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March 2010 Concert Programme Notes
The Music Makers (Op 69), Elgar (1857-1934)
Elgar’s The Music Makers, a cantata for mezzo-soprano soloist, choir and
orchestra was based on a poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy who was adjudged a
considerable poet in his day and was employed as a copyist and later as a
zoologist at the British Museum. His ode We are the Music Makers was first
published in 1873. It is very much a poem of its time and in places difficult to
comprehend. Nevertheless Elgar thought highly of it and his musical setting,
completed in 1912, was first performed at the Birmingham Festival in October of
that year. The programme note written by Ernest Newman for the first performance
of the work mentions that ‘The motif of the poem is the idea that the poets –
the music makers and dreamers – are really the creators and inspirers of men and
their deeds, and the true makers of history and human societies. Their dreams
and their visions are the foreshadowings of what the rest of mankind are
pre-destined to work out in endless conflict’. Elgar dedicated the work to one
of his close friends, Nicholas Kilburn, an amateur musician of some distinction
who had directed many of his major choral works in the north of England.
Elgar had obtained permission to use O’Shaughnessy’s poem fours years earlier in
1908 and immediately found its mood attractive, because it portrays heroic
optimism coupled with nostalgia, melancholy and regret. Today, its aspirations,
clothed in dream-like fantasy, are occasionally regarded unfavourably, but a
substantial part of Elgar’s musical genius lay in exploring the symbolism of
dreams, particularly of course in his best known work The Dream of Gerontius.
After later performances, Kilburn spoke of how he had encouraged his choirs to
achieve ‘a subdued mystical treatment of certain parts of the work as though you
were in dreamland’, obviously referring especially to the quiet opening chorus,
‘We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams’. Other places where
this applies are in verse seven, ‘But we, with our dreaming and singing,
ceaseless and sorrowless we’, followed later by ‘O men! it must ever be that we
dwell, in our dreaming and singing, a little apart from ye’. Elgar wrote in the
foreword to the orchestral score, ‘In O’Shaughnessy’s Ode, music makers must
include not only poets and singers, but also artists who feel the tremendous
responsibility of their mission to “renew the world as of yore”. Therefore the
atmosphere of the music is mainly sad; but there are moments of enthusiasm, and
bursts of joy occasionally approaching frenzy which the creative artist suffers
in creating’.
Throughout the work Elgar includes musical quotations from his earlier works
(The Dream of Gerontius, The Enigma Variations, Sea Pictures, The Second
Symphony, and the Violin Concerto). Rule Britannia and The Marseillaise also are
hinted at to underline the fashioning of ‘an empire’s glory’. Some musical
authorities view all this as a weakness but the criticism is invalid. It is by
no means uncommon for composers, especially in their later years to look back
and quote from their previous works when appropriate (e.g. Richard Strauss,
Handel) or indeed to ‘borrow’ from other composers (Bach). Bearing in mind the
autobiographical links Elgar saw in the words, it was perfectly natural for him
to recall his earlier career through a series of musical quotations, and from a
listener’s point of view could be said to create added interest. Whatever the
current views of O’Shaughnessy’s poem, Elgar obviously felt a close affinity
with it and it undoubtedly inspired him to write some of his finest and most
imaginative music.
After the restless orchestral opening prelude (with prominent quotations from
Gerontius and The Enigma Variations), the mystical opening choral bars lead into
a fiery second verse which dreams of building the world’s great cities and
fashioning imperial glory. Thereafter, the mood and character of each verse is
superbly matched by the variety in Elgar’s music - sometimes nostalgic,
occasionally noble, and often thrilling in its splendour with spectacular
orchestral effects. At times it is excitingly patriotic and march-like but
regularly returns to the quiet, dream-like introspection and longing for times
past as expressed in the final stanza, ‘We cry to the comers from the dazzling
unknown shore; Bring us hither your sun and your summers and renew our world as
of yore’.
The great irony is that within a few years of this musical gem being created in
1912, the world as Elgar knew it was turned upside down and his “world of yore”
was gone for ever.
Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, Borodin (1833-1887)
Alexander Borodin was part of a group of five quite remarkable Russian
composers - remarkable in that all but one, though immensely talented amateur
musicians, were highly qualified in disciplines other than musical composition.
Their distinguished careers ranged from army officer (later civil servant) to
engineering professor and military general, from naval officer to chemistry
professor – but common to all was an innate musical ability and a deep interest
in Russian history, literature, folk music and folk lore generally. Their
attempts at musical composition, whether written in off-duty moments, (or later
in life, when one or two undertook career changes to become full-time
composers), are strongly based on Russian folksong and dance and thereby
emphasise two of music’s most appealing characteristics: lyrical melody and
foot-tapping rhythm.
Borodin was a medical doctor and chemist by profession and was initially
educated at home by his mother. He was apparently an imaginative child, learnt
the piano and showed an early passion for music. While still a child, he also
began to take an interest in chemistry. This eventually exceeded his enthusiasm
for music which became more like a relaxation from his scientific work. In 1869,
whilst lecturing as professor of chemistry at the School of Medicine and writing
treatises on his subject, he ambitiously began work on an opera entitled Prince
Igor, writing in whatever spare time he could find. Despite ever-increasing
scientific demands he gathered materials, studied literary sources, and visited
historical sites associated with the tale of Igor, a 12th century Russian
warrior hero, captured by the Polovtsians, a tribe of nomadic invaders of
Russia. (Igor, against all advice, had insisted on pursuing the Polovtsians, who
earlier had been driven away from his territory, but paid for his bravado by
being defeated and captured.) The conditions in captivity appear to have been
quite congenial and the Polovtsian leader, Khan Konchak, regarded Igor more as
honoured guest than enemy prisoner. He generously offered him anything he
desired to make his captivity less irksome, even his liberty if he would pledge
his word not to make war again. Igor refused, admitting that if freed he would
immediately raise an army and march against him once more. The Khan appeared to
like his ‘guest’s’ frankness and gave orders that the dancing and singing
prisoners should be brought in to perform for their joint entertainment. It is
at that point that the now famous ‘Polovtsian Dances’ begin and they make a
thrilling finale to the second act of the opera.
The music of the dances ranges from soft enticing romantic melody to strongly
rhythmic and vigorous dance sections. After the opening gentle section in which
the captive Russian maidens sing nostalgically of their distant homeland, the
tempo quickens considerably and launches an energetic movement which soon
becomes a paean of praise to the Khan. He is described, amongst other things, as
‘peerless’, ‘glorious’, ‘ruthless’, and ‘mighty’, and the music brilliantly
matches the imagery. The gentle opening theme then returns briefly as the
maidens think again of their far-away homes and longed-for freedom ‘beyond the
Caspian sea’. Inevitably Khan Konchak has the final say and the piece concludes
with another forceful section in his praise, but also includes - for insurance
purposes - the hope that the prisoners’ singing and dancing has met with the
full approval of their master.
Borodin never completed his opera. He worked on it spasmodically but with his
scientific commitments and many other interruptions it was still far from
finished at his death. However the Polovtsian Dances remain some of the most
compelling pages.
Choral Fantasia in C minor Op. 80, Beethoven (1770-1827)
To have attended a concert in the Vienna Theater an der Wien, on 22nd
December 1808, would have been for many reasons a memorable event in any
music-lover’s experience. For one thing, a great deal of stamina would have been
needed by performers and audience alike. It was bitterly cold; the concert
lasted over four hours and included music that was almost totally unfamiliar.
The programme consisted of two symphonies, a piano concerto, three movements
from a Mass, other sundry pieces of vocal music and a piano improvisation – all
the work of one composer. Not wishing to short-change his audience and bearing
in mind there was on stage and ready to hand a full choir, vocal soloists, large
orchestra and a piano soloist, the composer and arranger of this gigantic
concert conceived a grand finale using all the forces. The man responsible for
all this was Beethoven, and the event has become recognised as something of a
milestone in musical history. The two symphonies, both world premieres, were the
mighty 5th and pastoral 6th, the piano concerto was the 4th, (receiving its
first local performance), with Beethoven himself as soloist, and the choral
contribution was three movements from the Mass in C. The final piece, specially
composed for the occasion, that brought together all the singers and
instrumentalists, was the Choral Fantasia. The entire event represented a
gargantuan feast of Beethoven’s own music.
Having decided to compose the Choral Fantasia as the grand finale, Beethoven
left himself little time to complete the task, and there were some interesting
consequences in the concert. For one thing, Beethoven who was the solo pianist
had unwisely not written out the rhapsodic opening section and improvised it on
the night (only later did he write out a version for publication). The late
completion of the piece meant it was very much under-rehearsed, the orchestra
lost its way in the performance, (apparently some players were also playing the
wrong music) and had to re-start. It is not surprising that the work made little
impact at the time, though it has since gained greatly in significance, mainly
because it can now be seen as an experimental outing of an idea that was already
in Beethoven’s mind, that of creating an instrumental piece with a choral
ending. That idea finally came to fruition in 1824 in his mighty 9th symphony
(The Choral) but there are many parallels with that towering work and the
lighter and much earlier Choral Fantasia. Unlike the 9th symphony, the Choral
Fantasia is something of a hybrid in that it is a mixture of a piano fantasia
that develops into something approaching a piano concerto and ends with a short
choral finale.
The piece begins with the fantasy-like piano solo and when the orchestra joins,
the composition turns into a set of variations for piano and orchestra on a
simple song melody (Gegenliebe) that Beethoven had written in the early 1790s.
The variations themselves mostly follow the accepted practices of the time e.g.
melodic, harmonic, tonality etc. and are not especially profound, but the piano
part throughout is never less than demanding both musically and technically. The
variation theme itself bears a striking resemblance to the principal melody
Beethoven wrote for the finale of the 9th symphony but instead of using
Schiller’s Ode to Joy as the text for the choral section, Beethoven commissioned
words from the poet Christoph Kuffner for the final part of the Fantasia. The
chorus’s music recapitulates much of what has gone before with the variation
theme very much to the fore. In the final bars the speed increases dramatically
and all ends with a proclamation of universal joy, yet another parallel with the
9th symphony.
There is no doubt that the Choral Fantasia has subsequently been overshadowed by
Beethoven’s towering achievement of the 9th symphony with its extraordinary
vocally testing and dramatic choral finale. But it is interesting to speculate
on whether that milestone in music would have happened at all without the
earlier attempt in the Fantasia. Probably not, as there is much evidence in and
affinity between the two works to support the premise that Beethoven’s early
experimental ideas, developed over sixteen years but first seen in the Fantasia,
certainly played an important part in his thinking and the eventual creation of
that later famous work.
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