Debussy, La Mer - Trois Esquisses Symphoniques

In 1901, Claude Debussy premiered Nocturnes, his first work for orchestra in three sections. Although the work was well received by his fellow musicians, it did not elicit much enthusiasm from the public. But the composer was satisfied with the spirit of his peers to attempt a new project in a similar format two years later.

Completed in 1905, the orchestral work La Mer had its premiere in October of that year. This time, the composer's work was not well received by either the public or the critics. Two circumstances had conspired. To the clumsy performance of that evening (according to reviews of the time) was added the bitterness generated among Parisians by Debussy's relationship with Emma Bardac, which had led his abandoned wife, his "green-eyed Gaby", to attempt suicide two days before the premiere.

First sketches
The first sketches of La Mer were elaborated in August 1903 in the Burgundy region. Its three movements intended to illustrate musically the magnificent force of the sea, its tumultuous swell, and also its seductive calm, were completed in March 1905, but not in front of a majestic ocean but before the simple shores of the English Channel, in the south of England, where the sea, in the words of the master, "folds and unfolds with British correctness".

Debussy (1862 - 1918)

The Great Wave
As he later pointed out, Debussy took more inspiration from pictures and paintings depicting the sea than from the circumstance of being located in its vicinity. The master was smitten by "The Great Wave", Hokusai's famous engraving, and did not hesitate to ask his publisher to reproduce it on the cover of the printed score.

Three Symphonic Sketches - Trois Esquisses Symphoniques 
Although the work contains three symphonic movements that would properly qualify it as a symphony, Debussy added to its descriptive title the subtitle "Three Symphonic Sketches" precisely so that the work would not be known as an orthodox symphony, nor as a symphonic poem. In line with the rejection of all formalism, it is speculated that the composer thus managed to emphasize the originality of the work while avoiding association with any other genre.

Satie (1866 - 1925)

The critics
However, as we noted initially, the reviews were not favorable at the premiere. There were even admirers of Debussy's work who were disappointed on the occasion. The commentator of the newspaper Le Temps even noted that he could not hear the sea. Nor did he see or smell it, he said - which was certainly too much to ask.
Erik Satie, a friend of Debussy, best expressed the audience's feelings, though in his particular style. At the end of the evening, he would have said to the master: "My dear friend, there is a particular moment that I found impressive: between half past ten and a quarter to eleven".

Significance
But the disenchantment did not last long. It only took a couple of years for the Parisian public to become enchanted, and later, for the rest of the world, until today. More than a hundred years later, La Mer is considered one of the great orchestral works of the twentieth century, proving the master right. The work does not describe the sea (if it did, we would be before a symphonic poem, without appeal), it "portrays" it symbolically, we are before a piece of music "invented in the image of the sea, a mobile, unpredictable, and free element".

The three sketches:
00:00  De l'aube à midi sur la mer - evokes the awakening of the sea and the welcoming of the sun.
10:06  Jeux de vagues - on the gentle and permanent swaying of the waves.
17:44  Dialogue du vent et de la mer - two antagonistic forces in continuous struggle, the sea and the wind.

Paavo Järvi conducts the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.

C.H. Reinecke, Concerto for Flute

Assessing his own significance as a composer, the German author Carl Heinrich Reinecke, with an unusual candor for a romantic artist (even of late romanticism), once confessed: "I cannot but agree with those who call me an epigone" (i.e., a continuator, a lesser follower of the one being followed). Posterity has proved him right, unfortunately. Of his enormous catalog, which reaches 288 opus numbers, few works are today properly part of the standard repertoire. His Concerto for flute and orchestra is one of those valuable exceptions.

Born in Altona, Hamburgo, in 1824, the composer showed early talent. As a teenager, he was a competent orchestral violinist, and before the age of twenty, he was touring northern Germany as a skilled pianist. He did not achieve a reputation as a great virtuoso, but Franz Liszt held him in high esteem, making him the teacher of his daughter Cosima (Richard Wagner's future wife).

In 1860 he was appointed conductor of the famous Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig and shortly afterward he was giving composition lessons at the Conservatory, where he remained until 1902. In his later years, he gave up public performances but continued to compose until the end of his days.

C.H. Reinicke (1824 - 1910)

His vast catalog includes six operas and operettas, three symphonies, numerous overtures, and abundant chamber music. He also wrote four piano concertos (one less than Beethoven), as well as concertos for violin, cello, harp, and flute. Of the latter, the concertos for flute and harp, it has been said that they are among his best compositions. And of the Flute Concerto in D major, one scholar has noted that it constitutes "an important contribution to the genre".

Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, in D minor, opus 283
Written in 1908, just two years before his death, this is the last of his works in the concerto genre for soloist and orchestra. Arranged in the usual three movements, its little more than 20 minutes appeal to a more "classical" than "romantic" orchestra, in the sense that, in the absence of moments of great exaltation, the trombones, for example, or the tuba, can be dispensed with.

As scholars remark, in line with his passionate reverence for the classics, Carl Reinecke constructed fluid, decorous, elegant, and scrupulously crafted music.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro molto moderato
09:30  Lento e mesto
16:00  Moderato

The rendition is by the young Genoa-born artist Sébastian Jacot.

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No 4, "Romantic" Symphony - Finale

Bruckner, a "folksy" composer
Anton Bruckner was a rather peculiar composer. A first-rate organist, he became a meticulous composer after the age of 37, an advanced age if we remember that Mozart died at 35. In his thirties, aware of his weaknesses in harmony and counterpoint, he decided to take a correspondence course with a renowned pedagogue (the pedagogue in Vienna, Bruckner in Linz). Six years later, he repeated the procedure to refine his knowledge of orchestration.
As a result of this distance learning, by the age of forty, he enjoyed a name for himself. He took up the position of professor of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory, but his simple, folksy, and "unworldly" spirit had not changed. Before the premiere of the Fourth Symphony in 1880, after an encouraging rehearsal, he put a few coins in the hand of the conductor, the very aristocratic Hans Richter, inviting him to celebrate with a beer.

Born in Ansfelden, Austria, in 1824, the eldest of eleven children of a schoolmaster and organist, Anton Bruckner is the author of masses, motets, choral works, and the nine symphonies for which he is best known, monumental, rigorous works of elaborate contrapuntal writing, according to scholars. In 1865, the author attended the premiere of Tristan and Isolde, an experience that transformed him into a fervent admirer of Wagner, until the end of his days. However, the influence, or the "Wagnerian" component of his later work, is still a matter of debate.

Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896)

A fervent Catholic
Bruckner never married, but the Catholic, apostolic and Roman orientation of his religious spirit was not an obstacle for him to develop the curious habit of proposing marriage to blossoming girls who then rejected him, provoking in him an inexplicable annoyance. As the years went by, his imperfection in seduction increased, in parallel with other "eccentricities" that astonished his acquaintances and that today we understand as obsessive-compulsive behaviors. As a result of a crisis, in 1867 he had to enter a sanatorium where he stayed for three months.
But he lived thirty years more. The maestro died in Vienna, in October 1896, with his Ninth Symphony finished in its first three movements.

Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, "Romantic" - Mov 4
It is the only one of his symphonies to which the composer gave a title, which should be understood in the sense that it points to a medieval "romance", such as Lohengrin, or Wagner's Siegfried.
Numerous versions are in existence. The original version dates from 1874 but was never performed or published during the master's lifetime. From that date, Bruckner revised it again and again, until the last modifications in 1887. The opinion of a couple of students was not alien to such a hustle and bustle, who argued the need to make the maestro's music more "friendly" to the listener.

The work has four movements and a total length of about an hour.
Therefore, we present here the coda of the last movement, Finale, in its 1880 version, and marked by the author as "Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell", something like "moved, but not too much", which has become one of the most successful symphonic endings.

The Romanian maestro, Sergiu Celibidache, conducts the Münchner Philharmoniker, 1983.

Beethoven, "Diabelli Variations"

Born in 1781 near Salzburg, Anton Diabelli was a musician of limited creativity but with great skills as an impresario. As a young man, he also pursued ecclesiastical studies which he did not complete due to unmanageable circumstances, such as Napoleon's handing over to the State the monasteries where he intended to study. Thus it was that in 1803 he settled in Vienna intending to pursue a career in music, for he had already composed, after all, half a dozen masses. In the capital of the empire, he taught piano and guitar and composed simple pieces for the delight of the rising bourgeoisie, but his main source of income was his work as a copyist and proofreader for local publishing houses.

Capri & Diabelli Publishers
By 1817 he had set up his own company, and the following year he formed a partnership with Pietro Cappi, a well-known art dealer, and engraver. The lusty firm Capri & Diabelli made its first publication in December 1818; before long it was known as a purveyor of folk dances and arrangements of opera pieces for the amateur market. In order to balance the catalog and reach a wider market, in 1819 Diabelli began to send a waltz of his own to the most prominent Austrian composers for them to devise a variation based on it. The compilation was to be published for the benefit of the families of soldiers who had fallen in the recent wars.

Anton Diabelli (1781 - 1858)

By 1823, fifty composers had sent the publisher their contribution. Among them, to name but a few, were Schubert, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, Czerny (including the latter's eleven-year-old pupil Franz Liszt, thanks to the good offices of his teacher). One variation per composer, with the exception of Beethoven who sent thirty-three.

At the time he received the waltz, Beethoven was working on the composition of the Missa Solemnis... and was not very interested. But after a while, the idea of an encyclopedic work on the technique of the variations aroused his enthusiasm. When the Mass was finished in 1822, he completed the formidable set of variations and sent them to Diabelli, who published them as the master's Opus 120, also forming the first volume of the compilation for profit. The remaining fifty authors were grouped in Volume II.

The Diabelli Waltz
Initially, Beethoven not only disapproved of the piece but described it as being as musical as a "cobbler's patch". To some scholars, the qualification seems appropriate if one looks at its structure of "musical sequences repeated one after the other, each time modulated at similar intervals." This is undoubtedly true, but opinions on the musical value of this sequence vary over a wide range. For the most benevolent, this is a wholesome, graceful piece, devoid of any affectation or sentimentality. At the other extreme, there is nothing here but banality, a "beer hall waltz"... To form your own opinion, nothing better to pay full attention to the theme, in the video below.

33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, C Major, Opus 120
Here, however, there are no two opinions. The experts are unanimous in their enthusiasm for the work's grandeur. Hans von Büllow called it "a microcosm of Beethoven's genius". Another sees in it a mixture of "heavenly serenity, wild passion and noble majesty". It has also been compared to the Goldberg Variations for its grandeur, depth and stylistic and emotional calibre.
However, for the ordinary listener, this inspired mastery has proved difficult to assimilate. Its sheer length requires extreme concentration sustained over time, hence publishers and even performers have tried to rearrange or manipulate the work in order to make it "lighter" to the ear. But such lightness would only succeed in weakening a masterpiece which, in any case, is the result of an enormous effort of the intellect, considering the extreme simplicity of the original theme.

Published in Vienna in 1823 by Capri & Diabelli, the work is dedicated to Antonie Brentano, once noted as one of the probable "Immortal Beloved" of an earlier period in the master's life. The complete work lasts about an hour.

The rendition is by the young Mexican maestro Gavin Arturo Gamboa.

 

Saint-Saëns, "Bacchanal", from Samson and Delilah

Camille Saint-Saëns, composer, pianist, organist, inspired teacher, and promoter of the music of his contemporaries, was also a seasoned traveler and talented writer. To all this, he also added a zealous dedication to various disciplines such as astronomy, archeology, philosophy, and even the occult sciences. However, when in 1867, in his thirties, he presented to a small group of listeners the project for his second opera (the first, then still unperformed), the small audience refused to believe that the maestro could successfully bring to the stage a subject of an openly biblical nature.

The work of dissent, Samson and Delilah, an opera in three acts, is indeed based on an episode from the Old Testament, specifically chapters 13 to 16 of the Book of Judges, which tells the story of a conflict between the Hebrews and the Philistines, taking place in Gaza, no less.
Saint-Saëns' original idea was to create an oratorio. It was his librettist, very occasional by the way (the young husband of "a relative of mine" who wrote verse) who convinced him of its theatrical potential.

But the idea had to wait, until 1875, when the maestro presented the First Act in a concert that excited no one. Franz Liszt, a fervent admirer of the project, declared his public support, and Saint-Saëns finally managed to finish it in 1876. Thanks to the good offices of the Hungarian master, the complete work could be premiered in Weimar the following year. But until then, the Parisians remained cold and distant. It was not until 1892 that the Paris Opera staged the complete show, which gradually won its audience until it became the longest-lived of the thirteen operas composed by the master.

The Bacchanal
The bawdy celebration with origin in the festivities in honor of the god Bacchus (or Dionysus) is located at the beginning of Act Three. In the temple, the Philistines prepare a celebration in gratitude for the capture of the Hebrew leader, who is none other than Samson, whose hair, the source of his power, has been cut off by the sensual Delilah. The Philistines indulge in a frenzied dance, unaware that Samson's hair is growing back, so he will soon regain his power and finally destroy the temple with his arms. But in the meantime, the Philistines celebrate, and dance.
Sinuous melodic lines of an "oriental", or "exotic" character, accompanied by lush percussion, drive the dance, which lasts just under seven minutes.

The performance is by the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas, under the baton of Venezuelan conductor Dietrich Paredes.