The Boatswain's Mate: Overture (1913-14)

Ethel Smyth was born in Marylebone, England, on April 22, 1858, and died in Woking, England, on May 9, 1944. The first performance of The Boatswain’s Mate took place at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England, on January 28, 1916. The Overture to The Boatswain’s Mate is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. Approximate performance time is seven minutes.

The Boatswain’s Mate is a one-act comic opera (in two parts) by English composer Dame Ethel Smyth. The opera’s libretto, authored by Smyth, is based upon the story of the same name by W. W. Jacobs. Harry Benn (tenor), a retired boatswain, is in love with Mrs. Waters (soprano), the owner of a country inn. Benn enlists his friend Ned Travers (baritone) to assist him in a scheme he believes will help the boatswain win Mrs. Waters’s heart. Mrs. Waters uncovers the plot, leading to Benn’s humiliation.

Smyth intended the premiere of The Boatswain’s Mate to take place in Munich in 1915. The outbreak of World War I made that impossible. The composer conducted the opera’s first performance, which took place at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre, on January 28, 1916. Smyth’s engaging score includes several references to English folk songs (as well as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, at a climactic moment of intrigue). The opera’s vivacious Overture that serves to open these concerts incorporates Smyth’s The March of the Women (1910), which in turn served as the anthem for the women’s suffrage movement. That quotation, as well as the opera’s overall plot, have led some to view The Boatswain’s Mate as a feminist statement. That may well be true, but it should also be mentioned the comeuppance of men by smarter women is a recurring plot device throughout the history of comic opera. 

Program notes by Ken Meltzer

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23 (1875)

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, on May 7, 1840, and died in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 6, 1893. The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 took place in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 25, 1875, with Hans von Bülow as soloist. In addition to the solo piano, the Concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-two minutes.

Tchaikovsky composed his First Piano Concerto in the span of approximately seven weeks, completing it on January 2, 1875. Three days after putting the finishing touches on the work, Tchaikovsky played his new Concerto for Nikolai Rubinstein—head of the Moscow Conservatory and a superb concert pianist. Tchaikovsky, then a professor at the Conservatory, hoped that Rubinstein would agree to be the soloist in the Concerto’s premiere.

But Rubinstein dismissed the Concerto as “worthless” and “unplayable.” In describing Rubinstein’s comments, Tchaikovsky told his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck: “I can’t convey to you the most significant thing—that is, the tone in which all this was delivered. In a word, any outsider who chanced to come into the room might have thought that I was an imbecile, an untalented scribbler who understood nothing, who had come to an eminent musician to pester him with his rubbish…”

According to Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein “said that if by such-and-such a date I would revise the concerto in accordance with his demands, then he would bestow upon me the honour of playing my piece in a concert of his.” Tchaikovsky responded: “I won’t change a single note, and I’ll publish it just as it is now!”

German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow was the soloist in the first performance of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. Tchaikovsky had long maintained tremendous admiration for Bülow, and dedicated the Concerto to him. Hans von Bülow gave the Concerto’s premiere while on an American concert tour. And so, one of the most beloved Russian piano concertos received its first performance on October 25, 1875; not in Tchaikovsky’s homeland, but in Boston, Massachusetts.

The American audiences immediately responded with tremendous enthusiasm to a work that remains one of the most beloved in the entire repertoire. As Tchaikovsky reported: “Each time Bülow was obliged to repeat the whole finale of my concerto! Nothing like that happens in our country.”

Tchaikovsky ultimately did pen some revisions to the Concerto for the score’s publication in 1879. In time, Nikolai Rubinstein reversed his scathing opinion of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto and even became one of its greatest interpreters.

The Concerto is in three movements. The first—by far the longest of the three—opens with one of the most beloved episodes in all of concert music (Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso). This famous sequence is, in fact, the introduction to the central portion of the opening movement (Allegro con spirito), whose first theme is based upon a Ukrainian folk melody. Muted pizzicato strings accompany the soloist flute’s dolcissimo introduction of the slow-tempo movement’s (Andantino simplice) principal melody. The whirlwind finale (Allegro con fuoco) is again based upon a Ukrainian folk tune. A more graceful melody makes a glorious reappearance at the work’s conclusion, capped by the soloist and orchestra’s breathless race to the finish.

Program notes by Ken Meltzer

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 (1877)

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7, 1833, and died in Vienna, Austria, on April 3, 1897. The first performance of the Symphony No. 2 took place in the concert hall of the Musikverein in Vienna on December 30, 1877, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. The Symphony No. 2 is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is forty minutes.

In 1870, Brahms wrote to conductor Hermann Levi: “I shall never write a symphony. You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him beside us.” The “giant” Brahms feared was Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), whose Nine Symphonies are a cornerstone of the orchestral repertoire. 

Although he attempted the composition of a symphony as early as 1854, it wasn’t until 1876 that the 43-year-old Brahms gathered the courage to complete his First (in C minor, Opus 68). The Symphony No. 1 received its premiere on November 4, 1876. The premiere and early subsequent performances were far from unqualified triumphs. Nevertheless, Brahms had finally cast aside his trepidation about composing in a genre that invited comparisons to Beethoven.

Brahms spent the following summer in Pörtschach, a tiny Austrian village on Lake Wörth. It was there, between the months of June and September 1877, that Brahms composed his Second Symphony. Brahms found Pörtschach a congenial place for musical inspiration. In addition to the Second Symphony, Brahms composed his Violin Concerto (1878), the G-Major Violin Sonata (1878-9), and Two Piano Rhapsodies (1879) while vacationing at the peaceful lakeside village.

The first performance of the Brahms Second Symphony took place on December 30, 1877, at the concert hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. The eminent conductor, Hans Richter, led the Vienna Philharmonic. 

The D-Major Symphony seems to reflect the composer’s relaxed state of mind during the happy summer of 1877. The lyrical character of the work—sometimes referred to as Brahms’s “Pörtschach” or “Pastoral” Symphony—certainly is in marked contrast to the storm and stress that pervades the C-minor First (although to be sure, the Second Symphony has its moments of conflict, particularly in the first two movements). 

Brahms referred to his Second Symphony as a “charming new monster” and, in typically self-deprecating fashion, told his friend, Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, that it was merely a little Sinfonia. That, of course, is hardly the case, and in spite of Brahms’s protestations to critic Eduard Hanslick that “there is nothing clever about it,” the Second Symphony is a remarkably intricate and unified composition. In its own genial fashion, the D-Major Symphony is as musically and dramatically rewarding as its heroic predecessor.

The Symphony No. 2 is in four movements. The first (Allegro non troppo) opens with the cellos and basses intoning a three-note motif that will reappear in various guises during the work. The movement also includes a waltz-like theme that recalls the composer’s beloved “Lullaby,” Opus 49, No. 4 (1868). The slow-tempo second movement (Adagio non troppo) alternates lyrical repose with moments of tension not resolved until the final bars. The third movement (Allegretto grazioso) opens with the oboe’s presentation of the sprightly principal melody that returns throughout, alternating with fleet interludes. The concluding movement (Allegro con spirito), the most cheerful finale among Brahms’s Four Symphonies, radiates energy and optimism from start to finish.

Program notes by Ken Meltzer