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About the Programme
Barber’s work endures
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings is perhaps the most popular American composition of the 20th century. It was originally the second movement of his string quartet. When he heard that the renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini was looking for American compositions for the coming season, Barber sent him an arrangement of the Adagio for string orchestra. Toscanini returned the score without commenting on it, leaving Barber disappointed because he thought his work had been rejected. Quite the opposite! Toscanini was so impressed that he had already memorised the Adagio and simply didn’t need the score anymore. The first performance was given on 5 November 1938 and the twenty-six-year-old Barber became instantly famous. With its long lyrical lines and pensive mood, his Adagio quickly became a national symbol of mourning and togetherness. However, Barber had not intended it as a lament but rather as an intimate meditation. He had been inspired by a passage in the Georgics by the Roman poet Virgil. The long arch of the Adagio perfectly captures the image of an endlessly surging sea. Rising like the waves, Barber's work gradually swells to a climax and then ebbs away again. The lengthy build-up of the theme commences in the first violins and is then taken over and developed by the other voices. Both the dynamics and the register soar to an enormous outburst, after which Barber gently returns to the opening theme. Today, more than 80 years after its first performance, the impact of the Adagio is as great as it was back then. As the critic Alexander J. Morin wrote: Barber’s Adagio ‘rarely leaves a dry eye’.
A composer’s fantasy
Peter Mennin's Fantasia for Strings was initially quite poorly received. but this string orchestra composition has nonetheless stood the test of time. Peter Mennin grew up in the US state of Pennsylvania in a family of Italian immigrants. He was fascinated by music from an early age, and composed his first work for orchestra when he was only 11. Mennin wrote his First Symphony, of the nine he would eventually write, when he was only nineteen. Completion of his Third Symphony suddenly launched him onto the musical scene as a prominent figure. With it, he was the runner-up for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for composition. Although Mennin's style gradually became more chromatic and dissonant, it remained essentially tonal. His works make considerable use of polyphony. With its two short movements, Canzona and Toccata, the Fantasia illustrates the basic principles that define Mennin’s later works. The canzona is a musical form dating from the 16th century; it was originally an instrumental transcription of old songs. In Mennin’s Canzona, the strings really do sing, and long lyrical lines are interwoven. A toccata (from the Italian toccare: to touch) is a virtuoso composition intended to highlight the technical expertise of the performer. Mennin's Toccata forms the fast and fiery second movement of his Fantasia. Its transparent structure makes this fantasy an accessible piece, forming an excellent introduction to Peter Mennin's music, especially for new listeners.
Lament for a child
7 May 1915. The First World War had divided the world. The British passenger liner RMS Lusitania was sunk off the coast of Ireland and 1100 people died. Nine-year-old Catherine Crompton was one of them.
The start of the war brought with it a major change in Frank Bridge's style of composition. The British composer, an ardent pacifist, revealed his opinion of the war with sudden radical harmonies. Despite fierce criticism, Bridge continued to write works denouncing the bloodshed. On 14 June 1915, he composed his Lament for Strings, dedicating it to ‘Catherine aged 9 “Lusitania” 1915’. This makes Bridge's Lament one of the most important works composed in response to the First World War. With that dedication, Bridge addressed the real consequences of the war. Lament is a work of quiet mourning. Throughout the entire piece, it is as if you can hear the strings sighing – sighs overflowing with melancholy and despair, sighs that make us pause to contemplate the suffering that underlies this Lament.
A welcome diversion
A ‘diversion’ – in the sense of an entertainment or amusement – is exactly what Béla Bartók provided with his Divertimento (Italian for diversion). In an unusually light-hearted style, the Hungarian composer offered a kind of escape from the tense atmosphere of the time. Bartók composed the piece in 1939 at the request of the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher. It was to be his final composition before he was forced to emigrate to America in 1940. Sacher, who had already commissioned quite a few works from Bartók, provided ideal conditions for the composer to work in complete peace and quiet. In a chalet deep in the Swiss Alps, Bartók completed the Divertimento unusually quickly, taking only 15 days for the whole work, which offers an intimate glimpse into his world. The three movements take us on a journey through time and space. The piece is a melange of different influences ranging from the baroque, through folk music, to surprising modern harmonies.
The divertimento is a musical form that became popular during the classical period, some 250 years ago. It is a light-hearted composition that aims to entertain the listener. Bartók enhances this neoclassical atmosphere by writing for small groups of soloists in dialogue with the orchestra. The opening movement, Allegro non troppo, is a waltz interlaced with the Hungarian elements that are typical of Bartók and that recur in many of his works. They are clearly audible in the sudden accents and syncopations, and the many chromatic passages. The second movement, Molto Adagio, is darker, and the pervasive tensions of the time thus creep into this otherwise cheerful composition. This tragic tone recurs frequently in Bartók's later works such as his Sixth String Quartet. The uneasy mood is quickly dispelled, however, when the final movement, Allegro Assai, begins, bringing back ‘diversion’. Bartók provides an exhilarating finale to the whole work, with lively dance rhythms, folk elements, gypsy fiddling, and a parody of the Viennese Waltz.
