Kansas City Symphony 2012-2013 Classical Series

April 5, 6 and 7, 2013 Michael Stern, Conductor Kansas City Symphony Chorus Charles Bruffy, Director Caroline Robinson, Organ RACHMANINOFF The Bells, Poem for Soprano, Tenor and Baritone Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 35 The Silver Sleigh Bells The Golden Wedding Bells The Loud Alarum Bells The Mournful Iron Bells

— INTERMISSION —

POULENC Concerto for Organ, String Orchestra and Timpani in G minor

SCRIABIN The Poem of Ecstasy (Symphony No. 4), Op. 54

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Notes on the Program by DR. RICHARD E. RODDA Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) The Bells, Poem for Soprano, Tenor and Baritone Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 35 (1913) Piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, harp, piano, organ and strings.

SIDEBAR – BULLET POINTS: • Rachmaninoff’s work sets Edgar Allen Poe’s verses about the bells that punctuate the progress of life from cradle to grave • Rachmaninoff recalled that “the sound of church bells dominated all the cities of the Russia I used to know — Novgorod, Kiev, Moscow” • Rachmaninoff declared The Bells to be his favorite among his compositions

In December 1912, just in time to escape the harshest rigors of another Russian winter,

Rachmaninoff left Moscow for a working holiday in Italy. “In Rome,” he recalled in his memoirs, “I was able to take the same flat on the Piazza di Spagna that Modeste Tchaikovsky had used for a long time and which had served his brother [i.e., the composer Peter] as a temporary retreat. All day long I spent at the piano or the writing desk, and not until the pines on the Monte Pincio were gilded by the setting sun did I put away my pen. Here I worked on my Second Piano Sonata and the choral symphony, The Bells.” The Bells set a reworking into Russian of Edgar Allan Poe’s well-known poem by the symbolist writer Konstantin Balmont, whose lyric The Migrant Wind Rachmaninoff had included in his set of Fourteen Songs composed in 1912 (Op. 34, which also contains the well-known wordless Vocalise). The Bells was largely completed in Rome between January and April 1913, when Rachmaninoff’s visit was suddenly cut short because his two young daughters contracted typhoid fever. He insisted that they not be treated by Italian doctors, and took them instead to a specialist in Berlin. After six anxious weeks in Germany, the family returned to its country retreat at Ivanovka, where the score was finished on July 27th.

Poe’s verses about the bells that punctuate the inexorable progress of life from the cradle to the grave were altered in small but significant ways by Balmont, mainly by replacing some of the reiterated litanies of the original text (“To the rolling of the bells ... /To the tolling of the bells .../Of the bells, bells, bells, bells ...) with new lines that served to heighten the poem’s drama by making it more ornate and overtly emotional. The power and emotional range of the original poem remained, however, and were superbly enfolded by Rachmaninoff in some of his most deeply expressive music. Rachmaninoff laid out his setting of The Bells in the broad structural plan of a large four-movement symphony with voices — a brilliant opening movement in quick tempo; a thoughtful Lento; a raging Scherzo; and a brooding finale which was inspired, according to the composer, by the closing movement of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” Symphony. The first movement (for chorus and tenor soloist), with its sparkling orchestration and its harmonic evocation of bell sounds, depicts the settled wholeness of childhood through the radiant tintinnabulations of the Silver Sleigh Bells. Confident optimism and joy in the promised fullness of life are the poetic and musical subjects of the following movement (for soprano and chorus) — The Golden Wedding Bells. The third movement — The Loud Alarum Bells — with its violent rhythms, blazing orchestral sonorities and choral shouts, stands in terrifying contrast to the halcyon music of the wedding. The solemn chiming of great bells continues almost unabated throughout the finale, The Mournful Iron Bells (baritone and chorus), but Rachmaninoff ends his Symphony not with Poe’s bleak pessimism, but rather with

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a halo of gentle peace. “In Rachmaninoff’s version,” wrote John Culshaw, “it is the human spirit that finally triumphs; the bells do not cease their tolling, but their cry is in vain.”

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Concerto for Organ, String Orchestra and Timpani in G minor (1938)

SIDEBAR – BULLET POINTS: • Poulenc’s Organ Concerto marked a move away from his early insouciant works to a more serious manner of expression • Poulenc returned to the Catholicism of his youth following the death of a friend in 1936 • The Concerto’s one-movement form was influenced by the Baroque fantasia

The appearance of Francis Poulenc’s Organ Concerto in 1938 produced mild surprise

among the followers of his music. Since first winning public attention at the age of eighteen with his Rapsodie nègre, his chamber music, songs, ballets, concertos and piano pieces (these last just right, advised Anatole France, for “the intimate conversations at five o’clock”) were brilliant, refined, even impudent. The Organ Concerto revealed a previously unknown facet of his musical personality, one that his friend the American composer Ned Rorem described as “deeply devout and uncontrollably sensual.”

Poulenc’s depth of feeling was grounded in the Catholicism of his youth, but with which, he admitted, “from 1920 to 1935 I was very little concerned.” In 1936 he underwent a rejuvenation of his religious belief brought about by the death of his colleague Pierre-Octave Ferroud in an automobile accident. Deeply shaken, Poulenc wrote, “The atrocious extinction of this musician so full of vigor left me stupefied. Pondering on the fragility of our human frame, the life of the spirit attracted me anew.” His renewed interest in the faith led to a wonderful series of musical works that reflect a more noble vision than do those of the preceding years: the Gloria, the Sonata for Two Pianos, many sacred vocal pieces, the cathartic opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites and the Organ Concerto.

The Organ Concerto is cast in a single movement comprising seven sections differentiated by tempo and texture, a formal concept derived from the Baroque keyboard fantasia. The sections are alternately slow, with chordal scoring, and fast, with a dynamic, moto perpetuo quality. To bring unity to the structure, there are thematic relationships among the various formal parts, most notably a great peal from the solo organ, reminiscent of Sebastian Bach’s Organ Fantasia in G minor (the “Great,” BWV 542), which occurs in both the first and last sections. The scoring is a piece of expert craftsmanship, with the timpani reinforcing and delineating the bass line, while the strings are combined with the careful registrations of the organ to produce sonorities that are, by turn, brilliant and hymnal.

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) The Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54 (1905, 1908) Piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, organ, two harps and strings.

SIDEBAR – BULLET POINTS: • Scriabin was the great mystic among the Russian composers • The Poem of Ecstasy was based on a verse by Scriabin himself

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• Scriabin said that the work’s themes represent such things as “human striving after the ideal,” “the awakening of the soul” and “soaring flight of the spirit”

The music for The Poem of Ecstasy grew from Scriabin’s literary poem of the same name. He

had published this poem of several hundred short lines in May 1906, and sent copies to his friends; he once admitted that his greatest satisfaction came from regaling an assembly with these obscure verses. When the musical work was completed, however, he discouraged printing the poetic text in the score. “Conductors who want to perform The Poem of Ecstasy,” he wrote, “can always be apprised that it has such a thing, but in general I would prefer for them to approach it as pure music.” This seems a curious pronouncement for a composer who was not only meticulous in giving his work a vivid philosophical setting, but also provided specific labels for each of its themes. He may have realized that the words were little more than a quizzical appendage to such a grandiloquent piece of music.

Modest Altschuler, Scriabin’s friend, confidant and the conductor of the premiere, remarked that The Poem of Ecstasy “sought to express something of the emotional side of [Scriabin’s] philosophy.” He described the three facets of this philosophy that emerge in the music: a) the composer’s soul in “an orgy of love;” b) “the realization of a fantastic dream;” and c) the composer’s apprehension of “the glory of his own art.” For his part, Scriabin said that various of the themes represent “human striving after the ideal,” “the awakening of the soul, gradually realizing itself (the Ego theme),” “the Will to rise up,” and “the soaring flight of the spirit.” This is a challenging burden for simple musical tones to carry, and perhaps it is for this reason that Scriabin advised hearing the work as “pure music.” Approaching the work as “pure music” also relieves the listener of receiving The Poem of Ecstasy as a philosophical tract rather than as simply a grandiose musical composition.

The style of The Poem of Ecstasy is opulently post-Romantic. Its harmony is rich and glowing, its orchestral complement colossal, its melody expressive and densely chromatic. Though it is still tonal, some of Scriabin’s new chordal combinations stretch traditional harmonic functions to great lengths. The seething emotional turmoil of the music was cultivated in the hothouse of Wagnerian Romanticism gone wild. Yet, this is music of sharp and individual character, of brilliant originality that is unique in the realm of the art. Though The Poem of Ecstasy is cast in the old sonata-allegro structure, it is better heard not as a formal exercise but rather as a musical distillation of the most intense physical and spiritual feelings — a sort of concert-hall catharsis. The grand, sweeping arches of rising tension, which grow from expectant tenderness to climactic release, parallel aspects of our lives. This music creates an ardent excitement and visceral stimulation that even the most jaded gainsayer would find hard to deny.

©2012 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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Rachmaninoff: The Bells

I. Slyshish, sani mchatsya v ryad, Hear the sledges dash abreast, Mchatsya v ryad, Dash abreast, Kolokolchiki zvenyat. Jingle bells! Serebristym legkim zvonom slukh nash Their light and silvery tinkle pours sweet sladostno tomyat, anguish in our ears, Etim penyem i gudenyem o zabvenye All this singing and this ringing sweet govoryar. oblivion foretells! O, kak zvonko, zvonko, zvonko, Oh, how clear, clear, clear, Tochno zvuchnyi smekh rebyonka, As if baby’s resonant laughter V yasnom vozdukhe nochnom In the icy air of night Govoryat oni o tom, Is their chatter: Shto za dnyami zabluzhdenya Nastupayet After days of disillusion vozrozhdenye. hope restores. Shto volshebno naslazhdenye, The delight is all-enchanting, as enchanting naslazhdenye nezhnym snom. as sweet dreams. Sani mchatsya, mchatsya v ryad, Sledges dash, dash abreast, dash abreast, Kolokolchiki zvenyan Jingle bells! Zvyozdy slushayut, kak sani, ubegaya, Stars, attentive to the sledges, govoryat I, vnimaya im, goryat, Seem to listen, all aglow, I mechtaya, i blistaya, v nebe Dreaming, sparkling in the heavens dukhami paryat; I izmenchivym siyanyem, With the ever-changing radiance Molchalivym obayanyem, And with silent fascination Vmeste s zvonom, vmeste s penyem, With the ringing and singing sweet o zabvenye govoryat. oblivion foretell.

II. Slyshish, k svadbe zov svyatoy, Hear the call to holy nuptials, Zolotoy. Golden bells! Skolko nezhnovo blazhensrva v etoy pesne What a tender bliss the youthful molodoy! song foretells! Skvoz spokoinyi vozdukh nochi Through the quiet air of night, Slovno smotryat chyi-to ochi As if someone’s eyes are gazing, I blestyat, shining Iz volny pevuchikh zvukov na lunu oni At the moon through the undulating glyadyat tones Iz prizyvnykh divnykh keliy, From the wondrous sounding cells, Polny skazochnykh veseliy, Full of fairytale rapture Narastaya, upadaya, bryzgi svetlyye letyat. Mounting, sinking, crystal’s Vnov potukhnut, vnov blestyat, sprinkle I ronyayut svetlyi vzglyad As they glance Na gryadushcheye, gde dremlet At the future, wherein sleeps tender bezmyatezhnost nezhnykh snov, quietude Vozveshchayemykh soglasyem zolotykh Announced by the harmony of bells. kolokolov.

III. Slyshish, voyushchiy nabat, Hear the wail of the bells,

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Tochno stonet medniy ad. As if brazen hell is moaning, Eti zvuki, v dikoy muke, skazku uzhasov Agonized. A tale of terror their turbulence tverdyat! foretells! Tochno molyat im pomoch, As if pleading to be helped, Krik kidayut pryamo v noch, Screaming out into the night, Pryamo v ushi temnoy nochi Straight into the ears of darkness Kazhdyi zvuk, Every sound, To dlinneye, to koroche Now lengthened, now abrupt, Vyklikayet svoy ispug. Calling out their lasting fright! I ispug ikh tak velik, Their horror is so great Tak bezumen kazhdyi krik, And so mad is every shriek Shto razorvannyye zvony, nesposobnyye That the punctuated tolling, quite unable to zvuchar, intone, Mogut tolko bitsya, bitsya, i krichat, Keeps on clanging, clanging, as they shriek, krichat, krichat shriek, shriek I k pylayushchey gromade, Toward the fire-engulfed mass, Vopli skorbi obrashchat. Sending their appeals for mercy. A mezh tem ogon bezumnyi, While the frantic fires roar, I glukhoy i mnogoshumnyi, Dense and deafeningly strident, Vsyo gorit, blazing To iz okon, to na kryshe Out the windows, on the roof, Mchitsya vyshe, vyshe, vyshe, Leaping higher, higher, higher, I kak budto govorit: As if saying: Ya khochu It’s our wish Vyshe mchatsya, razgoratsya vstrechu To keep going, to keep blazing toward lunnomu luchu moonbeams, Il umru il totchas, totchas, vplot do Either perish now or reach to the moon mesyatsa vzlechu itself this instant. O, nabat, nabat, nabat, Oh, you bells, bells, bells, Yesli b ty vernul nazad If you’d only turn back Etot uzhas, eto plamya, etu iskru, etot All the terror, all the fire, all the embers, vzglyad, etot pervyi vzglyad ognya and this sight, O kotorom ty veshchayesh s voplem, The initial fiery glance s plachem i zvenya A teper nam net spasenya. You describe with road and clamor. Vsyudu plamya i kipenye Now we see no liberation — Vsyudu strakh i vozmushchenye. Boiling fire all around Tvoy prizyv, Full of fear and indignation. Dikikh zvukov nesoglasnost Your command Vozveshchayet nam opasnost. To fierce cacophony declares To rastyot beda glukhaya, to spadayet, Nothing but a mad distress. kak priliv Now the danger ebbs and flows Slukh nash chutko lovit volny v peremene And our ear distinctly tells all the waves of zvukovoy, changing sound Vnov spadayet, vnov rydayet medno- Swelling, sinking in the brazen stonushchiy priboy! breakers’ well!

IV. Pokhoronnyi slyshen zvon, Hear the mournful toll of bells, Dolgiy zvon! Lasting toll! Gorkoy skorbi slyshny zvuki, gorkoy Sounds of bitter sorrow are heard as a bitter zhizni konchen son. life’s dreams end, Zvuk zheleznyi vozveshchayet o pechali And the iron tone of bells solemn pokhoron. monody foretells. I nevolno my drozhim, Inadvertently, we shiver. Ot zabav svoikh speshim, All diversions stand away.

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I rydayem, vspominayem, shto i my glaza We lament, for we discover time will come to smezhim. end our day. Neizmenno-monotonnyi, Unalterably dull Etot vozglas otdalyonnyi. Is this distant voice. Pokhoronnyi tyazhkiy zvon, Mournful heavy toll, Tochno ston. A knoll. Skorbnyi, gnevnyi Pained, wrathful, I plachevnyi, And lamenting, Vyrastayer v dolgiy gul Growing into lengthy din, Vozveshchayet, shto stradalets It proclaims that the sufferer fell into neprobudnym snom usnul. eternal dream. V kolokolnykh kelyakh rzhavykh In the rusty cells of steeple On dlya pravykh i nepravykh For the righteous and the wrong Grozno vtorit ob odnom: It is menacingly saying: Shto na serdtse budto kamen, shto glaza On the human heart a stone, as the orbs, will somknutsya snom close forever. Fakel traurnyi gorit. A funereal torch is burning. S kolokolni kto-to kriknul, kto-to gromko From the steeple someone yelled, someone govorit called, Kto-ro chyornyi tam stoit. Someone all in black stands there I khokhocheq i gremit, And he laughs, and he drones, I gudit, gudit, gudit And he rolls, rolls, rolls, K kolokolne pripadayet As he falls onto the steeple, Gulkiy kolokol kachayet, Swaying throbbing iron bells. Gulkiy kolokol rydayet, Throbbing iron bells are moaning, Stonet v vozdukhe nemom Groaning in the still of night I proryazhno vozveshchayet o And their lingering call proclaims: all is pokoye grobovom! gravely right!