Along The Danube: Strauss, Schubert, Brahms And Bartók

When Brahms was 20, he undertook a concert tour as the piano accompanist to a Hungarian violinist, Ede Reményi. Reményi’s playing gave him his first exposure to Gypsy/Romani/Hungarian music. It affected him profoundly, and inspired him to compose the Hungarian Dances. The first two sets were published in 1869 and the second two in 1880, for a total of 21 pieces, all scored for piano duet. He described them to his publisher as “perhaps the most practical article so unpractical a man as myself can supply. They are genuine Gypsy children, which I did not beget, but merely brought up with bread and milk.”

Later research has shown that some of the tunes he used are neither Gypsy tunes nor Hungarian folk melodies – they were so familiar that they just seemed to be! They are concert works by a variety of lesser-known composers. Together with the Liebeslieder (Love Song) Waltzes, the fiery, mercurial Hungarian Dances earned Brahms the lion’s share of his fortune. Orchestral transcriptions of all 21 have been prepared. His good friend Antonín Dvořák, for example, orchestrated Nos. 17 through 21.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

The inspiration for this vibrant concerto came from Zoltán Székely, a renowned Hungarian violinist who had been Bartók’s friend and chamber music partner since the mid-1920s. In 1936, he approached Bartók with a commission. The composer suggested a one-movement work in variation form, but Székely balked. He eventually persuaded Bartók to create the type of multi-movement virtuoso concerto he was looking for.

Székely gave the premiere in April 1939. Both concerto and soloist won great acclaim. Bartók must have smiled secretly to himself. He had not only written Székely his virtuoso concerto, he had also satisfied his own wish to compose variations. He set the second movement in that form, and since the first and last movements share thematic materials and treatment to a great degree, the third may be considered a “variation” of the first.

The themes bear the flavours and rhythms of Bartók’s beloved Hungarian folk music. Although the entire piece is clearly structured, Bartók also infused it with a feeling of improvisation, another characteristic of Hungarian folk culture. The opening and closing movements balance strong, thrusting energy with nostalgic, occasionally bittersweet lyricism. Bartók brought the full power of the orchestra tellingly into play at appropriately dramatic moments. He also used it, the light percussion instruments in particular, to brighten the mood, especially in the otherwise rather serious, nocturnal second movement.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

Schubert composed the incidental music for Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress, a play by the eccentric German playwright Helmina von Chézy, in 1823. The score includes an overture, entr’actes, ballet music, choruses, and a romance for soprano. The play was so bad that it was pulled from production after two performances. Only the vocal numbers were published during Schubert’s lifetime. The orchestral selections dropped from sight until 1867, when English musicians Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir George Grove made a pilgrimage to Vienna, specifically in search of forgotten nuggets of Schubertiana. We have them to thank for this enchanting music’s survival. Since the play has disappeared, we have no way of knowing its exact relationship with Schubert’s music. One theory is that the charming second ballet piece was played after the performance was over, while the actors were taking their bows.
Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

The emotionally bruising operatic dramas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) purged a taste for such ghoulish material from Strauss’s system. For his next stage project, he produced the delicious, supremely tuneful “comedy for music” Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose). Admirers of the previous operas were taken aback by this startling shift in style, but audiences gave the new score a swift and eager embrace as soon as it premièred in Dresden, Germany on January 26, 1911. Fifty sold-out performances followed before the year was out. It remains his most popular opera, combining Classical period charm à la Mozart, with nineteenth-century dance rhythms, all of it clothed in Strauss’s ripe, late-Romantic orchestration.

The plot unfolds in Vienna during the eighteenth-century reign of Empress Maria Theresa. The Marschallin, a worldly woman in her thirties, is having an affair with a young nobleman, Octavian. When Octavian falls in love with Sophie, a more suitable match for him, the Marschallin graciously steps aside and allows true, young love to take its course.

Instrumental excerpts from the opera have been performed in concert virtually since its creation, although Strauss did not prepare all of them himself. This popular concert suite appeared in 1945, without crediting an arranger. It presents an enchanting medley of the opera’s most glorious moments, including the surging Prelude; the presentation of the silver rose; a luscious love duet between Sophie and Octavian; a teasing, languorous waltz associated with the lecherous Baron Ochs; the ecstatic final trio and duet; and another, quicker waltz to finish.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson