SOFIA GUBAIDULINA
composer
(1931, Chistopol, Russia)
FAIRYTALE POEM
COMPOSED: 1971
PREMIERED: November 21, 1971 on a radio broadcast by the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxim
Shostakovich
DURATION: ca. 12 minutes
SCORING: three flutes, three clarinets, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, two harps and strings
Overview
Sofia Gubaidulina, born in Chistopol on October 24, 1931, is among the handful of composers from the former Soviet Union whose
music has gained widespread notoriety in the West. Her father was descended from the ancient lineage of Genghis Khan’s Tatar
tribes and her mother was a Russian Jew; Gubaidulina once described herself as the place where East and West meet. She studied
piano and composition at the Kazan Music Academy (1946-1954) before attending the Moscow Conservatory from 1954 to 1962 as
a student of Nikolai Peiko (an assistant of Shostakovich) and Vissarion Shebalin. In 1975, she founded, with Victor Suslin and
Vyacheslav Artyomov, the ensemble “Astreya,” which specialized in improvisation and special performance techniques using folk
instruments from Russia and central Asia.
Gubaidulina’s music shows the wide range of influences inherent in the diverse cultural backgrounds of her parents, as well as a
dedication to self-expression and avant-garde techniques that in 1980 earned for her a denunciation by Tikhon Khrennikov, the
Communist Party’s musical spokesman. It was only with the fall of the Soviet Union and her move to Germany in the early 1990s
that her music received full recognition at home, though her reputation in the West grew quickly after she attended the Boston
Festival of Soviet Music in 1988. She has since fulfilled prestigious commissions from the Berlin, Helsinki, Lucerne and Holland
Festivals, Library of Congress, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh
Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, International Bachakademie Stuttgart, Norddeutschen Rundfunk (Hamburg) and many other
distinguished organizations and ensembles. Gubaidulina is a member of the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Freie Akademie der
Künste (Hamburg), Royal Music Academy (Stockholm) and German order Pour le Mérite. Her many other distinctions include the
Koussevitzky Prize, State Prize of Russia, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale, Prix de Monaco, Sonning Prize (Denmark), Polar Music
Prize (Sweden), Living Composer Prize of the Cannes Classical Awards, and honorary degrees from Yale University, University of
Chicago and Kazan Conservatory. In 2004 she was elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, in 2007 she became the first female composer to be featured at the BBC’s annual “Composer Weekend” in London, and in
2011 she received the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Biennale di Venezia.
Gubaidulina’s creative work is driven by her own personal philosophical, spiritual, religious and poetic convictions. “I am a
religious person,” she maintains, “and by ‘religion’ I mean ‘re-ligio,’ the ‘re-tying’ of a bond ... restoring the legato of life.”
(Legato, the common musical instruction for “smooth,” is the Italian word meaning “tied together.”) Gubaidulina wrote further of
her creative voice: “To my mind, the ideal relationship to tradition and to new compositional techniques is one in which the artist
has mastered both the old and the new, though in a way which makes it seem that he is taking note of neither the one nor the other.
There are composers who construct their works very consciously; I am one of those who ‘cultivate’ them. For this reason,
everything I have assimilated forms, as it were, the roots of a tree, so that the work becomes its branches and leaves. One can indeed
describe them as being new, but they are leaves nonetheless, and, seen in this way, they are always traditional and old. Dmitri
Shostakovich and Anton Webern have had the greatest influence on my work. Although my music bears no apparent traces of their
influence, these two composers taught me the most important lesson of all: to be myself.”
What To Listen For
Gubaidulina composed Fairytale Poem in 1971 for a radio broadcast featuring a traditional Czech story known as The Little Chalk,
which she saw as a parable about an artist’s destiny. She summarized the narrative mirrored in her music: “The main character is a
small piece of chalk used for writing on school chalkboards. The chalk dreams that someday it will draw wonderful castles,
beautiful gardens with pavilions, and the sea. But, day in and day out, it is forced to write boring words, numbers and geometric
figures on the board. The children grow with each day, but the chalk becomes smaller and smaller. The chalk gradually becomes
despondent and loses all hope of ever having a chance to draw the sun and the sea. Soon it will be so small that it will no longer be
used in the school classroom and will end up being thrown away. Then the chalk finds itself in total darkness and thinks that it has
died. But what it thought was the darkness of death is actually the inside of a boy’s trouser pocket. The boy pulls the chalk out of
his pocket and in the light of day begins to design castles, gardens with pavilions, and the sea with the sun, on the asphalt. The chalk
is so happy that it does not notice how it meets its end while drawing this beautiful world.”
PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
composer
(1840, Votkinsk, Russia — 1893, St. Petersburg)
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN B-FLAT MINOR, OP. 23
COMPOSED: 1874-1875
PREMIERED: October 25, 1875 in Boston, with Hans von Bülow as soloist
DURATION: ca. 32 minutes
SCORING: woodwinds and trumpets in pairs, four horns, three trombones, timpani and strings
Overview
These days, when the music of Tchaikovsky is among the most popular in the repertory, it is difficult to imagine the composer as a
young man, known only to a limited public and trying valiantly to solve that most pressing of all problems for the budding artist —
making a living. In 1874, he was teaching at the Moscow Conservatory and writing music criticism for a local journal. These duties
provided a modest income, but Tchaikovsky’s real interest lay in composition, and he was frustrated with the time they took from
his creative work. He had already stolen enough hours to produce a sizeable body of music, but only Romeo and Juliet and the
Symphony No. 2 had raised much enthusiasm. At the end of the year, he began a piano concerto with the hope of having a success
great enough to allow him to leave his irksome post at the Conservatory. By late December, he had largely sketched out the work,
and, having only a limited technique as a pianist, he sought the advice of Nikolai Rubinstein, Director of the Moscow Conservatory
and an excellent player. Tchaikovsky reported on the interview in a letter:
“On Christmas Eve 1874 ... Nikolai asked me ... to play the Concerto in a classroom of the Conservatory. We agreed to it.... I
played through the first movement. Not a criticism, not a word. Rubinstein said nothing.... I did not need any judgment on the
artistic form of my work; there was question only about its mechanical details. This silence of Rubinstein said much. It said to me at
once: ‘Dear friend, how can I talk about details when I dislike your composition as a whole?’ But I kept my temper and played the
Concerto through. Again, silence.
“‘Well?’ I said, and stood up. There burst forth from Rubinstein’s mouth a mighty torrent of words. He spoke quietly at first; then
he waxed hot, and at last he resembled Zeus hurling thunderbolts. It appeared that my Concerto was utterly worthless, absolutely
unplayable; passages were so commonplace and awkward that they could not be improved; the piece as a whole was bad, trivial,
vulgar. I had stolen this from that one and that from this one; so only two or three pages were good for anything, while the others
should be wiped out or radically rewritten. I cannot produce for you the main thing: the tone in which he said all this. An impartial
bystander would necessarily have believed that I was a stupid, ignorant, conceited note-scratcher, who was so impudent as to show
his scribble to a celebrated man.”
Tchaikovsky was furious, and he stormed out of the classroom. He made only one change in the score: he obliterated the name of
the original dedicatee — Nikolai Rubinstein — and substituted that of the virtuoso pianist Hans von Bülow, who was performing
Tchaikovsky’s piano pieces across Europe. Bülow gladly accepted the dedication and wrote a letter of praise to Tchaikovsky as
soon as he received the score: “The ideas are so original, so powerful; the details are so interesting, and though there are many of
them they do not impair the clarity and unity of the work. The form is so mature, so ripe and distinguished in style; intention and
labor are everywhere concealed. I would weary you if I were to enumerate all the characteristics of your work, characteristics which
compel me to congratulate equally the composer and those who are destined to enjoy it.”
After the scathing criticism from Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky was delighted to receive such a response, and he was further gratified
when Bülow asked to program the premiere on his upcoming American tour. The Concerto created such a sensation when it was
first heard, in Boston on October 25, 1875, that Bülow played it on 139 of his 172 concerts that season. (Remarkably,
Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto was also premiered in this country, by Madeleine Schiller and the New York Philharmonic
Society conducted by Theodore Thomas on November 12, 1881.) Such a success must at first have puzzled Rubinstein, but
eventually he and Tchaikovsky reconciled their differences over the work. Tchaikovsky incorporated some of his suggestions in the
1889 revision, and Rubinstein not only accepted the Concerto, but eventually made it one of the staples of his performing repertory.
During the next four years, when Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake, the Rococo Variations, the Third and Fourth Symphonies, the
Violin Concerto, and, in 1877, met his benefactress Nadezhda von Meck, he was not only successful enough to leave his teaching
job to devote himself entirely to composition, but he also became recognized as one of the greatest composers of his day.
What To Listen For
Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto opens with the familiar theme of the introduction, a sweeping melody nobly sung by violins
and cellos above thunderous chords from the piano. After a brief cadenza for the soloist, the theme — which is not heard again
anywhere in the Concerto — is presented a second time in an even grander setting. Following a decrescendo and a pause, the piano
presents the snapping main theme. (Tchaikovsky said that this curious first theme was inspired by a tune he heard sung by a blind
beggar at a street fair.) Following a skillful discussion of the opening theme by piano and woodwinds, the clarinet announces the
lyrical, bittersweet second theme. A smooth, complementary phrase is played by the violins. This complementary phrase and the
snapping motive from the main theme are combined in the movement’s impassioned development section. The recapitulation
returns the themes of the exposition in altered settings. (The oboe is awarded the second theme here.) An energetic cadenza and a
coda derived from the second theme bring this splendid movement to a rousing close.
The simplicity of the second movement’s three-part structure (A–B–A) is augured by the purity of its opening — a languid melody
wrapped in the silvery tones of the solo flute, accompanied by quiet, plucked chords from the strings. The piano takes over the
theme, provides it with rippling decorations, and passes it on to the cellos. The center of the movement is of very different
character, with a quick tempo and a swift, balletic melody. The languid theme and moonlit mood of the first section return to round
out the movement.
The crisp rhythmic motive presented immediately at the beginning of the finale and then spun into a complete theme by the soloist
dominates much of the last movement. In the theme’s vigorous full-orchestra guise, it has much of the spirit of a robust Cossack
dance. To balance the impetuous vigor of this music, Tchaikovsky introduced a contrasting theme, a romantic melody first entrusted
to the violins. The dancing Cossacks repeatedly advance upon this bit of tenderness, which shows a hardy determination to
dominate the movement. The two themes contend, but it is the flying Cossacks who have the last word to bring this Concerto to an
exhilarating finish.
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK
composer, conductor
(1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia — 1904, Prague)
SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN D MAJOR, OP. 60
COMPOSED: 1880
REMIERED
P
: March 21, 1881 in Prague, conducted by Adolf Čech
DURATION: ca. 40 minutes
CORING
S
: woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings
Overview
For the extraordinary man who described himself as “just an ordinary Czech citizen,” patience had its reward — Dvořák was
nearing forty before he received any satisfying recognition for his music. In 1877 he submitted his set of Moravian Duets to a
government commission in Vienna that was seeking to identify and encourage new composers throughout the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. The charming Duets scored a palpable hit. The conductor-pianist and commission member Hans von Bülow wrote to
Dvořák, “Next to Brahms, [you] are the most God-gifted composer of the present day.” Brahms, also on the panel, adopted Dvořák
as a protégé — he told his publisher, Fritz Simrock of Berlin, that he was to add the Czech composer to his roster, and commission
from him some Slavonic Dances to be issued immediately. (Much of Simrock’s profit, as may be imagined, came from Brahms’
music.) The Dances and three Slavonic Rhapsodies for orchestra were completed and published in 1878, and proved to be among
Simrock’s most popular and lucrative ventures. (Dvořák sold these works for a flat fee, and did not share in the considerable fortune
generated by his own music.) “I can hardly tell you, esteemed Master,” Dvořák wrote to Brahms, “all that is in my heart. I can only
say that I shall all of my life owe you the deepest gratitude for your good and noble intentions towards me, which are worthy of a
truly great man and artist.” Dvořák’s renown, which was to carry him through, as he called it, “the great world of music,” dates
from his meeting with Brahms and the international success of the evergreen Slavonic Dances.
On November 16, 1879 Dvořák was in Vienna for a performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Hans Richter of his
Slavonic Rhapsody No. 3, “which was very well received,” he reported. “I was called before the audience. I was sitting beside
Brahms at the organ and Richter pulled me forward. I had to come out. I must tell you that I won the sympathy of the whole
orchestra at a stroke and that, of all the new pieces they had tried, and Richter told me that there had been sixty, my Rhapsody was
liked the best. Richter actually embraced me on the spot and was very happy, as he said, to know me, and promised that the
Rhapsody would be repeated at a special concert at the Opera House. I had to assure the Philharmonic that I would send them a
symphony for the next season. The day after the concert, Richter gave a banquet at his house, to which he invited all the Czech
members of the orchestra. It was a grand evening which I shall not easily forget for as long as I live.”
By 1880 Dvořák had already completed five symphonies — all unpublished — but did not feel them representative of his best
achievements, so he chose to write a new work for Vienna. He could not take up the score until the following August, but once
begun he progressed rapidly on it: the sketch was completed in just three weeks and the orchestration in another three (on October
15, 1880), though the composer’s student and biographer Karel Hoffmeister noted that the music “had been slowly maturing in
Dvořák’s mind.” Dvořák took the score at once to Vienna to play at the piano for Richter, who, the composer wrote to his friend
Alois Goebl, “liked it very much indeed, so that after every movement he embraced me.” The premiere, by Richter and the
Philharmonic, was set for December 26th.
Shortly before the scheduled premiere date, Richter informed Dvořák that the performance would have to be postponed because
there was no time to rehearse and perform the music in the Philharmonic’s busy schedule. (The Philharmonic was, and is, a selfgoverning orchestra whose members are mainly employed as the ensemble of the Vienna Opera. Their heavy commitments allow
them to give only a limited number of concerts every season.) The premiere was put off until March, Richter counseling that
introducing such a grand and worthy new work during the frivolous carnival season of January and February was inappropriate.
Pleading personal and family problems, however, Richter once again canceled the first performance, and Dvořák started to ask
some questions of his Viennese friends. It seemed that there was sufficient anti-Czech feeling in those politically volatile days of
the Dual Monarchy to cause local resentment against a young Czech composer who would have two important premieres in
successive years. Dvořák, who had no taste for such quintessentially Viennese political machinations, gave the honor of the
Symphony’s premiere to the Prague Philharmonic and conductor Adolf Čech, with whom he had played in the viola section of the
orchestra of the National Provisional Theater in Prague earlier in his career. The work was first heard on March 25, 1881, in Prague.
Despite his difficulties in getting the Symphony produced, Richter remained its ardent champion. Dvořák inscribed the score with a
dedication to the conductor, and had Simrock send him one of the first copies. “On my return from London I find your splendid
work awaiting me, whose dedication makes me truly proud,” Richter wrote to Dvořák in January 1882. “Words do not suffice to
express my thanks; a performance worthy of this noble work must prove to you how highly I value it and the honor of the
dedication.” Richter finally conducted the Symphony on May 15, 1882, in London.
Following soon after the appearance of the widely popular Slavonic Dances, Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony scored another immediate
success. “No sooner was it published,” wrote Karel Hoffmeister, “than it made its way abroad to Leipzig, Rostock, Graz, Cologne,
Frankfurt, New York [in 1883; Dvořák conducted it there in 1892, during the first year of his American sojourn] and Boston, finally
attracting even the reserved public of England.” Though Dvořák had written five (then unpublished) symphonies before this one,
the score was issued as “Symphony No. 1,” a situation arousing some surprise among audiences at the music’s maturity and
accomplishment. “The Symphony showed itself to be a ripe work by an experienced composer whose artistic development had led
him to his own individual form of expression,” wrote Frantisek Bartos. “With its maturity, individuality, sure touch and masterly
construction of symphonic form, the composition proved itself to be the work of a master.”
What To Listen For
The Symphony No. 6 splendidly combines elements of the symphonic tradition as transmitted by Brahms with what Otakar Sourek
called Dvořák’s “process of idealization” of Czech folk music. This characteristic style of Dvořák, uniting two great streams of
concert and vernacular music, richly illumines the Symphony’s opening movement. The influence of Brahms (particularly of his
Second Symphony of 1878) is clear in the music’s sylvan sonorities, motivic development and careful control of the ebb and flow
of the lines of tension, while the folk quality is heard in the tunefulness of the themes and the many harmonic plangencies. Music so
rich in reference is bound to excite the imagination of certain commentators, and Otakar Sourek heard in this movement “the humor
and pride, the optimism and passion of the Czech people come to life, and in it breathes the sweet fragrance and unspoiled beauty of
Czech woods and meadows.” Following the first movement are a lovely Adagio (Tovey claimed to “know of few pieces that
improve more on acquaintance”) and a fiery Furiant, filled with the same powerful shifting accents borrowed from Bohemian dance
that enliven so many of the Slavonic Dances. The bracing last movement, according to Hans-Hubert Schönzeler, “is the most
convincing finale Dvořák ever wrote.”
In his book on Music in the Romantic Era, the famous critic and scholar Alfred Einstein wrote admiringly of Dvořák’s style:
“Dvořák took over the heritage of absolute music quite naively, and filled its forms with an elemental kind of music of the freshest
invention, the liveliest rhythm, the finest sense of sonority — it is the most full-bodied, direct music conceivable, without its
becoming vulgar. He always drew from the sources of Slavic folk dance and folksong, much as Brahms had drawn from German....
Everything is childlike and fresh.”
©2016 Dr. Richard E. Rodda