SEASON 3 EPISODE 1
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to “Major and Minor Masterpieces,” where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
This week we focus on two pieces titled “symphony” but are really something else: programmatic works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss that fit somewhere between symphony and tone poem. Both are works you won’t hear often on the radio and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Tchaikovsky wrote his “Manfred” Symphony between his symphonies number four and five, and while both those works had programmatic elements, it is his only true “program” symphony. It involves the use of a recurrent motto theme that appears with intervals throughout, recalling the idée fixe technique that Berlioz developed for his “Symphonie fantastique.”
In fact, the idea for the “Manfred” Symphony was a direct consequence of Berlioz’s second and last visit to Russia, in 1867-68, in which he conducted his viola-obbligato “Harold in Italy” that we included in Season 1.
Russian critic Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov attended a performance and perceived in Lord Byron’s drama-poem “Manfred” just the kind of material suitable for this kind of programmatic treatment. He contacted composer Mily Balakirev and handed him this plotline:
Part 1. Manfred, his life shattered, wanders through the Alps, recalling his ideal, Astarte, to be represented by an idea fixe, in much the same way Berlioz did in “Symphony Fantastique” to represent the principal’s beloved. Part 2. Manfred encounters a group of Alpine hunters with a “simple way of life, good nature and straightforward patriarchal society.” Part 3. An Alpine fairy appears to Manfred in a rainbow formed by the spray of a waterfall. Part 4. “A wild, unrestrained Allegro full of savage dash” depicts a scene in the underground palace of the infernal Arimanes.
Balakirev wasn’t disposed to attempt the music himself and instead suggested it to Berlioz, who, old and sick, turned it down. Fourteen years later, however, his memory jogged by Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem “Francesca da Rimini,” Balakirev proposed the project to Tchaikovsky, who, though he was initially not enthusiastic, eventually changed his mind and created a four-movement dramatic work he called his “Manfred” Symphony.
He made only one major change in Stasov’s original program, swapping Manfred’s encounter with the Alpine hunters as the third movement and the vision of the Alpine fairy in the waterfall as the second. You will hear the Manfred theme (the idée fixe) at the very outset in the bass clarinet and bassoon.
By the way, “Manfred” was also an inspiration to fellow Romantic composer Robert Schumann, who some 35 years earlier wrote an extensive concert overture based on the poem.
Thanks to Decca for these program notes.
Eugene Ormandy conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in this 1976 recording, part of a 12-disc Sony Classics Tchaikovsky box set.
(PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY’S “MANFRED”)
ERIC: Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s “Manfred” Symphony on Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
Eric, let’s talk about the actual act of composing and performing music. It’s estimated that approximately only 25% of Americans can read music proficiently. So today, we’re taking it back to the basics. Eric and I are going to discuss one of the most important parts of writing and reading sheet music, the “clef.” So Eric, refresh our memories, what is a “clef” and how does it affect what we hear in music?
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
A clef is a significant part of musical notation. Since at least the Baroque era, notation uses five parallel lines, on which the composer places notes, each note corresponding to its place in one of three standard “clefs” (that’s based on the Latin word for “key”). In the G, or treble clef, which you would recognize if you play, say, violin or the top line on the piano or if you sing soprano, alto or tenor, the lines represent the notes E, G, B, D and F (the mnemonic is “every good boy does fine”). You would read from the F, or bass, clef, if you played cello or the bottom piano line or sing bass; the lines represent the notes G, B, D, F and A (the mnemonic for that: "Good Boys Do Fine Always" or, and this one was new to me, "Grizzly Bears Don't Fear Anything”). In between, you have the C clef, sometimes known, depending on where middle C is placed, as tenor or alto clef, mostly familiar for the players of the viola and sometimes bassoon and trombone.
SARAH: Thanks, Eric, for refreshing our memory of this “key” term.Let us know if you feel the same and if you’d like us to dive into any other more practical musical education. We’d love to make music history and terminology more accessible in any way we can. Feel free to email us at majorandminormasterpieces@littlerockpublicradio.org. Now let’s get back to another of our “Major and Minor Masterpieces.”
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Richard Strauss’ oeuvre nowadays is mostly represented in his operas but particularly in his tone poems, a genre he basically established in the symphonic repertoire. They range from shorter, lighter-spirited early works, including “Don Juan” and “Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” to the massive, semi-autobiographical masterpieces “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (“Thus Spake Zarathustra,” the opening passage of which is readily recognizable as the theme for the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey:) and "Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life,” in which Strauss himself, of course, is the hero).
“An Alpine Symphony” is Strauss’ last, and biggest, effort in the form. Written in 1915, it musically depicts from his childhood a day-long mountain-Alpine climb. The massive orchestration calls for as many as 140 players. The 23-movement work starts out with a “night” theme, evolving into a glorious sunrise, and depicts the climb through a series of scenes.
Andres Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony in this recent recording, part of a 7-CD Deutsche Grammophon box set that includes the complete Strauss tone poems and a lot more music besides.
(RICHARD STARUSS’ “ALPINE SYMPHONY”)
ERIC: You’ve heard the Boston Symphony and conductor Andres Nelsons perform Richard Strauss’ “Alpine Symphony” on today’s episode of “Major and Minor Masterpieces.”
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Thanks for tuning in to this week’s show. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.