Wednesday September 16, 2009

Charley talks with CSO timpanist and composer William Hill.
William Hill: Four Moments Musical
Colorado Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble/ William Hill
NCA 11:05
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Scott O’Neil, conductor; Daniel Mueller-Schott, cello
Hector Berlioz: The Corsair Overture, Opus 21
Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33 (4/17-18/09)
Also, Charley talks with artistic director of the Front Range Chamber Players David Brussell, who also plays horn with the CSO.
August Klughardt: "Allegro non troppo" (1st movement) from Wind Quintet, Op.79
Crystal 250 Track 1 7:21


Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): The Corsair Overture, Opus 21

The Corsair Overture was composed, revised, renamed, and generally fiddled with for a period of twenty years, from 1831 to 1851. At various times it was called The Tower of Nice, The Red Corsair and finally The Corsair. The last title has prompted some to imagine that Berlioz was inspired by Lord Byron's poem of the same name. After all, in 1834 he had written a symphony for viola and orchestra based on Byron's Harold in Italy. But this Berlioz Overture actually has more to do with James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover than anything by Byron.
In the 1830s Berlioz was desperately in love with a young pianist named Marie Moke. Upon learning from her mother that she planned to marry another, Berlioz flew into a rage and left for Paris, bent on murdering both mother and daughter. He was in Rome at the time, having finally won the ``Prix de Rome.'' On the way to Paris, he attempted suicide in Genoa. Failing at suicide, he thought better of murder and decided to rest up at Nice.
Nearby was a ruined tower, where Berlioz could ``watch at my ease the approach of distant ships.'' He began sketching what would later become The Corsair Overture, which he was then calling The Tower of Nice Overture.
Thirteen years later, in 1844, Berlioz returned to Nice, under doctor's orders to rest, and revisited his beloved tower. He also resumed work on his Overture, which was performed in 1845 as The Tower of Nice.
But Berlioz was still not satisfied. In 1851 he revised the score, renaming it The Red Corsair, after Cooper's novel, in which a tower on a cliff figures prominently. Ultimately Berlioz assumed--correctly--that few had read the novel, and so changed the name to The Corsair.
After the sudden attack of the two opening chords, strings and winds alternate in a wild chase. A lyrical second theme intervenes, only to be trounced by the fiery first theme. The lyrical theme is developed a bit, but soon enough the headlong rush of the opening measures prevails until the end. Biographer D. Kern Holoman says that Berlioz here ``gives up thematic interest for rhythmic ploy and contrapuntal device.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Allegretto con moto
III. Allegro non troppo; Un peu moins vite

``Not so very long ago,'' wrote Saint-Saëns in the early 1870s, ``a French composer who was daring enough to venture on to the terrain of instrumental music had no other means of getting his work performed than to give a concert himself and invite his friends and the critics. As for the general public, it was hopeless even to think about them. The name of a composer who was French and still alive had only to appear on a poster to frighten everybody away.''
In an attempt to remedy the situation, Saint-Saëns and other musicians, including César Franck, Gabriel Fauré and Édouard Lalo, founded the National Society of Music on February 25, 1871. The purposes of the Society were to ``favor the production and diffusion of all serious musical works, published or unpublished, by French composers; and to encourage and bring to light, so far as lies in its power, all musical experiments, whatever their form may be, provided they reveal high and artistic ambitions on the part of the composer.''
One measure of the success of the organization is the case of Saint-Saëns' First Cello Concerto. The work was introduced, not at a National Society of Music concert, but at the Paris Conservatory, usually a bastion of programs by long-dead composers. August Tolbecque, the principal cellist of the Conservatory Orchestra, was the soloist at the première, on January 19, 1873.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey wrote: ``The worldly wisdom of Saint-Saëns is at its best and kindliest in the opusculum, which is pure and brilliant without putting on chastity as a garment, and without calling attention to its jewellery at a banquet of poor relations. Here, for once, is a cello concerto in which the solo instrument displays every register throughout its compass without the slightest difficulty in penetrating the orchestral accompaniment. All the adroitness of Saint-Saëns is shown herein, and also in the compact form of the work.''
The Concerto is scored for solo cello, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.