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Sidereus – Commission honoring Henry Fogel Born into an Eastern European Jewish household in officially Catholic Argentina, Oswaldo Golijov has forged a musical style based on Western Classical music, the traditional Jewish and Christian liturgies, folk traditions of several countries, and Latin-American influences with particular attention to the tango as developed by Astor Piazzolla. Golijov transforms these materials into entirely new forms and sounds, often only with internal references to these sources. Klezmer music has been an important source for many of his compositions, the best known being The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, for string quartet and clarinet. In 1983 Golijov moved to Israel where he studied with the Ukrainian-born musicologist and composer Mark Kopytman, whose pieces include graphic notation and aleatoric (chance) elements. In 1986 he came to the United States and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with George Crumb, as well as with Lucas Foss and Oliver Knussen at Tanglewood. In 1990 he was named a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Golijov is Loyola Professor of Music at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, where he has taught since 1991. In an interviewed with Sarah Baird Knight, Golijov explains: “[The title] Sidereus comes from a book by Galileo, Sidereus Nuncius or "Sidereal Messenger.” (It’s more commonly translated as "Starry Messenger" but to me the word “sidereal” is more beautiful.) He wrote it after observing the moon for the first time with the telescope. He also discovered Jupiter's moons, and started to get into trouble with the Vatican because of the incontrovertible evidence of the intelligent observation. “The realizations of Galileo referred to the new discoveries in the surface of the moon. With these discoveries, the moon was no longer the province of poets exclusively. It had also become an object of inquiry: Could there be water there? Life? If there was life, then the Vatican was scared, because, as Cardinal Bellarmino wrote to Galileo: How were the people there created? How would their souls be saved? What do we do about Adam? Wasn't he supposed to be the first man? How do we explain the origin of possible life elsewhere? What about his rib? It’s the duality: the moon is still good for love and lovers and poets, but a scientific observation can lead us to entirely new realizations. “I’d say it’s the same with Van Gogh's self-portraits; they are both incredibly expressive and pure in pattern. You see that those same brushstrokes that delve into the depths of human experience and questions also reflect the patterns of galaxies, nebulae, and exploding supernovae. “In Sidereus, the melodies and the harmony are simple, so they can reveal more upon closer examination. For the “Moon” theme I used a melody with a beautiful, open nature, a magnified scale fragment that my good friend and longtime collaborator, accordionist Michael Ward Bergeman came up with some years ago when we both were trying to come up with ideas for a musical depiction of the sky in Patagonia. I then looked at that theme as if through the telescope and under the microscope, so that the textures, the patterns from which the melody emerges and into which it dissolves, point to a more molecular, atomic reality. Like Galileo with the telescope, or getting close to Van Gogh's brushstrokes.” To hear the music, go to http://www.instantencore.com/music/details.aspx?PId=5078627 | ||||||||||
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Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 Throughout his creative career, Tchaikovsky’s inspiration went through extreme cycles tied to the frequent bouts of deep depression and self-doubt from which he suffered. The composition of this symphony in 1877 was strongly influenced by the events that happened in his life that year. Things were actually looking up for Tchaikovsky during the early part of 1877. He had his first contact with Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy widow of a railroad builder, who fell in love with Tchaikovsky’s music and arranged to pay him a large annual stipend. The only stipulation she attached to her generous help was that they never meet in person, although they corresponded voluminously. In May he started work on the Fourth Symphony, but in July came his disastrous marriage to one of his students, Antonina Milyukova, who had fallen madly in love with him and had written to him confessing her devotion. Although Tchaikovsky, who was homosexual, didn’t even remember the girl, he hoped the marriage would still the rumors about his sexual preference. Instead he fled Antonina after two weeks. In total despair, he made a pathetic attempt at suicide (he walked into the Moskva River, hoping to die of pneumonia) and ended up with a complete mental collapse. To recuperate, his brother took him to Switzerland and Italy, where he picked up work on the symphony, finishing it in January 1878. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work To Mme. von Meck, expressing his confidence in the new work: “I feel in my heart that this work is the best I have ever written.” He himself did not return from abroad for the February 1878 premiere in Moscow, which was only a luke-warm success.Tchaikovsky himself contributed to the notion that the Symphony was programmatic. He wrote to his patroness: Of course my symphony is programmatic, but this program is such that it cannot be formulated in words. That would excite ridicule and appear comic. Ought not a symphony—that is, the most lyrical of all forms—to be such a work? Should it not express everything for which there are no words, but which the soul wishes to express, and which requires to be expressed? In Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, motivic unity among the movements was to take an increasingly more prominent role. The symphony opens with a sinister fanfare theme by the brass, which recurs as the movement unfolds.  The anxiety-laden main theme, which Tchaikovsky develops on the spot, strives towards a resolution that continually seems to elude it. The relief comes with the second theme, one of Tchaikovsky's inimitable melodies, a waltz for solo clarinet, and a third played in counterpoint with the clarinet theme by the strings and timpani. The development, based exclusively on the main theme and the fanfare, begins quietly, slowly ramping up the emotional tension. After the recapitulation, the fanfare announces a long two-part coda with a new theme set contrapuntally against the main theme to resolve the movement on a more positive note. But just as we are starting to sit back and relax, the fanfare returns to blast us back into Tchaikovsky's stormy reality. The second movement, by contrast, opens with a plaintive melody on the oboe, accompanied by pizzicato strings. The oboe theme is answered by a more intense second theme in the strings. The pace picks up as the composer adds a dance-like melody. Typical Tchaikovsky anxiety mounts, until he returns to the gentle oboe theme now in the violins, adorned with feathery ornaments in the winds recalling the accompaniment to the clarinet theme in the first movement. The third movement, Pizzicato ostinato, is a playful diversion. It is a typical scherzo and trio. The Trio consists of a medley of tunes, the first for a pair of oboes, the second, slightly mournful Russian folk tune, also for the upper winds, and a playful brass riff with staccato playing to match the pizzicato strings from the Scherzo. The movement ends with a medley of the various themes and instrumental combinations. While one hears subtle references to first-movement musical ideas in movements two and three, Tchaikovsky explicitly unifies the Symphony in the Finale. This last movement is the most “Russian” of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic movements and is something of a musical battle between the festive and the melancholic. After a festive opening theme, the oboe and bassoon introduce an authentic Russia folk-song (for which he was roundly condemned by his academic colleagues and the critics). Once again, however, a sprightly mood turns negative, and it is hardly surprising that the movement is brought up short towards the end by the reappearance of the grim fanfare from the opening movement – the spectre at the feast. An energetic coda, however, tips the balance towards positive territory. | ||||||||||
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| Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2010 | ||||||||||
