Program Notes for September 9, 2023
Frenergy John Estasio
Composer: born April 8, 1966, Newmarket, Ontario.
Work composed: early 1998.
World premiere: March 20, 1998, with Grzegorz Nowak conducting the Edmonton Symphony (Canada).
Instrumentation: Pairs of woodwinds, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harp, and strings.
Estimated duration: 5 minutes
Rockford Symphony Orchestra premiere.
John Estacio is a Canadian composer who has received numerous awards for his works, including nominations for the prestigious Juno Awards given to Canadian musicians – the equivalent of the American Grammy Award. He has also received awards from the Canadian government including the 2017 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. He has been a composer in residence for such ensembles as the Calgary Philharmonic, the Calgary Opera, the Edmonton Symphony in Alberta, the Vancouver Opera in British Colombia, and the Cincinnati Ballet. Estacio has also received awards and commissions from the National Arts of Canada. His compositions have been performed by such groups as Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, National Arts Center Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Frenergy for orchestra was originally sketches the composer made for another work he was finishing at the time, his Triple Concerto. This concerto is written for Violin, Cello, and Piano with Orchestra and the music for Frenergy was to be used for the last movement of this concerto. It is interesting to note that the subsequent work on the program is the Beethoven Triple Concerto written for the same group of soloists!
In the composers' words: “The word Frenergy is meant to be a combination of the words “frenetic” and “energy” which were the two qualities I desired for the ending of the concerto.” It is a work that is in a fast 6/8-time signature with multiple accents creating a great deal of syncopation. After a thunderous percussive opening that establishes the predominant 6/8 rhythm, the strings play an orchestral tutti followed by a chromatic woodwind melody. This woodwind melody is frequently paired with the brass. A third melody is found in the flute that characterizes the 6/8 lilt of the piece. After frequent restless string passages, the work concludes with a forceful tutti accented by the pounding percussion from the beginning.”
Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 56 (“Triple Concerto”) Ludwig van Beethoven
Composer: born December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany. Baptized on December 17, 1770, but no official documentation of the birth exists. Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria.
Work composed: completed in 1803 and published in 1804.
World premiere: publicly premiered in 1808 in Vienna.
Instrumentation: one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.
Duration: 34 minutes.
I. Allegro
II. Largo (attacca)
III. Rondo alla Polacca
As is well known, Beethoven was a master at revolutionizing Classical forms. Especially in
the so–called “Heroic Period” from 1803 to approximately 1812. Previously, Beethoven had studied under various teachers in Vienna, including Franz Joseph Haydn and Antonio Salieri to learn a "Classical" approach to composition. During this period of study up to 1803, Beethoven learned all he could from his teachers while beginning to challenge the established forms of Mozart and Haydn.
From Haydn, Beethoven learned the importance of the Symphony and the String Quartet, but it was from Mozart that he learned the importance of the Piano Concerto. This form reduced the number of movements from the usual four down to three. The soloist was given space to show their technical virtuosity as well as musicianship. Beethoven had already by this time shown the Viennese public that he not only had musical and technical brilliance, but also had great improvisatory skills to wow an audience.
Mozart and others before him had written works featuring one soloist with orchestra, such as the piano, violin, or cello. Beethoven reached back to the Baroque Period (1600-1750) where composers created Concerto Grossi or works that featured two or more soloists. This type of work was forgotten or dismissed by Classical Period composers, perhaps out of practical necessities. With Beethoven, the idea was to place a Piano Trio (piano, violin, and cello) in front of an orchestra to create more tension and excitement.
The Triple Concerto falls beautifully in the “Heroic Period” as a piece that goes beyond what Haydn or Mozart would have written. This period contains some of Beethoven’s most experimental and popular works: The Third Symphony (“Eroica”), the Fifth Symphony (heard performed this November by the RSO!), the Sixth Symphony (“Pastoral”), Razumovsky String Quartets, The Third and Fourth Piano Concerti, and the Waldstein Piano Sonata. All written approximately at the same time. What wonderful companions to this revolutionary work!
The work opens with the theme played softly in the lower strings and gradually grows to a fierce tutti in fortissimo. The other themes are quickly stated before the soloists enter. Each soloist receives a chance to expand upon the themes stated earlier as well as interact as a trio and with orchestra. Interestingly, there is no cadenza in this movement or in the last.
The slow movement allows the trio to play cantabile or in a singing style and the movement goes directly into the Finale with the cellist acting as the transition to a Polacca or Polish dance in triple meter. In the premiere of the work in 1808, Beethoven was able to secure Nikolaus Kraft to perform the cello solo. He was known as a cellist of great technical brilliance and who was known personally to both Haydn and Mozart. The violin soloist was the great Carl August Seidler with Beethoven at the keyboard.
Symphony No. 1 in D Major ("Titan") Gustav Mahler
Composer: born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia, Austrian Empire. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria.
Work composed: late 1887 to March 1888.
World premiere: November 20, 1889, with the composer conducting the Budapest Symphony Orchestra in Budapest, Hungary.
Instrumentation: four flutes including piccolo, four oboes including English Horn, three clarinets including bass clarinet and E Flat clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, seven French Horns, five trumpets, four trombone and tuba. Two sets of timpani and percussion. Harp and strings.
Estimated duration: approximately 55 minutes.
I. Langsam. Immer sehr gemachlich (Slowly. Always unhurried)
II. Scherzo. Kräftig bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (Moving strongly, but not too quickly)
III. Feierlich and gemessen (Solemn and measured) - attacca
IV. Sturmisch bewegt (Stormily agitated)
Mahler wrote the First Symphony while he was second conductor in the Leipzig Opera House in Germany. The symphony originally was described by Mahler as Symphonic Poem, meaning that it had a story somehow connected to the four movements. Within a couple of performances, he withdrew this plan and simply called it a symphony. He did not want audiences to think the music told a story or that there were descriptive elements to it. He wanted audiences to appreciate it on its own merits. To help understand his thoughts on a program, he did supply one as follows:
Part I: From the days of youth, "youth, fruit, and thorn pieces".
• Spring and no end. This introduction describes the awakening of nature at the earliest dawn.
• Flowerine Chapter (Andante).
• Set with full sails (Scherzo).
The Flowerine Chapter refers to a movement that Mahler removed after revisions. This is the so-called “Blumine” movement that the RSO will perform separately later in the season.
Part II: Commedia umana (Human Comedy)
• Stranded. A funeral march in the manner of Callot. (A series of grotesque characters in a procession).
• Dall'inferno al Paradiso (From Hell to Heaven), as the sudden expression of a deeply wounded heart.
The remaining four movements do have a sense of linear plot but Mahler never quite gives us the details. The final movement being perhaps the most descriptive.
The first movement has an extraordinarily long introduction that mostly consists of a long-held A in the orchestra. Small melodic ideas appear against this drone note and eventually lead to a cello theme that sounds very much folk-music inspired. In much of Mahler’s early music, this use of folk music is a featured characteristic. He used music from a collection he put together called Das Knaben Wunderhorn or the Youth’s Magic Horn. This was a collection of simple songs from various sources. They are used in many of Mahler’s symphonies (numbers 1-5) and songs with orchestra (Songs of a Wayfarer, Ruckert Lieder, and Kindertotenlieder). Mahler is also known for the use of trumpet and horn calls that have a military-style to them. This can be thought of as autobiographical as he lived a large part of his childhood in Iglau, Austria, a military garrison. The first movement ends with a loud crescendo of sound in a rustic flurry.
The second movement (Full Sails) is an Austrian Landler dance or stylized Minuet/Trio. This movement is almost fast enough to be considered a Scherzo and many musicologists label it as one. The movement contains elements that are said to be from Viennese coffeehouse music in its charming, entertaining way. These elements can be found in the Trio section.
The third movement is very unique in symphonic literature. It starts with a solo in the Double Bass and is based on the French folk tune Frere Jacques or Brother John. However, it is in the minor key. There are a series of statements of the melody and the music is fugal. This interest in counterpoint will become a hallmark of Mahler in his later music. The music is interrupted at times by Jewish Klezmer music – listen for the clarinets and trumpets. Again, possible autobiographical elements as Mahler did grow up Jewish.
There is no break between the third movement and the Finale. It is announced by a cymbal crash that destroys the finality of the third movement. The opening of the fourth movement finds Mahler restating melodic material from the first movement but with greater urgency as if he were trying to start the listener in hell and hopefully progressing to a higher plateau. A second melody of great beauty is heard twice in the first half the work but is destroyed by the urgent four-note melody, in this movement, used fugally.
A brief moment of the opening first movement introduction is heard before one of the Deus ex machina moments occur (Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence). The moment is unmistakable. After this first time, the music descends again into despair through a shift to the minor key. After more fugal writing the four-note motive that is used throughout the work eventually builds up in intensity and changes to major. At this moment, the cymbals and brass announce the second Deus ex machina moment and the movement ends in a triumphant conclusion in one of the most powerful and glorious moments in all of classical music.