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Legend & Triumph Program Notes Overture to the Romantic Opera, The Flying Dutchman Richard Wagner Born May 22, 1813, in Leipzig Died February 13, 1883, in Venice In the folklore of the sea, The Flying Dutchman is the name of a ghost ship that is an

omen of disaster when it is seen in stormy weather off the Cape of Good Hope. This

legend captured the Romantic imagination, and a version of it by the German poet,

Heinrich Heine, became the basis of Wagner's libretto for his opera. The plot of the

opera tells of an old Dutch sea captain who is battling his way around the Cape of Good

Hope in a furious tempest. He swears that he will round the Cape if it takes an eternity

to do it. For his blasphemous oath, the Devil condemns him and his crew to sail forever,

unless he were to gain the love of a virtuous woman who would be faithful to him until

death. Only such faithful love could redeem him. In order to search for such a woman,

he is allowed to go ashore once every seven years. One of those seven-year respites is

at hand, and the Dutchman puts into port on the coast of Norway, alongside the ship of

the Norwegian captain, Daland. It is Daland's daughter, Senta, who brings about the

Dutchman's salvation with her love.

In 1839, Wagner's two-year contract as Music Director of the Riga Opera expired and

he decided to make his way to Paris. At what was then the Prussian port of Knigsberg,

he boarded a small sailing vessel that was bound for London. I shall never forget that

voyage, he wrote in his autobiography. It lasted three and a half weeks and was

weighted with disaster. Three times we nearly foundered in the storm. The story of the

Flying Dutchman was told by the sailors. When he arrived in Paris, Wagner set to


work on the text of what would become the opera, The Flying Dutchman, and soon sold

the scenario to the manager of the opera, who originally commissioned another, now

forgotten composer to write the music.

Wagner's opera was first performed in Dresden, in 1843. The Overture is a musical

summary of the whole work, the storm at sea, the doleful Dutchman and his curse, the

love of the maiden Senta, and the songs of the ship's crew.

The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two

bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3, in C Major, Op. 26 Serge Prokofiev Born April 23, 1891, in Sontzovka Died March 5, 1953, in Moscow)

Prokofiev composed this concerto in 1917, the same year he also wrote his Violin

Concerto No. 1, the Classical Symphony, and the opera, The Love of Three Oranges.

He finished it in France in October, and on December 16, 1921, was the soloist at its

premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It became one of the most popular 20th

century piano concertos because it is at once brilliant, lyrical, witty and profound, and a

great virtuoso piece for both soloist and orchestra.

Alfred Frankenstein, a critic who as a young man attended the premiere, wrote forty

years later, To hear Prokofiev play the piano was an utterly shattering experience. The

piano seemed to bend and sway under the impact of Prokofiev's assault, and yet his

playing was monumental in its clarity and in the sharp, steely planes of sound. He

created the pianistic style of the twentieth century -- a classically inspired style, in

keeping with the character of the music, but one which over-whelmed the listener with


its elemental force. These qualities in Prokofiev's performance are inherent in the

concerto itself.

The first movement begins with a slow introduction, Andante, in which a solo clarinet

presents a lyrical melody that transforms into the two contrasting subjects of the Allegro

main section. The first is vigorously athletic, and the second may be interpreted as

either witty or grotesque. Prokofiev also returns, during the movement, to the opening

clarinet theme. The second movement presents a march-like theme, Andantino, a

series of five inventive variations on it, and a coda in which the theme reappears. The

last movement, a brilliant scherzo-finale, Allegro ma non troppo, is constructed, like the

first, on the classical principle of contrast between two themes.

The concerto is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons,

four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, cymbals, tambourine, castanets and

strings.

Symphony No. 5, in C Minor, Op. 67 Ludwig van Beethoven Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna

Fellow composer Robert Schumann, gave Beethovens Symphony No. 5 the greatest

praise possible when he wrote that although it is often heard, yet it still exercises its

power over all ages, just as those great phenomena of nature that, no matter how often

they recur, fill us with awe and wonder. This symphony will go on centuries hence, as

long as the world and world's music endure.


Beethovens Symphony No. 5 has always been popular and recognizable because of

the famous four-note phrase with which it opens. Since Beethoven composed the

symphony, critics and commentators have attempted to give that phrase some

programmatic significance. Beethovens not altogether trustworthy friend, Anton

Schindler, presumably quoted the composer as saying it represented Fate knocking at

the door. Schindler, however, had a reputation for not letting facts get in the way of a

good story, and the conversation in which he quoted Beethoven took place years after

Beethoven finished the symphony, which makes it a bit suspect anyhow. Accounts also

say that Beethoven would say nearly anything to rid himself of annoying questioning

about his compositions. Nevertheless, this statement began a never-ending stream of

interpretations of the symphony.

Whether it has a programmatic significance or not, unquestionably the phrase has

definite importance musically, and it recurs throughout the entire symphony. The

repetition of this phrase differs from a later named technique called cyclical form in

which a well-defined melody is stated in one movement, and retaining its original

identity, is quoted and reused in another. Beethovens method is to use his musical

phrase as a germinal idea that generates new phrases, which resemble the original but

are not identical with it. He begins with G and E-flat for the notes of the opening motive:

these are two of the three notes that make up a C minor chord. This way he establishes

the key of his symphony, and he announces a rhythmic motif, which repeats throughout

the work, uniting the symphony's four movements.

Beethoven began to compose the Symphony No. 5 in 1804, just after finishing the

Symphony No. 3, but put it aside to finish the Symphony No. 4, and after that, worked


simultaneously on the next two symphonies. He completed Symphony No. 5 early in

1808 and the Symphony No. 6 in autumn of the same year. On December 22, 1808,

Beethoven gave a concert in which his latest works were premiered. The program

included Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6, the concert aria Ah, Perfido! a Latin hymn, the

Sanctus from the Mass in C Major, a fantasia for piano solo, the Choral Fantasy, Op.

80, for piano, chorus, and orchestra, and the Piano Concerto No. 4. Beethoven

conducted and also played the solo piano parts for this monumentally long concert.

Since he completed Symphony No. 5 almost when he finished the F major Symphony

No. 6, the Pastorale, at the premiere, the Pastorale bore the number 5. A contemporary

observer said the concert lasted for over four hours. The occasion was memorable and

stressful: the theater was unheated, the orchestra was under-rehearsed, and the

soprano soloist had a bad case of stage fright. The orchestra stopped mid-composition

several times, and the soprano who sang the aria was given a sedative for her nerves;

nevertheless, the Symphony No. 5 soon gained its designation as a masterwork.

Somewhere between performance and publication, Beethoven renumbered the two

symphonies. The C minor became the Symphony No. 5, and the F Major became the

Symphony No. 6, and they remain thus today.

Beethoven perhaps intended the opening movement, Allegro con brio, to be mysterious

yet powerfully dramatic. The thematic statement of the famous four-note motif appears

first in the clarinet and violins; in the recapitulation, the whole orchestra joins in with the

same figure. An unexpected oboe cadenza at the end of the movement, according to

the musicologist Michael Steinberg, has a special function, serving both to disrupt and

to integrate. The contrasting slow movement, Andante con moto, plainly and distinctly


sets forth a long melody as its principal subject. Then a series of variations follow.

Mystery dominates again in the third movement, a scherzo, Allegro, which runs without

pause directly into the noble finale, Allegro which introduces the sound of the trombone

to the orchestra for the first time in the history of music. Piccolo and contrabassoon also

participate in the finale. Steinberg has described the last movement as a motion into

the sureness and daylight with the transition into the major key. He sums up

Beethovens achievement succinctly, The victory symphony was a new kind of

symphony, and Beethovens invention here of a path from strife to triumph became a

model for symphonic writing to the present day.

Over the years, two critics in particular have in some way grasped the essence of this

symphony with few words. Amadeus Wendt wrote: Beethoven's music inspires in its

listeners awe, fear, horror, pain, and that exquisite nostalgia that is the soul of

romanticism. E.T.A. Hoffmann called the symphony one of the most important works

of the master whose position in the first rank of composers of instrumental music can

now be denied by no one... It is a concept of genius, executed with profound

deliberation, which in a very high degree brings the romantic content of the music to

expression.

The Symphony No. 5 is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two

bassoons, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and

strings. The piccolo, contrabassoon and trombone only play in the last movement,

where they greatly enrich the sound of the orchestra.

Susan Halpern, 2011.

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