Latin America meets Classical:Themes and variations

5 June 2018: Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon

• Aaron Copland – Three Latin American Sketches
• Lucía Caruso – ‘Light and Wind’ piano concerto (world premiere)
• Pedro H. da Silva – ‘Snow’, for Portuguese guitar and orchestra (world premiere)
• Lucía Caruso and Pedro H. da Silva (orchestrated by Pedro H. da Silva) – ‘Folía’, for Portuguese guitar, piano, and orchestra
• Aaron Copland – Appalachian Spring

In 1959 the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, asked me to write a short work for orchestra. The ‘Paisaje Mexicano’ and ‘Danza de Jalisco’ were completed in time for performance in July of that year…. Both pieces were first performed in the United States under [my] baton at a private invitation concert given by the Pan American Union in 1965…. [However, I] decided not to release the two movements for general performance before adding a third section. This was accomplished in 1971 with the completion of ‘Estribillo’, based on Venezuelan popular materials…. In 1968, a two-piano arrangement of the ‘Danza de Jalisco’ was published, with some revisions of the original orchestral version. These changes were later incorporated in the completed three-movement work, and the whole given the title ‘Three Latin American Sketches’.

Thus Aaron Copland introduced the first performance of his last composition for orchestra, by Andre Kostelanetz and the New York Philharmonic, on 7 June 1972. Lighter in nature than much of his earlier output – although he counselled that the Sketches are “not so light as to be pop-concert material” – they contain no hint of such finality.

As with many new works (even one with such a long gestation period), the handwritten, spiral-bound score used by Kostelanetz for the premiere (held online in the NY Phil archives) is brimming with last-minute amends and annotations; as well as details of what should appear in Boosey & Hawkes’ final printed version. Fascinating to follow for the purpose of penning a programme note; but – although it is apparent Kostelanetz knew Copland’s composition thoroughly – I would not have wished to conduct from it!

Leonard Bernstein’s marks on his score of Appalachian Spring are a little less dense. They reinforce, though, the almost incomprehensible amount of work that conductors must complete before they first stand in front of the orchestra: their understanding of what is now open before them on the podium exhaustive, but lacking one key ingredient: the similarly in-depth input and feedback which the other performers bring – and not just in rehearsal. One of the joys of live music is that no performance is ever fixed: a figurative hummingbird flapping its wings in the opening bars can bring happy innovation several pages later – and perhaps colour all that follows. So when you applaud Bruce, tonight: please do so with a little more awareness, perhaps; and even greater admiration!

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto:Themes and variations

15 May 2018: Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
23 May 2018: Town Hall, Birmingham
25 May 2018: Town Hall, Cheltenham

• Ludwig van Beethoven – Overture, ‘Coriolan’, op62
• Ludwig van Beethoven – Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello in C major, op56
• Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony no4 ‘Italian’ in A major, op90

When we are immersed in a great novel, we may wonder just how much of the author, or the author’s life, can be read within it. Likewise with poetry – although this does have an innate tendency to be autobiographical. But with music – unless we have documentary evidence; or the composer has also penned its lyrics – it is much harder to fathom. Many though have seen (or heard) tonight’s overture as a self-portrait: despite its front-and-centre reference to the Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus (or ‘Coriolan’, in German). With its occasional thematic reminders of the Fifth Symphony, written in the same year, 1807, there is no doubt that the work musically encompasses some form of desperate mental struggle. Whether that fight involves Beethoven facing his deafness; or the semi-legendary patrician as he matures from brute to peace-monger (under the onslaught of his mother’s and wife’s entreaties), is, though, solely for the listener to determine.

Notwithstanding, Mendelssohn’s marvellous symphony is definitely autobiographical: as we know, not only from the many letters he wrote to family and friends, but from the fact that it follows his well-recorded ‘grand tour’ around Europe – which included a lengthy period in Italy (as well as Scotland, of course)! Although it eventually closes in a minor key, there is little doubt of the happiness this journey brought its composer. The joyful music he wrote in response is (hopefully) truly infectious!

It is doubtful whether anything other than Beethoven’s innate genius attaches to the Triple Concerto, however; although the short central movement is extremely moving. Following the examples of Haydn’s and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertantes – for violin, cello, oboe and bassoon; and oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn; respectively – both performed by OOTS, last season – it contains some of its composer’s most awe-inspiring and enjoyable music. (It is a shame, therefore, that all three of these great composers’ concertos share another trait – that of underperformance – especially when placed side-by-side with this concert’s celebrated overture and symphony.)

Indubitably, though, it is music’s effect on the individual that is most meaningful. There is nothing wrong, therefore, with being cheered by Coriolanus’ fate (killed by his erstwhile allies, according to Shakespeare; nobly dying on his own sword, according to Heinrich Joseph von Collin – who supposedly influenced Beethoven); or with sobbing at the Saltarello which concludes the concert.

Italian Sunshine:Themes and variations

9 May 2018: Forum Theatre, Malvern Theatres

• Gioachino Rossini – Overture, ‘Italian Girl in Algiers’
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Piano Concerto no21 in C major, K467
• Felix Mendelssohn – Symphony no4 ‘Italian’ in A major, op90

Sitting down to write this on the first steadfastly sunny day of Spring, just over a month ago, the blue sky seen through my window – punctuated with only the occasional faint ellipsis of cloud – proved too much of a temptation: and I ventured outside, leaving my labour behind. There, I soon discovered that Winter was still making itself all too present: with its icy winds nibbling at my face and fingers, and the sodden turf beneath my feet oozing with the evidence of March’s heavy downpours. The sap was rising, though (even if the mercury wasn’t): the hellebores, daffodils and hyacinths were in full flower; our oak tree laden with buds; the jackdaws cautiously collecting its discarded twigs to reinforce their distant nests; the blackbirds, robins and finches singing heartily. The only music which came to my mind, though, was Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia antartica.

Back at my desk, I heard the central heating – the thermostat having been tickled by those brumal breezes – clear its lungs, and creak into action (like myself) once more. What was needed, of course – to truly fulfil the new season’s potential (and to thaw out my nose) – was such warmth. Not artificially generated though; but that which naturally coexists with the azure above and below the Mediterranean horizon; that which is embedded in that region’s winds – the zephyr, sirocco, and fittingly-styled maestro – that which bursts forth from tonight’s balmy programme!

Thus we have a concert not only of “sunshine” (Italian, certainly; but with a gentle touch of the Viennese, by way of Sweden) – but also wit (combined with subtle feminism); beauty (paired with virtuosity); and radiant joy (contrasted with brief stateliness). Oh, and youth! (Although how many concerts have you been to where Mozart is the senior composer – at the grand old age of twenty-nine?!)

As Mendelssohn (twenty-four, when tonight’s symphony was first performed) once wrote:

This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought… to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it. Today was so rich that now, in the evening, I must collect myself a little….

Even if the weather outside is frightful, I guarantee you will leave the theatre fully prepared for its onslaught: with a smile on your face; a tune (or two) on your lips; and warm sunlight in your heart.