Symphonic Dances
Laurie Shulman, Program Notes Annotator
Leonard Bernstein | “Three Dance Episodes” from On the Town
Aleksandr Arutiunian | Trumpet Concerto with Tine Thing Helseth
Sergei Rachmaninoff | Symphonic Dances
Three Dances from On the Town
Leonard Bernstein (LEH-nard BERN-stine)
Born 25 August, 1918 in Lawrence, Massachusetts
Died 14 October, 1990 in New York City
Orchestration: flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, three clarinets, two horns, three trumpets, three trombones; timpani and percussion including suspended cymbal, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, traps, wood block and xylophone; piano and strings
For those of us who grew up humming the familiar tunes of West Side Story, it is difficult to imagine a world in which Leonard Bernstein is not a household name. In the early 1940s, however, he was not yet world famous. Bernstein enjoyed a reputation as a talented young pianist and composer whose interests were leaning more and more toward conducting. Still, his career showed tremendous promise: at age 25 he was assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and the exciting young choreographer Jerome Robbins had asked him to collaborate on a wartime ballet entitled Fancy Free.
The ballet’s plot concerns three sailors on shore leave in pursuit of the perfect girl — in this case, most likely, the first available attractive female. Bernstein’s sophisticated, jazzy dance score was a big success at its 1944 premiere. Oliver Smith, the set designer, recognized its potential for the more commercial venue of Broadway. Bernstein worked with Smith, George Abbott, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green to develop the ballet into a full-fledged musical called On the Town. The show opened in December 1944 and ran for nearly 500 performances. Purely escape theater, the upbeat, fun musical was a natural for a nation weary of war and hungry for lighthearted diversion.
On the Town‘s music is more sophisticated than most other contemporary musicals. As John Briggs has written:
Bernstein’s lively, unself-consciously jazzy score was attuned to the rhythm and tempo of the times….The man who could employ jazz idioms for abstract musical purposes could also use the devices of symphonic rhetoric to make a theatrical point.
Nowhere is this gift more evident than in the three dance episodes from On the Town, where Bernstein’s instrumental gift has free rein. The city’s vibrant pulse courses through this music, bringing to life its diversity and humanity through three vignettes: The Great Lover, Lonely Town: Pas de Deux, and Times Square, 1944. The last of the three was the finale of the musical’s first act.
Concerto for Trumpet
Alexander Arutiunian (Ah-leks-AHN-dur Ah-roo-TEE-oo-nee-uhn)
Born 23 September 1920 in Yerevan, Armenia
Died 28 March 2012 in Yerevan
Orchestration: woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, military drum, triangle, harp, solo trumpet, and strings
Trumpeters have solos galore in the orchestral literature, and a wealth of solo and chamber music to play. In the concerto department, however, their choices are limited. While the Haydn and Hummel concertos remain perennial favorites, trumpet has long since ceded the prominence it held as a solo instrument during the Baroque and Classic eras. Other instrumental soloists dominate the concert hall: piano and violin above all, with occasional appearances from cello, clarinet, percussion, and others. That makes Arutiunian’s attractive concerto even more special on this concert. This Armenian composer reminds us that we still have much to learn about the rich musical life that flourished in the USSR during the Soviet era.
Behind the Iron Curtain: Music in the USSR
Initially educated in his home city of Yerevan, Arutiunian pursued further study of composition and orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory after World War II. He returned to Armenia in 1948 and remained a central figure in the country’s musical life for decades, serving as Artistic Director of the Armenian Philharmonic Society and Professor of Composition at Yerevan Conservatory. He retired in 1990.
His first public recognition came in 1949, when his graduation cantata won the USSR State Prize. That award followed the Zhdanov purges of 1948, which placed many prominent composers – including Shostakovich and Prokofiev – in political disgrace. The authorities wanted Soviet composers to conform to mainstream Russian values. In their view, music was a propaganda tool that should serve the State. Thus Arutiunian’s Cantata for the Homeland was politically acceptable during a tense time for the performing arts.
A modern classic for an ancient and proud instrument
The Trumpet Concerto followed in 1950. Arutiunian wrote it in memory of his friend Tsolak Vartazarian, principal trumpet of the Armenian Philharmonic, who had died in World War II. The concerto remained unpublished until 1956 and was not premièred until 1960; the soloist was Aykaz Messiayan. Perhaps the music’s pronounced Armenian flavor had persuaded Arutiunian to wait until the political climate was more favorable to introduce the work. Since then, the Trumpet Concerto has become Arutiunian’s most frequently performed composition. It has been recorded by trumpeters as divergent as Guy Touvron and Arturo Sandoval.
Maestoso
a movement or passage marked to be performed in a majestic manner
Cast in a single movement, the concerto comprises a series of contrasting episodes requiring agility and sudden mood changes. The opening Maestoso establishes the Central European modal scale patterns that dominate the melodies. Arutiunian puts his cards on the table in these first measures, with modal, recitative-like scales suggestive of Armenian folk music. One hears a composer whose idiom straddles east and west, melding high art with the vernacular. The Maestoso serves as an introduction to the principal theme, a fast, dance-like march that recurs later. Both of the slower sections feature rich supporting roles for woodwinds, complementing the soloist. The second of these slow segments, featuring muted trumpet, is especially lovely. A brilliant cadenza (added by the Ukrainian trumpet virtuoso Timofei Dokshizer in 1977) precedes the surprise ending.
Arutiunian’s concerto showcases the richness of the B-flat trumpet, an instrument used much more in Russian orchestras. It packs emotion, excitement, and great melodies, all delivered in a modern yet accessible language.
Recitative
using the rhythm and delivery of ordinary speech
Cadenza
a showy solo passage, sometimes improvised, introduced near the end of movement of a concerto
Symphonic Dances
Sergei Rachmaninoff (Sur-GAY Rahk-MAH-nee-NOF)
Born 1 April, 1873 in Oneg, Novgorod District, Russia
Died 28 March, 1943 in Beverly Hills
Orchestration: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, tubular bells, xylophone, tam-tam, glockenspiel, piano, harp and strings
Celebrity get-together, 1940 style
During the summer of 1940, following an exhausting concert season, Sergei Rachmaninoff took refuge on the then-bucolic north shore town of Huntington, Long Island. He hoped to compose some music and regain his failing health. Though he lived nearly three years longer, the work he composed that summer proved to be his last complete score. And a magnificent swan song it was. Rachmaninoff was deservedly proud, writing excitedly on 21 August to Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy:
Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called `Fantastic Dances.’ I shall now begin the orchestration. Unfortunately my concert tour begins on October 14. I have a great deal of practice to do and I don’t know whether I shall be able to finish the orchestration before November.
I should be very glad if, upon your return, you would drop over to our place. I should like to play the piece for you.
Ormandy responded promptly, accepting the composer’s invitation for the following week. By then, Rachmaninoff had changed the title to “Symphonic Dances.”
Although Rachmaninoff flirted with the idea of presenting the piece as a ballet, it is essentially a symphonic work that celebrates a lush orchestral palette. At the same time, vigorous dance rhythms suffuse all three movements, providing forward momentum and catching us up in a whirl of mysterious, compelling sound.
The Saxophone: unusual orchestral soloist
The first movement is dominated by a descending triad motive from which the balance of the musical material unfolds. Rachmaninoff takes superb advantage of his orchestral resources, continually surprising us with a panoply of percussion, woodwind, and brass accents amidst the ongoing sweep of the strings. A unique stroke is the luscious solo awarded to the alto saxophone in the more leisurely middle section. Rachmaninoff’s countryman Alexander Glazunov composed both a solo concerto for saxophone and a saxophone quartet. Still, the timbre was unusual: peculiarly close to the human voice, and vividly set with clarinet and oboe sharing a light accompaniment.
Another concert waltz, now in Rachmaninoff’s voice
The central waltz opens with muted trumpets in an eerie reminder of the composer’s Russian roots. Pizzicato strings establish the ghostly waltz rhythm; a free violin solo lends a folksy, half-gypsy facet to the music. Rachmaninoff focuses on individual instrumental colors, whose chromatic lines often seem like veiled threats undulating beneath the smooth exterior of the waltz. The brasses of the opening measures return periodically, as if to herald the sinister spirits that seem to underlie this disquieting dance. Metric vacillation from 6/8 and 3/8 to 9/8 and back again adds to the haunting character.
Dies irae: the wrath of God
Much has been made of Rachmaninoff’s recurrent use of the medieval Dies irae chant in his music. The best known example is the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, but there are several other occurrences among the composer’s works. Its presence in the finale to the Symphonic Dances has been called Rachmaninoff’s last and definitive statement. An English horn solo also makes use of Russian Orthodox chant. The two ideas bind together with the composer’s original material to build to a dynamic close.
Rachmaninoff’s achievement in this thrilling work is the melding of balletic impulse and symphonic grandeur. Vastly more sophisticated than the heart-on-sleeve romanticism of the early piano concerti, the Symphonic Dances are a superb example of his mature orchestral style.
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