This year we celebrate the anniversaries of the births of two master composers: the much publicized 250th anniversary of Mozart (1756-1791) and the almost silent 100th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). Yet few composers in the history of classical music have left behind a significant number of compositions in such diverse genres as the latter. Apart from the “standards” – from solo to concerto, chamber to orchestral, vocal to instrumental, and operas – Shostakovich’s output included incidental music, ballets, film scores, and jazz. For our Spring concerts the USD Symphony has chosen a movement from his Ninth Symphony, two of his most popular miniature pieces from the ballet “The Golden Age,” and the complete suite from his film score “Hamlet.” Although the program gives no more than a glimpse of Shostakovich’s orchestral writing, our selections show the versatility and diverse compositional styles for which Shostakovich is, and will be, remembered and admired.

Symphony No. 9 in Eb, Op. 70, (1945)

Original instrumentation: piccolo, pair of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and full strings.

A large part of Shostakovich’s reputation today lies with his symphonic works. His first symphony, written when he was 19 as a graduation piece from the Petrograd Conservatory, brought him instant fame both in Russia and in the West. By his death at the age of 69, Shostakovich had produced a total of 15 symphonies, with the last one finished just four years before he died. The number 9 has been a superstitious number among symphonic composers ever since Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. No composer in the 19th century went beyond a “ninth” symphony. Anton Bruckner, who wrote a total of twelve symphonies, accepted only nine of them as definitive, and Gustav Mahler refused to call his Ninth Symphony of 1908 by the number and referred to it Das Lied von der Erde instead. In this regard Shostakovich was the first among the major 20th-century composers to overcome the myth.

Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony is the last of his three consecutive symphonies collectively known as the “War Triptych.” Completed in August 1945, the symphony was Shostakovich’s celebration of the end of the war. The Russian musicologist Ivan Martïnov (b. 1908) wrote of the first movement of the symphony, “This music contains so much vivacity and moral health, so much humour and inexhaustible joy of living, that it seems to be entirely woven of sunbeams and smiles.” The tightly-structured work is Shostakovich’s “Classical Symphony.” Not only as the composer proclaimed, “Musicians will love to play it,” but the Ninth Symphony will be a delight for listeners as well.

“The Golden Age,” Op. 22 (1929-30)

Instrumentation for Polka as arranged by Quinto Maganini: piccolo and flute, oboe, English horn, pairs of clarinets, bassoon, horns, and trumpets, one trombone, xylophone, percussion,
and full strings.

Original instrumentation for Tahiti Trot: piccolo and flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, one trombone, timpani, percussion, xylophone and bells, celesta, harp, and full strings.
“The Golden Age” (Zolotoy vek) was the first of three ballets commissioned in the early 1930s. The original score was completed in October 1929, but revisions were made and more numbers were added during rehearsals in the following months. The première was a success, and as with his other ballets, Shostakovich later extracted some movements to form a concert suite.

Neither the Polka nor the Tahiti Trot was originally conceived for the ballet but took their place among its most popular movements. Shostakovich first intended the Polka for a conference on international disarmament in Geneva. Cheeky and with deliberate clashes of “wrong-notes,” the Polka was crowned as “a chef d’œuvre of satirical music” by the composer and critic Klimentiy Korchmaryov (1899-1958). It was an instant hit in the ballet and a favorite for subsequent rearrangements: Shostakovich himself transcribed it for solo piano and string quartet and others have arranged it for all manner of ensembles. The USD Symphony performance is based on an arrangement by the American composer Quinto Maganini (1897-1974) published in 1944.

Tahiti Trot was not an original work by Shostakovich but his orchestration of “Tea for Two,” a tune from the American composer Vincent Youmans’ (1898-1946) hit musical comedy “No, No, Nanette” (1925). It was said to be a product of a bet with the conductor Nikolai Malko (1883-1961), who gave the première of Shostakovich’s first symphony in 1924 and quickly became the composer’s mentor and friend. In an autumn day in 1928, Shostakovich was challenged to orchestrate Youmans’ piece within an hour, and he did so in 40 minutes. Malko performed Shostakovich’s orchestration in a concert in Moscow in November 1928 and the work became immediately popular in Russia. It was at the suggestion of the conductor Aleksandr Gauk (1893-1963) that Tahiti Trot was inserted as an entr’acte before the third act of the Golden Age, and the work was the only number to be encored at the early performances of the ballet. The USD Symphony is grateful for the collaboration of the USD dance studio directed by Marilyn Green, who has choreographed a dance accompanying our performance. © 2006 by Angela Yeung, Ph.D.

Notes on Hamlet by Dr. Peter Kanelos

Hamlet is not a work that one regularly associates with music. Yet there is music, both literal and figurative, embedded in Hamlet, adding texture and meaning to the play. In the Renaissance, music was affiliated with structure and order; the harmony of the universe—literally embodied in the “music” of the spheres (or planets)—was replicated in the harmonious arrangements of composers and the tightly-controlled performances of musicians. The universe of Hamlet, however, is a disordered place and its music reflects a sense of vertigo and loss of equilibrium. Trumpets announce the advent of a king, but he is corrupt and illegitimate and there is little reason to celebrate his arrival. Betrayed by his childhood friends, Hamlet chastises Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “’Sblood, do you think I am easier to play on than a pipe?” Lost in madness, Ophelia sings to the court distracted songs of grief and anguish; she dies, sinking into a river, chanting “snatches of old lauds.” In Hamlet, music strikes notes of dissonance and discord. In the end, however, after the tragic and bloody events have played themselves out, the hope that all will now right itself is attached by Horatio to music: “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” Yet as soon as these words are spoken, a martial drum interrupts the scene. Fortinbras, the new king, will not let the angels intone for the dead prince; he insists, “for [Hamlet’s] passage / The soldier’s music and the rite of war / Speak loudly for him.” We are left, finally, unsure as to whether or not the tragedy truly has come to a close, whether or not harmony can reinstate itself in a world that has been so violently disrupted.

The music that Dmitri Shostakovich composed for Hamlet reflects this sense of disorder and the seemingly futile attempts of one trying to impose structure and harmony on a shaken world. Given the topsy-turvy world of Stalinist Russia that was Shostakovich’s milieu, his own frustrations with being a composer under the thumb of a capricious master, and the dangers attendant upon living as an artist in the Soviet state, this is not surprising. In trying to reinstate the story of Hamlet alongside Shostakovich’s score, I have attempted to replicate a sense of structure and unstructuring, of something pulled apart even as it is sutured together. My hope is that the narrative will both soothe our need for story, yet jar in its incompleteness, that it will give us a sense of both the whole and the empty spaces in between, which are filled, in this case, with Shostakovich’s dark musical imaginings.
© 2006 by Peter Kanelos, Ph.D.

N.B. The original orchestration of Shostakovich’s Hamlet: piccolo, pair of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harpsichord, harp, and full strings.

Fall 2005 Program Notes
USD Symphony Commissioned Work:

Eric Foster, The Latin Wave Concerto (2005)

Instrumentation: pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bass clarinets, an alto saxophone, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion and full strings.

The "Latin Wave" Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra draws inspiration from the characteristic rhythms, techniques, and phrasings of flamenco, salsa, rumba, and tango. The themes evoke the spirit of these styles within the formal framework of the classical concerto. The interaction between guitar and orchestra is intended to reveal the charm and expressive dance of emotions that these styles so effectively portray.
© Eric Alan Foster, 2005

Aaron Copland, An Outdoor Overture (1938)

Original instrumentation: pair of flutes (piccolo), oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, xylophone, piano and celesta, and full strings.

One of America’s most famous composers from the 20th-century, Aaron Copland composed An Outdoor Overture in 1938 at the request of Alexander Richter, then head of the Music Department of the High School of Music and Art in New York City. Copland was working on orchestrating his ballet “Billy the Kid” at the time, but agreed to the commission when he learned of the school’s campaign undertaking, “American music for American Youth.” Inspired, Copland finished the work in less than a month’s time, and the first performance took place at the school auditorium on December 16, 1938.

According to Copland, the title of the work came from its “open-air quality.” To help listeners to understand the piece, Copland provided the following detailed notes:

The piece starts in a large and grandiose manner with a theme that is immediately developed as a long solo for the trumpet with a string pizzicato accompaniment. A short bridge passage in the woodwinds leads imperceptibly to the first theme of the allegro section, characterized by repeated notes. Shortly afterwards, these same repeated notes, played broadly, give us a second, snappy march-like theme, developed in canon form. There is an abrupt pause, a sudden decrescendo, and the third, lyric theme appears, first in the flute, then the clarinet, and finally, high up in the strings. Repeated notes on the bassoon [played by bass clarinets] seem to lead the piece in the direction of the open allegro. Instead, a fourth and final theme evolves [into] another march theme, but this time less snappy, and with more serious implications. There is a build-up to the opening grandiose introduction again, continuing with the trumpet solo melody, this time sung by all the strings in a somewhat smoother version. A short bridge section based on a steady rhythm brings a condensed recapitulation of the allegro section. As a climactic moment all the themes are combined. A brief coda ends the work on the grandiose note of the beginning.

Manuel de Falla, El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat, 1919)

Original instrumentation: pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani, percussion, xylophone, piano, harp and full strings.

The one-act ballet El Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) was one of the most popular works from the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. Serge Diaghliev (1872-1929), the Paris-based Russian impresario who also commissioned Stravinsky’s Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and Rite of Spring (1913) for his Ballets Russes, produced De Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos in London on July 22, 1919. Other famous collaborators in the production included Leonid Massine (1896-1979) who choreographed and danced himself as the Miller, ballerina Tamara Karsavina (1885-1978) who danced as the Miller’s wife, conductor Ernst Ansermet (1883-1969), and last but not least, fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), who painted the décor for the set.

Seized upon its immediate success, De Falla drew two orchestra suites from the ballet, both of which enjoy popularity in today’s concert performances. The USD Symphony’s “suite” includes the first three selections from the first Suite and one dance from the second Suite. Accordingly, the music begins with the Introduction to the ballet, an energetic entrance of the timpani followed by fanfares first played by the trumpets and joined by the horns, and proceeds without a break to the movement titled “Afternoon,” a jovial depiction of the serene Andalusia countryside in southern Spain. The following two dances showcase the two main characters of the ballet, the Miller and his wife. The fiery dance of the Miller’s wife (Fandango), with its mix of simple (3/4) and compound (6/8) rhythms, unveils her irresistible beauty. The Miller’s dance (Farruca), which begins with a horn and then a bass clarinet (originally an English horn) solo, portrays the more earthy sentiment of the Miller who nevertheless becomes increasingly high-spirited as the evening celebration continues for the Feast of St. John.
© Dr. Angela Yeung, 2005

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