Take a closer look at the music on our Winter 2019 program!
Overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie)
Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868)
Italian composer Gioachino Rossini began composing at the age of 12 across a variety of genres, including chamber music, sacred music and songs. But he would gain the most fame for his operas, the first of which premiered in Venice in 1810. Between 1810 and 1823 alone, he composed 34 comic and serious operas performed on major Italian stages, including the still-popular Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville.) At the height of popularity in his thirties, he somewhat inexplicably retired from operatic composition. His final work was a missa solemnis in 1863.
The Thieving Magpie debuted at Milan’s La Scala in May 1817. It tells the story of a maid to be executed for stealing silver, before it’s discovered the real thief is a sneaky bird. The opera is best known for its overture, which opens with a distinct snare drum solo. The often-told story is that Rossini, down to the wire and at peak composition frenzy, was locked in a room by the impatient theatre manager to write the overture the day prior to the La Scala premiere. He then threw each sheet out of the window to copyists to write out the full parts. While the opera itself is not performed as often as other Rossini works, the overture is a favorite staple of orchestral concerts.
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Ludwig van Beethoven referred to his Eighth symphony as his “little symphony in F,” to distinguish it from his Sixth (“Pastoral”) in the same key. As he had done with the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, he largely sketched his Seventh and Eighth symphonies at the same time, relishing the challenge of composing two very different works alongside one another. Even though the two symphonies were completed at roughly the same time, the Eighth would debut two months after the Seventh.
The Eighth symphony has a largely festive and buoyant quality, despite the unpleasant backdrop that was Beethoven’s life at the time. He was 41 years old, in poor health, experiencing family issues, and during the same year, penned his famous Immortal Beloved letter, a longing love letter to an unnamed recipient.
The first movement opens the work in the home key of F major and in a fast 3/4 time. The second movement is widely believed to be a good-natured homage to the metronome, recently invented by Beethoven’s friend, Johann Maelzel. The third movement mimics a typical classical symphony with a minuet and trio. The fourth movement finale is a rollicking rondo.
The work had its Vienna premiere in February 1814, but was overshadowed by the already-popular Seventh on the same program. It received a less-than-enthusiastic reception, and when asked why the Seventh was so much more popular Beethoven huffed, “That is because [the Eighth] is so much better.”
Les Préludes
Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)
The Hungarian piano virtuoso-turned-composer Franz Liszt wished to push single-movement works beyond just the concert overture form, and did so by originating the symphonic poem, a composition form soon embraced by other composers. The musical form is free, though somewhat like the sonata form typically used in the first movement of symphonies. Les Préludes is the earliest example of an orchestral work described as a symphonic poem.
Liszt would compose thirteen symphonic poems, and Les Préludes is widely considered to be the most famous of them. The music is partly based on Liszt’s 1844–45 choral cycle Les Quatre Elemens (The Four Elements), rooted in a meeting between the composer and the French poet Joseph Autran in 1844. Liszt quickly set one of Autran’s poems for chorus and piano, and would eventually set three more while on tour in Spain the following year. Liszt originally conceived Les Préludes as the overture to Les quatres éléments. Between 1852 and 1854, Liszt completely recomposed the overture as a symphonic poem, and directed the premiere himself in 1854 under the title Les Préludes.
Christmas in the Western World (Las Pascuas)
William Grant Still (1895 – 1978)
Born in Mississippi and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, pioneering composer William Grant Still wrote more than 150 works, including five symphonies. The first, Symphony No. 1 in A-flat, “Afro-American” (1930), is the most frequently performed. His opera, Troubled Island, with a libretto by Langston Hughes, was the first opera by an African-American composer performed by a major company when it was presented by the New York City Opera in 1949. Called the “the Dean” by other African-American composers, Still was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance.
From spirituals to blues to show music, Still’s exposure to a wide range of styles led to great versatility. He began composition studies at Oberlin College in the 1920s, and later studied with George Chadwick at the New England Conservatory. The experimental composer Edgard Varèse would eventually became his most influential teacher. Settling in Los Angeles in the 1930s, Still arranged music for films while working on his own compositions. In 1936, Still became the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra when he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. He composed Christmas in the Western World for chorus and strings in 1967.