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Home > Hancher > Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

Program - Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (March 3, 2006)

Contents

  1. Program
  2. About the Artists
  3. Program Notes
  4. Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

Program

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and Gil Shaham, guest director and soloist.

Anton Arensky

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Intermission

Peter Tchaikovsky

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About the Artists

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields was formed in 1958 as a small, conductorless chamber ensemble, based in the elegantly porticoed 18th-century church on the east side of Trafalgar Square. Led by Neville Marriner and attracting some of the finest players in London, the orchestra at first concentrated on repertoire from the Baroque era, developing a style of performance that launched the 1960s Baroque revival and paved the way for today’s myriad period-instrument ensembles. The Academy was so named after the various concert-giving societies that had flourished in 18th-century London—most notably the Academy of Ancient Music, which met weekly at the Crown & Anchor Tavern on the Strand, and the Royal Academy of Music, for which Handel wrote many of his finest works. It gave its first professional concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields on November 13, 1959.

Only two years later it had secured its first recording contract, with the independent L’Oiseau-Lyre label. This was to be the beginning of a literally record-breaking discography that now boasts well over 500 entries, making the Academy the most recorded chamber orchestra in the world. Thanks to this huge recorded catalog and widespread radio coverage, both the Academy’s name and that of the church where it began its life have become familiar to audiences across the globe.

Even though it is now over 30 years since it was permanently based at St Martin-in-the-Fields itself, people still turn up at the church most Sunday mornings asking when the Academy’s next concert is, though these days it is to be found more often playing at secular venues like the Barbican (where it is resident orchestra for the annual Mostly Mozart Festival) or the Wigmore Hall.

The Academy has always maintained a busy touring schedule and made its first appearance in Europe at the Flanders Festival in 1967. This was quickly followed by tours to France, the Netherlands and Germany, establishing a relationship with German audiences in particular that has seen the orchestra return there at least once a year since 1973. It was for a tour to Germany in 1975 that the Academy Chorus was formed under the direction of Laszlo Heltay. These first performances were of Bach’s B minor Mass and, soon after their return to England, the choir and orchestra made one of their most successful joint recordings, of Handel’s Messiah.

Today the Academy regularly performs to capacity houses around the world. In 1997 it was chosen to play at the official hand-over ceremony in Hong Kong, while more recently it opened the first subscription series at the new Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

As demand for the Academy grew, so did the scope of its repertoire and the size of the orchestra, and eventually Sir Neville was forced to give up directing from the leader’s chair in favor of conducting from the front. But while this has enabled the Academy to explore new symphonic repertoire never envisaged at its outset, the orchestra has continued to remain true to its origins as a compact chamber orchestra, and now divides its time between international tours, education and outreach work, the recording studio and UK concerts.

Unlike most major UK orchestras, the Academy receives no direct government subsidy and relies solely on its artistic integrity and commercial initiative for its continued success.

Violinist Gil Shaham is internationally recognized by audiences and critics alike as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras and conductors, as well as for recital and ensemble appearances on the great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Mr. Shaham’s 2005-06 season highlights include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New World Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Dallas Symphony, and abroad with the leading orchestras of Rome, Florence, Birmingham, Prague, Paris and London. In addition he will join the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields as leader and soloist on the orchestra’s U.S. tour.

In addition to his many orchestral engagements Mr. Shaham regularly tours in recital with pianist, Akira Eguchi. He has the good fortune to enjoy musical collaboration with his family as well, including his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, his sister pianist Orli Shaham and his brother-in-law, conductor David Robertson. In summer 2006, he will join Yefim Bronfman and Truls Mork touring and recording Schubert Piano Trios.

Among his more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs, are a number of best sellers, appearing on record charts in the U.S. and abroad. These recordings have earned prestigious awards including multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diaposon d’or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Mr. Shaham’s most recent recordings have been produced for his own label, Canary Classics -- The Fauré Album with Akira Eguchi and The Prokofiev Album with Orli Shaham.

Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel where at the age of seven he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music and granted annual scholarships by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, while studying with Haim Taub in Jerusalem, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. That same year he began his studies with Dorothy DeLay and Jens Ellerman at Aspen. In 1982, after taking first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition, he became a scholarship student at Juilliard, where he has worked with Ms. DeLay and Hyo Kang. He has also studied at Columbia University.

Gil Shaham was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990. He plays the 1699 "Countess Polignac" Stradivarius. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony and their two children.

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Program Notes

Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a

Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906)

The life of the Russian composer, pianist and conductor, Anton Arensky, almost reads like a Dostoyevski novel. Born to musical parents who gave him his first music lessons, he was already composing piano pieces and some songs by the age of nine. After taking private lessons he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1879. There he studied with Rimsky-Korsakov who, while Arensky was still a student, entrusted him with a share in preparing the vocal score of the opera The Snow Maiden. Arensky graduated with the gold medal after only three years and was immediately given an appointment as a professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory. There he came under the influence of Tchaikovsky, who took the young composer under his wing and tried to promote his music, although he was as concerned about the heavy drinking and gambling engaged in by his student, a fact already noted by Rimsky-Korsakov. Tchaikovsky is said to have remarked: "Arensky is a man of remarkable gifts, but morbidly nervous and lacking in firmness and altogether a strange man."

In 1894 Balakirev recommended Arensky to be his successor for the directorship of the imperial chapel in St. Petersburg. The following year Arensky resigned from his Moscow post to assume the directorship. Then, in 1901, Arensky gave up his post with the imperial chapel and with a rather meager pension ostensibly devoted the rest of his career to composition. For a period of time he gave very successful concerts both as pianist and conductor in Russia and abroad. However, despite his brilliant talent that was recognized everywhere, he became increasingly disorganized as his personality disintegrated. His chronic alcohol addiction began to take its toll on his health, and he succumbed to tuberculosis, dying at age 45 in a Finnish sanatorium.

Arensky is considered to be one of the most eclectic Russian composers of his generation. Among his works are three operas, two symphonies, four suites for two pianos, songs and music set to Pushkin poems, a ballet, a piano concerto, chamber pieces and works for solo piano. Yet Arensky is remembered chiefly for his having taught Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Glière as well as for his popular Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor.

The Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky has an interesting history. Tchaikovsky, whom Arensky so intensely admired, had written a lengthy elegiac piano trio in 1881 in memory of his friend Nikolai Rubinstein, and in it incorporated a set of variations. When Tchaikovsky died in 1893, presumably as the result of suicide, Arensky, to express his grief, composed an elegiac String Quartet in A minor, Op. 35 that he dedicated to Tchaikovsky. The A-minor quartet has the unusual combination of violin, viola and two cellos, although a later version has been arranged for the traditional string quartet. The second movement of this quartet consists of a set of variations based on Tchaikovsky's Children's Songs, Op. 54, No. 5, "Legend: When Jesus Christ was but a little child." This set of variations became such an immediate success that Arensky himself published it as a separate work for the standard string quartet ensemble as well as for string orchestra. It is in the latter form, as will be played in tonight's concert, that the "Arensky Variations" has become established in the concert repertoire as the composer's most lasting orchestral work, long after his other major works have been forgotten.

The theme, the melody of the Tchaikovsky song, is presented simply. Six variations follow, expressing in turn: lyricism, wistfulness, melancholy, and dramatically explosive energy, all with the dark underpinnings that are so characteristic of Tchaikovsky's music. The seventh and last variation strikes one as having been borrowed from Tchaikovsky's famous Andante Cantabile. The work closes in a muted coda in which the poignant theme is heard again before giving way to a wailing chant that ends abruptly with simple pizzicato chords.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K219, "Turkish"

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

"He wrote a concerto as an actor might write a play for himself to appear in; and the form he produced was in effect the musical equivalent of a play." (B.H. Haggin [1900-1987], American music critic)

While Haggin had in mind Mozart's writing a piano concerto, the fact is that Mozart was also a gifted violinist. He was taught by his father Leopold, a noted violinist and pedagogue, who later became Kappelmeister of the court orchestra in Salzburg. In 1763 it was noted by a Salzburg correspondent in an Augsburg newspaper that the seven-year old Wolfgang had played a solo piece and a concerto on a small violin (violino piccola) made especially for him at the Salzburg court. The young Mozart advanced so rapidly under the tutelage and direction by his father that by the time he was 16, he became the concertmaster of the Salzburg court orchestra. This was a post that required him to lead the orchestra from the violin. Mozart resented having to dress in a uniform chosen by the Archbishop for these occasions, preferring to play in informal gatherings. In the 1770s, Mozart appeared in Salzburg, Vienna, Augsburg and Munich both as violin soloist and conductor of his own and other composers' works. In 1777, after playing one of the solo violin parts of his own orchestral serenades in an informal concert held in Munich, Mozart wrote to his father: "I played as if I were the greatest fiddler in all of Europe." To which his father wrote back words to the effect that Wolfgang did not know how well he could play the violin, and if he applied himself whole-heartedly to the instrument he could indeed be the first violinist in Europe. "Many people do not even know you play the violin, since you have been known from childhood as a keyboard player." However, in 1781 Mozart stopped playing the violin in public and focused his attention to performances and compositions on the keyboard.

The five Mozart violin concertos were written between 1773 and 1775, mostly in Salzburg while the young composer was in the service of the Archbishop Hieronymous Joseph Franz von Paula, Count of Colloredo. The Archbishop championed the violin as the instrument of choice for members of the court to learn as he himself had done. Gaetano Brunetti, the celebrated Italian violinist, joined the Archbishop's musical staff in 1776 and replaced Mozart as concertmaster the next year. In this capacity he played the Mozart concertos and in several instances, because he was "uncomfortable with the seriousness" of some individual movements, he asked the composer for substitutes. Mozart, although holding a low opinion of Brunetti, felt obliged to supply these. One of the substitutes happened to be the second movement of the Violin Concerto No. 5 of tonight's program. Mozart proceeded to write a brief Adagio in E Major for Brunetti. This substitute Adagio is sometimes performed as an independent work (K261) but never as part of the original concerto.

The Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major was completed on December 20, 1775, in Salzburg. It is not known what the occasion was for its writing, nor the circumstances under which it was composed. The A major concerto has several unusual and innovative features reflecting the growth and advances in Mozart's compositional style in the two years since the Violin Concerto No. 1. It should be noted that during these two years the ever-productive Mozart continued to write more opera, tried his hand at ballet, and studied a variety of contrapuntal genres in Vienna. His continual experience with music theater during his short life influenced many of his compositions. As the music scholar Edward Dent, the critic/author Haggin, and many others have noted: "Mozart is never far away from the theater."

The first movement, Allegro aperto, opens with an energetic tutti that has an operatic quality. With the entry of the soloist, the tempo drops and leads into a rather luxuriant Adagio that is followed by a cadenza-like display by the violin. The original tempo resumes with the violinist introducing a vivid melody and engaging the orchestra in a dialogue full of brilliance, tender passion, and wit. The interplay of soloist and orchestra and its dramatic nature give the impression of an operatic scene with aria and recitative features. As if reaching the close of an opera act, the soloist enters with a florid cadenza imitative of a brilliant coloratura aria. The orchestra rejoins the violinist and the "act" is brought to an end.

The expansive Adagio is on a larger scale for a slow movement than had been written by Mozart for his first four violin concertos. It is characterized by a contemplative lyricism that some music critics have likened to the aria "O wie ängslich, o wie feurig," from The Abduction from the Seraglio, in which the tenor Belmonte expresses his longing for and his anticipation of being reunited with his love, Constanze.

The Finale (Rondeau: Tempo di Menuetto) opens as an elegant courtly minuet with a five-note rising figure stated by the horns and the soloist between its rondo episodes. The music proceeds in this fashion until the graceful orderly dance is raucously interrupted by a fury of sound and music that gave the concerto the nickname "Turkish." This interrupting episode, which is longer than any of the others, in itself follows the structure of a rondo; thus a rondo within a rondo! The noisy theme, written in the Turkish manner (alla turca) was borrowed by the composer from his own ballet music for "le Geloisie del Seraglio" that Mozart had composed in 1772 for his opera Lucio Silla. Following this furious rondo episode, the solo violin leads the orchestra back to the tempo of the opening minuet before launching into a cadenza. The movement ends softly with the rising five-note figure from the violin and horns that opened the Finale.

It should be noted that Turkish themes were very much in vogue in Western Europe of Mozart's time. Gluck, Haydn, Mozart and others wrote operas with Turkish settings. The "Turkish" music, set in the minor key, with repetitive chords, gypsy-like melodies and sudden dynamic contrasts, was most likely derived from imitations of the rhythms and noise of the Ottoman Empire's army bands heard in Hungary many years before.

Souvenir de Florence in D Major, Op. 70

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Tchaikovsky's chamber works are few: three string quartets, a piano trio and the string sextet, Souvenir de Florence. There was little tradition in the 19th-century Russian musical culture for the writing of music involving extensive interaction and musical dialogue for small ensembles. Russian composers of the period would most likely turn to the western-European models to accommodate their creative needs with respect to classical chamber music. This situation led to a polarization of Russian music into two camps during the latter half of the nineteenth century: the "Nationalistic" and the "Westernized" (generally meaning Germanic) schools. There were many heated arguments and pressures as a result. The composers of the "Mighty Handful" (or "The Five"), for example, were actively vocal about the issues. Tchaikovsky, who disengaged himself from the conflict, was already established with an international reputation. He had successfully blended Russian, "nationalistic" thematic material in his compositions but he wrote in the style of the Germanic tradition. Although chamber music was developing, chiefly centered around the St. Petersburg circles, it was mostly in the way of experiments and miniatures with small ensembles. Only a few full-scale chamber works from this period made an impact and these were Tchaikovsky's first quartet (1871), Borodin's two quartets (1879 and 1885) and a young Glazunov's first quartet (1882).

David Brown, the English musicologist and specialist on Tchaikovsky, pointed out that "The base of chamber music in Imperial Russia was societies in the big cities, and not surprisingly the core of their membership was drawn from the large expatriate German communities in each." Thus the support for chamber music endeavors that followed the model of the Germanic tradition would get preference. In 1886, The St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society elected Tchaikovsky as an honorary member. In response, he promised to compose and dedicate a piece to them. In 1887 he started some sketches for a string sextet but set them aside after a few days. It was not until 1890 that he returned to these sketches.

Tchaikovsky had visited Italy a number of times during his frequent travels abroad. There his travels enabled him to be distracted from the problems instigated by his marital disaster in 1877 and the rumors about his homosexuality. It was after a visit to Rome in 1880 that he composed his Capriccio Italien, Op. 45. He made repeated visits to Florence where his patroness Nadesjda von Meck had a villa. In January 1890, he settled down in Florence for a three-month period to work on the opera Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades). He enjoyed long walks along the Arno, marveled at spring flowers blooming in February, and enjoyed the Italian food. He wrote to his brother Modeste: "I have found here all I need for satisfactory work." He made a brief visit to Rome and then went back to Russia on May 1, remarking to a friend that he intended to make sketches for a sextet for strings after finishing his opera. By early June he finished the orchestration for Pique Dame, and on June 12 he told Modeste that he was going to start on the string sextet the very next day. He took up the sketches he had made and immediately felt distressed. He wrote to Modeste, "I started working on it the day before yesterday, and am writing under unusual strain . . . Am embarrassed not by any lack of ideas, but by the novelty of the form. I need six independent and, at the same time, homogenous voices. This is incredibly difficult. . . I definitely do not want to write just any old tune and then arrange it for six instruments, I want a sextet." He persevered and months later, after completing a rough draft of the work, he wrote: "what a sextet, and what a great fugue at the end—a real delight. Awful, how pleased I am with myself—I am becoming more and more fascinated by it."

The first private performance took place in Tchaikovsky's apartment in St. Petersburg in November. Present were Glazunov, Liadov and other musicians. Tchaikovsky was unhappy about some passages and revised the work before its first public performance, but he remained enthusiastic about the sextet. The descriptive title Souvenir de Florence was added by Tchaikovsky at the time of the revision while he was in Paris in January 1892. It was probably chosen because he had worked out the main theme of the slow movement when in Florence in 1887 rather than attempt to portray Italy or Florence. The public première took place in St. Petersburg on December 7, 1892, by an ensemble including the famous violinist Leopold Auer. The work, dedicated to the St. Petersburg Chamber Music Society, is one of Tchaikovsky's last multi-movement instrumental works (the last was the Sixth Symphony). It is sometimes performed in a version for string orchestra, as is the case for tonight's concert.

The Allegro con spirito opens with a surging dramatic statement, in full orchestral voice as it were but soon calms down to a light airy expression of a melody. As the movement unfolds, an additional minor theme is expressed and all three are blended while retaining the overall lyrical quality of the music. The movement is brought to a close with the sense of drama that had opened it.

The second movement (Adagio cantabile e con moto) is full of passion and drama in the true Tchaikovskian style. A brief dramatic introduction is followed by a languorous, almost waltz-like passage with pizzicato support. This develops into a passionate song of longing that some relate to an Italian serenade despite its Russian flavor. In some respects the music has the characteristics of one of the Russian Romances composed by Tchaikovsky to texts by Russian poets. A brief dramatic interlude interrupts the song which then returns with a melancholic tinge. It fades away to end the movement.

The third movement (Allegro moderato), a scherzo, develops around folk-like themes. The music seems to be a mixture of Slavic and Italian peasant dances. One may argue for Russian-sounding Italian folk dances, or for Italian-sounding Russian dances.

The finale (Allegro vivace) is in the sonata form with two contrapuntal sections containing the music of vigorous Russian dances. The rhythms, despite the Russian theme that opens the movement, may bring to mind Tchaikovsky's "Neapoltian Dance" from The Nutcracker or the Capriccio Italien. Be that as it may, the second section contains the fugue that he had described in a letter to his brother while he was working to complete the sextet. The full-scale fugato leads to a wild and exuberant climax to end the sextet.

How Italian is the Souvenir de Florence? It may be a matter of expectation on the part of the listener. In the orchestral version the additional strings extend the range of color and textures over that of the sextet. There would be more opportunity for a conductor to give greater emphasis to the lightness of the strings in the lyrical passages, to bass pizzicato, or to change rhythms suggestive of Italian airs and dances. If the work had never been given its nickname, would the string orchestra version be judged an "Italian Serenade for Strings" or simply as a "Serenade for Strings" by Tchaikovsky?

About the Program Notes

Professor emeritus Arthur Canter is a retired clinical psychologist on the faculty of the UI Department of Psychiatry. An amateur music historian, he has been a long-time contributor of program notes for Hancher concerts and participant in the musical life of Iowa City.

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Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

Violin I

Violin II

Viola

Cello

Double bass

Oboe

Horn

Academy of St. Martin in the Field Administration

For ICM Artists, Ltd.

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