Classics 1
RAVEL Le Tombeau de Couperin
Prélude
Forlane
Menuet
Rigaudon
HINDEMITH The Four Temperaments (Theme and Variations)
Thema
Melancholisch
Sanguinisch
Phlegmatisch
Cholerisch
BIZET Symphony No. 1, C Major
Allegro vivo
Adagio
Allegro vivo
Allegro vivace
Program notes by Rebecca Jemian
The three pieces on this concert sparkle with vitality as they reveal the composers’ concern with life. Ravel’s suite of dances pays tribute to both an older composer as well as to friends who lost their lives in World War I. Hindemith’s Four Temperaments is a musical depiction of the four humors or temperaments asserted by Hippocrates. The concert closes with Bizet’s lively symphony, written when he was only 17. The three works are Classical in design; Bizet’s is naturally so as the boy was still learning the craft of composition and modeled his work on pieces by Mozart and Schubert. Hindemith and Ravel, both writing in the first decades of the twentieth century, were consciously employing musical designs popular from earlier eras.
Maurice Ravel
Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, Basses Pyrénées, France
Died December 28, 1937, in Paris
Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Tombstone of Couperin)
I. Prélude; II. Forlane; III. Menuet; IV. Rigaudon
French Impressionist composer Maurice Ravel wrote the wistful Le Tombeau de Couperin as a six-movement piano suite, beginning work in July 1914 and continuing in June–November 1917. Ravel interrupted his composition to serve as an ambulance driver in World War I. He orchestrated four of the movements for chamber orchestra in 1919. The first performance of the piano version was in 1919, and the orchestral premiere occurred on February 28, 1920. Later in 1920, the Ballets Suédois (Swedish Ballet) in Paris choreographed this piece, and since then many other dance companies have created their own interpretations.
A tombeau is a figurative monument to someone who has died, a type of artistic tombstone. In this work, Ravel commemorates François Couperin (the early 18th-century French composer) as well as friends who died in World War I. On a broader scale, this musical monument stands as Ravel’s tribute to all who were dying in World War I. One writer comments that “the whole enterprise has a bittersweet piquancy: smiling through tears.”
For this work, Ravel transcribed pieces by Couperin and possibly Jean-Philippe Rameau (another French composer of the 18th century), updating melodies and harmonies while retaining distinctive features of rhythm, texture, and form. Some of Ravel’s movements are clearly based on earlier works, while others have not been linked to specific pieces. Le Tombeau de Couperin marks one of the first occurrences of neo-Classical style, characterized by employing formal designs and rhythmic features common from 18th century music; this style countered the modern style marked by novelty. Ravel’s own drawing for the frontispiece of the piano score is itself neo-Classical as it depicts a funeral urn posed on a draped table.
The four movements in the orchestral suite are based on French courtly dances from the era of Louis XIV, the Sun King, whose reign extended from 1643 until 1715. While each movement is dedicated to a specific person—some old friends and some musical associates—the vibrant work succeeds without these associations. The menuet is probably the best known of these dance types; the forlane derives from a lively Italian dance that became both elegant and lascivious as it migrated to the French courts. A rigaudon is a cheerful dance in duple meter. One of Ravel’s contemporaries described the piece as “a delicious musical entertainment composed of a brisk fast-moving introduction, nimbly and sharply executed, and full of coquetry, and of three dances, a forlana, a minuet and a rigaudon, traditional steps exquisitely dressed up in ‘modern’ garb.”
The orchestration of Le Tombeau de Couperin consists of 2 flutes (one doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, harp and strings.
The Louisville Orchestra most recently performed this twenty-minute piece on a Classics concert on March 20 and 21, 1987, with Philippe Entremont conducting.
Paul Hindemith
Born November 16, 1895, in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany
Died December 28, 1963, in Frankfurt
The Four Temperaments (Theme and Variations)
I. Thema; II. Melancholisch; III. Sanguinisch; IV. Phlegmatisch; V. Cholerisch
Greek philosopher Hippocrates (460–370 B.C.) established a theory—since disproved—of four temperaments or humors whose individual balances create the differences in human personalities and control one’s health. According to his theory, each of the temperaments is associated with a bodily fluid that has a distinguishing characteristic: melancholy, from black bile, displays despondent or irritable characteristics; sanguinity, from blood, yields qualities of courage and hopefulness. A phlegmatic nature, from phlegm which was understood as the music secreted by the brain, has calm and unemotional attributes. The last one, choleric, associated with yellow bile, manifests itself as being easily angered. The meanings of these familiar words have shifted throughout the ages, and artists, poets, and playwrights have interpreted them variously.
Pieter Brueghel, the Renaissance painter, created a series of pictures on the temperaments, and these were the original impetus for this work of Hindemith. A Russian-French choreographer, Leonid Myasin invited Hindemith in the late 1930s to create music for a ballet based on these pictures. Hindemith withdrew from that project before it was fully realized, but kept the sketches.
Hindemith had a rocky relationship with the German government in the 1930s. Perhaps naively, he did not take a stand when Hitler came to power, but continued to work as if the social and political situation were no different. The Nazis turned against him in 1934, discrediting his involvement on the international scene, the fact that he worked with Jewish musicians, and the abstract nature of his compositions. Hindemith began traveling with the goal of finding another place to live; he made several international concert tours in the late 1930s, and moved to the U.S. in 1940. While several institutions invited him to join their faculties, Yale University secured him. Choreographer George Balanchine solicited a work from Hindemith that same year—for Balanchine, an amateur pianist, to play on the piano!—and Hindemith dusted off this earlier score, casting it in its final form for piano and strings. The public premiere was in 1944 with pianist-composer Lukas Foss as soloist, and in 1946 Balanchine choreographed the work.
Although the piano part is definitely soloistic, Hindemith did not call The Four Temperaments a piano concerto; he wrote a Piano Concerto in 1945. The piano part stands out from the string instruments because of its contrasting timbre, and Hindemith exploits that quality by often writing different motives or styles for piano than for the strings. Similarly, he treats the string instruments as if they create a single instrument acting as foil for the piano sound.
The five movements have interrelated themes, although this set of theme and variations is not as straightforward as one by Mozart, for instance. The Theme presents three distinct musical sections. Each of the following movements recasts one or more of those sections according to the named temperament. The three sections of the Theme are a chorale dominated by strings, a rapid melody led by the piano, and a gently lilting string passage. Melancholisch is languourous, with piano outbursts that are answered by dreamy lines in the muted solo violin; the movement continues with a gigue and a funeral march. Sanguinisch is an energetic waltz. Like the Theme, Phlegmatisch has three clearly marked sections, often with an impish, playful interaction between strings and piano; this movement leads directly into the last movement, Cholerisch. The dramatic opening is marked by impetuous and impassioned exchanges between pianist and orchestra; and a bold and tender section yields to the majestic ending whose melody in strings is accompanied by a steady background arpeggiation in the piano.
Hindemith scored The Four Temperaments for solo piano and strings. This is the Louisville Orchestra’s first performance of this piece which is approximately thirty minutes long.
GEORGES BIZET
Born 25 October 1838, in Paris
Died 3 June 1875, in Bougival, near Paris
Symphony No. 1, C Major
I. Allegro vivo (Fast, lively); II. Adagio (Slow); III. Allegro vivo (Fast, lively); IV. Allegro vivace (Fast, brisk)
Bizet is best-known today for his opera Carmen and the two orchestral suites from another opera, L’arlésienne. Those two pieces date from 1872 and 1873–74, in the three years before the composer’s death at age 36. The man’s creative period began early, and this symphony, completed when he had just turned 17, marks the beginning of his established output. Bizet had been completely immersed in musical training since the age of four. His parents were musicians who were determined that their only child would join their ranks, and they spared no effort to train him. Georges entered the Paris Conservatory as early as the school would take him, one week before his tenth birthday. While there, he took honors in all his subjects and excelled as both pianist and composer. The Symphony No. 1 dates from 1855, during his school days. Shortly afterward, he won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to spend three years composing in Rome. Bizet composed two other symphonies later, one of which was destroyed; the other was revised several times and is rarely heard.
Surprisingly, the symphony was not premiered until February 26,1935, in Basel, Switzerland. Since that time, it has become quite popular and demonstrates a principal component of Bizet’s style: the merging of Classical and Romantic elements. The symphony reflects the Classical period in its structure, through the clarity of form and balanced sections. The work is Romantic in its orchestration: for instance, the brass and percussion are used melodically as well as for reinforcement, and the pizzicato (plucked) passages in the strings are quite prominent.
The essence of this symphony is liveliness, and Bizet demonstrates that in the tempo markings where three of the four movements are marked with that word. The cheerful first movement abounds with good humor. The Adagio has multiple sections; the introduction juxtaposes strings and woodwinds as it creates a frame for the first section. A solo oboe slowly unfolds a melodic tale above a simple pizzicato accompaniment; after several phrases, the string players pick up their bows and give a reassuring response. The movement builds toward a climax and Bizet uses brass and timpani to punctuate this high point. The next section is a fugato; like a fugue with gradually accumulating parts, this one builds with a motive begun in cellos and basses and then followed by the second violin section. The movement closes with a reminiscence of the earlier oboe tune. The third movement presents a bold scherzo in the style of Mendelssohn or possibly a cheerful Schumann. This movement has a preponderance of winds and long phrases, and one of its hallmarks is the middle section that sounds like a bagpipe. It is easy to be swept away by the ebullience of the finale; the first violins race immediately from the gate and the movement only settles when it ends. Some of these themes foreshadow melodies of Carmen.
In considering how someone so young could write such a strong work, one writer opines, “The Symphony shows more than promise; it stands on its own feet as a work of precocious genius.”
Bizet’s Symphony No. 1 uses 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Lawrence Leighton Smith conducted this 30-minute work with the Louisville Orchestra on October 8, 9, and 10, 1992.
