Achtergronden

Bruckner's "Schoolwork"

There is no doubt about the meaning and purpose of the Symphony in F minor: Bruckner finally wanted to "prove himself" in the symphonic field after years of meticulous study. The composer himself marked all four movements in a copy of the score as "Schoolwork". Despite his teacher's unenthusiastic assessment, Bruckner took the work with him to Munich in September 1863 to show it to the local court conductor Franz Lachner. Lachner thought the symphony stood out "because of its stream of ideas, the order, and noble direction". He wasn't opposed to performing the piece the following year which, unfortunately, didn't happen. The premiere of Bruckner's Symphony in F minor took place in 1924, 60 years after its completion and 28 years after the composer's death.

The so-called "Study Symphony" already points to the characteristics which developed into Bruckner's typical style; the work must be considered as a delightful commentary on his entire oeuvre. 

• The first movement begins without a slow introduction. The first theme, softly played, appears right away in its final shape. As in Bruckner's later symphonies, this movement also features three basic themes with extensive transitions, the second of which has a cantabile character. Bruckner's characteristic principle of stringing together dynamically divergent blocks of sound (which he derived from the organ), is already evident here. The relationship between strings and wind instruments in this movement is strongly based on classical models and does not yet reveal the characteristic block-like instrumentation of Bruckner's later works. The abrupt drop at the end of the movement, however, will become his "signature". 

• The second slow movement is conventionally structured, and like all of Bruckner's slow movements, it follows the sonata form. 

• The third movement also has the basic features of a typical Bruckner Scherzo, although the trio still sounds a little like Haydn and does not strike the tone of later works. 

• The Finale, which again features Bruckner's usual three themes, is surprisingly short. A large-scale crescendo and the return to musical ideas from the previous movements are nowhere to be found here: It is only in his later symphonies that the cyclical rounding off makes the final movement appear as climax and goal of the entire musical development. 

Over time Bruckner developed his unmistakable personal style and the Symphony in F minor qualifies as his symphonic apprentice piece.

Harald Hodeige

Text copied from leaflet of a new CD on Genuin: Bruckner: Symphony in F minor, MDR Sinfonieorchester and Dennis Russell Davies

By Tim riley - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Black Knight, Op. 25 is a symphony/cantata for orchestra and chorus written by Edward Elgar in 1889–93. The librettist borrows from Longfellow's translation of the ballad Der schwarze Ritter by Ludwig Uhland.

Elgar was motivated to complete work on The Black Knight when offered a performance at the Worcester Festival. Cantatas were favoured by choral societies of the time. However, Elgar's desire to organize the loose format of the cantata by shaping it to a more rigid form is apparent. For example, he divides the text into four contrasting scenes corresponding to the four movements of a typical symphony. Basil Maine, a leading Elgar biographer, believes the purpose of the work is to create a close mix of vocal and instrumental tones.

Synopsis

Elgar's The Black Knight tells the story of the intrusion of a mysterious stranger into a king's court with disastrous and gruesome result.

It starts with a medieval jousting competition held in honor of the feast of Pentecost: in the competition, the king's son beats everyone in the lists until a mysterious knight arrives and challenges him, and with the sky darkening and the castle rocking, the strange knight fights and wins. Later that evening, during the banquet, the black knight returns to ask the king if he can marry his daughter and begins to dance with her, and as they dance, the little flowers in her hair mysteriously die. Later, noticing the paleness of the king's two children, the guest offers 'healing' wine to them, who collapse and die soon after drinking the poison. The old king begs the knight to kill him as he has nothing left to live for, but he refuses.

Music writer Diana McVeagh observes that there seems to be no moral cause or explanation for the gratuitous evil of the stranger.

Musical analysis

Elgar described the work as a 'symphony for chorus and orchestra', though the publishers, Novello, described it as a cantata. The four scenes correspond to the four movements of the classical symphony. There are no soloists, and the action is described by the chorus.

In the first scene, "The Tournament", Edward Elgar uses a buoyant, "open-air" [3] theme to depict the happy crowd at the tournament. Here the composer uses a triplet figure that falls on the third beat.

The second scene begins with the orchestra playing softly. The orchestra then begins to play the knight's theme louder as he appears. Throughout the scene, the composer uses a number of diminished sevenths which represent the knight and foreshadow the disastrous events to come. The chorus, representing the crowd, demands to know the knight's name, and there is a moment of silence before the knight answers.

In the "Dance", the themes are light and graceful. Initially, the chorus enters to describe the king's feast, but the music changes as the black knight's theme replays as he enters the hall. During the knight's dance with the king's daughter, his theme becomes chaotic: for example, the orchestra replays the original diminished seventh again as the flower in her hair died.

"The Banquet" begins frantically as the knight proposes a toast. Then, as the children die, the orchestra calms and plays softly. Abruptly the chorus and the king erupt with a dramatic cry as the children die. The knight's refusal to kill the king is portrayed by unaccompanied voices. The piece ends dramatically with the return of variations on the knight's theme at forte. At the last seven measures, only two instruments play and the sound dies away.

Composition

Many believe the composer considers the chorus less important than the orchestra. For example, the chorus borrows the orchestra's tunes or will often double the orchestra. The words are often weakly placed and do not seem as important as the underlying music. "Words serve a mechanical purpose ... [there is] no good reason why they should not be removed". The orchestral writing, however, is competent and characteristic. For example, fear at the Black Knight is expressed by harmonic sequences and appoggiaturas which resolve downward. The composer also uses Neapolitan sixth chords to express the wickedness of the knight. Due to this unexpected compositional technique, The Black Knight is still performed all over the world.