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Programme Notes for the 2002/2003 Season

Symphony No.2 "Lobgesang" [Hymn of Praise]
(Felix Mendelssohn)
Concert date : Saturday 16 November 2002

Felix Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy) never had to go through the financial struggles and work-related difficulties that so often affected many of his contemporaries and predecessors.   He was born in Hamburg in 1809, the son of a wealthy banker and grandson of the distinguished Jewish thinker Moses Mendelssohn, the Bartholdy extension to his surname being adopted on Felix's conversion to Christianity.   When only 20 years old, the gifted young composer came across the manuscript of J.S. Bach's huge St. Matthew Passion, a work deemed at that time as unperformable due to its length and difficulty.   Mendelssohn, noting that much of the old Baroque master's work had gone unnoticed and largely forgotten since Bach's death, decided to change all that by conducting a full-scale performance of the work in 1839 and is now credited as being responsible for the reintroduction of Bach's music into the concert hall.

In 1840, at the age of 31, Mendelssohn was commissioned to compose a work for a grand celebration to commemorate the 400th anniversary of printing with particular reference to the Gutenberg press.   Other contributions included Weber's Jubel Overture and Handel's Dettingen Te Deum.   A year or two earlier, Mendelssohn had already started on an instrumental symphony in B-flat major and now took the opportunity to revisit and rework his original sketches, incorporating a choral cantata as the last section.   The idea was not exactly original, Beethoven having stunned the world with his Symphony No. 9 and its choral finale not long before.   Indeed many critics, including Richard Wagner, considered Mendelssohn's Symphony No.2 to be rather pretentious in the shadow of the great Ninth - a criticism that was to be ignored when the work came to be performed.   The Lobgesang [Hymn of Praise] was here to stay.

The first three movements are purely instrumental, the main theme in the first movement returning more than once in the final movement.   The nine-part choral section includes the chorale Nun Danket Alle Gott, more familiarly known as the hymn Now Thank We All Our God, a particular favourite of Mendelssohn's.   Satisfied with his work, the composer inscribed the manuscript with Dr. Martin Luther's words "Sondern ich wöllt alle Künste, sonderlich die Musica, gern sehen im Dienst des der sie geben und geschaffen hat" [I would gladly see all the arts, especially music, serving Him who gave and created them].   Many believe Mendelssohn's melodic inspiration and orchestration were at their height when he was a teenager but the power of his later symphonies including the Lobgesang seem to fly in the face of such claims.   He died in 1847 at the tender age of 38, one of music history's most under-rated geniuses.

Belshazzar's Feast (William Walton)
Concert date : Saturday 16 November 2002

Born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1902, the son of a choirmaster and singing teacher, William Walton had very little formal compositional tuition at any time and may be considered essentially self-taught.   He was a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and then an undergraduate at the University although he left without a degree.   Whilst there he became acquainted with the Sitwell family who not only gave him financial support but also introduced him to many major musical and literary figures of the time, including Delius and T.S. Eliot, the three Sitwell siblings being budding poets.   He moved to live with them in London and in 1921, in collaboration with Edith Sitwell, he devised his popular and witty Facade.   Less than ten years later came his choral masterpiece Belshazzar's Feast, this time developed with Osbert Sitwell who wrote the libretto drawn from both the Old and New Testaments.

On its first performance, it took the public and critics by storm.   It was hailed as the greatest English choral work since Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius composed in 1900.   Even though it was written in a solidly British choral style and tradition, it was Walton's use of clashing harmonies and dramatic musical climaxes that kept it out of mainstream cathedrals until the 1950s.   Along with loads of vivid brass and a large battery of percussion it is an oratorio-in-miniature;  amazingly compact and powerful, and squeezed into around 35 minutes of huge emotion.   However, unlike many oratorios where the role of the narrator is usually taken by a soloist, it is the choir that carries the narration, often singing alone to emphasise the text as it centres on Belshazzar's impious feast as told in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 5.

In 1937, Walton composed Crown Imperial, written for the coronation of King George VI and placing him as Elgar's unofficial successor as master of the "art of regalia".   He became a symbol of the hope that English music might recapture the brialliance it had in Handel's day.  This continued until the mid-1950s by which time Benjamin Britten had risen to the scene and started to take Walton's place in the eyes of the critics.    Nevertheless, he continued to compose in his own typically non-contemporary style in defiance of the critics and produced some of his best work in his latter years.    He remained active right to his death in 1983, living his last years in the idyllic setting of the island of Ischia near Naples.

Messa di Gloria (Giacomo Puccini)
Concert date : Saturday 5 April 2003

Mention the name Puccini and most people think opera, La Boheme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Turandot.   Yet, his musical career began by playing and composing church music, being appointed at the age of 14 organist of the church of San Martino in Lucca, Italy where he was born in December 1858.    However, as his musical studies progressed it was clear that Giacomo had leanings towards operatic writing and a deciding moment came in 1876 when he witnessed a performance of Verdi's Aida in Pisa which had such an impact on him that he knew instinctively which road to take.  This is clearly evident in his early compositions, no more so than in his Messa di Gloria which was written as his graduation thesis from the Institute Musicale of Lucca when he was only 22 years old.   The Qui tollis peccata section in the Gloria movement is an example of his flair for orchestration with a similar command of vocal writing in a style which opera aficionados will recognise as unmistakably Puccini.

Originally titled Mass for Four Voices and Orchestra, the work is likely to have derived its Messa di Gloria designation from the importance this setting gives to its wonderful second movement, the Gloria, which lasts for almost half the performance time of the whole piece.   Its first performance was received with rapturous critical acclaim.    However, inexplicably but probably due to Puccini's preoccupation with opera this marvellous work was not performed again for more than 70 years.   In 1952, a Catholic priest and musicologist, Father Dante del Fiorentino, rediscovered the music while researching for a new biography on the composer in Puccini's town of birth, Lucca.

In his later years, Puccini wanted to explore different paths and in particular desired to find a subject with a fantastic, fairy-tale atmosphere but with real flesh and blood characters.   Thus was born the concept for Turandot.   However, during its development he was diagnosed as having throat cancer and, although initial treatment in Brussels was successful, his heart couldn't take the strain and he died in 1924 with the opera unfinished.   Toscanini, a personal friend of Puccini's and Tito Ricordi, the head of the famous music publishing house, chose Franco Alfano, a successful composer in his own right, for the thankless task of transforming Puccini's sparse notes into the final part of the opera.   It is Toscanini's ruthless editing of Alfano's finale that is most often heard in performances today.   And yet, the work remains as a compelling example of Puccini's genius and earned him the reward of being considered Verdi's only true successor.

Stabat Mater (Gioacchino Rossini)
Concert date : Saturday 5 April 2003

The son of a horn-player and a mother who made a career for herself in opera, as a boy Rossini had direct experience of operatic performances on stage where he sang in at least one opera in Bologna, where the family lived, although he was born in Pesaro in 1792.   He occupied an unrivalled position in the Italian musical world of his time, winning considerable acclaim early in his career and having his operas first performed in Italy from his first relative success in 1810 until 1823.   Although, like Puccini, he is remembered more for his operatic output there is also a considerable number of non-operatic, indeed non-vocal, works which show the same maturity and progression in style as in his operas.   This was despite advice from Beethoven who suggested that he "never attempt to compose anything else but opera - any attempt to succeed in another style would be to do violence to your nature."

Consequently, it was never Rossini's burning ambition to write large-scale sacred music but the Stabat Mater came about as a result of a plea from Varela, a Spanish prelate, who wished to possess an original Rossini manuscript in exchange for a handsome gift.   The original agreement was that the work should never be published and the composer had good reason for accepting this.   Before it was completed, Rossini succumbed to an attack of lumbago and had handed the score over to Giovanni Tadolini to finish it off.   Varela, without knowing it, only received a part-Rossini manuscript and in that form it was performed once in 1833 before Varela died in 1837.   After some reworking, a complete all-Rossini version was published a few years later and the first public performance of the revised form was in Paris in January 1842.   It proved an immediate success especially in France and Italy but the reception was less effusive in the northern non-Latin countries where it was considered too playful and too sensuous for the religious subject, a stigma even now it has not entirely overcome.

At the age of 37, Rossini decided to retire from opera composition and in 1837 left Paris to return to his native Italy but suffered prolonged and painful illness there.    After the death of his wife Isabella in 1845 he married Olympe Pélissier, with whom he had lived for 15 years and who had tended him through his ill-health.   He produced hardly any musical output at all during this period but in 1855 he went back to Paris where his health and humour returned together with his urge to compose, one of the results being his graceful Petite Messe Solennelle.   He died, universally honoured, in 1868.

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