2015 Program Notes, Book 1 |
43
Friday and Saturday, June 19 and 20, 2015
The Magic Flute
was premiered at Schikaneder’s Theater-auf-der-Wieden on
September 30, 1791; Mozart conducted. The audience responded without much
enthusiasm to that opening night, though the production was elaborate (there were at
least 13 scene changes) and the performance was good. The listeners were probably
bewildered by the seeming inconsistencies in the plot (which continues to incite much
musicological debate) and by the awesome variety of Mozart’s music—from folk-
like ditties to austere chorale preludes, from slapstick comedy to soaring profundity.
However, word of this newmusical curiosity quickly spread throughout the city, and the
crowds came to see it for themselves—and kept coming.
The Magic Flute
was a hit.
Schikaneder announced his 100th performance of the opera in November 1792, and
mounted the work again in 1794, 1798 and, in his new Theater-an-der-Wien, in 1802. It
was heard in at least 59 towns before 1800, and reached New York in 1833.
The Overture to
The Magic Flute
is one of the supreme orchestral works of the
18th century. Rich in sonority, concise in construction, profligate in melodic invention
and masterful in harmonic surety, it balances the seemingly polar opposites of the
opera— profundity and comedy—with surpassing ease and conviction. The slow
introduction opens with the triple chords associated with the solemn ceremonies
of the priests, the Overture’s only thematic borrowing from the opera. The
Allegro
is built on a tune of
opera buffa
jocularity treated, most remarkably, as a fugue.
The complementary theme, initiated by the flute, is characterized by its sensuous
ascending chromatic scales. The balance of the Overture follows traditional sonata
form, with the triple chords of the priests reiterated to mark the beginning of the
development section.
SYMPHONY NO. 3:
DREAM SONGS
(2015)
Kenji Bunch (born in 1973)
Dream Songs
is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes,
English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons,
contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones,
tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, keyboard and strings. The
performance time is 33 minutes. Symphony No. 3:
Dream
Songs,
commissioned by the Grant Park Orchestra and
Chorus, receives its World Premiere at these performances.
“In 1879, the Smithsonian Institution created the Bureau of American
Ethnology, an ambitious field research program to preserve a record of the native
cultures decimated by a century of brutal state-sponsored oppression and terror.
Ethnomusicologists and anthropologists working for the BAE spent months at a
time on Native American reservations, painstakingly recording and notating tribal
folk songs and translating their uncredited texts and poetry. Abstracted from their
original voices and ceremonial use, these terse, plain-spoken texts offer timeless
wisdom and emotional insights that feel hauntingly relevant in today’s precarious
times. ‘Dream Songs,’ is a song cycle scored for full orchestra and chorus adapted
from these translations (particularly the work of Frances Densmore). I organized the
eight songs of the cycle into three parts: Songs of Anxiety and Unrest; Songs of War
and Its Aftermath; and, ultimately, Prayer of Healing.”
— Kenji Bunch
