence of colourful vignettes, redolent of sparkling instrumental colours. Horn and flute solos over eerie string arpeggios set the scene in the mysterious Introduction, after which ‘The Indian Beauty’ is evoked by a tender flute solo accompanied by a gently rocking rhythm. In the energetic ‘The Byzantine Beauty’, strings are to fore, the melody having a distinctly Eastern tinge. The music of ‘The Maghrebian Beauty’ is darkly enticing, the accompanying bolero rhythm heard on wind, brass, and castanets; it surges to a sensual climax implying, perhaps, that she is the most dangerous of the beauties! Her dance is contrasted with the light-hearted, appropriately pentatonic, theme of ‘The Chinese Beauty’, introduced by flute and bass clarinet. Lastly, the delicate loveliness of ‘The Most Beautiful of the Beauties’ is enshrined by a solo oboe accompanied by wind and harp arpeggios, recalled from the Introduction, as is the decorative idea in the flute.
The Waltz comes from the ballet’s final act, in which Bachram despairs because Aysha has spurned his love due to his oppressive rule. He visits the castle again to seek oblivion by seeing the beauties once more. They appear, dancing with him to this superb, obsessive and edgy waltz, worthy of both Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. To Bachram Shah, the beauties now seem unreal shadows, a nightmarish vision of beauty distorted.

© Andrew Burn

Composer profile

The Azerbaijani composer, teacher, folklore authority and artistic dynamo, Kara Karayev, was the leading figure in the musical life of his country for nearly four decades after the end of the Second World War, as well as being recognised as one of the significant composers of the post-war Soviet era. He acknowledged with pride the influence of his nation’s folk music on his own compositions which are suffused with its melodic inflections and rhythmic traits: ‘Traditional music of Azerbaijan is my native language. As a composer I grew up on Azerbaijani folk melodies and, regardless of whatever artistic problem I am working on, I cannot, and do not want to break away from their influence.’ This yardstick he combined with a flair for lyricism, rhythmic verve, and in his orchestral works deft, colourful instrumental scoring.

He was born in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital city on the Caspian Sea, in 1918. After studying composition and traditional music at the Azerbaijan State Conservatory, Karayev’s innate musical gifts took him in 1938 to the Moscow Conservatory where, from 1942 to 1946, he was a pupil of Shostakovich. During the war, in collaboration with his contemporary Akhmet Hajiyev, he wrote a patriotic opera extolling heroism, Fatherland. It won an Azerbaijani state prize in 1946 and established Karayev’s reputation, which was enhanced by his graduation work, the Second Symphony (1946). Despite demonstrating Shostakovich’s influence, the symphony nevertheless revealed the distinctive qualities of Karayev’s voice.

Among his compositions, pride of place must go to his ballets The Seven Beauties (1953) and The Path of Thunder (1958); other notable works include his Third Symphony (1965) scored for chamber orchestra, the symphonic poem Leyla and Mejnun (1947), which won him a Stalin Prize, and what the composer described as ‘symphonic prints’, Don Quixote (1960). Significant among his chamber and instrumental works are his Preludes for piano (1951 – 63), and he wrote many scores for theatre and films, for example the music for the prosaically named documentary Song of the Oil Workers of the Sea (1954).

After his return to Azerbaijan, alongside composing, he took an active part in the country’s musical life, for instance, as Rector, then later professor at the State Conservatory, where he broadened the syllabus, introducing jazz studies, for example, as well as becoming President and First Secretary of the Azerbaijani Composers’ Union; later he would receive the accolade of President of the Composers Union of the USSR. His last years were dogged with poor health due to a heart condition; he moved to Moscow, living largely out of the public eye until his death there in 1982.

Today his music still holds its place in Azerbaijan; however, it is now less frequently played in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Kirill Karabit’s evident enthusiasm for Karayev’s music is infectious and he has been keen to introduce to BSO audiences: ‘I’m pretty sure that this music will be an interesting experience for the audiences. Karayev’s music style is strongly related to Shostakovich/Mahler tradition from one side and to Tchaikovsky ballets from the other which makes the music extremely interesting and original.’

© Andrew Burn

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1955): Violin Concerto

1. Moderato nobile
2. Romance: Andante
3. Finale: Allegro assai vivace

Korngold was born in Brünn, then part of Austria, which is now known as Brno in the Czech Republic. He was a child prodigy of phenomenal gifts. Aged nine he was described by Mahler as a genius. Richard Strauss commented: “this firmness of style, this sovereignty of form, this individual expression, this harmonic structure – one shudders with awe to realise these compositions were written by a boy.” By the age of twenty he had produced operas, a ballet, sonatas and other major chamber works.

Until the revival of interest in his concert music, Korngold was remembered primarily for his Hollywood film scores. However, it was not until 1934 that Max Reinhardt invited him to prepare a score for his film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, thus opening up what was to be a highly successful career. He is now regarded as one of the greatest masters in Hollywood’s Golden Age of film composers – 1930s to 1950s. Among his finest scores are The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex and The Sea Hawk. Korngold’s move to Hollywood did not mark the end of his classical or concert-hall compositions. Two major works from his final decade are his Symphonic Serenade for Strings of 1948 and his Symphony in F sharp minor from 1950.

Korngold sketched his Violin Concerto in D major in 1937 but his dissatisfaction led him to revise the work in 1945. Though originally intended for Bronislav Hubermann, it was Jascha Heifetz who gave the premiere on 15 February 1947, with the St Louis Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Golschmann. Heifetz became its most ardent champion and its renewed popularity over the past quarter century is easily understood, since this is music of expansive and opulent Romanticism, imbued with a powerful ‘hothouse’ atmosphere and memorably melodic. It is the most frequently performed of all Korngold’s works.

Without preamble, the soloist introduces the first theme, a yearning, expansive melody which Korngold adapted from his music for the film Another Dawn. The second theme, which he re-used in his film-score for Juarez, is also introduced by the soloist and begins with even wider intervals than those of the first theme. Between these lyrical melodies, and again in the cadenza, development and coda, the violin-writing is more virtuosic.

The central, intensely expressive Romance, in which the ethereal tone-colours of celesta and vibraphone make telling contributions, is based on a melody from the Oscar-winning score for Anthony Adverse. In the fantasy-like middle section, marked misterioso, the muted solo violin has more animated figuration, contrasting with the generally more tranquil outer sections.

In the finale Korngold exploits the potential of a single theme – this one borrowed from his film-score for The Prince and the Pauper – with great resourcefulness, within an overall structure resembling sonata form. Here the emphasis is on virtuosity. The initial jig-like theme in 6/8, which is closely related to the opening theme of the concerto, is later transformed into longer notes in 2/4 to serve as the second subject. A faster, even more dazzling variant is reserved for the coda, in which the soloist has to contend with a profusion of double-stopping.

© Philip Borg-Wheeler

Antonin Dvořák  (1841-1904): Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’

1. Adagio – Allegro molto
2. Largo
3. Scherzo: Molto vivace
4. Allegro con fuoco

Dvořák’s Symphony No 9, ‘From the New World’, was the product of the period when he was Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York between 1892 and 1895. As a child he had read a Czech translation of Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha, and after re-reading it in 1892, he was inspired to note down some musical sketches, one of which became the central episode of the Largo of what was to become his Ninth Symphony. Dvořák continued work on the composition early in 1893, completing and orchestrated it by May. The first performance took place the same year, in Carnegie Hall, New York, on 16 December, by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Anton Seidl. Dvořák was given an ovation.

The Symphony in E minor has maintained its popularity ever since its highly successful première. As far as its title and any American influences are concerned, it is probably best to quote the composer: “I know that if I had not seen America I would never have written my Symphony the way I did; but please forget all that nonsense about my having made use of original American national melodies.” The New York Herald’s review of the first performance puts the matter in its proper perspective: “It is a distinctive American work in so far as it gave the Czech composer’s impression of our country.” After all, by 1893 Dvořák was an experienced composer who had developed a thoroughly personal style.

The first movement has a deeply felt introduction which may have been inspired by Dvořák’s thoughts on leaving his homeland. In fact, this Adagio contains the germ of the Allegro molto which succeeds it, and the rhythmic pattern is similar to that which is often found in his Slavonic Dances. For the most part the music has a bounding energy, but the transition to the lyrical second subject takes on the character of folksong. This fine movement features both cogent development and imaginative orchestration, and there is no lack of symphonic tension, for this is finally and powerfully released as the recapitulation spills into the vigorous coda.

An introductory chord sequence moves the music from E Major to the D flat of the Largo’s celebrated cor anglais tune. This establishes a mood of intense nostalgia, which proves to be the foil to the turbulent ‘Hiawatha’ middle section. At the climax Dvořák brings back the second subject of the previous movement alongside the first theme of the Largo, and even combines these ideas before ending the movement in a mood of tranquillity and with the return of the chord sequence.

The Scherzo is vigorous and abounds in typically Czech cross-rhythms. The two themes are deployed with variety and imagination, and they are even manipulated so that the one accompanies the other, once again in a manner familiar from the Slavonic Dances. The central trio is more lightly scored, and features some especially effective writing for flute and oboe.

There is a short introduction which precedes the main theme of the finale. This movement proves fiery indeed, based on the melody announced by horns and trumpets, but the content is also flexible, including a clarinet tune which offers an effective contrast. Ideas from the earlier movements are worked into the fabric and a climax is built, at the peak of which the brass thunder out the opening theme of the first movement. In the final stages Dvořák builds a powerful peroration, but the final chord fades away to silence, making an unexpected and imaginative ending.

© Terry Barfoot