Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra: Online Concert Programme | Thu 21 November 2024

Richard Wagner (1813-1873): Die Meistersinger Overture

With Wagner’s career and subsequent reputation, opera reached the peak of its influence upon Western intellectual life, extending beyond music to the spoken drama and other literary forms, as well as to philosophy and psychology.

Wagner worked on Die Meistersinger (The Mastersingers of Nuremburg) between 1862 to 1868 and it was first performed in Munich on 21 June 1868, conducted by Hans von Bülow. Its plot tells of the attempt of Walther von Stölzing, a young nobleman, to gain admittance to the Mastersingers’ Guild. He is helped by the wise Hans Sachs, who recognises Walther’s potential and the limitations of the prevailing style. In this story there are undoubtedly parallels with the ‘new style’ of Wagner’s own music dramas in the context of the German tradition.

The Overture to the opera is in reality a symphonic poem built from the motifs which symbolise the various aspects of the drama. The confident Mastersingers’ theme is heard first, soon followed by a lyrical contrast, the expressive music of Walther’s love for Eva, Master Pogner’s daughter. Other Guild themes are developed before Walther’s Prize Song leads on to the dancing music of the Apprentices, which is a lighter treatment of the Masters’ theme. Eventually a rich polyphonic texture, combining all the main ideas, brings the music to its emphatic close.

© Terry Barfoot

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Piano Concerto for Left Hand

The Piano Concerto for the Left Hand was composed in 1931 at the request of the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. It was first performed in Vienna on 5 January 1932, by Wittgenstein (the work’s dedicatee) with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Heger. The technical challenge of writing for Wittgenstein inspired Ravel to one of his most imaginative, as well as one of his most darkly dramatic, works. Indeed, some of the music of this single-movement piece has a nightmarish quality similar to that found in his Scarbo from his piano suite Gaspard de la nuit (1908).

The remarkable opening, with the contra-bassoon snorting through a veritable murk of bass strings, suggests the stirring of some primeval monster from the depths. The theme awakens the response of a three-note falling figure from the horns, and this gradually rises to the surface, where it is met by an imperious assertion from the pianist. A powerful cadenza develops, adding a challenging second idea which has the nature of a proud sarabande.

After a grandiose tutti replete with brass fanfares, the piano muses on a plaintive new theme. The initial material returns on woodwinds, beneath decorative piano figurations, as the speed increases to Allegro. Heavily accented beats and harsh descending block chords announce the start of a sardonic jazzy scherzo, of which Ravel claimed that ‘only afterwards is one aware that it is actually based on the themes of the first section’.

A new, rather simpler, idea relaxes the tension, but the initial horn motif makes a ghostly reappearance, first on bassoon and then on muted trombone. The music builds to a massive climax in which the second (sarabande) theme is thundered out powerfully by the full orchestra. A long cadenza, taking the piano to further extremes of virtuosity, reviews the previous material, before the concerto sweeps to a hectic conclusion. Ravel observed that his intention in this concerto was to show that ‘one hand could do as well as two’.

© Terry Barfoot

William Walton (1902-1983): Symphony No. 1

1. Allegro assai
2. Presto, con malizia
3. Andante con malinconia
4. Maestoso – Brioso ed ardentemente – Vivacissimo –Maestoso

With Belshazzar’s Feast  in 1931, the 29-year-old Walton consolidated his position as Britain’s leading young composer of the day. Further critical and public accolades followed with the appearance of the First Symphony composed between 1932 to 1935. Most unusually though, the premiere on 3 December 1934, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Hamilton Harty, featured only the first three movements, because Walton was still working on the finale.

They were received triumphantly, but Walton’s apprehension at sanctioning the performance proved right, for when heard complete the following November (Harty again conducting, but with the BBC Symphony Orchestra), several critics suggested that the finale did not quite reach the heights of the other movements. The view that the finale was an afterthought rankled Walton ever after;  he maintained firmly that its basic ideas had been formulated along with the body of the work, and that the hold-up had been coming to a structural decision regarding the suitability of casting the central part of the movement as a fugue. Having decided that a fugue was indeed the answer and having hit upon its subject in August 1935, the movement was then quickly finished.

But despite the composer’s statements, there undoubtedly is a difference, which would have probably been apparent had the full work been originally performed. It is a difference of mood and character though, not inspirational quality, which may, arguably be traced to the composer’s private life;  as a friend succinctly put it:  ‘The trouble was the Willie changed girl friends between movements’.  The dedicate of the symphony was Baroness Imma Doernberg with whom Walton lived from around 1930;  that their partnership was traumatic is witnessed by the turbulence of the music. After they separated, Walton started a new romance with Lady Alice Wimborne;  the finale bears witness to that change between relationships.

The symphony is in the key of B flat minor, and what impresses most in the first movement is the sheer dynamic thrust and energy of the music;  the listener senses the excitement of a young man in utter command of his craft composing in the white-heat of inspiration. The storms and passions of his love-life provide an emotional momentum that is subsumed into a musical argument which is a compositional tour-de-force. Walton simply never puts a foot wrong.

Much of the movement (which is in sonata form)  grows from the opening. Its main seeds are:  the rhythmic figure on the second violins, the short cello utterance, and principally, the plaintive oboe melody, reminiscent of Sibelius, fragments of which will become important, like the little semiquaver figure. Note too the pedal B flat on  the timpani at the very opening, for throughout the movement – indeed the work – Walton uses pedal points to anchor the tonality amidst the dissonant hurly-burly.

These ideas are counter-balanced by a long melody introduced by the violins and two solo cellos, then another played by violas and cellos which commences with a rise of a 7th, an interval prominent here and in the scherzo and slow movement. During the development the tempo slackens by way of contrast for a scrutiny of the second subject ideas. A massive climax heralds the recapitulation which is capped by an exultant coda with the horns pealing out, like bells, the cello idea of the opening in augmentation.  Such is the integration of this remarkable movement.

The scherzo is explosive, a discharge of spite and venom as reflected by its marking ‘con malizia’. Its main ideas are a gruff theme introduced by bassoons and cello and a savage unison outburst played by strings, martellato. To heighten the rhythmic bite Walton incorporates dramatic pauses, which in the coda produce an irresistible headlong drive to the end.

If the scherzo suggests the antagonism of an affair gone sour, then the ‘con malinconia’ of the slow movement reflects nevertheless a mood of sadness, a lament for the passing of a relationship. In a manner typical of Walton the themes grow from one another, their nucleus the opening theme on the flute. From this evolve two other main ideas heard together on oboes and clarinet;  the latter continues to develop the oboe theme introducing an important triplet figure. Near the end of the music rises to a passionate climax, then subsides leaving just an echo of the flute theme.

From the opening bars of the finale it is clear that a new mood of optimism prevails.  Gone is the angst, and significantly, in purely musical terms, the interval of the 7^th which plays such a prominent part in the dynamism of the other movements is less prominent, while  the harmony is less astringent too. The opening has a majestic sweep and nobility; it serves as an introduction to the animated music of the Brioso ed ardentemente, then the fiery and vigorous fugue at the centre of the movement. With the tempo increasing to a jubilant Vivace a second fugal section begins, leading to the climax and a return of the Maestoso now as an epilogue. Its haunting trumpet solo offers a brief movement of poignancy before the final flourishes.

© Andrew Burn