Appalachian Spring
Laurie Shulman, Program Notes Annotator
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi | La primavera (Spring)
Valerie Coleman | Umoja (Anthem for Unity) (1997)
Aaron Copland | Suite from Appalachian Spring
Robert Schumann | Symphony No. 1 in B-flat, Op. 38, “Spring”
La primavera (Spring)
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (ahn-TOH-nee-oh LOO-chee-oh vee-VAL-dee)
Born 4 March, 1678 in Venice, Italy
Died 27 or 28 July, 1741 in Vienna, Austria
Vivaldi spent most of his career in the dual capacities of musical director and violin teacher at a Venetian conservatory and orphanage for girls, the Seminario Musicale dell’Ospedale della pietà. During his lifetime, he achieved greater renown as a violinist than as a composer. His propensity for the instrument is evidenced by the astonishing number of concerti he wrote for it: more than 230 of his 500-odd surviving concerti are for solo violin and strings.
The Four Seasons are the first four of a cycle of twelve concerti. Amsterdam publisher Le Cène published the set in 1725 as Vivaldi’s Opus 8, giving it the fanciful title Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione (“The Contest Between Harmony and Invention”). The idea was the contrast of rational technique (harmony and the theory of composition) to free imagination (invention). Le Cène issued the concerti with a sonnet at the head of each ‘season,’ explaining its program. Excerpts from the poems also appeared in the printed music, pinpointing places where a specific event was being illustrated. Such illustrative text-painting was particularly popular in France. These concertos were performed regularly at Paris’ Concert Spirituel, one of Europe’s first public concert series, founded in 1726. It is a measure of Vivaldi’s fame that he was published in the faraway Netherlands and performed throughout Europe.
Concerti
a musical composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra
Each concerto is in the three movement, fast-slow-fast sequence that Vivaldi standardized as concerto form. The orchestral sections are almost exclusively ritornelli. Vivaldi takes his virtuosic flights in the solo passages, evoking the seasonal images of each poem. His imaginative writing features strong rhythmic vitality and highly idiomatic passage work. Fully three centuries after they were composed, The Four Seasons still present a formidable challenge to the virtuoso violinist.
Ritornelli
a recurring musical idea for the full ensemble, restated in various keys
In the Spring concerto, Vivaldi takes virtuosic flights in the solo writing, evoking the seasonal images of the poem. There are strong contrasts of forte themes with piano echoes. Trills in the solo violin emulate bird song. Tremolando strings suggest thunder, with an upward swoop in the violin evoking the accompanying lightning. Throughout, Vivaldi’s imaginative writing features strong rhythmic vitality and highly idiomatic passage work.
Tremolando
a wavering effect
A translation of the ‘Spring’ sonnet follows.
Spring has come and with it gaiety
The birds salute it with joyous song.
And the brooks, caressed by Zephyr’s breath,
Flow meanwhile with sweet murmurings.
The sky is covered with dark clouds,
Announced by lightning and thunder.
But when they are silenced, the little birds
Return to fill the air with their song.
Then does the meadow, in full flower,
Ripple with its leafy plants.
The goat-herd dozes, guarded by his faithful dog.
Rejoicing in the pastoral bagpipes,
Nymphs and Shepherds dance, in love,
Their faces glowing with Springtime’s brilliance.
The score calls for solo violin, strings, and continuo.
Umoja (Anthem for Unity) (1997)
Valerie Coleman (VAL-uh-ree KOHL-muhn)
Born 3 September, 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky
Orchestration: two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings
Flutist and the co-founder of Imani Winds, Valerie Coleman is a Kentucky native who came late to the field of music. She caught up quickly and has never slowed. Although she did not begin her instrumental studies until age 11, she took to music immediately. By age 14, she had won several performance competitions at the local and state levels. She had also composed three symphonies. Today, Coleman is equally well known as a composer, particularly for wind instruments. She moves comfortably between the worlds of jazz, classical music, and the vernacular. Umoja is an example of her cross-pollinated style, drawing on African American culture, jazz call-and-response, and classical techniques.
The title Umoja is both Swahili for ‘unity’ and the first of seven days in the African diaspora celebration of Kwanzaa. Coleman’s original version was for women’s choir, intended as a holiday sing-along using jazz-inspired call and response. She soon arranged it for Imani Winds; Umoja became a signature piece for the ensemble. She has since adapted Umoja for wind sextet, concert band, flute choir, and full orchestra. That most recent version, commissioned in 2019, marked the first time that the Philadelphia Orchestra performed a work by a living female African American composer.
In its orchestral guise, Coleman expanded her original 3-minute piece to an ambitious and powerful 10-minute canvas. She added an introductory segment on bowed vibraphone to pave the way for the initial melodic statement from the concertmaster. As the melody travels through the various sections of the orchestra, Coleman injects moments of dissonance that suggest the injustice and racism that challenge us in today’s world. The ultimate return of the original Umoja melody is a reminder of our inherent humanity and goodness. Umoja concludes with an inspiring call for unity.
Suite from Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland (AIR-uhn KOPE-lend)
Born 14 November, 1900 in Brooklyn, New York
Died 2 December, 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York
Orchestration: woodwinds in pairs (with second flute doubling piccolo), two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, piano, harp and strings
Appalachian Spring is one of three “folk ballets” that constitute the foundation of Aaron Copland’s substantial reputation. (The other two are Billy the Kid and Rodeo. Appalachian Spring‘s sentimental appeal derives from the strong sense of Americana with which Copland suffused his score. Even though the only borrowed melody is the Shaker tune “‘Tis a gift to be simple,” his original music communicates the sense that we have always known it. Somehow Copland distills the essence of our nation’s spirit in ways that speak to us all.
The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commissioned Copland to compose this ballet for Martha Graham in 1943. He completed the score in 1944 while teaching at Harvard. The premiere took place in Washington, at the Library of Congress’ Coolidge Auditorium that October; Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham danced the principal roles. Appalachian Spring was an immediate success, earning the New York City Music Critics’ Circle Award for the outstanding theatrical work of the 1944-1945 season, and the Pulitzer Prize in music for 1945.
The ballet scenario takes place in the early nineteenth century. A young farming couple in Pennsylvania Dutch country are being married; the wedding celebration centers around their new pioneer farmhouse in the Appalachian foothills. The ballet takes 34 minutes in performance. For the Concert Suite, Copland reduced his score to 26 minutes. He told Vivian Perlis:
The Suite . . . is a condensed version of the ballet, retaining all essential features but omitting those sections in which the interest is primarily choreographic (the largest cut was the Minister’s dance). The Suite follows a sectional arrangement of eight sequences and is scored for an orchestra of modest proportions.
Copland’s concise, modest description does not mention the gentleness of spirit that permeates his lovely music. Elsewhere, however, he acknowledged the essential message that guided his thinking when he composed this ballet:
I knew certain crucial things — that it had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope.
Symphony No. 1 in B-flat, Op. 38, “Spring”
Robert Schumann (ROH-bert SHOO-mahn)
Born 8 June, 1810 in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany
Died 29 July, 1856 in Endenich, near Bonn, Germany
Orchestration: woodwinds in pairs (with second flute doubling piccolo), two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, piano, harp and strings
This symphony might well be subtitled “Schumann in Love.” Its seeds were sown at the time of his honeymoon with Clara Wieck. After several years of vigorous opposition from her father Friedrich Wieck, the couple married in September 1840. Their wedding launched Robert on the happiest period he would ever know. In a characteristic fever of activity, he sketched his B-flat major symphony during an intense four days in January 1841, orchestrating it by 20 February. A performance took place the last day of March, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Schumann’s initial idea for the symphony grew from a poem by the young German poet Adolph Böttger, describing winter’s darkness and barrenness yielding to the fresh joy of spring. The composer wrote to Louis Spohr:
[The symphony] was inspired, if I may say so, by the spirit of spring which seems to possess us all anew every year, irrespective of age. The music is not intended to describe or paint anything definite, but I believe the season did much to shape the particular form it took.
His original plan was to entitle the four movements Spring’s Awakening, Evening, Merry Playmates, and Full Spring. Although these programmatic headings were abandoned prior to publication, they still give pause for thought while listening to this symphony, whose themes seem to burst with the vitality of the new season.
Another factor that encouraged Schumann to attempt a symphony was the first performance of Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony. Schumann had discovered it in manuscript and sent it to Mendelssohn, who led the première in Leipzig in 1839, eleven years after Schubert’s death. To his friend Ernst Adolph Becker, Schumann wrote:
It has made me tingle to be at work on a symphony, too, and I believe something will come of it, once I am happily married to Clara.
Allegro
movement performed at a brisk tempoa wavering effect
About the Music
In composing the “Spring” Symphony, Schumann strove for musical unity. That focus is easy to detect, for there are strong thematic connections that permeate this work. The opening fanfare motto dominates both slow introduction and allegro in the first movement, and a brief trombone chorale toward the end of the slow movement provides the material from which Schumann constructs his scherzo. His keen interest in honing skill with large musical structures is particularly evident in the scherzo and the finale. The scherzo has two trio sections, a pattern to which Schumann returned in several works, notably the beloved E-flat major Piano Quintet. The finale is in sonata form, dominated by another catchy motto that helps to deliver the “Spring” Symphony’s exuberant and convincing close.
Scherzo
movement that is typically playful, light-hearted, and often lively
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