PROGRAM NOTES by Klay and Karen Woodworth

Edvard Grieg
b. Bergen (Norway), June 15, 1843
d. Bergen, September 4, 1907

Peer Gynt - Suite No. 1

Edvard Grieg became one of Norway’s favorite sons by helping his nation regain a sense of pride in their native music. As a teenager, Grieg spent four years studying music in Leipzig, hating every minute of pedantic study but loving the musical offerings of the city. Around 1864, Grieg began creating music that reflected the Norwegian character, but it took him quite a while to work past the Germanic influences of his education. He went on to build a career as a touring musician, giving piano recitals and conducting orchestras across Europe, and his compositions, despite all his travels, became less cosmopolitan as time went by. In his last years Grieg wrote pieces for voice and for piano, mostly on a small scale, which reverberate with Norwegian imagery.

The Norwegian poet Bjørnsterne Bjørnson once wrote of Edvard Grieg, “He walked here beside me—the great tone-poet.” It was to “the great tone-poet” that dramatist Henrik Ibsen wrote in January of 1874, although Grieg did not think of himself in those terms. Ibsen asked Grieg to supply music for a third edition of his work Peer Gynt, which he was preparing for stage presentation. Ibsen sketched out his expectations but Grieg seems to have misunderstood what was really being asked of him. Music was an integral part of Norwegian theatre and, as it turned out, Ibsen wanted a lot. After working on the score for half a year Grieg wrote to one of his friends:

Peer Gynt progresses very slowly, and there is no possibility of having it finished by autumn. It is a terribly unmanageable subject, except in a few places, as where Solveig sings; I have in fact finished that already. I’ve also done something about the “Hall of the Old Man of the Dovre,” and I literally can’t bear to listen to it, it is so full of … Norse-Norsehood, and be-to-thyself-enoughness! But I am taking trouble to let the irony come through …

The score was finally completed and used for the play’s performance at the end of February, 1876. On the whole, the production was very well-received and probably would have run for a long time if a fire in the theater had not destroyed the costumes and scenery. Subsequent performances around Europe were also popular—to various degrees. The Viennese arch-critic Edward Hanslick wrote, “. . . perhaps in a few years Ibsen’s Peer Gynt will live only through Grieg’s music, which to my taste has more poetry and artistic intelligence than the whole five-act monstrosity of Ibsen.” Grieg eventually extracted eight sections from the mass of music composed for Peer Gynt over several productions and revivals, and he published the music as two orchestral suites (the first in 1888 and the second in 1891). In both of the suites, the music is rearranged and orchestrated for maximum effect in the concert hall with little regard for the originating drama. The opening of the first suite (“Morning Mood”) and the suite’s third movement (“Anitra’s Dance”) actually come from the fourth act of the play and Peer’s sojourn in Africa. The lyrical music marking “Åse’s Death” recalls Peer’s loss of his somewhat domineering mother in Act 3. The finale of the suite is taken from an adventure in Act 2 during which Peer extricates himself from an unwelcome bargain with trolls. Peer Gynt is a peasant boy who weaves outlandish tales to his mother but also seems to have the skills necessary to make it in the world. Despite his real and imagined roguery, he is ultimately redeemed by the undying love of the always faithful Solveig. Edvard Grieg wrote, with some reluctance, music to support the work of another, and his efforts won the hearts of music lovers around the world.

Zoltán Kodály
b. Kecskemét (Hungary), December 16, 1882
d. Budapest, March 6, 1967

Háry János Suite

Zoltán Kodály is responsible for both preserving and furthering the art of music in Hungary. Kodály began making tours to collect folksongs in August of 1905 and based his Ph.D. thesis (1906) on his early findings. Collecting Hungary’s native melodies inspired him both as a composer and as a crusader for musical education. Ultimately, Kodály’s research led to the accumulation and analysis of over 100,000 folk melodies by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In his native country, he started community choruses and created an effective music curriculum for the nation’s schools. Subsequently, institutes based on Kodály’s theories of music and the early education of children have been established around the globe.

Because he was a folksong scholar, it is not too surprising that most of Kodály’s compositions are for voices. Háry János was originally a comic opera. Kodály wrote The Adventures of Háry János from Nagyabony to the Burg Castle in 1926 based on a Singspiel about peasant village life that had been mounted at the national theater. It was, in turn, based on an actual person who lived some fifty years earlier. Kodály describes his main character as “much more than a jovial genre character … he is the incarnation of the Hungarian storytelling imagination. He does not lie, he creates a tale; he is a poet. What he relates has never happened, but he has lived it through, and so it is truer than reality.” And of his music, he wrote, “To my knowledge, songs of the Hungarian people are here heard for the first time from the stage of the Opera House. I would like to think that in their wake might spring a little affection for the most forsaken children of a forsaken country.”

The poet, Háry, spins tales of his adventures as a young man in the Napoleonic Wars to a rapt, yet skeptical, audience in the inn at Nagyabony. Háry impresses Marie-Louise, the daughter of the Viennese Emperor at the border. He follows her to Vienna where he tames the wildest stallion in the imperial stable. Later, Háry single-handedly defeats Napoleon’s army and takes the great general prisoner. As a result, Marie-Louise and Háry are to marry, but at the last minute Háry decides to return to his home village and marry his true love, Örzse. The opera was quite successful in Budapest and translated well to other European opera houses. Kodály’s close friend, Béla Bartók, suggested that an orchestral suite might meet with the same success. Released in 1927 (first in Barcelona and then in New York), the suite had been performed in 100 cities around the world by the end of the 1931 concert season. The music of the suite is lifted nearly intact from the opera score, with the notable exception of the viola soloist stepping in for a singer in the third movement. The movements alternate between a dreamy otherworldliness that encompasses some of Kodály’s beloved folk melodies, and a rich European style evoking the Viennese court. From the opening flourish (which indicates the tales are actually “something to sneeze at”), we are introduced to Háry’s “fairy-tale” world. We hear the magical musical clock and variations on a melody that takes Háry’s heart back home. He fights Napoleon, and the celebratory dance music of the “Intermezzo” features the characteristic sound of the cimbalom (an Hungarian hammered dulcimer). Finally, the grand and pompous Viennese courtiers process by. Still refreshing in its originality, this captivating suite continues to introduce orchestra audiences to the music of a beloved Hungarian master.

Eric Ewazen
b. Cleveland, 1954

Shadowcatcher

Eric Ewazen studied with some of the best-known American composers of the last century. His work at Eastman, Juilliard, and Tanglewood put him in contact with Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller and Joseph Schwanter. Currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School, Ewazen has gained a strong following, especially among those who appreciate music for brass. The many recordings of his music available include several featuring tonight’s solo ensemble, the American Brass Quintet.

The following are the composer’s thoughts on this unique concerto for brass quintet, Shadowcatcher:

American photographer, Edward Curtis, traveled the American West during the early decades of the last century. In his thousands of photographs of Native people he chronicled their ancient lifestyle and captured a time and place on the verge of disappearing. His mysterious, beautiful and powerful photographs had a distinctive play of light and dark that earned him the name “Shadowcatcher” from his subjects.

Four of his photographs are the inspiration for this music:

“Offering to the Sun” (Tewa, 1925) – between the rock cliffs at San Idelfonso, a Tewa Indian, clutching feathers, raises his arms in supplication to the brilliant sunrise. The opening brass quintet music is influenced by the complex and improvisational music of the Native flute. A quiet, prayerful chorale leads to music portraying the beauty and excitement of a new day.

“Among the Aspens” (Chippewa, 1926) – portrait of a teepee in the midst of a thick grove of Aspen trees. An introduction, consisting of traditional drum beats and pentatonic melodies, leads to a scherzo portraying the rushing waters of the innumerable streams and rivers of the Chippewa nation.

“The Vanishing Race” (Navaho, 1904) – on horseback, a group of Navaho, in silhouette, ride into an uncertain darkness. Using motives and rhythms of Native memorial songs commemorating the dead, the music is alternately noble, sad, tragic, angry, and accepting.

“Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon” (Kwakiutl, 1914) – dancers surrounding a smoking fire. The Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest believed the eclipsed moon was being swallowed by a creature of the night sky. By burning old clothes and hair in a bonfire, they believed they could make the monster sneeze and disgorge the moon. The music evokes this legend. On a cold, dark night, clouds roll in front of the moon before the beginning of the eclipse. The fire is lit to the sound of heavy drum beats and the frenetic dancing begins. The dance culminates in a brass quintet cadenza, a “sneeze,” and the quiet return of the moon as feelings of joy and peace bring the work to a close.

© 2007 Klayton Woodworth and Karen M. Woodworth

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