Program Notes
MICHAEL DAUGHERTY
Michael Daugherty, born in 1954 into the family of a
dance-band drummer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (his four younger
brothers are all also professional musicians), has been
Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan
since 1991; he taught at the Oberlin College Conservatory
of Music during the preceding five years. While pursuing
his undergraduate degree at North Texas State University
from 1972 to 1976, Daugherty played jazz piano in the
school’s lab bands and was encouraged to study composition
by James Sellars. Daugherty received his master’s
degree in composition from the Manhattan School of Music
in 1978, and spent the following year on a Fulbright Fellowship
studying and composing computer music at IRCAM (Pierre
Boulez’s Institute for Research and Coordination
of Acoustics and Music in Paris). From 1980 to 1982, he
continued his professional training at the Yale School
of Music with Earle Brown, Jacob Druckman, Bernard Rands
and Roger Reynolds while collaborating with jazz arranger
Gil Evans in New York; he received his doctorate from
Yale in 1984. Daugherty was a Composition Fellow at Tanglewood
in 1980; during the summer of 1990, he returned there
as Guest Composer. György Ligeti invited Daugherty
to study with him in Hamburg, Germany from 1982 to 1984,
during which time Daugherty developed his distinctive
compositional language, which fuses elements of jazz,
rock, popular and contemporary music with the techniques
of traditional classical idioms in a manner that Musical
America described as “eclecticism at its best.”
Michael Daugherty composes for traditional acoustical
instruments, collaborates with improvisational artists
in music and dance, and performs his electronic pieces
using MIDI, synthesizers and sampling machines. Many of
his compositions take their inspiration from folklore,
fables and historical, social or entertainment figures,
as their titles attest: Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover (for
the Kronos Quartet and tape), Desi for Symphonic Wind
and Conga Soloist (a Latin big-band tribute to Ricky Ricardo
from I Love Lucy), Dead Elvis (for Boston Musica Viva),
Metropolis Symphony (inspired by the Superman comics)
and Elvis Everywhere (for the Kronos Quartet and three
Elvis impersonators). His recent projects include the
opera Jackie O (1997, premiered by Houston Grand Opera),
UFO (1999, for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the National
Symphony Orchestra), MotorCity Triptych (2000) and the
violin concerto Fire and Blood (2003, both for the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra), and Philadelphia Stories (2001, his
third symphony, premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra).
From 1999 to 2003, Daugherty was Composer-in-Residence
with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; he held a similar
residency with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in 2001-2002.
Michael Daugherty has fulfilled many commissions, and
received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts,
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center, BMI, Tanglewood, ASCAP,
ISCM, Meet the Composer, the Rockefeller and Guggenheim
foundations, and the New Jersey and Ohio arts councils.
In 1989, two of his compositions, SNAP! and Blue Like
an Orange, received awards from the prestigious Friedheim
Competition at Kennedy Center.
The composer writes of his Snap!, commissioned in 1987
for the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, “This
work for chamber ensemble features two cymbal players
positioned on opposite sides of the stage who perform
a duet of various rhythmic patterns in stereo. The idea
of this spatial separation occurred to me when I saw James
Cagney tap dancing in the 1937 Hollywood film Something
to Sing About. Sporting a top hat and tuxedo in the opening
night club scene, Cagney tap dances up and down and around
a stage framed by two jazz bands: one stage left, the
other stage right, with the camera continually panning
back and forth. Reflecting on my own early experience
of learning to tap dance, I composed a syncopated and
snappy opening motive for Snap!. This motive, first heard
in the trumpet at the beginning, goes through various
rhythmic permutations and melodic elaboration. As my compositional
camera pans across the ensemble, I rotate two or three
lines contrapuntally in different instrumental combinations
to create multiple musical canons. Snap! is my jazz tribute
to the Golden Age of Hollywood and the panache of Cagney’s
performance.”
* * *
MAX BRUCH
Max Bruch, widely known and respected in his day as a
composer, conductor and teacher, received his earliest
music instruction from his mother, a noted singer and
pianist. He began composing at eleven, and, by fourteen,
had produced a symphony and a string quartet, the latter
garnering a prize that allowed him to study with Karl
Reinecke and Ferdinand Hiller. His opera Die Loreley (1862)
and the choral work Frithjof (1864) brought him his first
public acclaim. For the next 25 years, Bruch held various
posts as a choral and orchestral conductor in Cologne,
Coblenz, Sondershausen, Berlin, Liverpool and Breslau;
in 1883, he visited the United States to conduct concerts
of his own choral compositions. From 1890 to 1910, he
taught composition at the Berlin Academy and received
numerous awards for his work, including an honorary doctorate
from Cambridge University. Though Bruch is known mainly
for the three famous compositions for string soloist and
orchestra (the G minor Concerto and the Scottish Fantasy
for violin, and the Kol Nidrei for cello), he also composed
two other violin concertos, three symphonies, a concerto
for two pianos, various chamber pieces, songs, three operas
and much choral music.
The G minor Violin Concerto brought Bruch his earliest
and most enduring fame. He began sketching ideas for the
piece in 1857, when he was a nineteen-year-old student
just finishing his studies with Ferdinand Hiller in Cologne,
but they only came to fruition in 1865, at the start of
his two-year tenure as director of the Royal Institute
for Music at Coblenz. The piece was not only Bruch’s
first concerto but also his first large work for orchestra,
so he sought the advice of Johann Naret-Koning, concertmaster
at Mannheim, concerning matters of violin technique and
instrumental balance. The Concerto was ready for performance
by April 1866 with Naret-Koning slated as soloist, but
illness forced him to cancel, and Otto von Königslöw,
concertmaster of the Gürzenich Orchestra and violin
professor at the Cologne Conservatory, took over at the
last minute. This public hearing convinced Bruch that
repairs were needed, so he temporarily withdrew the Concerto
while he revised and refined it during the next year with
the meticulous advice of the eminent violinist and composer
Joseph Joachim (who was to provide similar assistance
to Johannes Brahms a decade later with his Violin Concerto).
Joachim was soloist in the premiere of the definitive
version of the Concerto, on January 7, 1868 in Bremen;
he received the score’s dedication in appreciation
from Bruch. The Concerto was an enormous hit, spreading
Bruch’s reputation across Europe and, following
its first performance in New York in 1872 by Pablo de
Sarasate, America. Its success, however, hoisted Bruch
upon the horns of a dilemma later in his career. He, of
course, valued the notoriety that the Concerto brought
to him and his music, but he also came to realize that
the work’s exceptional popularity overshadowed his
other pieces for violin and orchestra. “Nothing
compares to the laziness, stupidity and dullness of many
German violinists,” he complained to the publisher
Fritz Simrock in a letter from 1887. “Every fortnight
another one comes to me wanting to play the First Concerto;
I have now become rude, and tell them: ‘I cannot
listen to this Concerto any more — did I perhaps
write just this one? Go away, and play the other [two]
Concertos, which are just as good, if not better.”
Bruch’s vehemence in this matter was exacerbated
by the fact that he had sold the rights to the G minor
Concerto to the publisher August Cranz for a one-time
payment, and he never received another penny from its
innumerable performances. In a poignant episode at the
end of his life, he tried to recoup some money from the
piece by offering his original manuscript for sale in
the United States, but he died before receiving any payment
for it. The score is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library
in New York.
The G minor Violin Concerto is a work of lyrical beauty
and emotional sincerity. The first movement, which Bruch
called a “Prelude,” is in the nature of an
extended introduction leading without pause into the slow
movement. The Concerto opens with a dialogue between soloist
and orchestra followed by a wide-ranging subject played
by the violinist over a pizzicato line in the basses.
A contrasting theme reaches into the highest register
of the violin, and is followed by scintillating passage
work of scales and broken chords for the soloist. A stormy
section for orchestra alone recalls the opening dialogue,
which softens to usher in the lovely Adagio. This slow
movement contains three important themes, all languorous
and sweet, which are shared by soloist and orchestra.
The music builds to a passionate climax before subsiding
to a tranquil close.
The finale begins with eighteen modulatory bars containing
hints of the upcoming theme before the soloist proclaims
the vibrant melody itself, enriched with copious multiple
stops. A broad melody, played first by the orchestra alone
before being taken over by the soloist, serves as the
second theme. A brief development, based on the dance-like
first theme, leads to the recapitulation. The coda, with
some ingenious long-range harmonic deflections, recalls
again the first theme to bring the work to a rousing close.
Though a true showpiece for the master violinist, the
G minor Concerto also possesses a solid musicianship and
a memorable lyricism that make it a continuing favorite
with both performers and audiences. Sir Donald Tovey succinctly
summarized the talent of the composer of this work by
simply saying, “It is not easy to write as beautifully
as Max Bruch.”
* * *
JEAN SIBELIUS
At the turn of the 20th century, two pressing concerns
were foremost in the thoughts of Jean Sibelius —
his country and his compositions. His home, Finland, was
experiencing a surge of nationalistic pride that called
for independence and recognition after eight centuries
of domination by Sweden and Russia, and he enthusiastically
lent his philosophical and artistic support to the movement.
In the 1890s, when Sibelius was still in his twenties,
he was drawn into a group called “The Symposium,”
a coterie of young Helsinki intellectuals who championed
the cause of Finnish nationalism. Of them, Sibelius noted,
“The ‘Symposium’ evenings were a great
resource to me at a time when I might have stood more
or less alone. The opportunity of exchanging ideas with
kindred souls, animated by the same spirit and the same
objectives, exerted an extremely stimulating influence
on me, confirmed in me my purpose, gave me confidence.”
The group’s interest in native legends, music, art
and language incited in the young composer a deep feeling
for his homeland that blossomed in such early works as
En Saga, Kullervo, Karelia and Finlandia. The ardent patriotism
of those stirring musical testaments became a rallying
point and an inspiration to Finns, and they earned Sibelius
a hero’s reputation among his countrymen.
In 1900, Sibelius was given a specific way in which to
further the cause of both his country and his music. In
that year, the conductor Robert Kajanus led the Helsinki
Philharmonic through Europe to the Paris Exhibition on
a tour whose purpose was less artistic recognition than
a bid for international sympathy for Finnish political
autonomy. As Sibelius’ music figured prominently
in the tour repertory, he was asked to join the entourage
as assistant to Kajanus. The tour was a success: for the
orchestra and its conductor, for Finland, and especially
for Sibelius, whose works it brought to a wider audience
than ever before. Music and politics usually make contentious
bedfellows, but on this occasion they achieved a fortuitous
symbiosis.
A year later Sibelius was again traveling. Through a
financial subscription raised by Axel Carpelan, he was
able to spend the early months of 1901 in Italy away from
the rigors of the Scandinavian winter. So inspired was
he by the culture, history and beauty of the sunny south
(as had been Goethe and Brahms) that he envisioned a work
based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. However, a second
symphony to follow the First of 1899 was aborning, and
the Dante work was eventually abandoned. Sibelius was
well launched on the new Symphony by the time he left
for home. He made two important stops before returning
to Finland. The first was at Prague, where he met Dvorák
and was impressed with the famous musician’s humility
and friendliness. The second stop was at the June Music
Festival in Heidelberg, where the enthusiastic reception
given to his compositions enhanced the budding European
reputation that he had achieved during the Helsinki Philharmonic
tour of the preceding year. Still flush with the success
of this 1901 tour when he arrived home, he decided he
was secure enough financially (thanks in part to an annual
stipend initiated in 1897 by the Finnish government) to
leave his teaching job and devote himself full-time to
composition. Though it was to be almost two decades before
Finland became independent of Russia as a result of the
First World War, Sibelius had come into the full ripeness
of his genius by the time of the Second Symphony. So successful
was the premiere of the work on March 8, 1902 that it
had to be repeated at three successive concerts in a short
time to satisfy the clamor for further performances.
Because of the milieu in which the Second Symphony arose,
there have been several attempts to read into it a specific,
nationalistic program, including one by Georg Schneevoight,
a conductor and friend of the composer. The intention
of this Symphony, he wrote, “was to depict in the
first movement the quiet pastoral life of the Finns, undisturbed
by the thought of oppression. The second movement is charged
with patriotic feeling, but the thought of a brutal rule
over the people brings with it timidity of soul. The third,
a scherzo, portrays the awakening of national feeling
in the people and the desire to organize in defense of
their rights. In the finale hope enters their breasts
and there is comfort in the anticipated coming of a deliverer!”
As late as 1946, the Finnish musicologist Ilmari Kronn
posited that the Symphony depicted “Finland’s
struggle for political liberty.” Sibelius insisted
such descriptions misrepresented his intention —
that it was his tone poems and not his symphonies which
were based on specific programs. This Symphony, he maintained,
was pure, abstract expression and not meant to conjure
any definite meaning. As with any great work, however,
Sibelius’ Second Symphony can inspire many different
interpretations, and the Finns have an understandable
devotion to Schneevoight’s patriotic view of the
music despite Sibelius’ words — it is the
piece most often performed at Finnish state occasions.
The influence of German and Russian music bears heavily
on the first two symphonies of Sibelius. Echoes of the
works of Tchaikovsky and Borodin and, to a lesser extent,
Brahms are frequent. However, the style is unmistakably
Sibelian in its melodic and timbral attributes, and even
in the distinctive technique of concentrated thematic
development that was to flower fully in the following
symphonies. The first movement is modeled on the classical
sonata form. As introduction, the strings present a chordal
motive that courses through and unifies much of the movement.
A bright, folk-like strain for the woodwinds and a hymnal
response from the horns constitute the opening theme.
The second theme exhibits one of Sibelius’ most
characteristic constructions — a long held note
that intensifies to a quick rhythmic flourish. This theme
and a complementary one of angular leaps and unsettled
tonality close the exposition and figure prominently in
the ensuing development. A stentorian brass chorale closes
this section and leads to the recapitulation, a compressed
restatement of the earlier themes.
The second movement, though closely related to sonatina
form (sonata without development), is best heard as a
series of dramatic paragraphs whose strengths lie not
just in their individual qualities but also in their powerful
juxtapositions. The opening statement is given by bassoons
in hollow octaves above a bleak accompaniment of timpani
with cellos and basses in pizzicato notes. The upper strings
and then full orchestra take over the solemn plaint, but
soon inject a new, sharply rhythmic idea of their own
which calls forth a halting climax from the brass choir.
After a silence, the strings intone a mournful motive
that soon engenders another climax. A soft timpani roll
begins the series of themes again, but in expanded presentations
with fuller orchestration and greater emotional impact.
The third movement is a three-part form whose lyrical,
unhurried central trio, built on a repeated note theme,
provides a strong contrast to the mercurial surrounding
scherzo. The slow music of the trio returns as a bridge
to the closing movement, one of the most inspiring finales
in the entire symphonic literature. It has a grand sweep
and uplifting spirituality that make it one of the last
unadulterated flowerings of the great Romantic tradition.
Of this work, David Ewen wrote, “It has the ardor,
passion and vitality of youth; it overflows with sensual
lyricism and Slavic sentimentality; it is dramatized by
compelling climaxes and irresistible rhythmic drive.”
To which Milton Cross added, simply, “It has an
overwhelming emotional impact.”
©2006 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
