Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Tonight’s program celebrates the impressions of Italy, captured in music by three great composers, each from a different European country. Hearing these three pieces together gives us an unusual chance to ponder the question: when a composer from one country writes music depicting another country, which style comes to the fore? the native or the subjective? These three works also share some musical characteristics that make them directly comparable. In each case, the home key is A major. And each has at least one fast section in 6/8 time (as in “WW”).
In order to answer our question, we will also have to contemplate the Italian style itself. What do we know about the characteristics of Italian music of the 18th and early 19th centuries? Opera, as always reigned supreme. But what of instrumental music? Mandolins, perhaps? No, it is the sound of bowed strings, the instruments from Cremona and the music of Vivaldi, which epitomize the music of Italy that would have most impressed our impressionable composers.
It is easy today to overlook the influence that Hector Berlioz had on the development of music. Consider that he was born only twelve years after Mozart’s death and at a time when Beethoven was known primarily as a pianist rather than as a composer. It was Berlioz who first introduced the concept of having parts of the orchestra playing with different dynamics. Indeed, before Beethoven, and especially before Mozart, dynamic markings, pp, p, mf, f, ff, etc. were frequently omitted altogether. Such details of performance were largely left to the players. In Berlioz’ music a player could easily find himself playing piano while his neighbor was marked forte! Of course, it makes perfect sense now and is essential to bring out the important parts of the score, but it was considered very strange at the time. Berlioz also introduced rhythmic difficulties that were beyond the skills of the lesser players of the time. His Symphonie Fantastique was derided as the work of a madman when it appeared in 1830. Mahler and Richard Strauss both acknowledged the debt they owed to Berlioz the innovator.
Not an overture in its truest sense, the Roman Carnival overture is nonetheless taken from an opera, in fact from the Act I finale of Benvenuto Cellini, which Berlioz finished in 1837, six years after his first visit to Rome. After several attempts, Berlioz, a student at the Paris Conservatoire, won the Prix de Rome – which, not altogether surprisingly, gave its victor the opportunity of two years further study in Rome. Berlioz had therefore ample opportunity to soak up the culture of the modern day Romans. Cellini was an artist-adventurer of the renaissance period, a model on which Byron drew. In fact, Byron was himself partly responsible for the 19th century fashion for visiting Rome and his epic poem Childe Harold had earlier inspired Berlioz to write Harold in Italy for viola and orchestra.
The Roman Carnival begins with a very fast, short introduction in A major (allegro con fuoco – with fire) followed by a romantic slow 3/4 in which the English Horn plays the love song which Cellini sings to Teresa in Act I of the opera. Soon the original tempo (and key) returns to build speed and intensity through to the end of the piece.
Pyotr Ill’ych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
A perennial favorite of SPM and its audiences, the music of Tchaikovsky is again part of our program, this time one of his most upbeat and cheerful works. The Capriccio italien, composed during a stay in Rome in the winter of 1879-80, is one of many pieces written during the romantic period intended to record the composer’s impressions of a visit to some foreign land. My Italian dictionary defines capriccio (kapree’cho) as a whim. Of course, caprice works too, but it’s not exactly an everyday word. In musical terms, it is a light, unstructured piece with no particular message or dramatic program and is a term much used in the 17th century for keyboard pieces.
Tchaikovsky ensured authenticity by using tunes actually heard during his stay. For example, the opening bugle call was played every evening at a cavalry barracks close to his hotel. Structurally, the piece has similarities to Roman Carnival, although it replaces the fast opening flourish with the bugle call and its development, in a 6/8 andante in E major followed by A minor (strings). After that, the music gradually builds in tempo (though with two slower interludes), tarantella, passing through allegro moderato, presto, più presto, to prestissimo. The final rousing climax is all in A major.
Yet, a funny thing happens on the way to the forum, so to speak. The overall impression seems to our modern ears as much Russian and Spanish as it is Italian, especially the first half of the work. But, regardless of the geography, this caprice is so enjoyable that it has remained a favorite concert piece since it was first introduced.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
The exuberant opening of this, the most cheerful of his many cheerful compositions, reflects Mendelssohn’s great happiness at having reached Italy “at last!” (in 1830 at the ripe old age of 21). Already a seasoned traveler, he was tremendously excited by the trip. Italy was everything he had hoped for and more, not only the galleries and churches but the sounds and smells of the Mediterranean way of life.
Although much younger when he wrote this symphony than either of our other two composers were at the time of writing these Italianesque pieces, he was at the same time relatively more mature. Consider that he wrote his opus 90 at age 24 while Tchaikovsky was almost 40 when he wrote his opus 45! And that extra experience resulted in an absolute gem of a composition which, despite the composer’s misgivings and many revisions, does not appear to have a single weak spot.
It is frequently the composers who struggle against all odds that make the most lasting impressions in the field of music. On the other hand, the number of major composers born to rich families is, not surprisingly, very small. Mendelssohn and Francis Poulenc, composer of Babar the Little Elephant (performed by SPM in March), make up the entire list! Many other composers, Tchaikovsky for example, came from families with the means to easily afford the conservatory fees. But it is really only these two who had no need to make a living at all, and thus composed purely for the fun of it. It made no significant difference to them if their music was liked by the public or not. And they were not obliged to spend hours teaching musically untalented sons and daughters of the nobility. In Mendelssohn’s case especially, he was able to write music that appealed primarily to him. That, coupled with his prodigious talent and gift for melody, is perhaps the secret to his success. And we are fortunate that what he wrote is, without exception, and almost two centuries later, still wonderful music.
The two most Italianate movements are undoubtedly the first and last. The latter is in the form of a dance (saltarello) marked presto throughout. Saltare is to jump and to perform it must surely be the most exhausting exercise! Both outer movements involve much rapid, quiet, triplet tonguing in the winds but it is the strings which, appropriate to the Italian style, give us most of the melody, especially in the first movement. The inner movements are unashamedly Germanic. The lilting andante con molto in D minor would, without its rather operatic grace notes, be reminiscent of a Bach chorale. In contrast, the minuet-and-trio (con moto moderato) harks back, with great success, to the music of Haydn (who had died the year Mendelssohn was born).
Above all, the “Italian” is an expression of unbounded joy and energy and, as such, it continues to be one of the most popular symphonies ever written.