Repertoire & Program Notes

Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda:

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) | Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg and died on April 3, 1897 in Vienna. He composed the Academic Festival Overture in 1880, and conducted its premiere in Breslau on January 4, 1881. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. Duration is about 10 minutes.

Artis musicae severioris in Germania nunc princeps — “Now the leader in Germany of music of the more severe order” — read the lofty inscription of the honorary degree, honoris causa, conferred on Johannes Brahms by the University of Breslau on March 11, 1879. Brahms, not fond of pomp and public adulation, accepted the degree (he had declined one from Cambridge University three years earlier — he refused to journey across salt water) but acknowledged it with only a simple postcard to Bernhard Scholz, whom he asked to convey his thanks to the faculty. After receiving this skimpy missive, Scholz, conductor of the local orchestra and nominator of Brahms for the degree, wrote back that protocol required the recipient to provide something more substantial, a “Doktor-Symphonie,” perhaps, or “at least a solemn song.” Brahms promised to compose an appropriate piece and bring it to Breslau the following year, when he would join the academicians in “doctoral beer and skittles.”

In 1880, Brahms repaired to Bad Ischl in the Salzkammergut, east of Salzburg, for the first of many summers in that lovely region. There he worked on the piece for Breslau: “a very jolly potpourri of students’ songs,” he called the new Academic Festival Overture. (The somber Tragic Overture was composed at the same time, Brahms stated, to serve as an emotional balance to the exuberant Academic Festival.) When Scholz discovered Brahms was preparing to serve up a medley of student drinking songs to the learned faculty at an august university ceremony, he asked the composer if this could be true. Never one to deny his innate curmudgeonly nature, Brahms shot back, “Yes, indeed!” On January 4, 1881, almost two years after the awarding of his degree, Doctor (!) Brahms displayed for the first time his sparkling Academic Festival Overture to the Rector, Senate, and members of the Philosophical Faculty of Breslau University.

Brahms, who was not a university man, first became acquainted with the traditional student songs when he visited his friend the violinist Joseph Joachim in Göttingen in 1853. The four melodies he chose for the Academic Festival were known to all German students; Gaudeamus Igitur (“Let us rejoice while we’re young”), basis of the Overture’s majestic coda, is the most famous. Even with the use of these unsophisticated campus ditties, however, the work is still solidly structured and emotionally rich, a fine example of Brahms’ masterful techniques of orchestration, counterpoint, and thematic manipulation.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) | Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn and died on March 26, 1827 in Vienna. He composed his Violin Concerto in 1806, completing the score just in time for the premiere on December 23 at the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna; Franz Clement was the soloist at the first performance. The score calls for flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani, and strings. Duration is about 45 minutes.

In 1794, two years after he moved to Vienna from Bonn, Beethoven attended a concert by an Austrian violin prodigy named Franz Clement. To Clement, then fourteen years old, the young composer wrote, “Dear Clement! Go forth on the way you hitherto have travelled so beautifully, so magnificently. Nature and art vie with each other in making you a great artist. Follow both and, never fear, you will reach the great — the greatest — goal possible to an artist here on earth. All wishes for your happiness, dear youth; and return soon, that I may again hear your dear, magnificent playing. Entirely your friend, L. v. Beethoven.”

Beethoven’s wish was soon granted. Clement was appointed conductor and concertmaster of the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna in 1802, where he was closely associated with Beethoven in the production of Fidelio and early performances of the Third Symphony. Clement, highly esteemed by his contemporaries as a violinist, musician, and composer for his instrument, was also noted for his fabulous memory. One tale relates that Clement, after participating in a single performance of Haydn’s The Creation, wrote out a score for the entire work from memory. Of Clement’s style of violin performance, Boris Schwarz wrote, “His playing was graceful rather than vigorous, his tone small but expressive, and he possessed unfailing assurance and purity in high positions and exposed entrances.” It was for Clement that Beethoven produced his only Violin Concerto.

The sweet, lyrical nature and wide compass of the solo part of this Concerto were influenced by the polished style of Clement’s playing. The five soft taps on the timpani that open the work not only serve to establish the key and the rhythm of the movement, but also recur as a unifying phrase throughout. The main theme is introduced in the second measure by the woodwinds in a chorale-like setting. A transition, with rising scales in the winds and quicker rhythmic figures in the strings, accumulates a certain intensity before it quiets to usher in the second theme, another legato strophe entrusted to the woodwinds. The development is largely given over to wide-ranging figurations for the soloist. The recapitulation begins with a recall of the five drum strokes of the opening, here spread across the full orchestra sounding in unison.

Though the hymnal Larghetto is technically a theme and variations, it seems less like some earth-bound form than it does a floating constellation of ethereal tones, polished and hung against a velvet night sky with infinite care and flawless precision. Music of such limited dramatic contrast cannot be brought to a satisfactory conclusion in this context, and so here it leads without pause into the vivacious rondo-finale. The solo violin trots out the principal theme before it is taken over by the full orchestra. This jaunty tune returns three times, the last appearance forming a large coda.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) | Variations on an Original Theme, “Enigma,” Op. 36

Edward Elgar was born on June 2, 1857 in Broadheath, England and died on February 23, 1934 in Worcester. The “Enigma” Variations was composed in 1898-1899. Hans Richter conducted the premiere at St. James’s Hall, London on June 19, 1899. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, organ ad libitum, and strings. Duration is about 30 minutes.

Throughout his life Edward Elgar had a penchant for dispensing startling or mystifying remarks just to see what response they would elicit. Turning this trait upon his music, he added the sobriquet “Enigma” above the theme of the splendid set of orchestral variations he composed in 1898-1899, positing not just one puzzle in the Enigma Variations, however, but three. First, each of the fourteen sections was headed with a set of initials or a nickname that stood for the name of the composer’s friend portrayed by that variation. The second mystery dealt with the theme itself, the section that bore the legend “Enigma.” It is believed that the theme represented Elgar himself (note the similarity of the opening phrase to the speech rhythm of his name — Ed-ward EL-gar), thus making the variations upon it portraits of his friends as seen through his eyes. The final enigma, the one that neither Elgar offered to explain nor for which others have been able to find a definite solution, arose from a statement of his: “Furthermore, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’ but is not played.... So the principal theme never appears, even as in some recent dramas — e.g., Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept Princesses — the chief character is never on stage.” Conjectures about this unplayed theme that fits each of the variations have ranged from Auld Lang Syne (which guess Elgar vehemently denied) to a phrase from Wagner’s Parsifal. One theory was published by the Dutch musicologist Theodore van Houten, who speculated that the phrase “never, never, never” from the grand old tune Rule, Britannia fits the requirements, and even satisfies some of the baffling clues that Elgar had spread to his friends. (“So the principal theme never appears.”) We shall never know for sure. Elgar took the solution to his grave.

Variation I (C.A.E.) is a warm and tender depiction of the composer’s wife, Caroline Alice, who was not only his loving spouse but also his most trusted professional advisor.

Variation II (H.D. S.-P.) represents the warming-up finger exercises of H.D. Steuart-Powell, a piano-playing friend who was a frequent chamber music partner of Elgar.

Variation III (R.B.T.) utilizes the high and low woodwinds to portray the distinctive voice of Richard Baxter Townsend, an amateur actor with an unusually wide vocal range.

Variation IV (W.M.B.) suggests the considerable energy and firm resolve of William Meath Baker.

Variation V (R.P.A.) reflects the frequently changing moods of Richard Penrose Arnold, son of the poet Matthew Arnold.

Variation VI (Ysobel) gives prominence to the viola, the instrument played by Elgar’s pupil, Miss Isobel Fitton.

Variation VII (Troyte) describes the high spirits and argumentative nature of Arthur Troyte Griffith.

Variation VIII (W.N.) lithely denotes the charm and grace of Miss Winifred Norbury.

Variation IX (Nimrod), named for the great-grandson of the Biblical Noah, who was noted as a hunter, is a moving testimonial to A.J. Jaeger, an avid outsdoorsman and Elgar’s publisher and close friend. The composer wrote, “This Variation is a record of a long summer evening talk, when my friend grew nobly eloquent (as only he could be) on the grandeur of Beethoven, and especially of his slow movements.”

Variation X (Dorabella): Intermezzo describes Miss Dora Penny, a young friend hesitant of conversation and fluttering of manner.

Variation XI (G.R.S.) portrays the organist George R. Sinclair and his bulldog, Dan, out for a walk by the River Wye. The rhythmic exuberance of the music suggests the dog’s rushing about the bank and paddling in the water.

Variation XII (B.G.N.) pays homage to the cellist Basil G. Nevinson.

Variation XIII (* * *): Romanza was written while Lady Mary Lygon was on a sea journey. The solo clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture and the hollow sound of the timpani played with wooden sticks suggests the distant rumble of ship’s engines.

Variation XIV (E.D.U.): Finale, Elgar’s brilliant self-portrait, recalls the music of earlier variations.

A.J. Jaeger wrote of Elgar in The Musical Times following the premiere of the “Enigma” Variations, “Here is an English musician who has something to say and knows how to say it in his own individual and beautiful way… He writes as he feels, there is no affectation or make-believe. Effortless originality combined with thorough savoir-faire and, most important of all, beauty of theme, warmth and feeling are his credentials, and they should open to him the hearts of all who have faith in the future of our English art and appreciate beautiful music wherever it is met.”

©2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Featured Artists

Colorado Symphony
Christopher Dragon, conductor
Simone Porter, violin

Preludes & Talkbacks

Preludes take place at 6:30 p.m. (FRI & SAT) and 12 p.m. (SUN) in Boettcher Concert Hall. This weekend's Preludes are hosted by Assistant Principal Viola Catherine Beeson. Catherine will take you on a deep dive into the music with demonstrations from the stage.

There will be a Talkback on Sunday, May 10, 2020.

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