Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Program Notes

Ellen Reid – Body Cosmic

Body Cosmic
Ellen Reid
Born 1983, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

Body Cosmic is a meditation on the human body as it creates life and gives birth.

The first movement, Awe | she forms herself unspools a melody against the pulse of an ostinato, reflecting the surreality of creating new life, so common and yet so astonishing. Dissonance | her light and its shadow explores the conundrum of bringing new life into the simultaneously beautiful and crumbling world, moving between big splashes of smearing brass and tumultuous percussion and moments of warmth and blazing beauty.

This piece was written in response to my own experience with pregnancy and childbirth, a period of time that coincided with my dual residency at the Concertgebouw concert hall and with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Spending time in Amsterdam, working in the Concertgebouw’s storied halls, activated over a hundred and forty years of music-making, is a looming presence in this work. Thank you to the incredible musicians of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, whose generous artistic contributions rang loudly in my mind’s ear as I wrote this piece.

Program note by Ellen Reid

Sergei Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, op. 63

Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, op. 63
Sergei Prokofiev
Born April 23, 1891, Sontsovka, Ukraine
Died March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia

Like many other Russian musicians, Prokofiev fled to the West in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution of 1917 and eventually made his home in Paris, where he wrote brilliant–and often abrasive–music. As the years went by, though, Prokofiev began to feel homesick for Russia. He made the first of many return visits in 1927, and after 1933 he kept an apartment in Moscow and divided his time between that city and Paris. Prokofiev knew that if he returned to Russia, he would have to relax his style. Socialist Realism demanded music that was lyric and attractive to a mass audience, and the Soviet government would not for an instant have tolerated some of the music he had written in the West. Perhaps Prokofiev himself was ready to relax his style, but as the composer made the decision to return to Russia, his music grew more lyric and accessible: among the first works he wrote after his return were Peter and the Wolf and the ballet Romeo and Juliet.

The Second Violin Concerto also dates from these years and from this evolution toward a more lyric style. In 1935 friends of the French violinist Robert Soetens asked Prokofiev to write a violin concerto for him. Prokofiev noted how the unsettled circumstances of his life caused this music to be written in many different places: “the principal theme of the first movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the second movement in Voronezh, the orchestration I completed in Baku, while the first performance was given in Madrid, in December 1935.”

Prokofiev had at first not planned to write a concerto and intended instead to compose a smaller-scaled work, which he described as a “concert sonata for violin and orchestra.” As completed, though, the work is clearly a violin concerto, though one conceived on a somewhat intimate scale: Prokofiev scores it for what is essentially Mozart’s orchestra (pairs of woodwinds, horns, and trumpets, plus strings), but that classical sound is enlivened by some unusual percussion instruments, including castanets and a variety of drums.

The intimate scale and lyric nature of this concerto are evident from the first instant of the Allegro moderato, where the solo violin–all alone–lays out the opening theme. This concerto veers between extremes–it can be murmuring and muted one instant, full of steely energy the next–and such a contrast arrives with the bittersweet second subject, also announced by solo violin.

Pizzicato strings open the second movement, where they provide a pointilistic accompaniment to the violin’s long cantilena. This melody, which changes meters smoothly between 12/8 and 4/4, evolves through a series of variations until a pair of clarinets introduces the singing central episode.

Briefest of the movements, the concluding Allegro ben marcato makes distinctive use of percussion instruments, particularly the castanets. The closing pages–which alternate measures of 7/4, 5/4, 2/2, and 3/2 with the basic pulse of 3/4–are particularly exciting, and Prokofiev drives the concerto to a saucy close.

Program note by Eric Bromberger

Sergei Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, op. 27

Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, op. 27
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia
Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California, USA

In 1906 Rachmaninoff moved from Moscow to Dresden, taking his wife and young daughter with him. There he found a quiet apartment and over the next few years composed his finest orchestral works: the Second Symphony, the tone poem The Isle of the Dead, and the Third Piano Concerto. Rachmaninoff led the premiere of the Second Symphony in Moscow in February 1908.

The Second Symphony is Rachmaninoff’s longest orchestral work, and it shows all his virtues: soaring melodies darkly tinged with Slavic intensity, sumptuous writing for full orchestra, and careful attention to orchestral color (such as important parts for solo oboe and English horn, solo strings, and glockenspiel). This is a very long symphony, and in the Bad Old Days it was customary to perform it with numerous cuts, which had been sanctioned by a reluctant composer in the name of making the music more “compact.” Today it is almost always played in its uncut version, which stretches out to nearly an hour.

The stereotype of Rachmaninoff as the gloomy composer of wonderful melodies has led us to overlook the discipline that underlies his finest music. Much of the Second Symphony is derived directly from the seven-note motif announced at the very beginning by the lower strings. This shape will reappear both as theme and rhythm in many ways throughout the symphony. It opens the Largo introduction and is soon transformed into a flowing melody for violins. This in turn evolves into the true first theme, a pulsing violin melody at the Allegro moderato. The lengthy first movement (nearly twenty minutes) contrasts this flowing main idea with a gentle clarinet tune, and Rachmaninoff builds the movement to a massive climax.

The second movement, a scherzo marked Allegro molto, is dazzling. Over pounding accompaniment (the ring of the violins’ open E-strings is an important part of this sound), the entire horn section punches out the exciting main theme; Rachmaninoff sets this in high relief with a gorgeous second subject, a violin tune derived from the symphony’s opening motif. The fugal trio section, a tour de force of contrapuntal writing for the strings, demands virtuoso playing from all sections, and as a counter-theme Rachmaninoff creates an ominous little march built on a series of distant brass fanfares.

The Adagio soars on two melodies that seem to sing endlessly: the violins’ melting first theme (derived once again from the opening motto) and the solo clarinet’s wistful tune, marked espressivo e cantabile. Once again, Rachmaninoff spins these simple tunes into a climax of impressive power. The boisterous finale leaps to vigorous life, propelled by the wild triplet rhythms of its opening. Again, Rachmaninoff re-introduces material from earlier movements. The motto appears in several forms, the main theme of the Adagio returns in all its glory, and finally the symphony whips to a brilliant close on the dancing rhythms that opened the finale.

Program note by Eric Bromberger