Ravinia 2021 - Issue 2

7:30 PM MONDAY, JULY 26, 2021 MISHA & CIPA DICHTER, piano duo DVOŘÁK Eight Slavonic Dances No. 1. Furiant in C major No. 2. Dumka in E minor No. 3. Polka in A-flat major No. 4. Sousedská in F major No. 5. Skočná in A major No. 6. Sousedská in D major No. 7. Skočná in C minor No. 8. Furiant in G minor LISZT Les préludes (d’après Lamartine) GRAINGER Fantasy on George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess * There will be no intermission in this program. * First performance at Ravinia Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Program Sponsor Lynne and David B. Weinberg . PAVILION ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841–1904) Eight Slavonic Dances, B. 78 Czech composer Antonín Dvořák catapult- ed to international fame on the merits of his nationalistic instrumental compositions. Jo- hannes Brahms, the elder statesman of tra- ditionalist German musicians, recognized rare talent in Dvořák’s Moravian Duets and recommended the unknown Bohemian to his own publisher, Fritz Simrock. Not only did Simrock accept those duets for publication, but he also immediately commissioned the Slavonic Dances, op. 46 (1878). Realizing the momentous opportunity before him, Dvořák speedily produced eight danc- es in parallel versions for four-hands piano (B. 78) and orchestra (B. 83). His minuscule royalty amounted to a small fraction of the profits Simrock reaped on this phenomenally successful publication. These original, folk- styled tunes emulated actual peasant forms: furiant, polka, sousedská, and skočná. Nine years later, Dvořák negotiated a price 10 times higher for his second set of eight Slavonic Dances, op. 72. FRANZ LISZT (1811–86) Les préludes (d’après Lamartine) , LW C11 The symphonic poem, as prototyped by Liszt in a dozen works written between 1848 and 1858, acquainted 19th-century audiences with a new one-movement, literature-inspired genre of orchestra music. Liszt composed these works while serving as Kapellmeis- ter-in-Extraordinaire at the ducal court in Weimar. His predecessors in this position in- cluded Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and his successor was Eduard Lassen, whose assistant conductor was a young Richard Strauss. The small city of Weimar boasted a proud ar- tistic heritage as the former home of Johann Sebastian Bach, Friedrich Schiller, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as well as a casual pace of life and, most important to Liszt, an accom- plished resident orchestra, whose size and quality increased under his direction. For three years the famed Hungarian violinist Jo- seph Joachim served the orchestra as concert- master. Breitkopf & Härtel published all 12 symphonic poems, beginning in 1856, with a loving dedication to Liszt’s “life’s partner,” Princess Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein. Liszt led the world premiere of his third sym- phonic poem, Les préludes (d’après Lamar- tine) , LW G3, in Weimar on February 23, 1854, and continued to modify the score for anoth- er year. The work’s genesis and, even more so, the extent of its relationship to the ode by Al- phonse de Lamartine have remained subjects of much scholarly dispute. Its preface, which underwent at least two revisions, represents not a direct quote from Lamartine but rather narrative highlights: What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal light- ning of which consumes its altar; and where in the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavor to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature’s bosom, and when ‘the trumpet sounds the alarm,’ he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy. The musical origins of Les préludes date to 1844, when Liszt envisioned an overture to his cycle of choruses for male choir and orches- tra, Les quatre élémens ( The Four Elements ; individually, Earth , North Wind , The Waves , and The Stars ), LW L2, based on poetry by Joseph Autran. Liszt sketched an overture Franz Liszt by Franz Hanfstaengl (c.1860) containing thematic allusions to three cho- ruses (excepting The North Wind ) between 1845 and 1849. August Conradi orchestrated the choruses in 1848, and Joseph Joachim Raff the overture in 1849–50. Liszt set aside Les quatre élémens for anoth- er three years, returning to the overture only when he needed a ready composition for a benefit concert at the Weimar Hoftheater. At that time, Liszt altered the literary refer- ence to Lamartine’s ode “Les préludes” from Nouvelles méditations poétiques (1823), which he had briefly considered as the basis of an orchestral composition in 1846–47, and re- vised the music in collaboration with Hans von Bronsart. As with many of the symphonic poems, Liszt published a two-piano version (LW C11) around 1855. Les préludes conforms vaguely to the narra- tive description outlined in the preface. Its principal theme, first heard in the slow intro- duction, undergoes Liszt’s typical process of thematic transformation, generating melodic offspring of varying expressive characters as the symphonic poem progresses. PERCY GRAINGER (1882–1961) Fantasy on George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess Concert paraphrases, transcriptions, fanta- sies, variations, and arrangements of well- known melodies and folksongs occupied a major portion of virtuoso pianists’ repertoire in the 19th century. Australian pianist and composer Percy Grainger continued this re- cital tradition from his teenage years through the end of a long, illustrious performance career. His vast knowledge of historical and contemporary music led Grainger to themes by anonymous medieval musicians, John Dowland, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg, Gabriel Fauré, Pe- ter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Serge Rachmaninoff, and Richard Strauss—all filtered through Grainger’s boundless imagination. Grainger moved to the United States in 1914 and became a naturalized citizen on June 3, 1918. In the 1940s, he became acquainted with the music of George Gershwin, expanding his solo repertoire to include Rhapsody in Blu e and the Concerto in F, both for perfor- mances at the Interlochen National Music Camp. Grainger first performed Rhapsody in Blue on July 17, 1943, with the National High School Orchestra under the direction of Guy Fraser Harrison in a broadcast performance over WKAR radio. The following summer, he performed Concerto in F with the NHSO and conductor Homer LaGassey on August 5, 1944, again on a WKAR broadcast. Grainger’s involvement with Gershwins’ mu- sic did not end with these two original scores. Donning the piano virtuoso’s hat, he fash- ioned concert arrangements of “Love Walked RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 35