Petite Suite de Concert, Op. 77 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in London on August 15, 1875 and died there on September 1, 1912. His mother was Alice Hare Martin (1856–1953), an English woman, and his father, Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, was from Sierra Leone who studied medicine in London. The two never married. Taylor later became a prominent administrator in West Africa, leaving Coleridge-Taylor’s mother pregnant. She decided to name the child (without the hyphen) after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Musical talent ran on both sides of his parents, and young Samuel’s gifts were allowed to develop. He studied violin, and later composition at the Royal College of Music, becoming a student of Charles Villiers Stanford. He married Jessie Walmisley, a fellow student at the College in 1899. Over the course of his career he visited the United States on three occasions. He and his music were well-received in America, and Coleridge-Taylor was invited to the White House by President Theodor Roosevelt. His visits to America also stirred his interest in his African heritage, as he came into contact with several important Black artists, including Paul Laurence Dunbar (whom he met prior to coming to the USA), W.E.B. Du Bois, and Harry T. Burleigh, the singer who inspired Antonín Dvořák to look closely into the African-American repertory of spirituals.
His Petite Suite de Concert dates from 1911 or before. Unfortunately, we have little information as to what gave rise to this charming four-movement composition. It is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music was very well received and respected during his all-to-brief lifetime, but somehow fell out of the repertoire of concerts on this side of the Atlantic, except in African-American circles. A Colderige-Taylor Choral Society was formed in Washington, DC, and his music forms an important part of the repertory of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Happily, the neglect in concert halls is beginning to change, and modern audiences are hearing more and more of his fine music. After his three visits to the United States (the first being in 1904), it became Coleridge-Taylor’s mission to bring dignity to African-American music.
The Petite Suite de Concert comprises four movements that represent works from his juvenilia based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Clown and the Columbine. The clown figure is Pulcinella (Pierrot), the sad character who who carries a torch for the unattainable Columbina. These personalities are derived from the Italian commedia del’arte figures. Brilliantly orchestrated and filled with charming melodic content, although this work may be one of the less important compositions. That it has become one of his most popular works
The opening movement (Allegro con brio) is entitled “Le Caprice de Nannette.” This followed by a poignant Andante with the title, “Demande et Réponse.” The movement’s lovely principal tune flanks a flirtatious and livelier middle section. The third movement, “Un sonnet d’amour,” (Allegretto), is a graceful piece, not without a touch of melancholy. The last movement, “La tarantelle fretillante,” (Vivace) brings this delightful suite to a rousing conclusion.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2024
The Angel from Formosa Tyzen Hsiao
Taiwanese composer Tyzen Hsiao was born on January 1, 1938 in Hōzan, Takao Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan, and died on February 24, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA. Much of his music reflects his roots in, and affection for, Taiwanese music and culture. The sound of his native home is often mixed with the European late Romantic style of Rachmaninov, as well as Presbyterian hymnody—a reflection of his family’s upbringing. His earliest training as a pianist began with his mother, who was a church pianist. More formal training in Taiwan was followed by an eighteen-year stint in the United States, where in 1987 he received a masters’ degree in composition from the California State University in Los Angeles. He returned to Taiwan in 1995 and continued to enjoy success with his many compositions. After suffering a stroke in 2002, Hsiao returned to the United States to recuperate as he was awarded several prizes in his native Taiwan. He succumbed to lung cancer in 2015. His short orchestral work, The Angel from Formosa was composed in 1999.
Some of us are old enough to recall when Taiwan was still called Formosa, the name having been derived from the Portuguese, Ilha Formosa, meaning Beautiful Island. Steeped in the culture of his island home Tyzen Hsiao dedicated and named many of his compositions to Taiwan’s history and culture. The Angel of Formosa is an example of his national pride. It is a lushly orchestrated piece filled with heartfelt emotion, dedicated to the Taiwanese pianist Wen-wan Chen, a strong advocate of Hsiao’s music throughout the world.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2024
Symphony no. 8 in G Major, op. 88 (B. 163) Antonin Dvořák
One of Dvořák’s most popular and tuneful works, his Symphony no. 8 reflects a happy time in the composer’s life. The composer had experienced a rise to international prominence in the early 1880s, spurred in part by the skill he brought to bear in embracing the Bohemian nationalism established by his elder compatriot, Bedřich Smetana, but also by his growing mastery of form, harmony, and orchestration. Johannes Brahms stood at the forefront of Dvořák’s admirers, working actively to promote Dvořák’s music among German audiences and introducing the composer to the important music publisher, Simrock.
Dvořák, however, was torn between two worlds. How could he foster his acceptance outside of his homeland without sacrificing the folk-like elements of Czech music that had become an essential element in his emerging style? Anti-Czech sentiment in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to which the Czech lands belonged, had been running high. A performance of Dvořák’s opera, Dimitrij, which had been a success in Prague, was now being contemplated for Vienna. But the directors of the opera house in Vienna decided that the staging of a Czech nationalistic opera was too risky, and pressure mounted for Dvořák to consider selecting from two German librettos for a new opera. To complicate matters further, Brahms was urging Dvořák to move to Vienna. Were Dvořák to accept these career moves, his future success would have been assured. The magnet of national identity proved too strong, however, and Dvořák respectfully declined the offer to compose the new opera. Thus freed, he turned his energies to other projects. The fact that these projects continued to include the composition of symphonies—nos. 7 (1885) and 8 (1889)—demonstrates that Dvořák could have things his way after all. The ongoing influence of Brahms’s symphonies, especially the Third Symphony (heard on the first concerts of this season’s Classical series), had become reconciled with Dvořák’s Czech muse and he was now free to integrate his folk idiom into the structural rigors of symphonic composition. It is no accident that Dvořák’s best, and most popular, three symphonies—nos. 7, 8, and 9 (“From the New World”)—all came into being after the watershed events described above.
Dvořák’s Symphony no. 8 is, generally speaking, one of his most lyrical, and some writers have seen a kinship to the spirit of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony. The work is filled with fascinating innovations. Take, for example, the beautiful G-minor theme that begins the Allegro con brio first movement, a melody that presents itself softly and expressively in the clarinets, bassoons, horns, and lower strings, only to yield ground to the “real” first theme—a jaunty one with crisply dotted rhythms—chirped by the solo flute. The lyrical theme reappears at the start of the development section, and once again at the movement’s climax, now boldly blared by the trumpets against a tumultuous cascade of chromatic scales in the strings. The opening of the beautiful Adagio second movement in C minor shows how much Dvořák had learned from Brahms and Schubert. As in the first movement, Dvořák contrasts mellow timbres with brighter upper woodwinds. A haunting effect is created by the clarinets, who respond to each of the flute and oboe phrases with cadences that constantly shift modes. A contrasting major-key theme is introduced, punctuated by staccato chords in the brass and delicate scales in the violins.
The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso in G minor, features a graceful folk-like waltz theme. The three-part design introduces another lilting theme, this time in G major, as the central Trio section. An unusual coda follows the return of the opening section, in which the tempo shifts unexpectedly to Molto vivace and the meter changes from triple to duple. The symphony’s finale, which essentially presents a theme and variation structure, begins with a stirring and memorable fanfare introduction in the trumpets. The cellos then sing the principal theme, which is followed by a sequence of rather formal variations. This soon yields to an outburst of unbridled jubilation in the whole orchestra, highlighted by brilliant and raucous trills in the horns. Later in the movement we hear a quasi-serious march in C minor reminiscent of a rag-tag village band. The march becomes more assertive, subjected to a host of descending sequences, until the opening fanfare brings things down to earth. The variation theme returns, only to transform itself this time into a sublime reverie. The jubilant outburst returns, marking the onset of an exciting coda.
Program Note by David B. Levy © 1997/2018/2024