Program Notes for April 29, 2023
written by RSO Principal Cellist Michael Beert
Discover the Wild Kenneth Fuchs
Composer: born July 1, 1956
Work composed: August – October 2007
First performance: Recorded for the Naxos Label in 2011 by the London Symphony Orchestra, JoAnn Falletta conducting
Instrumentation: two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings
Estimated duration: 5 minutes
This is the first Rockford Symphony Orchestra performance of this work
Kenneth Fuchs is a Grammy Award-winning composer and currently Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut. His works have been recorded several times on the Naxos label by the London Symphony Orchestra with JoAnn Falletta conducting. He writes extensively for orchestra, symphonic band, choir, chamber music, and voice. Dr. Fuchs is a graduate of the University of Miami (FL) and Julliard where he studied with some of the greatest American composers of the mid-twentieth century, including Milton Babbitt, David Diamond, and Vincent Perischetti. Fuch's music is characterized by a use of tonal and accessible writing style and a mastery of contrapuntal and fugal styles.
In 2006, Fuchs was asked to write music for a documentary titled "Discover The Wild" filmed in Wyoming. The documentary was to film the wildlife of the area and the composer was asked to supply the theme music, promotional music, and other parts to the series. The series did not materialize but Fuchs was able to use the material for a concert overture. The theme music for the documentary became the opening theme of the overture with other outtakes used for additional music for the piece. The overture used the series title "Discover the Wild" and was written in the fall of 2007 with a later version for symphonic band composed in 2010. He had the orchestral version recorded in London in 2011 at Abbey Road Studios.
In the composer's words, "It really is meant to be what the title says: representing the great outdoors, discovering the wild, energetic; an all-American piece to represent what the show was to be about."
Symphony No. 1 in E Minor Florence Price
Composer: born April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas; died June 3, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois
Work composed: January 1931 – February 1932
First Performance: June 15, 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fredrick Stock conducting
Instrumentation: two flutes, two piccolos, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings
Estimated duration: 38 minutes
This is the first Rockford Symphony Orchestra performance of this work
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Largo, maestoso
III. Juba Dance: Allegro
IV. Finale: Presto
Florence Beatrice Price (nee Smith) is known as a composer, music teacher, organist, and pianist who grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her father was a dentist and her mother, a pianist who taught the young Florence. She gave her first recital at the age of four and had her first work published at 11. She moved to Boston and studied music teaching and organ at the New England Conservatory of Music. Her composition and counterpoint studies were with the well-known composer George Chadwick.
She lived in Chicago from 1927 until her death in 1953. She is well-known for being the first Black woman to have her works performed by a major symphony orchestra, particularly, her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor. She composed many large-scale works as well as chamber music, piano, and organ works.
The First Symphony was submitted, along with other works by Price, to a then-famous music competition, the Wanamaker Foundation Awards. She was awarded $500 (almost $11,000 today) for her symphony and a promise to have the work premiered by a major symphony orchestra. This was achieved with the help of friends who encouraged Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to perform the work in June of 1933.
The reception of the piece was favorable with reviews commenting on its use of material from the African American experience, particularly the Juba Dance of the third movement. This was an African dance that used a steady drum beat with an upbeat tempo and infectious syncopated melody over it. Some critics compared the symphony to Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" with its references to melodies and harmonies derived from African-American music and with the key of E minor being the same to both works. Price's use of material is always original and stands on its own.
The work was largely forgotten by the time of her death and only recently has gained more attention. A large treasure trove of her music was found in her abandoned summer home in St. Anne, Illinois in 2009. The music critic Alex Ross has stated in his article in The New Yorker in February of 2018 "not only did Price fail to enter the canon; a large quantity of her music came perilously close to obliteration. That run-down house in St. Anne is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history." With this and hundreds of other performances of Price's works in the past 10+ years, America is getting to know what a gem Florence Price's music is and her importance to music.
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, B. 178 ("From the New World") Antonín Dvořák
Composer: born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Austrian Empire; died May 1, 1904 in Prague, Austrian Empire
Work composed: January – May 1893
First performance: December 16, 1893, at Carnegie Hall in New York City by the New York Philharmonic, Anton Seidl conducting
Instrumentation: two flutes, piccolo, two oboes (one doubling on English horn), two bassoons, four horns, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings
Estimated duration: 43 minutes
Most recent RSO performance: April 16, 2011, Steven Larsen conducting
I. Adagio, Allegro molto
II. Largo
III. Scherzo: Molto vivace
IV. Allegro con fuoco
Antonín Dvořák's rise to popularity and fame was not a quick one. It was not until he was in his 30s that he began to receive any kind of recognition as a composer. His first break was in 1874 when he entered works in the Austrian State Prize for Musical Composition. On the jury were none other than the Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick and the composer Johannes Brahms. So enamored were Brahms and Hanslick with Dvořák's entries that they awarded the prize to Dvořák and wrote letters of introduction for Dvořák to the music publishers, Simrock.
With the backing and mentorship of Brahms, Dvořák was finally able to make a living at musical composition. He began to receive commissions and notoriety not only in Prague and Vienna but also in London where he received an honorary doctorate at Oxford University.
One additional honor he was to receive was an offer of employment from the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. Dvořák was to be head of the Conservatory and composition teacher for the unheard-of sum of $15,000, the equivalent of $495,890 in today’s money! This was a position that was difficult for him to turn down. Dvořák accepted the position and was head of the school from 1892-1895.
The school was an important institution in the United States as it allowed and encouraged women and minorities to enroll. As a result, Dvořák came in to contact with students from different cultural backgrounds, including one student, Harry Burleigh, an African American who introduced Dvořák to spirituals and to Native American music. Dvořák was already in search of indigenous music of the United States and his relationship with Burleigh helped inspire him to write music that grew away from popular European classical music.
During this time in New York, Dvořák received a commission from the New York Philharmonic to write a new symphony that eventually became the Ninth. In it, Dvořák was interested in a synthesis of what were elements from the Old World with melodies and rhythms from the New World. It's as if to say he wanted American composers to stop copying European composers and to use the wealth of music found right here.
The day before the premiere, December 15, 1893, Dvořák was interviewed by the New York Herald newspaper where he described the new symphony as greatly influenced by Native American and African American music. None of the melodies found in the symphony are direct quotes but melodies inspired by the characteristics of these American sources, primarily through the use of pentatonic scales consisting of five notes. Many times, the harmonies derived from these scales can give the music its "bluesy" sound and feel.
The symphony is interesting as well from a structural and musical standpoint. The first movement features a short-long-short rhythm in the opening theme derived from an old African American dance called a cakewalk and a main theme on the pentatonic scale. The second movement includes a melody that would eventually become the popular spiritual “Goin’ Home.” In the Scherzo, Dvořák mixes pentatonic melodies with Czech furiant dance rhythms - alternating 2 and 3 beat patterns. The symphony closes with a Finale using simple American folk-like songs — one that even sounds like "Three Blind Mice" — and a restating of themes from previous movements in the closing section. All creating a powerful and yet nostalgic statement from this great Romantic and Nationalist composer.