Season Premiere
"Romantic Appetizers"
September/October 2010 -- Click on Concerts for performance dates and venues
Darius Milhaud
French, 1892 - 1974
Le Boeuf sur le Toit, Op. 58, “The Ox on the Roof” (1919)
 Described as “the composer who could swing,” Darius Milhaud was an eclectic genius who was at home with virtually everything, from classicism to modernist polytonality (simultaneous use of different keys), jazz to folklore, pop and rock to Brazilian style rhythmic and percussively intense music. Milhaud was born into a well-to-do family and absorbed music at home. His father was an accomplished amateur pianist and his mother, Italian by birth, a competent singer. Darius started piano at age 3 and picked up violin at seven. By age 17 in 1909 he knew he wanted to be a composer and enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, where he was exposed to new music including work of Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Paul Dukas.
In 1912 Milhaud met and developed a close friendship with poet-dramatist and diplomat Paul Claudel. Medically unfit for wartime service, Milhaud worked on behalf
of refugees and in the propaganda section of the Foreign Ministry. In 1917 diplomat Claudel became French Minister to Brazil and took Milhaud to Rio as an attaché. There Milhaud became infected by love for the passion and drive of Brazilian music.
He returned to Paris two years later, and for a period was associated with a group of modernist composers known as Les Six including Arthur Honegger and Francois Poulenc.
With the fall of France in 1940 Milhaud came to the United States, where he was warmly welcomed and taught at Mills College in Oakland, CA and for 16 summers at Aspen, CO. He returned to Paris in 1971. Remarkably prolific, Milhaud produced some 440 works including 12 numbered symphonies, six chamber symphonies, numerous concertos, ballets, some 23 movie film scores including Madame Bovary (1933), and more. Perhaps Milhaud’s best-known work today is a 1923 ballet, La Creation du Monde (The Creation of the World), inspired by Harlem and jazz - “Milhaud was there ahead of Gershwin.” “Eclectic” is truly the word for Milhaud.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Russian, 1840-1893
Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33 (1876)
 Tchaikovsky is the most popular Russian composer who ever lived. He synthesized Russian folk and other sentiments with the Western symphonic tradition. Not the happiest or healthiest of men, and perhaps conflicted over his homosexual nature, he wrote music much of which reflects pathos and sadness. But he was a master of happier moods as well, for example, the finales to his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, his Nutcracker Ballet and the 1812 Overture. He could bring out voices and sentiment from an orchestra in ways not previously heard. Despite his personal travails, Tchaikovsky and his music became popular far beyond Russia. In fact, in 1891 he participated as a conductor in the grand opening of Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Rococo Variations finds Tchaikovsky in a more lyrical, serene mode. “Rococo” refers both to a particularly ornamental art and architectural style deriving from the baroque, and a corollary musical style of the middle 18th century characterized by melody, harmony, ornamentation and clarity. The contrast between this piece and Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit could hardly be greater. Boeuf is a vigorous riot for the entire orchestra. Rococo Variations is a quieter piece showcasing the solo cello and other strings, plus woodwinds.
After a 16-measure orchestral preface the main melody emerges in the solo cello. Mozart, Beethoven and others tended to a symphonic style of relatively short phrases that then are elaborated and transformed. Tchaikovsky, in contrast, tended to write out longer flowing “conjunct” melody lines that are virtual orchestral songs. The main melody here is in that style, albeit with a slightly jouncy beat to it. Seven variations follow whose moods range in order as follows. Var. I - theme with ornamentation. Var. II - brisk. Var. III- steadily slow (andante sostenuto). Vars. IV and V - graceful, with virtuoso cello passages and lovely dialogue between cello and winds. Var. VI - walking tempo (andante). Var. VII - very fast (allegro vivo).
Robert Schumann
Austrian, 1810-1856
Symphony No. 1 in B-Flat, Op. 38, “Spring” (1841)
 Robert Schumann was born in Saxony, Germany, the son of a bookseller, and as he grew up Robert drank up literature and built a life-long expertise in that subject. But music was his deeper love. In his 20’s he abandoned law school to pursue music and composing. Aspiring to be a concert pianist, Schumann injured his right hand making it difficult for him to play well, and so he turned to composing. He turned also to music criticism, founding in 1834 what became the influential (“New Journal for Music”), which he edited to 1844. He was an early recognizer of the genius of personages such as Brahms and Chopin. Schumann met his future wife, Clara Wieck, around 1833 when she was 16 years old, and married her in 1840 over her father’s objections. Thus began a life-long partnership with Clara, herself one of the finest pianists of the period, who pushed and encouraged Robert in his compositional work. She came to outlive him by forty years and was always his biggest fan.
Schumann’s musical career went through stages: piano to 1839, then songs (lieder) synthesizing poetry and music, then orchestral and chamber works from 1841-42 on. During the one year 1840, Schumann wrote some 140 songs. In 1850 Schumann became music director at Düsseldorf, but his tenure was not auspicious due to failing health. On February 27, 1854 he attempted suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Rhine. Rescued, he spent the final 2 ½ years of his life in an asylum.
Schumann’s work includes four symphonies composed over ten years from 1841 and 1851. He began his First Symphony in late 1940 or early 1941 and in a frenzy of creativity sketched it out in only four days. He was under dual impulses: to write a symphony celebrating the oncoming season, and joy at winning the hand of his beloved Clara and sharing that first Spring with her as his wife. Schumann described that his intent was not to write a programmatic symphony emulating the sounds of Spring, but music that stood on its own in the spirit of that season. In large measure what emerged was a joyous symphony that can also be described as an “ode to rhythm,” as will be seen. The symphony premiered in Leipzig, Germany on March 31, 1841 under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn.
Andante un poco maestoso; Allegro molto vivace (rather majestically moderate; very lively fast). A slow horn and trumpet call opens the symphony followed by stately passages leading to the faster main part of this movement. The entry of that is unmistakable. The “ode to rhythm” here is a strong, fast four-note “dah DUM - dah DUM!” motif that pervades and unifies the entire movement. By contrast, the second movement (larghetto - “little largo,”slightly faster than very slow) is a conjunct, flowing song evocative of what would be the style of Tchaikovsky, who in 1841 was just an infant. This movement has been called a radiant hymn to Springtime.
The third movement, molto vivace (very lively), follows standard symphonic practice at the time of being a scherzo (literally, “joke”), comprising similar outer parts separated by a contrasting central portion called a trio. Schumann applies his own approach to this scherzo. We have another “ode to rhythm,” now a brisk, almost march-like “bah BAAH-bah!” motif unifying the movement. Secondly, Schumann uses two trios.
The fourth movement, allegro animato e grazioso (animatedly happy and graceful) begins with an orchestral eruption immediately transformed into a dancing, highly rhythmic theme. Again, rhythm pervades the whole movement. We are in the full joy of Springtime, trees budding, flowers blooming, birds singing, animals prancing, love is in the air.
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