CANCELLED: Beethoven 8 Plus Symphonic Mandolin

In terms of style and content, this is a light-hearted creation but far from a light-headed one. In it, Beethoven glanced backward toward the Classical style of Mozart and Haydn, with touches of his own characteristically brusque sense of humour added in.

It was premiered in Vienna on February 27, 1814, in a concert that included two compositions that had already found great favour: the gloriously invigorating Symphony No. 7, and the ludicrous “battle symphony,” Wellington’s Victory. The comparisons that the Eighth invited in this company worked against its success, resulting in a lukewarm audience reception.

There are no preliminary gestures. Beethoven plunges immediate into a world of energy and verve. The second theme begins in an exceptionally gracious manner but quickly turns impudent. The development section veers toward drama, only to stop short of real stress and profundity. At the climax, the first theme, returning in the lower end of the orchestra, underneath nervous high tremolo strings, draws the mood back to poise and good manners. The coda is energetic, the final bars coyly subdued.

At first the genteel, witty spirit of Haydn lingers over the second movement, a light, teasing stroll rather than an authentic slow movement. Strongly contrasted outbursts, however, mark it unmistakably as Beethoven’s. The following minuet is almost satirical in its degree of stately pomposity. The central trio section is equally regal, with two horns and a clarinet taking the spotlight. The finale opens with quietly scurrying activity, only to burst forth into loud, joyous animation.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

Vivaldi made small but valued contributions to the concerto repertoire of three instruments that are played solely by plucking the strings: lute, guitar and mandolin. He composed just two concertos featuring the mandolin: one in G Major for two mandolins, and this one in C Major for one mandolin. Two swift, sunny outer movements frame a slow movement tinged with lyrical melancholy.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

Sollima is a composer and cellist. He was born into a family of musicians and studied cello with Giovanni Perriera and composition with his father, Eliodoro. He later studied with Antonio Janigro and Milko Kelemen at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. As a composer, his influences are wide ranging, taking in jazz and rock, as well as various ethnic traditions from the Mediterranean area. His music is influenced by minimalism, with his compositions often featuring modal melodies and repetitive structures. Because his works are characterized by a more diverse and eclectic approach to material than the early American minimalist composers, the American critic Kyle Gann has called Sollima a “postminimalist” composer. His substantial catalogue of music includes orchestral works, chamber music, operas, ballets and incidental theatre music.

The Mandolin Concerto was premiered in 2018, with Avi Avital as the soloist, one of many works for mandolin which he has commissioned.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

Stravinsky shot to fame through his brilliant collaborations with impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his company, Les Ballets russes (Russian Ballet). The colourful, inventive dance scores The Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913) established new standards for the fusion of music, dance and physical production.

In 1919, Diaghilev hatched the idea of a ballet based on older music. He chose the short-lived but immensely Italian popular composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) as the source, and asked Stravinsky to consider adapting it. At first Stravinsky resisted, but once he examined the music, he fell in love with it. Subsequently it has been determined that some of the music he drew upon is not in fact by Pergolesi, although it had all been published under his name. Mirroring eighteenth-century practice, Stravinsky’s score sports two separate, interacting groups of strings, one larger than the other. He kept Pergolesi’s melodies and bass lines virtually intact, but placed his own, tart stamp upon the music through transformations in harmony, rhythm and phrasing.

Diaghilev, Stravinsky and choreographer Léonide Massine collaborated on the ballet’s plot. They based it on a manuscript dating from 1700, setting out the adventures of Pulcinella, a rascally character from the Neapolitan theatre tradition known as commedia dell’arte. The ballet’s premiere took place in Paris on May 15, 1920. The full score includes three vocal soloists. Two years later, Stravinsky prepared this purely instrumental concert suite.

“Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible,” he wrote. “It was a backward look, of course – the first of many love affairs in that direction – but it was a look in the mirror, too.”

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson