Ravinia 2024 Issue 3

into prompt action. David inquired a year later about the score, only to learn that little real work had been accomplished. Understandably, Mendelssohn’s attention was focused elsewhere. His personal life centered on Leipzig, where he served as conductor of the Gewandhaus concerts. The Saxon town offered a stable environment in which he and his new wife Cécile could raise a family. However, Men- delssohn’s extraordinary talents as a composer and conductor regularly took him throughout Europe to the Birmingham Festival in England, the Lower Rhine Festival in Düsseldorf, and the Prussian court in Berlin, among other places. David’s persistent nudging paid dividends when Mendelssohn finally found time for the prom- ised concerto.Their close collaboration through- out the composition process was unprecedent- ed. The composer relied on his violinist friend’s expertise regarding technique, as well as seek- ing his advice on purely musical matters. Their shared involvement often blurred the lines of creative ownership. Some writers, for example, claim that the unaccompanied first-movement cadenza between the development and recapitu- lation contains more David than Mendelssohn. An engraving of Felix Mendelssohn after Theodor Hildebrandt German violinist Ferdinand David David gave the first performance on March 13, 1845, with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of Niels Gade; Mendelssohn had fallen ill and was unable to conduct. The Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64, por- trays the Romantic-Classicist musical temper- ament of Mendelssohn. His Romantic nature prompted not only luscious harmonies and broad melodic gestures, but also a reconception of concerto form. The traditional orchestral in- troduction completely disappears, a bold formal adaptation used by many composers later in the 19th century. Furthermore, Mendelssohn joined the three movements into a continuous musical essay whose links are easily perceived by the lis- tener. The passionate first movement closes with an accelerating coda. A single bassoon pitch (B) holds over from the last dramatic chord into the Andante , an aria for violin that proceeds at an unhurried pace. Here, the Classicist in Mendelssohn strived for uncluttered orchestral textures, logical tonal relationships, and balanced melodic phrasing. A brief segment for strings alone bridges the tempo differential between the slow movement and the mercurial finale. Mendelssohn infused the final movement with his inimitable, dainty “fairy-scherzo” expression. IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971) Suite from The Firebird (1919 version) Scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, xylophone, harp, piano, and strings Russian legend tells of the evil, grotesque Kash- chei, who abducts unsuspecting maidens and turns young men into stone. The immortal Kashchei dwells within a magic garden, his soul locked away in an egg-shaped chest. A kind-spir- ited firebird glides among the golden apple trees. One night, Prince Ivan Tsarevich wanders into the garden and plucks a feather from the fire- bird. Ivan falls in love with a captive maiden. At daybreak, he follows her into Kashchei’s palace, only to be seized by the guards. Moments before being turned to stone, the prince pulls out the magical feather. The firebird appears and tells Ivan of Kashchei’s secret chest. Ivan destroys the egg, and the wicked overlord vanishes. Choreographer Mikhail Fokine proposed the scenario in 1909 to Sergei Diaghilev, impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes. The folktale intrigued Diaghilev enough to schedule the imagined ballet for the 1910 season. He original- ly offered the ballet commission to Anatol Li- adov, professor at the Saint Petersburg Conser- vatory, but he proved a ponderously slow worker. Second choice fell on the up-and-com- ing composer, Igor Stravinsky. The success of this ballet score and the two that followed ( Petrushka and Rite of Spring ) catapulted Stra- vinsky to international acclaim. A year after staging the Firebird ballet in Paris, Stravinsky extracted five pieces from his brilliant- ly orchestrated score as a concert suite for large orchestra; the instrumentation is roughly compa- rable to the ballet ensemble. A second concert suite conceived for a smaller ensemble and in- cluding five different excerpts appeared in 1919. Stravinsky later compiled a ten-movement “ballet suite” with reduced instrumentation (1945). Although Stravinsky secretly doubted his ability to complete the score on time, he openly voiced reservations with the production itself. In an essay entitled “Firebird’s First Flight,” published with his own recording of the Firebird ballet for Columbia Masterworks, Stravinsky wrote: “The Firebird did not attract me as a subject. Like all ‘story’ ballets, it demanded ‘descriptive’ music of a kind I did not want to write. I had not yet proved myself as a composer, had not earned the right to criticize the aesthetics of my collab- orators; but I did criticize them, and arrogantly, though perhaps my age (I was only 27) was more arrogant than I was.” –Program notes © 2024 Todd E. Sullivan Igor Stravinsky Viktor Vasnetsov’s Kashchei the Immortal (c.1926) RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 22 – AUGUST 4, 2024 56