Tales of Arabian Moons
Tales of Arabian Moons
Signature Concert #1
Discover magic and mysteries in Rimsky-Korsakov’s spellbinding Scheherazade, Carl Nielsen’s playful Maskarade Overture, Lev Kolodub’s celebratory Ukrainian Dance Suite, and Hilary Tann’s poetic The Grey Tide and the Green.
Saturday, October 5, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Lincoln Center, Performance Hall
Program Notes
by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes
Carl Nielsen
Maskarade Overture
Date of Composition: 1904–1906
Duration: 5 minutes
Sometimes the story of a composition’s creation rivals the tale it tells. Carl Nielsen (1865–1931), the most influential Danish composer of the twentieth century, dabbled in many genres but is best remembered for symphonic works and Danish art songs. Of his two operas, the one titled Maskarade was the greater success, creating a buzz upon its premiere. Before its production, the Danish Royal Opera had insisted upon prior approval for all works programmed for the following season. As the due date approached, Nielsen’s comedic opera remained unfinished. The final act was incomplete, with a pivotal love story still unresolved. Nielsen hoped the aged artistic director would not notice his addition of a few bold chords before an inserted final double bar. In essence, he left out the end of the libretto! His gamble worked, for the piece was accepted and scheduled as the season opener. Because his time in the interim was spent finishing Act 3, Nielsen neglected to compose an overture. He quickly put something together less than a week before opening night, slipping in an acceptable prelude just in time. This initial overture segued immediately into the first act. Two years later, conductor Tor Aulin hoped to lead the Stockholm Philharmonic in a suite made up of music from the opera. Upon request, Nielsen revised the overture’s ending. This more conclusive version of the Maskarade Overture is the one most often heard today.
Levko Kolodub
Ukrainian Dance Suite No. 1
Date of Composition: 1962
Duration: 13 minutes
Ukrainian composer Levko Kolodub (1930–2019) told stories through his music from his first symphonic poem, The Stonemasons, completed in the 1950s when he was still a student. During his career, he composed more than three hundred works, from operas to chamber music to songs, but it was his orchestral music that gained him fame. Except for the first, all twelve of his formal symphonies are afforded a sub-title, with descriptions as varied as the 1990 “Pro memoria,” dedicated to Ukrainian disaster victims, “Symphony in the style of the Ukrainian Baroque” (1980), and “New Feelings” (2004). While studying composition at Kharkiv Conservatory, Kolodub absorbed the styles of the masters, accumulating hundreds of vinyl records before he graduated. He was especially affected by the colorful orchestrations of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. To his fellow composer and future wife Zhanna he wrote, “there is nothing more pleasurable than listening to music with a score in hand, while sitting comfortably somewhere.”
Much of Kolodub’s music is steeped in Ukrainian folklore, with illusions to traditional songs or dance. Included among these are five suites of Ukrainian Dances, composed throughout his career. After Kolodub’s 2019 death, a Levko Kolodub Music Festival was presented in Kyiv. Over six days, orchestras from across the country performed Kolodub’s music in the finest concert halls of the city, which led to international recognition and publication of his orchestral suites. Ukrainian Dance Suite No. 1, completed in 1962, features four distinct dance movements and has been called “the calling card of the [Ukrainian] national symphonic music.”
Hilary Tann
The Grey Tide and the Green
Date of Composition: 2001
Duration: 12 minutes
When asked what she might be if not a musician, Hilary Tann (1947–2023) answered: “a geologist.” Tann’s great appreciation of the natural world was fostered during her upbringing in the countryside of Wales. A perusal of the titles in her works catalog confirms this focus. Her orchestral poem The Grey Tide and the Green channels not only her love for nature, but also that of her Welsh heritage. Inspired by a poem by a Welsh author, the composer described the foundation of the work:
In his short poem, “Boundaries,” R. S. Thomas writes, “Where does the town end and the country begin? Where is the high-water mark between the grey tide and the green?” These lines led [me] to recall the lichen-covered, low stone walls which crisscross the high mountain moorland behind [my] childhood home in Ferndale, Rhondda. In turn, the local image suggested the textural contrasts which underlie the piece as a whole [and] contrasts between fast, string-dominated passages (“moorland”) and resonant, brass-dominated passages (“stone boundaries”). The presence throughout the piece of bell-like sections is again inspired by the poem. When Thomas writes of farming within “the sounds of the bell of the worshipping cathedral” he evokes a time when the mountain-top walls were monastic boundaries.
Tann’s affinity for the sound of the Celtic harp appears as a “running tide” motive. Heard in the concert harp from the start of the piece, repeated quintuplets create an organic thread that holds the tale together. Appropriately, The Grey Tide and the Green was premiered at the 2001 Welsh Proms, performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. By that point, Tann was twenty years into her almost forty-year tenure at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where she found new inspiration in the beauty of the Adirondacks.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade, op. 35
Date of Composition: 1888
Duration: 42 minutes
Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) was one of the most naturally gifted orchestrators and storytellers of all time. Among his finest works is Scheherazade, a four-movement orchestral suite of musical images associated with The Arabian Nights. In an early score, the composer describes the program:
The Sultan Schahriar, persuaded of the falseness and the faithlessness of women, has sworn to put to death each one of his wives after the first nuptial night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by interesting him in tales which she told him during one thousand and one nights. The Sultan, consumed by curiosity, put off his wife’s execution from day to day and at last gave up entirely his bloody plan. Many marvels were told Schahriar by the Sultana Scheherazade. For her stories the Sultana borrowed from poets their verses, from folk songs their words, and she strung together tales and adventures.
The folk tale-inspired suite opens with a series of ominous chords in the brass, bringing to mind the evil Sultan and his plan. Counterbalancing this is a violin theme that weaves its way across the movements, representing Scheherazade as she brilliantly spins stories of such color and intrigue that her life is spared. The titles of individual movements (“The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” “The Kalendar Prince,” “The Young Prince and Princess,” and “Festival at Baghdad”) seem to depict four specific episodes, but Rimsky-Korsakov was quite clear in his writings that he intended to provide only a general impression of an exotic journey. In his autobiography, My Musical Life, he wrote: “Why then, if that be the case, does my suite bear the name, precisely, of Shekherazada? Because this name and the title The Arabian Nights connote in everybody’s mind the East and fairy-tale wonders.” Rimsky-Korsakov wanted to omit the movement titles all together, but his friends urged him to leave them in place when the work first premiered in 1888. Later, his concerns—that the subtitles were too programmatic—remained, and he substituted tempo markings for the descriptions in subsequent publication. But too many people love a good story. Thus, the original movement titles have not given way.
© 2024, Dr. K. Dawn Grapes