Program

Saturday, May 31, 2014, at 8:00Tuesday, June 3, 2014, at 7:30

Jaap van Zweden Conductor

ShostakovichFive Fragments, Op. 42ModeratoAndanteLargoModeratoAllegrettoFirst Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances

BrittenSinfonia da requiem, Op. 20Lacrymosa—Dies irae—Requiem aeternum

IntermISSIon

ProkofievSymphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op. 100AndanteAllegro moderatoAdagioAllegro giocoso

Global Sponsor of the CSO

ONe HuNDReD TweNTy-THiRD SeASON

Chicago Symphony orchestrariccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor emeritusYo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant

The Truth to Power Festival is made possible with a generous leadership gift from The Grainger Foundation. Additional support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Richard and Mary L. Gray; U.S. Equities Realty, LLC and the Susan and Robert Wislow Charitable Foundation; Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Franke; and The Wayne Balmer Grantor Trust.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBEZ 91.5FM for its generous support as media sponsor of the Truth to Power Festival.

CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines.

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

POWERTRUTH TO

2

CommentS by Daniel Jaff é Phillip Huscher

Dmitri ShostakovichBorn September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Russia.Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia.

Five Fragments, op. 42

ComPoSeD1935

FIrSt PerFormanCeApril 26, 1965, Leningrad

FIrSt CSo PerFormanCeSThese are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s fi rst performances.

InStrUmentatIonfl ute and piccolo, oboe and english horn, clarinet, e-fl at clarinet and bass clarinet, bassoon and contrabassoon, two horns, trumpet, trombone, tuba, percussion, harp, strings

aPProXImate PerFormanCe tIme9 minutes

It is often said that had Shostakovich not been publicly censured by the Pravda editorial in 1936, which attacked his hitherto highly acclaimed opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, he would have become one of the twentieth century’s

leading opera composers. Certainly the Pravda editorial all but shut down Shostakovich’s activity as a composer for the stage, forcing him to decisively turn to symphonic composition. Yet, there is substantial evidence that the process had started earlier, most obviously with his composi-tion of the wild and inventive Fourth Symphony in 1935–36, and—less well-known—the Five Fragments being performed at this concert.

Th e picture has been further complicated by some crucial recent discoveries by the chief archivist of the Shostakovich Archives in Moscow, Olga Digonskaia. Having discovered and identifi ed the opening folio of Shostakovich’s proposed sequel to Lady Macbeth, Digonskaia suggests that the fi nale of the Fourth Symphony and the Five Fragments were both off shoots of that aborted opera. Th is, as Shostakovich explained early in 1934, was intended to be the second part of “an operatic tetralogy about women,” which he himself described as “a Soviet Ring of the Nibelungs, in which Lady Macbeth

will take the place of Th e Rhinegold. Th e driving image of the next opera will be the heroine of the People’s Will movement.”

T he People’s Will movement was a nineteenth-century Russian terrorist organization most widely remem-

bered for assassinating Tsar Alexander II on March 13, 1881. From the surviving opening page of the opera’s libretto, and the recollec-tion by Shostakovich’s close colleague Levon Atovmian of the rest of the opera’s scenario, Digonskaia was able to identify the opening folio of Shostakovich’s fair copy of the score. It is a curious document, since its opening scene starts with an orchestrated version of what is known today as the A minor fugue from Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, usually said to have been composed in 1950 (on the basis of the composer’s annotation in that cycle’s manu-script). In fact, the original manuscript of that fugue—to which Shostakovich referred when writing in July 1934 to his latest paramour, Elena Konstantinovskaia, as one of three “exceed-ingly boring fugues”—has been discovered, dated July 25, 1934, in the composer’s own hand. Immediately following that orchestrated fugue is around forty-fi ve bars of an aria which reappears, with some amendments including reorchestration, in the fi nale of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony—that is, the start of the “dance suite” midway through that movement.

3

So why did Shostakovich abandon an opera of which, as the surviving folio indicates, he had composed enough to at least begin making a fair copy? Its scenario, almost certainly, was the problem. Briefly, it concerns a tsarist general who marries a young woman (whom Shostakovich named after his beloved), Elena, little knowing that she is connected to the People’s Will. Elena’s true beloved, a member of that organization, plots to kill the general by hurling a bomb at him. When he has a last-minute failure of nerve, Elena seizes the bomb and throws it herself at the general, getting herself killed with her husband.

The opera’s scenario became a political hot potato when, on December 1, 1934, Leningrad’s First Secretary, Sergei Kirov, was assassinated. Just four weeks later, Shostakovich denounced (as he was bound to) the “base and foul murder of Sergei Mironovich Kirov” in Leningradskaia Pravda; in the same article, he described his pro-jected opera merely as “the opera about women of the past,” with no mention at all about the People’s Will, let alone the opera’s culminating assassination, which could all too easily have been perceived as an apologia for the “Trotskyite” ter-rorists supposedly responsible for Kirov’s death. Shostakovich then quietly dropped the project.

H ow does Five Fragments fit into this? Written in a single day (on June 9, 1935), its apparently phenomenal speed

of composition would have been facilitated if all five movements were based or simply adapted from already composed material. As Digonskaia has discovered, Shostakovich’s fair copy of Five Fragments (as opposed to his sketches for that work) was written in the same black ink and on the same type of manuscript paper as the open-ing folio of the opera. Furthermore, Symphony no. 4 has a theme common to Five Fragments, which appears to suggest a common source (rather as the symphony contains a theme related

to the A minor fugue from which it ultimately derived). Digonskaia surmises from this, and the apparent chronology of composition, that Five Fragments was not merely—as has previ-ously been supposed—an experimental work in preparation for the Fourth Symphony, but almost certainly derives largely or entirely from material originally intended for the People’s Will opera.

S parsely scored and succinct, each frag-ment has a distinct atmosphere. The first fragment, Moderato, scored primarily for

woodwinds, is lean and contrapuntal in a manner reminiscent of Stravinsky’s neoclassicism. The second, Andante, is possibly a grotesque portrait of the general: starting with heavy-footed brass, the music then parodies the fusty manners of a bygone age (note the bassoon’s mock-baroque manners), then seamlessly melds into a march with pompously martial rhythms. In total contrast the third fragment, Largo, is a noc-turnal soundscape scored for strings—slowly drifting like an atmospheric Charles Ives tone poem (might Bernard Herrmann have heard this before scoring Psycho?)—plus occasional harp, most striking in the bell-like tolling towards the end. The fourth, Moderato, starts with a solo horn twice offering a single note as if proffering a starting pitch to his colleagues. Bassoon, then clarinet, then oboe then enter in fuguelike succession, then twine indecisively as if in cogitation, eventually leaving the floor to the oboe. The nocturnal strings of the previous fragment are briefly heard before the “tuning up” horn rounds off the movement. In the final fragment, Allegretto, a snare drum’s parade ground rasps unexpectedly provide accompa-niment to a solo violin, which plays the waltz theme common to the finale of the Fourth Symphony. Flute, then clarinet and bass clarinet, briefly join the dance before it peters out.

—Daniel Jaffé

4

Benjamin BrittenBorn November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, Sussex, England.Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, England.

Sinfonia da requiem, op. 20

ComPoSeD1940

FIrSt PerFormanCeMarch 30, 1941, New york City

FIrSt CSo PerFormanCeFebruary 8, 1949, Orchestra Hall. Fritz Busch conducting

moSt reCent CSo PerFormanCeSMay 2, 3 & 4, 2002, Orchestra Hall. Mstislav Rostropovich conducting

InStrUmentatIonthree fl utes, piccolo and alto fl ute, two oboes and english horn, three clari-nets, e-fl at clarinet and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, alto saxophone, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, xylophone, snare drum, tambourine, whip, two harps, piano, strings

aPProXImate PerFormanCe tIme18 minutes

CSo reCorDIng1983. Rafael Kubelík conducting. (From the Archives, vol. 16: A Tribute to Rafael Kubelík II)

Benjamin Britten and his friend Peter Pears left England for North America in May 1939. After spending several days in Canada, they crossed into this country in June, stopping fi rst in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then moving on to New

York City and the Catskills, where they visited Aaron Copland. Th ere Britten composed some music “inspired by such sunshine as I’ve never seen before.” He wrote home to his sister Beth: “I am certain that N. America is the place of the future . . . & though certainly one is worried by a lack of culture, there is terrifi c energy & vitality in the place.”

Copland later recalled that Britten was deeply worried about the prospect of war at that time, and he couldn’t decide whether to return to England or not. After Britten left for New York City, Copland wrote to him: “I think you absolutely owe it to England to stay here . . . . After all, anyone can shoot a gun—but how many can write music like you?” Britain declared war on September 3, and Britten settled in New York, struggling with antiwar sentiments that would eventually explode into courageous, controversial, and unequivocal pacifi sm.

T hat winter, Britten toured the Midwest; he came back from Chicago in February with a “vile cold & fl u” that

he couldn’t shake. He was further troubled by homesickness, “war or no war,” and by the growing European confl ict viewed from afar. Around this time, Britten was asked by the British Council to compose a new work to celebrate “the reigning dynasty of a foreign power.” He agreed to this enigmatic commis-sion as long as “no form of musical jingoism” was required. By the time the details had been worked out and Britten learned that the score would honor the 2,600th anniversary of the Japanese Imperial dynasty, there was little time left to compose the music. On April 26, 1940, he wrote to his sister, “I now fi nd myself with the proposition of writing a symphony in about three weeks!” Britten described the score as “a short symphony—or symphonic poem,” and he told a reporter for Th e New York Sun that he would dedicate it to the memory of his parents (his father died in 1934, his mother in 1937) as an expression of his own antiwar conviction.

T he Sinfonia da requiem was composed in “a terrible hurry” and was completed in early June. Britten wrote a draft for

piano duet so that he and Pears could try it out. In November, however, the Japanese government

5

reviewed the score, with its three movement titles derived from Christian liturgy, and rejected it outright as “purely a religious music of Christian nature” that didn’t “express felicitations” for that country’s anniversary. The government had already paid Britten his fee, but at the Tokyo concert the only music performed was by Richard Strauss and Jacques Ibert, the two other com-posers who submitted works for that occasion.

T he premiere of the Sinfonia da requiem was given by the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall on

March 30, 1941. Britten provided a program

note that made no mention of the circumstances of the composition or its antiwar theme. He described the first movement as “a slow marching lament.” The title Lacrymosa comes from the closing section of the Dies irae, the medieval sequence describing the Day of Judgment:

Full of tears and full of dreadIs that day that wakes the dead,Calling all, with solemn blast,To be judged for all their past.

The movement begins with fierce timpani blows; a solemn funeral march builds, in a long arch, against a steady drumbeat. A wavering saxophone rises above the dark, inexorable music.

Britten described the Dies irae, the second movement, as a kind of “Dance of Death, with occasional moments of quiet marching rhythm.” It symbolizes the full outbreak of war, in music of undisguised anger and grim intensity. The scene dissolves, leaving only a fragile melodic thread of hope in the harp and bass clarinet. The third movement, Requiem aeternam (Eternal rest), builds slowly toward consolation and a peace that, in 1940, was far from certain.

—Phillip Huscher

Britten and Pears photographed at the Mayer family home on Long Island, Amityville

6

Sergei Prokofi evBorn April 23, 1891, Sontsovka, the Ukraine.Died March 5, 1953, Nikolina Gora, near Moscow, Russia.

Symphony no. 5 in B-fl at major, op. 100

ComPoSeD1944

FIrSt PerFormanCeJanuary 13, 1945; Moscow, Russia

FIrSt CSo PerFormanCeSNovember 21, 22 & 26, 1946, Orchestra Hall. George Szell conducting

moSt reCent CSo PerFormanCeSJanuary 6 & 8, 2011, Orchestra Hall. Sir Mark elder conducting

January 7 & 9, 2011, Orchestra Hall. Sir Mark elder conducting (Beyond the Score)

InStrUmentatIontwo fl utes and piccolo, two oboes and english horn, two clarinets, e-fl at clar-inet and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, tambourine, snare drum, woodblock, bass drum, tam-tam, piano, harp, strings

aPProXImate PerFormanCe tIme46 minutes

CSo reCorDIngS1958. Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO (Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The First 100 Years)

1992. James Levine conducting. Deutsche Grammophon

Sergei Prokofi ev spent the summer of 1944 at a large country estate provided by the Union of Soviet Composers as a refuge from the war and as a kind of think tank. Prokofi ev arrived early in the summer and found that his colleagues

included Glière, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Khachaturian, and Myaskovsky—summer camp for the most distinguished Soviet composers of the time.

Although Ivanovo, as the retreat was called, often was referred to as a rest home, there was little leisure once Prokofi ev moved in. He maintained a rigorous daily schedule—as he had all his life—and began to impose it on the others as well. “Th e regularity with which he worked amazed us all,” Khachaturian later recalled. Prokofi ev ate breakfast, marched to his studio to compose, and scheduled his walks and tennis games by the clock. In the evening he insisted the composers all get together to compare notes, literally. Prokofi ev was delighted, and clearly not surprised, that he usually had the most to show for his day’s work.

It was a particularly productive summer for Prokofi ev—he composed both his Eighth Piano Sonata and the Fifth Symphony before he returned to Moscow. Th e sonata is prime Prokofi ev and often played, but the symphony

is perhaps the best known and most regularly performed of all his works. It had been fi fteen years since Prokofi ev’s last symphony, and both that symphony and the one preceding it had been by-products of theater pieces: the Th ird Symphony is musically related to the opera Th e Flaming Angel, and the Fourth to the ballet Th e Prodigal Son. Not since his Second Symphony, completed in 1925, had Prokofi ev composed a purely abstract symphony, or one that he began from scratch.

A lthough it was written at the height of the war, Prokofi ev’s Fifth Symphony isn’t a wartime symphony in the tradi-

tional sense—not in the vivid and descriptive manner of Shostakovich’s Seventh, composed during the siege of Leningrad and written, in Carl Sandburg’s words, “with the heart’s blood”—or his Eighth, which coolly con-templates the horrors of war. Prokofi ev’s Symphony no. 5 is intended to glorify the human spirit—“praising the free and happy man—his strength, his generosity, and the purity of his soul.” In its own way, this outlook makes it an even greater product of the war, because it was designed to uplift and console the Soviet people. “I cannot say I chose this theme,” Prokofi ev wrote. “It was born in me and had to express itself.” Nonetheless, such optimistic and vic-torious music cheered the Russian authorities; it might well have been made to order. In his 1946 autobiography, Prokofi ev writes: “It is

7

the duty of the composer, like the poet, the sculptor, or the painter, to serve the rest of humanity, to beautify human life, and to point the way to a radiant future. Such is the immutable code of art as I see it.” It also was the code of art Soviet composers were expected to embrace during the war, but Prokofiev couldn’t have written a work as powerful and convincing as his Fifth Symphony if he didn’t truly believe those words.

T he Fifth Symphony would inevitably be known as a victory celebration. Just

before the first performance, which Prokofiev conducted, word reached Moscow that the Russian army had scored a decisive victory on the Vistula River. As Prokofiev raised his baton, the sound of cannons was heard from the distance. Buoyed by both the news and the triumphant tone of the music, the premiere was a great success. It was the last time Prokofiev conducted in public. Three weeks later he had a mild heart attack, fell down the stairs in his apartment, and suffered a slight concussion. Although he recovered his spirits—and eventually his strength and creative powers as well—Prokofiev continued to feel the effects of the accident for the remaining eight years of his life.

The first movement of the Fifth Symphony is intense and dramatic, but neither aggressive nor violent, like much of the music written at the time. It’s moderately paced (Prokofiev writes andante) and broadly lyrical throughout. The scherzo, in contrast, is quick and insis-tent, touched by a sense of humor that some-times reveals a sharp, cutting edge. The third

movement is lyrical and brooding, like much of Prokofiev’s finest slow music. After a brief and sober introduction, the finale points decisively toward a radiant future.

—Phillip Huscher

Daniel Jaffé, author of a biography of Sergei Prokofiev (Phaidon) and the Historical Dictionary of Russian Music (Scarecrow Press), currently is researching a biography of Gustav Holst.

Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Prokofiev’s sketch for the ending of the Fifth Symphony

© 2014 Chicago Symphony Orchestra