William Kraft (b. 1923)
A Kennedy Portrait (Contextures III)
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Kraft was born in Chicago and has had a long and active career as composer, conductor, performer and teacher. He has been associated with many schools, most recently the University of California Santa Barbara. Previously, he was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, for eight years as percussionist, followed by 18 years as Principal Timpanist. For three seasons he was assistant conductor of the orchestra and, thereafter, a frequent guest conductor. |
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In May of 1986 I received a telephone call from Christopher Wilkins, Associate Conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra and a mutual friend of Benjamin Zander and me. He told me that Mr. Zander was coming to Los Angeles, and while there he would contact me to discuss the possibility of my composing a musical portrait of John F. Kennedy to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the assassination. He had warned Mr. Zander that I would, most likely, not have the time. However, I was immediately very excited by the idea, since Kennedy had such a profound effect on me, as he did on so many others. Furthermore, I was ahead of schedule on the large French horn Concerto I was then composing, and, if the muses continued to cooperate, there would be a good chance I could do the Kennedy portrait. Mr. Zander and I discussed various approaches to the work, keeping in mind my own musical style. I played for him a recording of my Timpani Concerto, the style of which comes closest to what I thought would fit the Kennedy portrait. He was pleased; we had an aesthetic rapport and a philosophic kinship. So, challenging the odds, a commitment was made. I was surprised that so many books on Kennedy were unavailable—many being out of print—but I was extremely fortunate to find a relatively rich collection at the Salt Lake City Public Library which greatly amplified the quotations generously given to me by the Kennedy Library. The quotations fall into four loosely defined areas, each separated by an orchestral interlude.
The words which introduce each area are my own. Musically, it was impossible for me to ignore Copland's Lincoln Portrait, nor would I necessarily want to, for it is a wonderfully effective work that I have long loved and respected and one which has such a fine "American" feel to it. Fortunately, two intervals characteristic of Copland's "American" style, the major second and the perfect fifth, are common to the mode I have used since 1980 to effect my own style. Thus, heavier emphasis was applied to these intervals than found otherwise in my music. Certain metaphorical references are involved:
A Kennedy Portrait is subtitled Contextures III because of its relationship to Contextures I: Riots Decade '60 and Contextures II: The Final Beast, a piece opposing war and its atrocities. If I may, I would like to say that to me, and of course many others, the profoundly tragic trilogy of assassinations—John and Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—are tantamount to the assassination of the nation for no one has more clearly epitomized the necessary concern for humanity with the courage and vision to implement that concern regardless of the potential consequences. If I have done anything to breathe new life into the words, thoughts and image of John F. Kennedy, I am grateful, as I am to Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic for giving me the opportunity to, at least, try. A Kennedy Portrait is dedicated to Benjamin Zander and
the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra who premiered the work November 19, 1988. —William Kraft |
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
Schelomo: Hebraic Rhapsody for Violoncello and Orchestra (1916)
The subject for this musical portrait is Solomon, the great and wise Jewish king of 970-931 BCE and the music is of appropriately epic proportions, given the relatively short length of the rhapsody. Bloch was born in Switzerland and later settled in the United States. His music may be realistically described as both Swiss and American. But transcending these national characters was what he considered his vocation – to write “Jewish” music. In this he is perhaps unique. While Jewish composers of music have not been uncommon, for example Mendelssohn, Mahler, Johann Strauss in the 19th century and many in the 20th, composers of Jewish music have been rare among the mainstream of classical composers. Nevertheless, there is a large part of his output, for example the five excellent string quartets, which is without any ethnic associations.
Bloch was born in Geneva and studied music at home, as well as in Belgium, Germany and France. But unlike so many other young composers who turned to playing and teaching to support them in their early days, young Ernest worked as a bookkeeper and salesman in his father’s business. During the first World War (1916) he journeyed to New York where he was able to make a living from teaching music. Schelomo had been substantially, if not completely, written in Geneva before Bloch left for the United States, but it was during this period when his works were being performed up and down the East coast that the rhapsody was first performed, in New York. Later he became a founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music (where he became a naturalized citizen) and subsequently director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He returned to his native land for most of the 1930s until the conditions in Europe became intolerable for him and he returned to the United States for good, living his later years near Portland, Oregon.
He was not a prolific composer, but left a considerable number of orchestral works including the Helvetia symphony and America: an Epic Rhapsody (in effect a choral symphony). Schelomo remains his best-known work, however. Although it is certainly a virtuoso piece for the cellist, it owes nothing to the concerto form. It is in one movement without any obvious plan. The biggest departure from a concerto is the treatment of soloist (the voice of Solomon) and orchestra. They are essentially equal players in the development and at those times when both are playing it is not always obvious which is accompanying the other. Although Bloch makes use of “Jewish” intervals and rhythms, it was the Hebrew spirit, not its ethnic music that he particularly wished to capture.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (1803-04) Op. 55
Allegro con brio – Marcia Funebre: Adagio assai – Scherzo: Allegro vivace – Finale: Allegro molto; poco andante; presto.
Can there be any other composer but Beethoven whose music so justifies the description of great and mighty? But the theme for this concert is sonic portraits of the great and mighty – not the music itself. In this case, the portrait is of the man who wrought havoc for Europe and glory for the new French republic: Napoleon Bonaparte. No other composer experienced the Napoleonic era as did Beethoven. Born in successive years (1769,1770), both men had relatively humble provincial origins, both were somewhat short in stature, and each found it necessary to leave his native land and head to the imperial capital city (Paris, Vienna) in order to excel. And, at least until 1804, Beethoven admired his counterpart as a true republican who had risen to the top. It was then that Beethoven learned that Bonaparte, the original subject of his 3rd symphony, had now proclaimed himself Emperor and, therefore, was “nothing more than an ordinary human being who would trample on all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition”. Whereupon, the story goes, he flew into a rage and scratched out the dedication from the title sheet. Sometime later he inserted the phrase (in Italian): “Heroic symphony to celebrate the memory of a great man”. It is from this description that we get the title Eroica. Beethoven’s diatribe on the new emperor appears to have been prophetic. Up until this time, Napoleon was First Consul of France and his military campaigns had been relatively modest with the exception of the defeat of the Austrians at Marengo (1800) which gave Napoleon control of Italy. Austerlitz, Ulm (and the capture of Vienna), the Peninsula war, the Russian campaign and of course Waterloo were all in the future. When, in 1821, Napoleon was finally dead at St. Helena, Beethoven was asked if he would write anything to mark the occasion. “I’ve already done that,” he replied, referring to the Marcia Funebre of the Eroica.
The year 1803 marks the beginning of the composer’s middle period, during which time he wrote the majority of his most popular music. It was a stressful time for him personally. His quest for a wife was not going well and his loss of hearing was now well established. And, despite his spreading fame – he was generally considered the greatest living composer, apart from the 70-year-old “Papa” Haydn – he was not yet comfortable financially. The impresario Schikaneder, known to us best through his association with Mozart, especially the Magic Flute, was interested in an opera from Beethoven (Leonore, later Fidelio, was first performed to not very great success in November 1805 to an audience largely composed of newly arrived French officers). Beethoven himself was more interested in a new “Grand Symphony” (No. 3) for which he had been developing ideas for several years. Most of it was written outside Vienna in his summer lodgings at Döbling. In its conception, it is like no other symphony before it. Recall that the Italian word “Sinfonia” was originally applied to a purely orchestral prelude (or interlude) to an opera whose main function was to quiet the audience down so that the real business at hand (i.e. singing) could begin. Haydn and Mozart had stretched the meaning of the word (and the patience of their listeners) to a form comprising four separate movements generally styled, appropriately, as “grand symphony”. Such works were by now lasting in excess of twenty minutes (even 30 minutes in the case of Mozart’s last, the appropriately named Jupiter symphony). The “grand symphony” which Beethoven now crafted was to be almost 50 minutes long! And the length of the printed score is more than twice that of his first symphony.
But, of course, it is not its length that sets the Eroica apart. Rather, it introduced a completely new style of composition: bold, complex, masterful, but without losing any of the lyric beauty of earlier symphonies. With its unusual programmatic conception, it has been described as the first symphony of the romantic period. Gone, for example, is the traditional slow introduction to the first movement, to be replaced by two E-flat major chords followed immediately by the first subject in the cellos, at once both simple and compelling. It was at this moment that contemporary audiences must have realized that they were in for something completely different. The critics of the time certainly seem to have been plunged out of their depth. And whereas the sforzando (a heavy accent on a note) was a trademark of Beethoven’s, his usage of the device in the first movement especially is much greater than usual (some might say it is over the top). In particular, although the movement is in ¾ time, the sforzandi notes are often in the form of a hemiola (three duples in the time of two measures). This can have a disorienting effect something like being blindfolded and spun around. The whole of the exposition is now repeated (although in the interests of time we may not make the repeat) and there follows an extremely inventive development with lovely writing for the woodwinds and violins especially, now with a tonal center of G (though it is neither G major nor G minor). This is followed by more raucous hemiolas, again sforzando but this time in held notes rather than staccato as before, and now, instead of holding the tonic key constant, we modulate through several keys ending up with a beautiful oboe duet in E minor. Various instruments then attempt a recapitulation, the horn having perhaps the most success, after which a long coda (tail) follows in which all the themes are revisited.
There follows the poignant funeral march that is so familiar now, but must have been quite shocking at its first performance. In it, Beethoven tries to capture the essence of a military funeral with the characteristic foot dragging of a slow march being felt in the basses. The main subject (in C minor, the relative minor of E-flat major) is first exposed by the first violins, then taken up by the sweet but haunting tone of the oboe. The central section, now in C major, brightens up considerably (here triplets are used in a sense of playfulness where before their use in upbeats only lent the music its moribund mood). In the final section, back in the minor key, there is considerable development of the two contrasting voices together. Incidentally, this music affords us a link with our first piece, A Kennedy Portrait. The assassination took place at 12:30pm CST and at a concert that same day in Boston (apparently an afternoon concert which makes it quite remarkable), the BSO began with an announcement about the death of the President followed by a rendition of the marcia funebre.
The scherzo (allegro vivace) is a brilliant and humorous gallop at a speed that must have surprised both performers and listeners alike. The “trio” section is truly (and unusually by then) given over primarily to three instruments, in this case the French horns. The standard classical orchestra employed two horns – this was the first time Beethoven had required more – this trio, given free rein for their exuberant hunting calls, is one of the highlights of the whole symphony.
Some of the Eroica music looks forward
to Fidelio, but the most conspicuous self-plagiarization, which was fairly
unusual for Beethoven, harks back to the Creatures of Prometheus, which
the composer had completed three years earlier, and whose overture Symphony Pro
Musica played almost exactly one year ago.
The main theme of the finale is lifted directly from the ballet (the
overture actually employs original and somewhat distant variations rather than
the theme itself). Here, after a bravura
introduction by the strings and some tentative steps by strings and woodwinds,
Beethoven first hints at the theme in a series of variations in strings
only. Only after these variations does
the theme itself appear, in a quasi-chorale in the winds. The finale is a masterpiece of
different styles, including the theme and variations already mentioned (10 in
all), a fugue, and at its heart an English contra dance which Beethoven chose
because of its democratic associations (at the time Britain was the only major
European country with any semblance of democracy). The originally smooth Prometheus theme is transformed into a
staccato variation that, like so many of the great classical themes these days,
was recently used in a “rock” music song.
After the orchestra has, both metaphorically and in actuality, worn
itself out, a tranquil section appears where all but the flute and bassoon can
catch their breath. This is immediately
followed by a loud presto with yet another variation on the theme that
yields to a crescendo bringing us to a final E-flat major chord.