Luciano Berio (1925-2003)

Ritirata notturna di Madrid (1975)

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

Performance time: 10 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance: August 12, 2009; Carlos Kalmar, conductor

“The piece is absolutely useless, even ridiculous, outside Spain, because the audience cannot hope to understand its significance, nor the performers to play it as it should be played.” So wrote Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) to his publisher regarding his string quintet op. 30 no. 6, titled Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid (“Night Music of the Streets of Madrid”). Though Boccherini refused to publish the quintet during his lifetime, within Spain the work was quite popular, so much so that Boccherini made four versions of it for different combinations of instruments. The Italian-born composer left a vast output of chamber music, comprising 100 string quintets alone. After touring Europe as a cello virtuoso, he landed in Spain, where he served numerous royal patrons.

In 1975, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan commissioned Luciano Berio to compose a short concert opener. Berio, often remembered for his inventive arrangements and transcriptions of works from the past, turned the last movement of Boccherini’s quintet into a piece for full orchestra. The last movement, titled “Ritirata notturna di Madrid” (“Withdrawal by Night in Madrid”), depicts the city garrison as it signals the midnight curfew and retreats into the night. Berio superimposes the four versions of Boccherini’s quintet, creating an interesting layered effect that amplifies the crescendo as the city watch approaches and the decrescendo as it disappears.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Suite from Appalachian Spring (1943)

Scored for: two flutes including piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two French horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings

Performance time: 23 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance: July 15, 1967; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor

In the 1930s and 40s, Aaron Copland set out to develop a distinctly “American” compositional voice by drawing on American vernacular music and evoking vast landscapes with the use of open chords. As a result of his efforts, manifested in his dramatic works set in rural America, Copland’s music came to epitomize the American classical sound. The most famous of these works is undoubtedly Appalachian Spring, a ballet set on a farmstead in Pennsylvania in the early nineteenth century. Appalachian Spring has since become so ingrained in the national consciousness that noted music critic Michael Steinberg wrote, “when, for example, we hear the first moments of Appalachian Spring with their magical conjunction of the plain and the sublime, we can hardly imagine a world without that music in it.”

Appalachian Spring (1944) is the last of Copland’s three all-American ballets, preceded by Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942). Arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned the one-act ballet from Copland and modern dancer/choreographer Martha Graham. She specified that the ballet be “on an American theme,” as it would premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Graham conceived the scenario herself without much input from Copland. “After Martha gave me this bare outline, I knew certain crucial things—that it had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope,” Copland wrote. He began work on the score in June 1943 and completed it the following year.  Appalachian Spring premiered on October 30, 1944, to great acclaim, the optimistic tone and Americana subject matter appealing the country as it was coming out of World War II. The ballet’s success spurred Copland to rearrange the score, originally for thirteen instruments, as a suite for full orchestra in 1945. The concert suite has since become his most frequently performed major work and won him the Pulitzer Prize.

The ballet sets a poignant love story against the backdrop of an idealized rural past. In the ballet’s eight continuous episodes, we find a young couple on their wedding day, full of joy and apprehension as they move into a new phase of life. After a slow introduction, unison strings burst through in the exuberant Allegro, a solo dance for the bride, while the following Moderato sees the couple in a tender duet. In the fourth scene, a traveling revivalist preacher riles up his flock, conjuring folksy country fiddling and square dancing. The next movement finds the bride simultaneously excited and nervous about the expectations of motherhood. After an interlude that recalls the opening, we arrive at the heart of the piece, the often excerpted “Variations on a Shaker Theme.” Depicting happy scenes of domestic life on the farm, the movement uses a Shaker hymn by Elder Joseph Brackett called “Simple Gifts.” Surprisingly, the hymn was relatively unknown outside the Shaker community until Copland cemented its iconic status through this piece. Finally, the prayer-like ending closes the door on the couple, blissful and secure in their new home.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Symphony No.41 in C major, K.551, Jupiter (1788)

Scored for: one flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two French horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings

Performance time: 31 minutes

First Grant Park Orchestra performance: July 31, 1939; Hans Lange, conductor

Unusually for Mozart, his last three symphonies were written without a commission or specific occasion in mind. Their genesis is even more surprising when you consider Mozart’s dire financial situation at the time. He may have composed them for a concert series in Vienna or a tour to London that never came to fruition, likely due to a lack of funding. Written with astonishing speed between June and August 1788, Mozart’s last three symphonies are even more impressive for their diversity of expression and encapsulation of Classical symphonic style at its pinnacle. Yet they were never published in Mozart’s lifetime, and it is likely he never heard them performed.

The last and longest of Mozart’s symphonies is Symphony No. 41, Jupiter. The nickname “Jupiter” was not of Mozart’s devising but likely that of German-born London impresario Johann Peter Salomon, remembered for bringing Haydn to London in the 1790s. Though the opening rolling gesture could be heard as thunder, Jupiter has little to do with the Roman god of the sky except in its god-like technical mastery. Robert Schumann agreed with this sentiment, writing the following in 1835: “About many things in this world there is simply nothing to be said—for example, about Mozart’s C-Major symphony with the fugue, much of Shakespeare, and some of Beethoven.” Mozart’s youngest son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang, also considered the Finale of his father’s last symphony to be “the highest triumph of Instrumental Composition.” This is according to English music publisher Vincent Novello, who kept extensive diaries of his visit to Salzburg in 1829 to meet Mozart’s widow, sister, and son.

The first movement precedes almost like a comic opera overture in its appealing melodies and perfect pacing of contrasting material. Mozart even quotes “Un bacio di mano,” a humorous “suitcase aria” he had just written for the Italian bass Francesco Albertarelli to insert into Pasquale Anfossi’s opera Le gelosie fortunate. Though nothing is particularly groundbreaking about this movement, it is still imbued with personal touches that only could have come from Mozart’s deft hand. The Andante begins gently with a lyrical melody in muted strings. This serenity belies the tension and drama to come in the second theme, achieved through suspensions, syncopation, and fortepiano dynamic markings. The stately Minuet exemplifies aristocratic elegance, while the Trio introduces the four-note motif that will become the basis of the Finale. Short themes whiz past in the final movement. The content of these motifs is less important than how Mozart transforms and combines them into something greater than the sum of its parts in the dazzling fugal coda.

Program Notes by Katherine Buzard