SEASON 3 EPISODE 9
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.
Today’s theme is “Out of Italy” — works by European composers who didn’t come from Italy but who either visited or were influenced by the country’s history, charm and/or its sunny climate.
Hugo Wolf grew up in the last quarter of the 19th century in Slovenia. which borders on Italy to the west, on Austria to the north, on Hungary to the northeast and on Croatia to the south and southeast, with a short coastline along the Adriatic Sea to the southwest.
Wolf is best known for his many song settings; the “Italian Serenade” you are about to hear is one of his very few chamber works.
Wolf composed his single-movement Serenade in G major, later titled “Italian Serenade,” in a burst of creativity over two days in May 1887. His inspiration, at least in part, was a poem by Joseph Eichendorff, which depicts a soldier’s love for a lady who lives in a castle and derives from Eichendorff’s novella about a young violinist who has left home to seek his fortune — an echo of Wolf's own life story.
Let’s hear the Euclid Quartet — violinists Jameson Cooper and Aviva Hakanoglu, violist Luis Enrique Vargas and cellist Justin Goldsmith — perform it in a recent issue on Afinat Records.
(HEGO WOLF’S “ITALIAN SERENADE”)
The Euclid Quartet performed the “Italian Serenade” by Hugo Wolf.
Igor Stravinsky composed his ballet “Pulcinella” on a suggestion from choreographer and impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who had had considerable success with a ballet based on harpsichord sonatas by Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti. He approached Stravinsky about doing something similar, based on the music of another 18th-century Italian, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
The result was Stravinsky’s first Neoclassic—or rather “neo-Baroque” — composition.
Stravinsky wrote 20 musical numbers based on Pergolesi’s works to fit Diaghilev’s scenario, based on the commedia dell’arte, an early theatrical form popular in Italy in the 16th-18th centuries focusing on stock characters. Pulcinella, also known as “Punch,” was one of the heroes.
Stravinsky subsequently compiled an 18 - movement symphonic suite that has been a concert-hall favorite; a five-movement Suite for violin and piano; a five-movement “Suite italienne” for cello and piano; and a six-movement “Suite italienne” for violin and piano, which is the version you will hear today. Violinist Itzhak Perlman joins pianist Bruno Canino in this Warner Classics recording.
(IGOR STRAVINSKY’S “SUITE ITALIENNE”)
That was violinist Itzhak Perlman and pianist Bruno Canino playing Igor Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne.”
Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky commemorated his visit to Rome in the winter of 1879-1880 by incorporating the music he heard there into his infectiously bright “Capriccio Italien.” His sources included Carnival celebrations Italian folk songs and dances and the daily bugle calls of a nearby cavalry barracks.
The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Eugene Ormandy give it a whirl in this classic RCA Red Seal recording.
(PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY’S “CAPRICCIO ITALIEN”)
Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien” 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—
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
German composer Richard Strauss, encouraged by Johannes Brahms, visited Italy in 1886; while still touring the countryside, he wrote a four-movement work that he titled “Aus Italien” — “From Italy.”
The first movement, “On the Campagna,” is a musical view of the sunny countryside. As the title of the second movement, “Amid Rome’s Ruins,” suggests, it muses upon the remains of the once-great empire. The third movement, “On the Shore of Sorrento,” is pastoral; the finale, “Neapolitan Folk Life,” extensively quotes what Strauss thought was a Neapolitan folk song, but is actually "Funiculi Funicula" by Italian composer Luigi Denise — who, by the way, sued Strauss for the use of his work … and won.
Andris Nelsons conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig in Strauss’ op.16 “Aus Italien” on a Deutsche Grammophone, part of a 7-CD box set of Strauss’ orchestral works.
(RICHARD STRAUSS’S “AUS ITALIEN”)
Andris Nelsons conducts the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig in Richard Strauss’ “Aus Italien” (“From Italy”) on today’s edition of Major and Minor Masterpieces.
German composer Felix Mendelssohn recorded impressions of his frequent travels through Europe in watercolors and sketches as well as in music — Among the results of his 1829 trip to Scotland are his Third Symphony, nicknamed “Scottish,” and his famous “Hebrides Overture,” also known as “Fingal’s Cave.”
The following year, in October 1830, Mendelssohn kicked off a 10-month tour of Italy. His trip resulted in his 1833 Symphony No. 4 in A major, branded now as his “Italian Symphony.” Mendelssohn provides symphonic glimpses of Mediterranean sunshine, religious solemnity, monumental art and architecture and open countryside; the last movement, a Neapolitan dance called the saltarello, rockets its madcap way to a lively finale that echoes the initial theme of the first movement in a minor key.
Herbert von Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in this classic recording on Deutsche Grammophon.
(FELIX MENDELSSOHN’S “ITALIAN SYMPHONY,” SYMPHONY NO. 4)
Herbert von Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a classic recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Italian Symphony,” the Symphony No. 4 in A major, op.90, on Major and Minor Masterpieces.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
Thanks for tuning in this week. 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.