Essay no. 1 for Orchestra, Op. 12
Samuel Barber
Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 9, 1910 and died in New York City on January 23, 1981. One of the most honored and frequently performed of American composers, he contributed significantly to the repertories of opera, choral, song, solo piano, chamber, and symphonic music. His tonal idiom and intense lyricism continue to endear him to audiences. His Adagio for Strings (1936, originally the second movement of his string quartet) has become the popular choice when America wishes to give musical voice to its public mourning. The First Essay for Orchestra was composed in 1937-8 at the request of the great Italian conductor, Arturo Toscanini and received its first performance along with the Adagio for Strings on November 5, 1938 in New York City with Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Barber would go on to pen two further Essays for Orchestra, in 1942 and 1978 respectively. The eight-minute-long work is dedicated “To C.E.” The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, timpani, piano, and strings.
When interviewed in 1971 about his music, Samuel Barber said that “when I write an abstract piano sonata or a concerto, I write what I feel. I'm not a self-conscious composer. . .. It is said that I have no style at all but that doesn't matter. I just go on doing, as they say, my thing. I believe this takes a certain courage.” In the challenging years of the twentieth century when a tonal idiom in serious music fought to hold its own against the tide of atonality, serialism, and abstract objectivity, such a self-justification may have been necessary. Today, it would seem, the need for such an apologia has passed. Barber’s music continues to hold its place—which grows more honored as the years pass—in the repertory of the concert world. His Adagio for Strings has even crossed that boundary, making its way into the consciousness of popular culture.
If Barber’s most significant contributions reside in the vocal repertory, this is understandable as he was the nephew of a singer (Louise Homer) and received training in singing, along with piano and composition, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. But this lyrical gift found its way time and time again in his instrumental music. The Essay no. 1 for Orchestra, Op. 12 (1937-8) is no exception. The Italian maestro Arturo Toscanini consulted Artur Rodzinski in the summer of 1937 about finding a piece by an American composer to be performed during the first season of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Rodzinski suggested that Samuel Barber be contacted. Upon receiving the news, Barber immediately set about writing his new work, calling it Essay for Orchestra and sending it for Toscanini’s approval. When Barber did not receive a reply, he was understandably disappointed. That next summer Gian-Carlo Menotti visited Toscanini at his summer home on Lake Maggiore without Barber joining him, thinking that his Essay had been rejected. Toscanini assured Menotti that he not only planned to perform it, but was going to pair it with the Adagio for Strings on the same concert. Both works became immediately popular, although the Essay’s success ultimately paled in comparison to that of the Adagio.
The short work begins with a melancholy theme played by the violas and which is taken up by the rest of the orchestra, building to a climax. The next section is quicker and lighter in spirit, with the opening theme appearing in the background at first, but soon making its way to the foreground. The music soon subsides, recalling its opening elegiac mood.
Rhapsody No. 3 (“Fateful”)
Angel Kotev
Composer Angel Kotev was born on September 15, 1951 in Sofia, Bulgaria. He graduated in 1977 from the Bulgarian State Conservatory (now The State Musical Academy “Pancho Vladigerov”) with a major in composition under the tutelage of Alexander Raychev. Kotev has written music in various genres – symphonic, ballet, chamber, vocal, film, children’s and electro – acoustic music. Most of his symphonic compositions have been performed and recorded by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Bulgarian National Radio. His Rhapsody No. 1 – “The Bulgarian Rhapsody”, was composed by the request of the American Conductor Jung Ho Pack for the California Youth Symphony Orchestra and performed in a series of concerts in 1997 in the States. His Rhapsody No. 3, entitled "Fateful,” was composed in 2001 and was first performed and recorded the next year by the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Nayden Todorov. Kotev’s daughter, Liana Koteva Kirvan, is a member of the violin section of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Rhapsody No. 3 is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.
Angel Kotev’s Rhapsody No. 3 lives up to its title, “Fateful.” A dramatic composition lasting ca. 18 minutes, the work is a tour de force of orchestral energy. According to the composer’s own notes:
“Rhapsody as a genre implies the use of thematic material based on folklore. One of the characteristic features of Bulgarian [music] is the use of unequal and [asymmetric meters, such as] 5/8, 7/8, and 9/8. The author also uses of intonation to give a characteristic national sonority to the music, which [otherwise] follows the traditions of modern symphonic music. [Kotev] defines himself as a traditionalist who strives to preserve the basic building structural-determining elements such as melody, harmony, rhythm, musical form, etc. [Applying] these creative tasks were the challenge in the creation of Rhapsody No. 3.”
Suite from “The Miraculous Mandarin,” op. 19 (Sz. 73)
Béla Bartók
One of the seminal figures of twentieth-century music, Béla Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sînnicolau Mare, Rumania) on March 25, 1881 and died in New York City on September 26, 1945). In addition to his brilliant career as a composer, Bartók also was an important ethnomusicologist and pianist. His music is most strongly rooted in Eastern European folk idioms, merged with the modernisms of Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg and the disciplined structure of Johann Sebastian Bach. His one-act pantomime based on a scenario by Menyhèrt Lengyel, The Miraculous Mandarin (A csodálatos mandarin, was composed in 1918-19 and orchestrated in 1923. He revised the work twice, in 1924 and 1926-31. The pantomime was first performed in the Stadttheater in Cologne on 27 November 1926. The orchestral suite excerpted from the original received its premiere in Budapest on October 15, 1928, conducted by Ernst Dohnányi. It still remains better known and more frequently performed than the original stage work. The Suite is scored for 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (2nd doubling E-flat and 3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, harp, piano, organ and strings.
Three important works for the stage occupied Bartók’s attention between the years 1911 and 1919. The first of these was his only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (1911, rev. 1912 and 1918), while the second was a ballet entitled The Wooden Prince (1914-16, orchestrated 1916-17). His third effort was the one-act pantomime based on a scenario by Menyhèrt Lengyel called The Miraculous Mandarin (A csodálatos mandarin, 1918-19; orchestrated 1923, rev. 1924, 1926-31). The period that witnessed the composition of these extraordinary pieces was a particularly turbulent time in the history of Europe, and most especially for Bartók’s Hungary. The years leading up to this decade had seen the composer, along with his fellow countryman Zoltan Kodály, systematically collecting and analyzing the myriad folk melodies of Eastern Europe. Having accomplished this, Bartók was seeking to expand his personal compositional voice and technique, a voice that now was firmly rooted in his native soil. He was keenly aware of the revolutionary developments of modern music that were being nurtured in Paris and Vienna, but he had not yet succeeded in staking his own claim to international fame. The Miraculous Mandarin, with its shocking story, was not going to be the vehicle by which this fame would be obtained--at least not in those days. In this work, however, Bartók came as close as anyone could to bridging the gap between the expressionist ideals of Schoenberg and his circle with the colorful innovations of Debussy and Stravinsky in Paris.
A performance in Hungary was impossible, as the subject matter of the work was found objectionable. When it was performed in the Stadttheater in Cologne, officials of that city forbade any further performances, and the conductor, Szenkár, was chastised by the City Council for his role in its premiere. Only after the Second World War has this work been regularly performed in its original conception and been fully recognized as the masterpiece that it is.
The infamous scenario unfolds as follows:
A young woman is forced by three impecunious thugs into standing by a barroom window in order to seduce passers-by into being mugged. The hubbub of the squalid urban setting is evoked by a rapid and violent orchestral introduction. As the curtain rises, the thugs are desperately searching for money. Finding none, the girl is unwillingly pressed into service, and the solo clarinet inaugurates the first of her seductive games (jeu de seduction or Lockspiel). The first victim is a shabby old man who makes awkward gestures of affection toward the girl, depicted by trombone glissandos. The three thugs, finding the old man to be penniless, unceremoniously send him on his way. The girl begins a second seduction game, this time enticing a shy, but equally poor, young man. She dances with him, but the thugs interrupt and dispense with him as he is useless to them.
The third seductive game now attracts the frightening apparition of the mandarin, whose music in the trombones and tuba bears an unmistakable oriental flavor. The mandarin’s implacable visage at first frightens and repulses the girl, who flees from him. The thugs coax her to approach the mandarin, who sits down and remains motionless, all the while fixing his icy gaze upon her. The girl performs an erotic dance that grows ever passionate. Only the mandarin’s eyes reveal his inner desire, until the girl lands in his lap and he attempts to embrace her. She struggles free from his arms and he chases wildly after her to the strains of a vigorous fugal episode.
This is the point at which the composer interpolates a concert ending for the suite. What is left unrevealed, however, is the dénouement of the original pantomime, in which the mandarin finally overtakes the girl, at which point the thugs attack him and rob him of all his possessions. Now the mandarin becomes truly miraculous. The thugs try to smother him, and, refusing to die, they run him through with a rusty old sword. But the mandarin’s desire for the girl will not permit him to die. Even hanging him from a chandelier fails to undo him. The thugs cut him down, and the girl takes him into her arms. Only then can his wounds bleed and can he expire. Thus, in a strange twist on the romantic theme of Love/Death, the pantomime ends.
The Miraculous Mandarin is a brilliantly scored composition for large orchestra. Bartók, because of its initial rejection, as well as that of his other dramatic works from that important decade, may have experienced frustration. But history has been a kinder judge. Although the composer never again wrote music for the dramatic stage, the experience that he gained from works like The Miraculous Mandarin was to serve him well in his subsequent compositional efforts. It would not be long before Bartók would assume his rightful place as a genuine twentieth century master.