JSO notes

Sergei Prokofiev (1891, Sontsovka – 1953, Moscow)

Selections from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (1935)

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

And so begins the most famous play in the world ... with a spoiler.

William Shakespeare penned these lines circa 1595, and through the centuries his epic tragedy has inspired more authors, composers and filmmakers than any other secular work. Yet as late as 1935, Sergei Prokofiev apparently became the first to write a ballet about the ill-fated lovers. With his Romeo and Juliet, Prokofiev composed the only full-length ballet that approaches the popularity of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.

The Ukrainian enfant terrible abandoned post-revolutionary Russia for the Decadent West in 1918. As his star grew brighter, Prokofiev received recurring invitations to resume permanent residency in Soviet Russia. By the mid-1930s, with performance royalties waning and homesickness waxing, Prokofiev began to take the invitations seriously. In January 1936, the Soviets denounced Shostakovich, their heretofore favorite composer, providing an unexpected lure: Prokofiev jumped at the chance to become the biggest sturgeon in the pond. That spring he settled his family in Moscow.

Prokofiev returned to Mother Russia carrying his most recent disappointment: Romeo and Juliet. The ballet already had been rejected by both Leningrad's Kirov Theater and Moscow's Bolshoi. The biggest obstacle was Prokofiev's happy ending, with Juliet reviving in time to stop Romeo from drinking poison. The composer said this was necessary because, you know, dead people can't dance. The ballet companies remained unconvinced, however, and feared government censure for corrupting the beloved story. Prokofiev eventually restored The Bard's dénouement, and the revised ballet premiered in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1938. Two years later the Kirov gave the Russian premiere, and Romeo and Juliet finally danced onto the Bolshoi's stage in 1946. Since then it has never left the international repertoire.

While still struggling for his own happy ending with the star-crossed score, Prokofiev was determined to get the music before the public, even without toe-shoes. He performed selections as 10 Pieces for Piano, Op. 75, and arranged two orchestral suites; he later culled a third suite to coincide with the first Bolshoi production. It is common to mix movements from the suites to suit the needs of individual concerts—which brings us to now.

1. Montagues and Capulets combines the ominous Introduction to Act III with Dance of the Knights, which introduces the Capulet clan during the Act I ballroom scene. It is the ballet's best-known music, and its bellicose haughtiness aptly conjures the feuding families. The blustering halts as Juliet enters and greets Paris, an older suitor who wishes to marry her. She dances a minuet with him, and the chilly formality is brilliantly underscored with viola portamenti tracing a filigree of flute melody against an icy background including harp, triangle and celesta.

2. The Child Juliet takes place that afternoon before the ball, as the exuberant Juliet and her friends tease the nursemaid while they primp and preen. Lady Capulet interrupts their frolic, hoping to persuade Juliet to accept a marriage proposal from the wealthy Paris.

3. Masks takes us to the Capulet's ball along with disguised, party-crashing Montagues: Romeo, his cousin Benvolio, and Mercutio, Romeo's best friend.

4. Death of Tybalt moves into the morning streets soon after Romeo and Juliet secretly marry. Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, has challenged Romeo to a duel, but Romeo refuses because he alone knows they now are related. Mercutio accepts the challenge, but turns the duel into a comical dance. Amid the hijinks Tybalt surreptitiously stabs Mercutio. When Romeo realizes that Mercutio is dead, he pursues and kills Tybalt, punctuated by 15 violent chords. The Capulets bear their slain kinsman before the Prince of Verona to demand justice. Romeo is spared execution, but is banished.

5. Romeo at the Grave of Juliet presents the heart-wrenching grief of the teenaged groom who has no idea that his bride soon will rouse from her drug-induced trance. Amid death-theme variations comes a recollection of young love as Romeo prayerfully tries to resurrect Juliet's seemingly lifeless body. Laying her again to rest, he downs a fatal draught. Juliet awakens—Romeo's prayer has been answered too late.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809, Hamburg - 1847, Leipzig)

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844)

Allegro molto appassionato (E minor) - Andante (C major) - Allegretto non troppo / Allegro molto vivace (E minor)

The prodigious musical talents of Felix Mendelssohn rivaled those of Mozart, and like Mozart, Mendelssohn did not live to see his 40th birthday. But his affluent German family provided young Felix with an intellectually stimulating and stable environment, and protected him from the childhood exploitation that Mozart endured. At sixteen, Mendelssohn produced his first masterwork, the Octet for Strings, Op. 20, and the following year saw the completion of the brilliant A Midsummer Night’s Dream concert overture. In terms of achieving his musical maturity, Mendelssohn surpassed even Mozart.

In contrast to many of his flamboyant contemporaries, Mendelssohn neither overcame abject poverty, had a string of adulterous affairs, nor suffered syphilitic insanity—consequently, his reputation as a "Romantic" has suffered. He grew into a superstar composer, pianist, organist and conductor, and he also founded Germany's first conservatory, located in Leipzig. But after he died, Richard Wagner became a particularly vociferous critic, lumping Mendelssohn with the likes of Brahms for their backward-looking drivel, compared with his own creations of genius. In addition to tooting his own tuba, Wagner had ulterior motives which had nothing to do with Mendelssohn's music. For one, Maestro Mendelssohn had rejected (and possibly lost) the score to Wagner’s early Symphony. For another, Wagner was virulently anti-Semitic, and Mendelssohn, although Protestant himself, was the grandson of a well-known Jewish philosopher.

Many pundits allowed Wagner’s propaganda to fuel negativity toward Mendelssohn through most of the 20th Century, but Mendelssohn’s music never lost favor with concertgoers. Nor with bride's: the Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream has long been regarded as the quintessential recessional for weddings. Ironically, Mendelssohn's March frequently is paired with the bridal processional from Wagner’s Lohengrin—it seems posterity finds in Mendelssohn’s music the perfect complement to Wagner’s, so the two composers are now forever married.

Mendelssohn’s flawless Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, is among the most frequently-performed concerted works, and one of the most influential. It was composed for violinist Ferdinand David, a long-time friend of the composer who provided technical advice, and possibly coauthored the demanding first-movement cadenza. Unusual for the time, the cadenza is written out rather than left for soloists to improvise, and it occurs as a bridge between the development section and recap, rather than at the coda. Other formal innovations include having the soloist introduce the principal music of the first movement by dispensing with an orchestral exposition, and connecting all three movements into an unbroken musical stream.

The year after the Concerto's 1845 premiere, Mendelssohn achieved another triumph with Elijah, a sacred oratorio second in popularity only to Handel's Messiah. But the Violin Concerto proved to be Mendelssohn's last orchestral masterpiece, and perhaps the work that best fulfilled the promise of the former Wunderkind.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840, Votkinsk - 1893, Saint Petersburg)

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, "Little Russian" (1872, revised 1879)

Andante sostenuto / Allegro vivo (C minor) - Andantino marziale, quasi moderato (E-flat major) -

Scherzo. Allegro molto vivace (C minor) - Finale. Moderato assai / Allegro vivo (C major)

Tchaikovsky began work on his folksy Symphony No. 2 in the summer of 1872. On break from his post at the Moscow Conservatory, the 32-year-old harmony professor was vacationing at the estate of his beloved younger sister, Sasha, and her husband, Lev Davidoff. Now, the tendency to attribute autobiographical origins to Tchaikovsky's artistic impulses often seems overplayed. In this case, however, the composer himself spoiled any mystery regarding who or what kindled his inspiration: the butler did it.

The Davidoff's rural retreat was in "Little Russia," which is what imperialist Big Russians called Ukraine. Sasha's old steward had a habit of humming homegrown tunes as he puttered about, and one of his Ukrainian Top 40 made it into the symphony, along with some other folk-songs. Tchaikovsky had used folk music before, as did Mily Balakirev and his protégés, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Cui, the self-proclaimed leaders of Russian musical nationalism. This "Mighty Handful" mistrusted Germanic symphonic techniques, which failed to nurture the unique melodic flowering born of Russian soil, or worse, hacked it to bits. Tchaikovsky, a handful unto himself, revered Beethoven and adored Mozart, so he dismissed this view. Nevertheless, he also wanted a music that reflected the national identity, and recognized that his own talent manifested in memorable, sweeping melodies. With little precedent, Tchaikovsky cultivated a hybrid, retaining basic formal outlines codified by Papa Haydn, but letting melody, rather than motif, dominate the discourse. Many critics have lambasted this sacrilege as a shortcoming, but time has proven that Tchaikovsky's bending of "the rules" has not diminished his ability to stir the hearts and minds of listeners. On the contrary, along with his heroes Beethoven and Mozart, Tchaikovsky remains among the most-performed composers of symphonic music.

Added posthumously, the Ukrainian "Little Russian" nickname is certainly apt. The first movement begins with Down by Mother Volga, a Ukrainian folk-song intoned by unaccompanied horn. The strain is repeated, becoming increasingly agitated until the full orchestra drops out again, leaving only horns in octaves to herald the main body of the movement; the same tune reappears in the development and coda. The second movement is a charming wedding march resurrected from Tchaikovsky's discarded opera, Undine, and the lyrical middle section quotes another folk-song, Spin, O My Spinner. Some suggest that the Scherzo was inspired by the gossamer Queen Mab of Berlioz, or Borodin's First Symphony. But Tchaikovsky's relative earthiness seems as much a tribute to Beethoven, especially since the 4-notes that head the trio section transform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony "fate" motif into a jaunty folk-dance. As in Beethoven's Fifth, Tchaikovsky's lively Finale transports the symphony from C minor to a festive C major. The movement features variations on The Crane, the favorite folk-song of Sasha's butler, which also is a tune Mussorgsky would use later in Pictures at an Exhibition. Following the example of Glinka's Kamarinskaya, Tchaikovsky generally keeps the melody intact, providing variety through the ever-changing background and colorful harmonies. For contrast, he introduces a somewhat jazzy lyrical tune of his own devising.

The February 1873 premiere of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 was so successful that the work was repeated by popular demand twice that same season. It seems the only detractor was the composer: in 1879, he tweaked the orchestration throughout, and pruned the third and fourth movements. Tchaikovsky also completely gutted the first movement, but he retains both its original introduction and coda, and, as before, includes Down by Mother Volga prominently in the development section as well. For his new "first subject" he introduces a five-note motif taken from Let God Arise, a Russian liturgical chant, which, coincidentally, is similar to Beethoven's fate motif. For the chromatic start of his new "second subject," Tchaikovsky truncates his old first subject, and also reuses figures from the old second subject. The revision was a resounding success when first performed in 1881, and as the composer wished, it is the version of the Second Symphony almost always performed.

Fun fact: Tchaikovsky's "Little Russian" was a particular favorite of Igor Stravinsky, who conducted a number of American orchestras in their first performances of the work.

Edward Lein produces Jacksonville Public Library's Music@Main concerts, and was a finalist in the Jacksonville Symphony's 2006 Fresh Ink composition contest.

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