Season Finale
PROGRAM
Dag Wirén: Serenade for Strings, Op. 11
- Allegro molto
- Andante espressivo
- Scherzo. Allegro vivace
- Marcia
Ottorino Respighi: Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute, Suite No. 3
- Italiana – anonymous c. 1600
- Ballet – Airs of the Court by Jean Baptiste Besard (1567-1617)
- Siciliana – Anonymous c. 1600
- Passacaglia – Lodovico Roncalli (17th century)
***intermission***
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: String Sextet in D minor Op. 70, ‘Souvenir de Florence’
- Allegro con spirito
- Adagio cantabile e con moto
- Allegretto moderato
- Allegro con brio e vivace
Dag Wirén’s (1905-1986) Serenade for strings rushes in like a warm summer breeze. Enveloping the listener in light, gorgeous melodies, it harkens back to classical and romantic works that share the title of serenade (by Mozart, Dvořák, or Tchaikovsky, for example). Having studied in Paris for three years from 1931-1934 on a state stipend from his native Sweden, Wirén had the opportunity to meet none other than Igor Stravinsky. He also became familiar with the music of the loosely associated group of French composers known as Les Six (The Six): Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre. This collective tended toward creating music with a lighter, almost neo-classical spirit in contrast with the more modernist trends that were popular amongst many artists of the time. Written only three years after his Parisian adventure, this Serenade from 1937 exudes an energy seemingly derived from Les Six’s compositional style, who perhaps influenced Wirén’s penchant for writing in this more traditional manner.
Interspersed between ‘The Roman Trilogy’ compositions, and showing his great devotion to early Italian music, Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) transcribed a number of Renaissance and Baroque pieces for much smaller chamber orchestras. The Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute were created in three suites beginning in 1917 and finishing in 1932.
Suite No. 1 is based primarily on Renaissance lute pieces written originally by Simone Molinaro, Vincenzo Galilei, and other anonymous composers. Suite No. 2 was completed in 1924 and is transcribed from pieces for lute, archlute and viol by Fabrizio Caroso, Jean-Baptiste Besard, Bernardo Gianoncelli, and another anonymous composer. There is also a transcription included of Antoine Boësset’s famous song “Divine Amaryllis.”
Suite No. 3 breaks from the previous two in that it is arranged for strings only. The first movement, Italiana is an anonymous 16th century song. Arie di Corte follow, in a mini-suite taken from several songs attributed to Giovanni Battista Besard, although it is believed that he may have been merely the compiler of these. The third of this suite, called Siciliana by Respighi is more commonly known as Spagnoletta in 17th century Spain and Italy. The finale, Passacaglia by Lodovico Roncalli is the only baroque guitar work set by Respighi. The wide variety of strumming and plucking techniques found in the original are wonderfully orchestrated by Respighi to mirror their unique sounds.
These pieces show Respighi’s intense interest in and love of early music, as well as his brilliant abilities as an orchestrator. He found a way not only to give tribute to the legacies of great early composers through these transcriptions, but as stated by annotator Julia Bömers: “…early music became a source of musical renewal and self-discovery for him.”
In 1890 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) spent three months at the Florence villa of his patron, Nadezhda von Meck, composing his opera The Queen of Spades. While there, he sketched out the slow movement of what would become the four-movement sextet he completed on his return. Published under the title Souvenir de Florence, it nevertheless shows little by way of Italian musical influences, apart from the Adagio serenade. The third and fourth movements in particular are Russian to the core, brimming over with folk tunes and the vigor of village dancing.
Even more surprising is the neo-classical bent of the work, not just in the clarity of its string textures and the simplicity of its rhythmic pulse, but also in its routine application of Mozart-era symphonic counterpoint, with numerous passages of cascading imitative entries gracing the score, and even a full-on fugue in the finale.
The sonata-form first movement bursts onto the scene with the brash, bold confidence of a gypsy violinist leaping over a campfire. The first sound to hit your ear is a minor 9th chord, a tart burst of harmonic flavoring that snaps you awake like the bracing first bite into a Granny Smith apple. The movement’s first theme is a hearty thumping romp with numerous rhythmic quirks, backed up by an oscillating oom-pah-pah accompaniment that owes much to the string textures of Mozart’s 40th Symphony. The second theme, by contrast, soars serenely in long held notes over a rambunctious accompaniment. The development is entirely in the mold of contrapuntally obsessed development sections of the Classical era while the recapitulation’s race-to-the-finish coda prompts a return to the minor mode—a tonally coloring that had been virtually forgotten in all the previous merriment.
The second movement Adagio cantabile e con moto begins with a richly textured slow introduction followed by a naively simple tune in the 1st violin suitable for singing under an Italian window sill. Certainly the pizzicato string accompaniment offers a ready-made substitute for a guitar or mandolin. But the serenade turns into a duet when a solo cello joins in. Hardly less enchanting is the ‘whispering wind’ middle section, played by all instruments a punta d’arco (at the point of the bow).
The third movement is heavily inflected with the folk music idiom. It opens with a modest little tune in the dorian mode marked by bird-calls of repeated notes and plaintively inconclusive cadences. Its moderate pace and overlapping thematic entrances almost suggest a ceremonial dance ritual, but Tchaikovsky has other plans, driving the repeated-note motif into much more energetic territory, a direction confirmed by a middle section strongly reminiscent of the Trepak from the composer’s Nutcracker Suite.
The musical scent of Russian country life is even stronger in the last movement, as indicated by the drone-like accompaniment pattern that strums on alone for four bars at its opening. The theme that arrives to float on top of it is eminently folk-like in its small range and modal character. Tchaikovsky is quick off the mark to capitalize on its rhythmic potential, adding punchy off-beat accents, exhilarating runs and large leaps to its developing character until a long-limbed and wide-ranging lyrical tune brings a measure of breezy relaxation to the proceedings. The star attraction in this movement is the fugue, perhaps matched only in vigor and sheer visceral exhilaration by the Beethoven’s-Ninth-style final page where, even if Tchaikovsky didn’t write a blaring brass section into the score, you could almost swear you hear one, anyway.