Notes provided by:  David R. Glerum, Music Director – WMFE-FM/NPR, Orlando, FL. (1990-2009); Music Director – WXXI-FM/NPR, Rochester, N.Y. (1980-1990)

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) – Der Freischütz Overture:

Weber is often cited as one of the first of the Romantics and is credited with the naissance of German Romantic Opera. In his short life (he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of only 39) he made a lasting impact on the history of music. Forward thinking and original, he was the first modern conductor to get up from the keyboard and away from the violin to lead the orchestra from a podium and with the aid of a baton. The seating charts he developed for players over two centuries ago are still emulated (to some extent) today. Weber was not one to blindly accept the status quo and in virtually all aspects of his music determined to exceed the limits accepted by the entrenched Classical composers. He eschewed the musical norms and traditions of the Italian style and insisted on greater freedom and a new nationalistic style founded on folk melodies and folk tales. Weber was favored by Beethoven and prepared the way for Wagner.

Weber’s most admired and best-known works come from the opera stage and include Der Freischütz (1820), Euryanthe (1823), and Oberon (1826). The finest of these and the one on which Weber’s reputation rests is Der Freischütz (The Free [i.e., “magical”] Shooter, or The marksman with the magic bullets).

Weber set Der Freischütz to a libretto by Johann Friedrich Kind based on a set of ghost stories. It is set in Bohemia in the late 17^th century and evokes peasant forest life and the black magic of Wolf’s Glen. The plot of the opera involves the forester Max, who has entered a shooting contest in hopes of winning the hand of the beautiful Agathe. Persuaded by fellow hunter Caspar, who has already made a pact with the devil, Max travels to the terrifying Wolf’s Glen (Weber’s scene painting of the glen is superb) and sells his soul to Samiel, the devil, for seven magic bullets. When the contest arrives, Max’s aim is on the mark and he is declared the winner. However, the devil wants his due and so leaves with Caspar’s soul instead. Max confesses his deceptive scheme with Samiel, is pardoned, and is triumphantly married to Agathe.

Weber’s use of the orchestra throughout the opera is brilliant, colorfully descriptive, and innovative. The Overture to Der Freischütz in particular is greatly admired and stands as one of the most masterfully scored and evocative pieces of symphonic music from the first quarter of the 19^th century. The work shows Weber to be a master of orchestration with a gift for an unending flow of engaging melody.  Later, Berlioz would use several examples of Weber’s orchestration in his treatise on the subject.

Daniel Crozier (b. 1965) – Capriccio
The orchestral piece, Capriccio, is very much in keeping with my recent compositional exploration of the narrative, story-telling power of music.  It was a strong interest in opera that led my purely instrumental music in this direction.  The music of the great operatic literature, it seems, reaches well beyond the function of simply enhancing a drama on stage.  Our perception is that this music somehow “becomes” the story that it tells, effectively taking it over, and expressing what happens on the stage in its own terms with a heightened sense of dramatic sweep and a good deal of emotional specificity.  It is the music that essentially controls our experience as we are drawn into the dramatic world of a fine opera.

While it may be a bit problematic to speak of abstract orchestral music in such terms, music that exists apart from any explicit program or extra-musical reference does, I believe, have the capacity to carry on an independent narrative of its own sort, expressed using its own particular kind of syntax.  In this spirit, Capriccio strives to create what might be called virtual, rather than concrete, narrative.  We might even refer to it, after Mendelssohn, as an “opera scene without words,” in this case a largely comic scene, whose personae appear as musical ideas.  As in other forms of drama, interest comes as a result of the way these characters relate to one another in the context of an overall plot, the way they may be transformed by the sometimes intense nature of their interaction, and the larger intensity curve that emerges as part of the process.   The piece is concerned with three principal thematic ideas, which, as its title implies, establish a virtuosic atmosphere of bustling, and sometimes dancing, good-humor, not without a little suspense along the way.

The scurrying, opening idea highlights the woodwinds in its first appearance.  The second is a tension building perpetual motion that precipitates the first climax.  The appearance of the third idea heralds the beginning of the piece’s central episode, or “trio” section.  Here the mood relaxes in a kind of swung dance for the two bassoons that is periodically interrupted by rude, mocking clarinets.  The dance and the mocking figures vie for position over the course of this section in a competition that eventually lands the music in a tutti.  After the trio closes it is the second idea, the perpetual motion, which returns, now quiet and mysterious in the upper register of the orchestra.  This idea builds very gradually, and is developed and expanded over a longer period of time and with more intensity and athleticism than it had been earlier. The climax that it had been able to achieve during its first appearance is dwarfed by one a good deal larger here, that now coincides with the fist idea’s triumphant return.  After a coda that builds quickly to yet one more culmination, the two bassoons make a failed attempt to resume their dance, summarily cut off by a final, brief reference to the piece’s opening gesture.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) – Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber:

     Paul Hindemith was born on November 16, 1895, in Hanau, Germany; and died on December 28, 1963, in Frankfurt, Germany, at the age of 68. He spent roughly the first half of his life supporting himself as a full-time performer. He was an amazingly gifted all-round musician who could generally play most instruments (violin, viola, piano, and dozens of other instruments) to a surprisingly high level. He became first violinist at the Frankfurt opera house while still a student at the city’s conservatory and was soon playing viola in professional quartets, including the Amar-Hindemith Quartet (he became respected as one of the most distinguished viola-players of his time), while developing his prowess as a composer and espousing his unorthodox theories of harmony and his strong opinions on the role of the composer in society. Still, his greatest virtuosity lay as a composer. One story has it that upon hearing of the death of King George V the night before appearing as a soloist in England, he wrote his Trauermusik for violin and string orchestra at one sitting – reportedly on the train!

In the years following the First World War, Hindemith’s career as a multi-dimensional musician was progressing nicely until the Nazi party decided to ban his music, allegedly because his wife’s family was “non-Aryan” (i.e., Jewish), allegedly because of the anti-authoritarian (therefore anti-Nazi) theme of his opera Mathis der Maler, and allegedly because of his collaborations with Jewish musicians and with the Communist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Since, unlike Schoenberg, Hindemith wasn’t himself Jewish and so wasn’t actually kicked out of his country. But, the Nazis did ban his music as degenerate, depraved, and of questionable moral character. Hindemith felt no other choice than to flee first to Turkey, and then to the United States where he accepted a post teaching composition at Yale University from 1940 to 1953. He then returned to Europe where he continued to teach at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Coming full circle, he found his way back home to Frankfurt where he died in 1963.

During his career as a professional composer, Hindemith was perhaps most severely criticized as a proponent of Gebrauchsmusik, or “utilitarian music,” as contrasted to “music for music’s sake.” “A composer,” he insisted, “should write today only if he knows for what purpose he is writing. The days of composing for the sake of composing are perhaps gone forever.” Much of Hindemith’s output ended up as “workaday” or “utility” music—because it was created and intended for specific functions in schools, cabarets, public events, movies, etc. But his best work transcends such limiting and negative labels and passes the ‘test of time’ thanks to its technical brilliance, dazzling sonic effect, and timeless nobility. The two such works most often celebrated are Mathis der Maler (1934) (the three-movement symphony based on his opera Mathis the Painter); and Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber) (1943). The latter was given its first performance by the New York Philharmonic, under Artur Rodzinski, on January 24, 1944.

In 1940, Hindemith and choreographer Léonide Massine set about to create a new ballet, and Hindemith (at Massine’s suggestion) prepared some sketches based on themes culled from various mostly obscure themes from music by Carl Maria von Weber. At first glance, this seemed to be an incongruous pairing with Weber credited with launching the new German Romantic Opera and with Hindemith type- cast as the über-objectivist and pragmatist. Eventually, it did work – and work very well – but the project got off to a rocky start and was scrapped. Massine felt Hindemith’s choices of melodies were “too personal” and Hindemith found Salvador Dali’s stage sets “quite simply stupid.” Three years later, however, the composer’s publisher encouraged him to work up an agreeable and colorful orchestral piece intended to please American audiences (perhaps in the same vein as Respighi’s The Pines of Rome). Hindemith took up the challenge and reworked the Weber sketches into the Symphonic Metamorphosis, creating a four-movement work that calls to mind the structure of a symphony. Given the scope and large instrumentation of the work, the Weber ‘piano bag’ seems a far-fetched fit at best. But Hindemith makes it work, transforming seemingly slight keyboard pieces into an orchestral showpiece of irresistible appeal.

Hindemith begins with a sturdy and swaggering march based on one of Weber’s Huit pieces, Op. 60, for piano duet; it was designated All’ Ongarese—“In Hungarian Style.” The composer demonstrates exceptional writing for the orchestra in presenting a brilliant musical palette of tone colors. The second Metamorphosis is a scherzo using a melody found in an overture Weber contributed to the incidental music for Schiller’s play Turandot. In the same way Schiller’s drama was an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi’s 18^th-century play (which was also the basis for Puccini’s opera), so too did Weber borrow his theme from an earlier source, having plucked it from Rousseau’s 1767 Dictionnaire de la musique (under Chinese Music). Hindemith brings out the melody first in moderate tempo by the woodwinds. He then works the theme through a series of eight variations of increasing intensity, with a detour to a fugal interlude spotlighting the various instrumental groups of the orchestra (all very entertaining), and then the movement ends rather quietly. The third movement is a wistful Andantino that provides a lyrical interlude. The haunting theme is an arrangement of a gentle siciliano from Weber’s piano duet collection, Pièces Faciles, Op. 3, Book 2. It is announced by the clarinet and is then taken up by other winds. The central section brings into play another theme of similar character. The Andantino comes to an end with a charming and highly decorated flute garland. The finale is nothing short of riotous fun; it is a March (again based on a melody from the Huit pieces, Op. 60) exuberant and stirring in character and bringing the Symphonic Metamorphosis to a thrilling climax that rounds off the metamorphosis of all the previous themes.   

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) – Piano Concerto No.  1 in D Minor, Op. 15:

Although the German composer Johannes Brahms wrote music imbued with intense passion, expressivity, and the fervor associated with late nineteenth century Romanticism, he often felt like a man who lived in an era after his own time. Not only did Brahms have a penchant for the forms and styles of the Classical and Baroque traditions, he actually felt rooted in them. When you think “Brahms,” what often comes to mind is music that goes so far as to epitomize the Romantic spirit. But never does Brahms drift afar from the discipline and structure of a Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven.

German music in the nineteenth century was basically split into two antagonistic factions. One side – the so called “progressive” – was headed by Richard Wagner, who endeavored to join art forms together into one unified roof under the name, “music drama.” The story provided the driving force behind how the music should be executed. The other camp – the so called “conservative” – was typified by Brahms, who adhered to established traditions and who had no desire to forge significantly new directions in music.

Wagner it could be argued was self-aggrandizing about his music, writing propaganda on where he thought music should be headed and interested in the past only in so far as it advanced his own agenda. Brahms, on the other hand, would just as soon talk about something else and let his music speak for itself. By so doing he reasoned that his musical aesthetic would be most convincingly argued. Wagner wrote almost exclusively for the musical stage while Brahms produced works almost entirely in the chamber and symphonic realms. The division is useful as a means of illuminating the two composers’ antithetical approaches to music.

Although Brahms never asked for it, he became anointed heir to Beethoven as the champion of “absolute music.” Brahms’ goal was to follow the concepts of the classicist while at the same time moving forward with music rich in lyricism and the personal expressiveness of his time. However, he strongly rejected ultra emotional and overtly programmatic paths and to some extent was daunted by the shadow of Beethoven. That it took him until his mid-forties to complete his First Symphony, a work with a very long gestation, demonstrates that he accepted Beethoven’s mantle with tremendous seriousness. In his words, “You don’t know what it’s like to be dogged by his footsteps.” Brahms would go on to write a total of four symphonic masterpieces, establishing him as the greatest symphonist not only of his time, but possibly the greatest of all since Beethoven. Characterized by deep lyrical beauty, impeccable craftsmanship, emotional gravity, and remarkable staying power, no one has written more convincing and moving symphonies since Beethoven.

In the two Piano Concertos, Brahms presaged the musical aesthetics of his symphonies by revealing a rigorous formal logic and emotional profundity while engaging in serious symphonic argument. It is clear that Brahms intended to bridge the gap between concerto and symphony. In large part he succeeded and most agree that Brahms wrote two of the greatest and most thoroughly satisfying of all piano concertos. Pianist Emanuel Ax offers this praise: “Both concertos continue to be a large part of my musical life: I play them often, and each time I discover more depth and beauty in them. They are still terrifyingly difficult for me, but the effort is so rewarding that I am always excited at the prospect of another chance to perform them. I am sure that as long as I am able to play the piano, they will remain among my favorite challenges.” And, surely, as long as we are able to hear them, we the listeners will feel similarly challenged and inspired.

Indeed, the Brahms First Concerto is a particular favorite among pianists. Hélène Grimaud recounts that, though not much given to crying, she broke down on a plane once, several hours after having played it: “a delicious liberation from the incredible tension of the concert, from the sorrow that Brahms expressed so well, a sorrow that can strangle and suffocate you.”  On Brahms, she continues: “I love his impetuous character, his torment and his furies, the emotional heartbreak and the relationship to the world he expressed so subtly in his contrapuntal music.”

The “tension” and “torment” that Grimaud refers to in the context of the First Concerto revolves around Brahms’s conflicted and torturous emotions for his beloved mentor, Robert Schumann, and the love of his life, Schumann’s wife, Clara. The Concerto’s gestation period spanned 1854 and 1857, a period during which the composer was deeply shaken by the news of Schumann’s suicide attempt on February 27, 1854. Plagued by a mental illness that involved increasing auditory and visual hallucinations, the older composer threw himself into the Rhine and had to be fished out and thus saved from drowning. Irreconcilably insane, Schumann’s madness was such that he had to be placed in an insane asylum where he lingered for the remaining years of his life.

Brahms was devastated. When virtually no one else appreciated or championed his immense potential and genius, Schumann stepped forward and literally launched his protégé’s career. On October 28, 1853, Schumann had wrapped up his long run as a prominent music critic with the celebrated and oft-cited article “New Paths’:

“I have always thought that some day, one would be bound suddenly to appear, once called to express in ideal form the spirit of his time, one whose mastery would not reveal itself to us step by step, but who, like Athene, would spring  fully armed from the head of Zeus. And he is come, a young man over whose cradle graces and heroes have stood watch. His name is Johannes Brahms…. Even outwardly he bears all those signs that proclaim: here is one of the elect.”

Brahms’s gratitude and reverence for the older master ran deep. Now his mentor was gone. Gone too was Clara’s husband and she was also devastated. Pregnant with Schumann’s seventh child, she was in desperate straits and in need of comfort and support. This time it was Johannes who came to the Schumann family’s rescue. In addition to providing emotional support, he even watched over their children. As the two exchanged kindnesses, and mutual intellectual, spiritual and emotional intimacies, their relationship extended beyond friendship into romance. Brahms found himself in love with his beloved mentor’s wife and therefore in an impossible position.

Although there is no direct evidence linking these youthful Sturm und Drang experiences to the actual music of the First Concerto, it seems impossible that they would not have at least informed the work’s energy and emotional core. Indeed, the first movement begins with a powerful tragic theme in the orchestra that many commentators believe could have only come from the deep despair that Brahms felt from his musical father’s suicide attempt and subsequent tragic demise. The grandiose Maestoso – full of tension, gravity, pathos, and impetuosity – is the Concerto’s most structurally imposing movement. Grimaud observes: “Brahms’s First Concerto is an intensely dramatic work. The first movement is like a requiem—Brahmas wrote it in response to Schumann’s first attempt at suicide. I love its form, like a symphony with piano obbligato. I’ve always liked having the feeling of being part of the orchestral mass.”

Musically, against an unsettled harmonic background, the tonality of the first movement changes continually, creating a tremendous sense of tension which is the defining expressive characteristic of the Maestoso. (This overriding sense of disquiet and heaviness proved too intense for the concerto’s first audiences. When the concerto received its first performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on January 27, 1859, Brahms bemoaned: “My concerto has experienced here a brilliant and decisive failure…. But the hissing was too much of a good thing, wasn’t it?”) But in this movement of prevalent darkness is also the interplay of light, as evidenced in the several wonderfully warm, lyrical contrasting themes, some introduced in the orchestra and some emanating from the solo piano.

The chorale-like Adagio originally bore the inscription “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini” (“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”). It is hard to see this as a strictly religious reference, considering that Brahms was not of the Catholic faith. Rather, it suggests a double dedication: to the memory of his beloved mentor, Robert Schumann, whom Brahms had nicknamed “Mynbeer Domini”; and to his romantic soul-mate, Clara Schumann, to whom Brahms wrote: “I am also painting a gentle portrait of you; it is be the Adagio.” Whatever these extra-musical connotations may mean or may not mean, there is no question that the Adagio provides a tender and tranquil contrast to the dramatic intensity and weight of the first movement.

The concluding Rondo: Allegro non troppo makes a return to the dynamics of size and power established in the opening movement. However, in keeping with the tradition that a concerto ought to end on a positive note, Brahms gives us a finale which strikes a somewhat lighter tone, incorporating brilliant and varied melodies for both piano and orchestra, stirring gypsy rhythms, and a brilliant and exuberant coda.