BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO. 7
Pasadena Symphony and Pops
Joseph Young, conductor
Randall Goosby, violin
JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Banner
BRAHMS
Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77
Allegro non troppo
Adagio
Allegro giocoso; ma non troppo vivace
INTERMISSION
BEETHOVEN
Symphony No.7 in A Major, Op.92
Poco sostenuto - vivace
Allegretto
Presto
Allegro con brio
PROGRAM NOTES
BANNer
JESSIE MONTGOMERY (b. 1983)
Jessie Montgomery composed Banner in 2014 as a tribute to the 200th anniversary of the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key (The melody is a bit older). It is a rhapsody based on the theme, drawing according to the composer, on musical and historical sources from various world anthems and patriotic songs. Montgomery attempts to answer the question: “What does an anthem for the 21st century sound like in today’s multi- cultural environment?”
Montgomery is a violinist, composer and educator with a graduate degree in Composition and Multimedia from New York University. She is a member of the Catalyst Quartet, and toured with cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. She performs and composes regularly for the Sphinx Organization.
Violin concerto in D Major, op. 77
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
One of the marks of great artists is accurate self-assessment, the knowledge of their strengths and limitations. Like Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, Brahms sought the advice of a leading violinist when he was composing a concerto for the violin, an instrument with which he was not intimately familiar. Brahms’s long-time friend Joseph Joachim, a Hungarian violinist, composer and educator who for over half a century was the world’s dominant violin virtuoso, was intimately involved in the concerto’s composition. Needless to say, Brahms dedicated it to him. Joachim gave the premiere on New Year’s Day, 1879.
The initial reception of the Concerto was respectful but cool. Its technical demands deterred many violinists, who dubbed it “Concerto against the Violin and Orchestra.” It is, like the other Brahms concerti, a true partnership between soloist and orchestra; virtuosity for its own sake is totally absent. Joachim attempted to have Brahms make it easier for the soloist, but the manuscript of the violin part in the State Library in Berlin, full of Joachim’s suggestions, shows that, in this case at least, the violinist seldom prevailed.
The sunny mood of the concerto is close to that of the Symphony No. 2 in D major, written shortly before. The dreamy opening of the lyrical first movement is gradually infused with joyous energy and culminates, after the cadenza, in a headlong rush to the finish by soloist and orchestra. Joachim wrote a large cadenza for this movement, which is still a favorite with soloists and audiences, although many violinists have written their own. Brahms’s original plan was for a concerto in four movements, including a scherzo. But he discarded the scherzo and the original slow movement because their style did not mesh with the rest of the work. The slow movement we have today opens with the solo oboe playing one of the most delicate and beautiful melodies in the literature. The violin then embellishes this melody with arabesques (florid ornamentation of a theme), maintaining its special relationship with the oboe throughout. The middle of the movement becomes more intense and dramatic, but Brahms never loses sight of the theme.
The fiery rondo-finale exploits the melodies and rhythms played by itinerant Rom (Gypsy) musicians in the cafés of central Europe. It is one of the few places where Joachim’s intervention attenuated the difficulties for the violinist. He managed to get Brahms to moderate the movement’s tempo by adding “ma non troppo” (but not too much) to the tempo indication Vivace.
Symphony no.7 in A major, op.92
Ludwig Van beethoven (1770-1827)
There is little information about Beethoven’s activities during 1812, the year of the composition of the Seventh Symphony. He was in poor health and while he produced little else that year, the Symphony makes up for in quality what was lacking in quantity. The year itself was momentous; the Russian winter had finally halted Napoleon in his eastward march of conquest, a fact that must have lightened Beethoven’s heart. Napoleon had been the composer’s hero, the intended dedicatee of his Third Symphony, but his insatiable lust for conquest and power was so disillusioning that Beethoven rescinded the dedication and harbored a lifelong grudge. The hardship resulting from Napoleon’s occupation of Vienna in 1809-10 added to his bitterness. The Seventh Symphony premiered on December 8, 1813 at a gala benefit concert of primarily Beethoven’s own works to aid the wounded of the latest battles against Napoleon.
Also on the program were Wellington's Victory (the" Battle Symphony"), celebrating another Napoleonic defeat, the Eighth Symphony and numerous smaller works. Beethoven – although profoundly deaf – directed an orchestra made up of Vienna’s most important musical celebrities: Louis Spohr, Domenico Dragonetti, Mauro Giuliani and Ignaz Schuppanzigh played in the strings; Giacomo Meyerbeer and Johann Nepomuk Hummel played timpani; Ignaz Moscheles played the cymbals, and even old Antonio Salieri was there, heading the percussion section.*
Each movement of the Seventh Symphony is dominated by a persistent rhythmic motive that – especially in the second movement – is equal in importance to the melodic content of the themes. Richard Wagner described the Seventh Symphony as "the apotheosis of dance in its loftiest aspects." The story goes that he once attempted to demonstrate this dance to the accompaniment of Liszt's piano playing.
The lengthy slow introduction, featuring some of the repertory’s loveliest oboe solos, contrasts in mood with the Allegro, which follows in lively 6/8 meter. The opening movement actually consists of a single complex theme held together by an underlying dotted rhythm in the accompaniment. The pulse extends throughout the entire movement and is only occasionally interrupted.
The theme of the second movement is minimal, a 4/4 ostinato consisting primarily of repeated pitches over which Beethoven adds counter-melodies and a buildup of the orchestration to create emotional tension. Beethoven’s innovative use of the rhythmic pulse in this movement influenced the Romantic composers who followed and served as a model for Schubert in his Symphony No. 9 in C major, “the Great.”
The Scherzo, in 3/4, is defined by driving quarter notes, dynamic contrasts and shifting rhythms. The trio, with its legato melody for the winds, provides the expected contrast, breaking away from the rhythmic pulse of the Scherzo.
The nineteenth-century musicologist Sir Donald Tovey described the finale as “A triumph of Bacchic fury.” The rondo theme, with its emphatic timpani part, resembles a stomping peasant dance – admittedly refined for the occasion.
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* Louis Spohr (1784-1859) was one of Paris’s most noted opera composers. Domenico Dragonetti (1763-1846) was a virtuoso double bass player and composer. Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) was a famous Italian guitar virtuoso and composer. Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776- 1830) was an Austrian violinist, who headed a string quartet for whom Beethoven wrote the three Op.59 quartets. Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1776-1837) was a composer and pianist remembered today mostly for his clarinet compositions. Pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) was a famous interpreter and editor of Beethoven’s music. And former court composer to the Hapsburg emperors, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) is familiar to music lovers for the fictional account of his rivalry with Mozart in the film Amadeus.
Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
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www.wordprosmusic.com