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Suite No. 1 from The Water Music Despite their familiarity, the Water Music suites, particularly the first one, are fraught with musicological mysteries. The myths and legends surrounding these works are as well known as the music itself. Everyone “knows” that Handel’s employer, George, Elector of Hanover and heir to the British throne, was miffed with his Kapellmeister for both overstaying a leave of absence in England and for writing laudatory compositions for England’s Queen Anne. We also “know” that when George became king of England, Handel arranged a suite to be played on a barge on the Thames as part of a royal regatta in order to get back into the good graces of the angry monarch. Unfortunately, little of the story seems to be true. Handel did write his first Water Music Suite in 1715, a year after George’s accession to the British throne, and there is ample evidence that he wrote the Suite for the Royal River Festival. But there is no hard evidence that the composer had ever been out of favor with George, as evidenced by a Te Deum written for the king in 1714 and a Royal payment to Handel in 1715. Nevertheless, any convincing documentation pro or con the various stories of Handel’s relationship with his king at this point in his career has yet to turn up. Then there’s the problem with the musical content itself. The First Water Music Suite is traditionally played in ten sections, eight in F major, two in the relative d minor. Nevertheless, there is some question about whether these ten numbers were all actually played at the premiere or whether Handel later added two sections from an earlier concerto composed the same year. Since there is no manuscript of the full score and the earliest publication of the entire set was in 1788, it is impossible to know the original content and order of the suites. The traditional Baroque suite consisted of four to six movements based on typical continental court dances. The Water Music Suites, however, incorporate non-dance movements, most marked only with a tempo marking and no title at all. The First Suite, for instance, opens in traditional French style, a slow overture featuring dotted rhythms.  Movements two through five have only tempo markings, the sixth is titled “Air,” and only the seventh and eighth (“minuet” and “bourrée” ) are traditional dance movements. The “hornpipe” of the ninth movement – fitted in between repetitions of the bourrée – is unusual in that it was a popular English sailors’ dance. There are now so many editions of this popular work with varying numbers of movements and titles that it is difficult to confine it to a definitive version. Several recordings refuse to name or distinguish between the movements at all. The instrumentation varies from movement to movement, but usually employs oboes, bassoons and horns – typical instruments for outdoor performances – in addition to strings and continuo (which was probably a later addition for indoor performances). | ||||||||||
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Sea Pictures, Op. 37 Composing songs was not one of Edward Elgar’s strong points. He composed them out of generally a more mundane than artistic imperative, or as he referred to them as “a “nice little earner.” In 1921, he himself admitted: “I am not a song writer although a few of such things have achieved some popularity.” Elgar started a number of song cycles, but completed only Sea Pictures, which premiered in October 1899 shortly after the Enigma Variations. The title, Sea Pictures, is something of a misnomer, since it sets up the expectation that the music will portray the motion and moods of the sea, as in Debussy’s La mer. “Sea Contemplations” might have been a better title since the poems provide five different perspectives on the sea by five diverse speakers: a mother, two lovers, an anxious sailor, a dreamer and a swimmer facing death. 1. Sea Slumber Song (Roden Noel): The subtle rise and fall of the music establishes a nocturnal sea, lapping waves. The restless child is put to sleep by the “Sea sound, like violins,” but the melancholy melody suggests that there is no protection from the greater sorrows of life. Even though the second strain of the lullaby is in the major, Elgar chooses to switch to the more somber mode for the ending. 2. In Haven (Alice Elgar): The composer's wife Alice provided texts to a number of Elgar’s early songs. Subtitled “Capri,” the poem describes two lovers watching a storm out at sea, reassured that whatever else the storm may bring, “Love alone will stay.” In 1897, Elgar had composed an earlier version for voice and piano, under the latter title. 3. Sabbath Morning at Sea (Elizabeth Barrett Browning): The speaker in this poem, clearly a sailor facing the dangers of the sea, asks for courage from the prayers of friends at home, and from God, who created both Sea and Man and in whose presence he hopes ultimately to stand. Elgar sets each verse of the poem to different music, specifically reflecting the speaker’s sense of foreboding, the grandeur of the seascape and thoughts of home. Finally, his faith and God’s protection elicit music that combines religious fervor with the composer’s patriotic style. Elgar was a devout Catholic, and his setting of the poem conveys his faith – even, if at first, only in the orchestra.4. Where Corals Lie (Richard Garnett): The simple rhythm and calm ambiance of this song have made it the most popular of the set. The singer is seduced away from mortal love by the irresistible lure of the sea – and the deep (the “land where corals lie” is beneath the waves). 5. The Swimmer (Adam Lindsay Gordon): This poem receives Elgar’s most dramatic setting, the music more closely tied to the text than to a single prevailing mood. The speaker is a swimmer struggling against a stormy sea, just as the composer saw himself facing the world’s hostility to his goals and aspirations. There is a lull in the middle, but the storm returns – its Flying Dutchman sound a reminder of Elgar’s admiration of Richard Wagner. As in “Sabbath Morning,” the swimmer anticipates death with faith and trust in a better life. | ||||||||||
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Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish” In September 1850 Robert Schumann moved to Düsseldorf to take up his new position as the city’s municipal music director. It was the first time he had lived near the Rhine, the cradle of German legend and poetry. In the turmoil created by the move, his creative frenzy – the manic half of his bipolar personality – proved phenomenal, and before the end of the year he had composed the Cello Concerto and the Third Symphony, written between November 2 and December 9. The Third is by far the most programmatic of Schumann’s symphonies. Delighted by the potential his new position and by the outgoing nature of the people, he wrote the symphony in homage to his new home. He took two side-trips to Cologne and visited its famous cathedral, at that time still unfinished after 620 years of intermitted construction. He was awed by the majesty of the building - a supreme Gothic masterpiece- and, to celebrate the installation of a new cardinal, added an extra movement (the fourth) to the Symphony, originally designating it “In the character of a procession for a solemn ceremony.” He later removed the subtitle. The Symphony is extremely accessible, with clear-cut singable melodies. Schumann, one of the most prominent and outspoken aestheticians of the Romantic era, deliberately focused on striking a balance between giving this work popular appeal without sacrificing the dictates of high art. The Third Symphony is the only one of Schumann’s symphonies without a slow introduction. It opens with a lively, sweeping theme. The second theme, while different in mood is also long. The exuberant mood reflects the composer’s pleasure at his new surroundings. This theme, imitating the flow of the river may, in fact, have influenced Wagner, whose Leitmotif representing the Rhine in The Ring is in the same expansive mood and 6/8 meter. The easy-going Scherzo opens with the cellos in the rhythm of the Ländler, the peasant forerunner of the waltz; [ it was originally subtitled “Morning on the Rhine.” The Trio features the horns. The third movement is really the "extra" one for a structure that usually at this time comprised four movements only. It is a charming intermezzo. After the main theme, Schumann goes on to state another one, which he develops more fully and whose first notes are a recurring rhythmic pattern. This movement represents one of the places where Schumann straddles the fence between popular and high art, using subtle shifting rhythms within accessible tunes. The following movement, however, leaves the masses behind, substituting awe with artistic popularism.The scoring of the Symphony includes three trombones, but these are silent for the first three movements. They burst upon the scene suddenly in the fourth movement to maximum effect, introducing the majestic theme in, as Schumann called it, the so-called “cathedral” movement, referring both to the composer's visit to the Cologne Cathedral and to the solemn contrapuntal style of the sixteenth century. Schumann introduces the principal theme as a fugue for the trombones and horns, the pianissimo pizzicato basses beating time in the slow "processional." ] Schumann develops the theme with all the contrapuntal flourishes, as in this example where the theme is presented in diminution (short note values) against the theme in its original form – most certainly a nod to one of his idols, J. S. Bach. In the fifth movement, we are back outside in the sunny Rhineland. Schumann unleashes a volley of short tunes. & & Before the end, he take one more crack at the theme of the fourth movement, here transformed into the major mode, speeded up – but still contrapuntal. | ||||||||||
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| Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2009 | ||||||||||
