Romance in F Minor, Op. 11
Antonín Dvořák
Arranged for violin solo and full strings.
This lovely work had its origins in a string quartet that Dvořák composed in 1873. Unable to interest anyone in performing it, he never authorized it for publication. Reluctant to let the music go to waste, he took a theme from the slow movement and reworked it as the principal melody of this wistful piece for violin and orchestra. It is an early example of the warm-hearted melodiousness which would later win him worldwide fame. He dedicated it to František Ondříček, who 10 years later gave the first performance of Dvořák’s full-scale Violin Concerto.
The main theme is hinted at throughout the orchestra before the entry of the soloist. It is a slightly melancholy tune in gracefully lilting rhythm, like a siciliano. The middle section becomes more animated and agitated, but then the music gradually winds its way down to a peaceful, contented conclusion.
String Quintet No. 60 in C Major (G 324), ‘La Musica della strade di Madrid’
Luigi Boccherini
- The Ave Maria Bell
- The Soldiers’ Drum
- The Minuet of the Blind Beggars
- Il Rosario
- The Passacaglia of the Blind Singers
- The Drum
- The Retreat
Equally celebrated as composer and cello soloist, Boccherini spent most of his life outside his native country, Italy. In 1766, he embarked on a concert tour that took him first to Paris, where he earned considerable acclaim, then on to Madrid in 1769. He won additional accolades at the Spanish court, where he received the patronage of Infante Don Luis, brother of King Carlos III. He spent the years 1787-1797 in Berlin, as court composer to King Frederick William II of Prussia, himself a good amateur cellist. After the king’s death, Boccherini returned to Spain and spent the rest of his life there.
His music has much in common with that of his contemporary, Joseph Haydn. Musicologists of the day noticed the resemblance, but having formed the opinion that the Italian’s compositions lacked the depth and fire of the Austrian’s, they dismissed Boccherini as “the wife of Haydn.” In a letter that Boccherini wrote in 1798 to Ignaz Pleyel, his Paris publisher, he offered the following more temperate self-appraisal: “Everyone who knows me does me the honour of regarding me as a man of probity, honourable, sensitive, good-natured and affectionate as my musical compositions show me to be.”
His numerous chamber music compositions are widely counted his finest creations. Especially valued are the attractive quartets (102 of them) and quintets (125) for strings. In an act of innovation, the latter pieces feature a second cello rather than the second viola that was the standard instrumentation of the time. The result is music of exceptional tonal warmth and richness. Franz Schubert would use the identical scoring for the glorious quintet he composed in 1828, at the very end of his tragically brief career. The MCO will be performing it on 17 April.
Boccherini had little interest in program music, the kind that tells a story or portrays a place or character. This quintet is one of his few such pieces. He composed it in 1780. He stated that it was an attempt to recreate what residents of the Spanish capital could expect to hear each night. It begins with the Ave Maria of the main church, in which the instruments imitate the tolling of the church bell. Then comes the Minuet of the Blind Beggars. Boccherini directed the cellists to take their instruments upon their knees and strum them, imitating a guitar. This is followed by another slow section, The Rosary. Then there is what Boccherini sarcastically termed The Passacaglia of the Street Singers, known as Los Manolos. These were lower class loudmouths vulgarly dressed. The movement is not a passacaglia (a set of variations), but imitates the way Los Manolos sang, which the Spanish called passacalle and meaning to pass along the street, singing to amuse oneself. An imitation of a soldier’s drum leads to the finale, The Retreat. It is a set of variations on a traditional Spanish melody: Procession of the Military Night Watch in Madrid. It imitates the approach and retreat of the Military Night Watch, bringing the curfew and closing down the streets.
Boccherini said, “one must imagine sitting next to the window on a summer’s night in Madrid, and that the band can only be heard in the far-off distance in some other part of the city, so at first it must be played quite softly. Slowly the music grows louder and louder until it is very loud, indicating the Night Watch are passing directly under the listener’s window. Then gradually the volume decreases and again becomes faint as the band moves off down the street into the distance.”
ΠΣ In 1975, Boccherini’s fellow Italian composer, Luciano Berio, was commissioned by the orchestra of the renowned Milan opera house, La Scala, for a work to be used as a concert opener. He responded by orchestrating the finale of this quintet in spectacular fashion.
Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs), Op. 20
Pablo de Sarasate
Arranged for solo violin and full strings by Peter von Einhardt
Sarasate first showed promise as a composer, but in the end he chose the career of concert violinist instead. He became one of the most widelytraveled performers of his day, welcomed on both sides of the Atlantic for his dazzling technique and sunny personality. Several renowned composers created works especially for him, including SaintSaëns (Concertos Nos. 1 and 3; Introduction and Rondo capriccioso); Lalo (Symphonie espagnole); and Bruch (Concerto No. 2 and Scottish Fantasy). He did not abandon composition entirely, writing some 50 pieces for his own performance. One of the most famous is Zigeunerweisen, which he based on authentic Gypsy/Romani melodies. Each half of the piece mirrors a major characteristic of the renowned school of Gypsy virtuoso violin playing: soulful expressiveness in the opening, flashing bravura to close.
Sérénade mélancolique (Melancholy Serenade), Op. 26
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Arranged for violin solo and full strings by Ignacio Massun
For a composer so immersed in lyricism, it is surprising that Tchaikovsky composed only a handful of works featuring that most songful of instruments, the violin. He wrote three pieces with orchestra: Sérénade mélancolique (Melancholy Serenade, 1875), Valse-scherzo (1877), and the full-scale Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 (1878), as well as the suite with piano, Souvenir d’un lieu cher (Souvenir of a Dear Place, 1878).
In 1868, the renowned Hungarian violinist soloist Leopold Auer was appointed as professor of violin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Although he and Tchaikovsky had never met, Auer was well acquainted with the composer’s music, having taken part in the first performances in St. Petersburg of Tchaikovsky’s two string quartets. Once they had been introduced by their conservatory colleague, Nikolai Rubinstein, Auer offered Tchaikovsky a commission for a new piece for violin and orchestra. The result was this serenade.
Auer showed no interest in it at first, however (he later felt the same way about Tchaikovsky’s full-scale concerto). German violinist Adolf Brodsky premiered both works. Auer eventually changed his mind and took them into his repertoire. The serenade is highly expressive music, filled with sweet, romantic yearning.
Tambourin chinois (Chinese Tambourin), Op. 3
Fritz Kreisler
Arranged for violin solo and full strings by Seva Youdenitch
As a violinist, the Vienna-born Kreisler was a familiar and beloved figure on the world’s concert stages for half a century. With seemingly effortless grace and beauty, he illuminated all the great Classical and Romantic literature for the instrument. He appeared with all the great orchestras and conductors of his day, commissioned and premiered important new works (including the expansive Concerto by Sir Edward Elgar), and left a legacy of recordings that musiclovers everywhere continue to cherish.
Kreisler also composed music, in forms large and small. His more substantial works included an operetta and a string quartet, but the pieces that keep his name alive on concert programs are the dozens of brief encore works. Many of them, such as Liebesfreud (Love’s Joy) and Schön Rosmarin (Beautiful Rosemary), paint sentimental portraits of the warmhearted musical style that was popular in central Europe during his youth. He claimed at first that some of these miniatures were composed by violin masters of the Baroque and Classical eras, which he had discovered in outoftheway libraries. He eventually confessed that he had written them himself. Some authorities were outraged, possibly from embarrassment at being ‘taken in’ by Kreisler’s expert powers of imitation! Audiences were quick to forgive him, and they have happily been enjoying these delightful bonbons ever since.
The title Tambourin chinois (Chinese Tambourin) does not refer to the familiar round percussion instrument with jingles, but a lively eighteenth-century French folk dance of which prominent Baroque composers such as Jean-Philippe Rameau created numerous delightful examples. Kreisler added to this one (which was published in 1910) a postcard type of Asian flavour.
