James Stephenson (b. 1969)

You have reached the city limits (Festival Commission)

Scored for: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four French horns, three trumpets including cornet and piccolo trumpet, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings

Performance time: 10 minutes

World Premiere performance

A Note from the Composer:

I’m a proud Chicagoan, through and through. I was born here, and later in life, when the opportunity came about to relocate, there was no doubt that the Chicago area would become home.

As such, I’ve been to hear the Grant Park Symphony many times, and when the opportunity arose to write a piece for the festival, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

I wanted to write a piece that would recognize the venue and orchestra for which I was writing, as well as the city I call home. One can’t help but notice when attending a GPMF concert that any performance might be accompanied by people chatting, sirens wailing, unexpected weather, and more. I wanted to write a piece that might embrace that, rather than worry about it.

Also, I’ve long known (as we all have) that Chicago is well-known for its blues tradition. From the early 1920s with the Red Hot Peppers, through Muddy Waters a few decades later, through today, Chicago is famous for its down-home and gritty blues.

“You have reached the city limits” explores the idea of a young couple deciding to “hit the town”. The protagonist (the solo violin) eggs their partner along to have some fun, and make a night of it. The partner (trumpet) complains and hesitates. Finally, they head out, and dash through the city, and happen upon two blues clubs. The first represents the blues from the 1920s, viewed through a
smoky lens of history. A solo clarinet, piano, trumpet, and trombone remind us of what that might have sounded like.

A little bit later, they enter a club playing the mid-century gritty blues. The music gets a bit edgier, with harmonica-like sounds and again a solo piano representing that era.

Finally they are off again on their own, having a great time, and when the orchestra swells to a giant climax, the truth is revealed that all they needed to do was spend some time together, enjoying one another’s company, to satisfy their urge for fun.

Lastly, I’ll mention that I was delighted to learn that Giancarlo Guerrero would be conducting this premiere. I’ve long admired his work on the podium, and it is a true statement that the energy within this piece was in part due to my imagination of what he would bring to this – as he does to all music – on the podium.

My most sincere thanks to the Grant Park Orchestral Association for this fun opportunity, and to my hometown of Chicago, and all of the people who have made it so, for the inspiration.

Jim Stephenson; March 15, 2024

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, op.73, Emperor (1809)

Scored for: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two French horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and solo piano

Performance time: 38 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance: August 11, 1948; Nicolai Malko, conductor and Theodore Lettvin, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven would have certainly balked at us using the nickname “Emperor” for his fifth and final piano concerto. The origin of the nickname is unclear. The implausible creation myth is that during the Viennese premiere in 1812, a French officer exclaimed, “C’est l’Empereur!” (“It’s the Emperor!”) when he heard the heroic music. The sobriquet more likely originates from the similarity of the concerto to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, Eroica, in both character and key (E-flat major). Beethoven had initially dedicated Eroica to the French revolutionary Napoleon Bonaparte, whose republican ideals Beethoven had admired. However, when word got to Beethoven that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France in May 1804, the composer famously tore the title page of his symphony in two and threw it to the floor.

When Beethoven completed his Piano Concerto No. 5 in 1809, Austria was at war with France for the fourth time since 1792. Each successive tussle during the Napoleonic Wars had meant more territorial losses and economic hardship for Austria. In search of financial stability, Beethoven considered accepting a position as court composer to Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger brother and the newly installed puppet king of Westphalia, in 1808. When three wealthy Viennese patrons got wind of this, they pooled their resources to ensure Beethoven would stay in the city by offering him a guaranteed income and pension. Beethoven agreed to this arrangement in March 1809, but it did not bring him the stability he desired. Austria declared war on France on April 9, and Napoleon’s troops bombarded Vienna on May 11. Beethoven is said to have sought shelter in a friend’s cellar that night, tying pillows to his head to protect his ears from further hearing loss. The imperial family fled the city, including the most devoted of Beethoven’s three patrons and the dedicatee of Piano Concerto No. 5, Archduke Rudolph. Amid the chaos, the money Beethoven was promised often did not arrive on time or in full. Unsurprisingly, the summer of 1809 was largely unproductive and miserable for Beethoven, as evidenced by what he wrote to his publisher in Leipzig that July: “Nothing but drums, cannons, human misery of every sort!” Fortunately, he had sketched most of the Fifth Piano Concerto before the war broke out, and he managed to regain the concentration to complete it by the end of the year (though continued geopolitical turmoil delayed the premiere for two years).

The opening of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 is unique, with three stately chords in the orchestra outlining the harmonic pattern of a cadence. Between each of these pillars of sound, the piano soloist responds with cascades of arpeggios, scales, and trills. Each flourish becomes denser and more virtuosic, recalling cadenzas that typically herald the end of a concerto movement, not the beginning. The third flourish ends quietly, however, making for a surprise when the orchestra charges in with the triumphant main theme. Ornate pianistic passage work continues to characterize the Allegro, establishing the soloist as the hero. That said, Beethoven masterfully balances moments of brilliance with moments of quiet throughout the movement. The lyrical Adagio then takes us to the remote key of B major. The muted strings present a pilgrim’s hymn, to which the piano responds with a pianissimo melody in triplets. Unusually, the soloist preempts the theme of the finale at the end of the Adagio while still in the movement’s slow tempo and soft dynamic. Continuing without a break, the theme emerges fortissimo and at full speed, opening the ebullient finale with a vigorous syncopated dance. 

Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)

Requiem, op.9 (1947)

Scored for: three flutes including piccolo, three oboes including English Horn, three clarinets including bass clarinet, two bassoons, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, organ, strings, and chorus

Performance time: 45 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance: July 12, 1986; Thomas Peck, conductor and chorus director; director and Barbara Pearson, soprano; Philip Kraus, baritone; Thomas Peck, director

French organist, composer, and teacher Maurice Duruflé only published fourteen works during his career. This small compositional output is attributable to both his skill as an improviser and his crippling self-doubt. He even considered retracting his Requiem from publication. Organist Marie-Claire Alain recalled him saying, “Oh what a disaster that I let [the Requiem] be published! The Pie Jesu is a complete failure! . . . an unsuccessful and detestable work.” Fortunately, Duruflé did not deprive us of this profound masterpiece. Had he done so, he probably would not be remembered today outside of France or organist circles. Given his perfectionism, the few works he did leave are therefore of the utmost quality and demonstrate a distinctive compositional voice.

How the Requiem came to be is a bit contentious. The Duruflé Association maintains that the Requiem was commissioned by Duruflé’s publisher, Éditions Durand. However, musicologists uncovered a slightly different story in the early 2000s. In the late 1930s, France’s economy was in shambles. In a radical move to relieve unemployment, the Fine Arts Administration began awarding commissions to incentivize composers to produce new works. This program continued even after France fell to Nazi Germany and the Vichy government was established in July 1940. In May 1941, Duruflé was one of many composers to accept a commission to compose a symphonic poem for the sum of 10,000 francs. It took Duruflé over six years to complete the commissioned work, submitting it to the Fine Arts Administration in January 1948—well after the war had ended and a new French government was in place. The resulting piece was also no longer a symphonic poem but a Requiem. He was paid 30,000 francs for his efforts—ultimately a paltry sum as inflation had skyrocketed in the intervening years. Duruflé’s Requiem is the only “Vichy commission” to remain in the repertory.

While this origin story is uncomfortable, it is an example of how French composers at the time were often simply trying to make a living under desperate circumstances. Plus, the fact that Duruflé did not complete or submit the Requiem until the end of the war further frees him from implications of being a German sympathizer or collaborator. Regardless of the circumstances of the commission, the French people heard Duruflé’s poignant Requiem as an expression of French mourning when it premiered on national radio on All Souls’ Day (November 2), 1947.

Duruflé received his early musical training at a choir school in Rouen. There, he encountered the tradition of Gregorian chant, which became a lifelong compositional influence. At the time of commission, Duruflé had been working on an organ suite based on the plainchant of the Mass for the Dead as outlined in the Liber Usualis. He transformed these organ works into the Requiem, with each of the nine movements using the chant and modal scale assigned to the corresponding text to some extent. Sometimes, these quotes are presented in full and in the original mode, as in the opening statement by the tenors and basses of “Requiem aeternam” in the “Introit.” Other times, the chants are treated more freely with rhythmic variation, ornamentation, or transposition. In any case, he captures the lightness and rhythmic flexibility essential to Gregorian chant throughout. Uniquely, these ancient melodies appear against the backdrop of modern harmonies and colorful orchestration inspired by composers like Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. This combination of seemingly disparate elements gives Duruflé his distinctive voice and places the Requiem simultaneously within its era and outside the bounds of time.

Duruflé’s masterpiece has often drawn comparisons with Fauré’s Requiem, and for good reason. Both follow French tradition and the Catholic liturgy in the selection and organization of the movements. Both also omit the harrowing “Dies Irae” that evokes the terror of the Last Judgement, placing them in opposition with famous examples by Mozart, Verdi, and Berlioz. Instead, Duruflé and Fauré’s Requiems are more comforting, reinforcing a kinder image of God and portraying peacefulness in death, not torment. While there are other similarities between the two pieces, including their use of high-voiced soloists for the tender “Pie Jesu” movements, they differ chiefly in Duruflé’s extensive quotation of plainchant, larger orchestration, and greater musical contrasts and stylistic diversity.

Program Notes by Katherine Buzard