2014 Program Notes, Book 4 41
each of his work’s five movements an “idée fixe,” a musical phrase representing his
beloved. Not only are the four movements of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony directed
to be playedwithout pause, but they also sharemelodicmaterial, as do themovements
of his Piano Concerto. One movement is joined directly to the next in Mendelssohn’s
“Scottish” Symphony and Violin Concerto. In Bruckner’s Fifth, Seventh and Eighth
Symphonies, themes from earlier movements are forged into triumphant apotheoses
when they are brought back in the grand closing pages of those scores. It was Franz
Liszt who found the logical conclusion to this formal process of structural integration in
his tone poems, splendid works that simultaneously embody characteristics of single-
and multiple-movement compositions. Camille Saint-Saëns, too, a staunch defender
of both Liszt and Berlioz, was another who chose this formal path toward enriching the
musical experience of his art.
Saint-Saëns’ First Cello Concerto is in a single movement. It begins with an
impetuous theme in rushing triplets for the soloist that recurs throughout the piece.
A contrasting, lyrical second theme for the cello is accompanied by a sedate, chordal
accompaniment for the string choir. The vibrant motion of the opening theme soon
returns and encourages the entire ensemble to join in a developmental discussion.
The lyrical theme is heard again, this time as a transition to the Concerto’s central
portion, a slow movement with the spirit of a delicate minuet. The mood of this quiet
dance is broken by a resumption of the rushing triplet theme acting as a link to the
Concerto’s last large division. After a brief pause, the finale-like section begins with
the cellist’s introduction of a gently syncopated theme. The cello adds another theme
in its sonorous low register. One final time, the rushing triplet theme returns to launch
the Concerto on its invigorating dash to the end.
SUITE FROM
LES BICHES
(“
THE DOES
”) (1923)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Poulenc’s
Les Biches
is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons,
contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba,
timpani, percussion, harp, celesta and strings. The performance
time is 16 minutes. The Grant Park Orchestra first performed this
work on July 14, 1956, with Alfredo Antonini conducting.
Poulenc composed
Les Biches
— literally, “
The Does
,” but also French slang for
“coquettes” (a 1968 French film of that name was rendered in English as “
The Bad
Girls
”) — in 1923 for Sergei Diaghilev and his trend-setting Ballet Russe, then at its
artistic zenith. Poulenc based the atmosphere and the slight action of the ballet on the
early-18th-century paintings of Watteau that depicted courtiers and maidens dallying
in the voluptuous setting of Versailles’
Parc aux Biches
. “I had the idea,” Poulenc
explained about matching the ballet to the mood of hedonistic 1920s Paris, “to situate
a modern
fêtes galantes
in a vast, white country drawing room, with an immense blue
divan ... as the only article of furniture. Twenty ravishing and flirtatious young women
would frolic about with three handsome young men dressed as oarsmen…. I was able
to capture the erotic atmosphere of my early twenties. In
Les Biches
, it is not a question
of love, but of pleasure. In this ballet, the characters do not succumb to lifelong love,
they simply have affairs!”
Les Biches
was a hit at both its premiere in Monte Carlo in
January 1924 and at its subsequent run in Paris, and it established the 25-year-old
Poulenc among Europe’s foremost composers. In 1940, he extracted a five-movement
orchestral suite from the complete score that both distills the insouciant character
of the ballet and demonstrates the range of influences, from Mozart and Scarlatti to
Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky, upon which its music draws.
©2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
