George Chadwick (1854-1931)
Jubilee (from Symphonic Sketches)

George Whitefield Chadwick might seem an unlikely candidate to become a dominant force in the development of 19th century American music, but it is against such odds that American dreams are made. Young George lost his musical mother in the first week of his life, and with the exception of music lessons from his elder brother, he received no encouragement for musical development from his remaining family. Dropping out of high school, George joined his father’s insurance firm. When the firm opened a Boston office was opened, George was put in charge, and he lost no time taking the opportunity to study music with the best teachers of this musical center. He also soon formed a close friendship with Theodore Presser (famous as a music publisher and founder of Etude magazine) who more than anyone helped the young man begin his musical career by recommending him for a one-year position to head the Music Department at Olivet College in Michigan. Presser also invited Chadwick to join him in establishing the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). The year of earning a regular salary at Olivet gave him the funds to travel to Germany to study music and leave the insurance business behind forever. His studies with Salomon Jadassohn, a student of Liszt, at the Leipzig Conservatory gave him a through grounding in the fundamentals of music. Contributing further to his musical formation were the Gewandhaus concerts, comaraderie of student life, and time for composition. By the end of his first semester he had produced a string quartet for the Gewandhaus exam concert that was received favorably by the critics, and in the following year he produced more well-received works. Before returning to Boston, Chadwick further expanded his experience by spending a summer in the company of itinerant painters in France, and a profitable term under the tutelage of the highly disciplined Rheinberger at the Conservatory in Munich. Critical success for his work in Germany paved the way for the composer to gradually build a solid career back in Boston. He was appointed to teach at the New England Conservatory, in due time becoming its head and made his name transforming the school from its former role as a piano teacher training school to a full fledged conservatory on the European model.

Although Chadwick wrote in many genres, during his lifetime he was known primarily for his orchestral compositions, many of them premiered by the newly formed Boston Symphony Orchestra. After composing three symphonies in the traditional germanic mold, he turned to his own version of multi-movement orchestral works which are typically lighter in character and have programmatic elements. Jubilee (1895) is the opening of the four movement work Symphonic Sketches (four contrasting scenes from contemporary American Life–Noel, Hobgoblin, and A Vagrom Ballad). Chadwick’s friend Horatio Parker described Jubilee: “the high and volatile spirits of the music, the sheer rough-and tumble of it at its fullest moments. . . . the music shouts because it cannot help it, and sings because it cannot help it, and each as only Americans would shout and sing.” The piece consists of two contrasting moods–one boisterous, one contemplative–as illustrated by the accompanying poem:

No cool gray tones for me!
Give me the warmest red and green,
A cornet and a tambourine,
To paint MY jubilee!

For when pale flutes and oboes play,
To sadness I become a prey;,
Give me the violets and the May,
But no gray skies for me! 

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Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major

Adagio sostenuto assai
Allegro agitato assai
Allegro moderato
Allegro deciso
Marziale un poco meno allegro
Allegro animato
Stretto (molto accelerando)

Franz Liszt was without a doubt the greatest piano virtuoso of his day, composing and arranging much solo piano literature for his own use on his many concert tours through Europe. During this virtuoso period he also dabbled with the concerted form for piano and orchestra. Upon his appointment as music director at the Weimar court, with an orchestra included in his responsibilities, he began dealing with orchestral compositions in earnest. It was also during this period that the composer developed the innovative technique of melodic transformation–taking one theme and putting it through many and various alterations, always recognizable, but making it the unifying element of the entire work. His great pioneering solo work Piano Sonata in b minor is a fine example of this technique as are the orchestral tone poems, the genre which he virtually invented.   Liszt came to composing for the orchestra with little experience so he made use of the services of August Conradi and Joachim Raff, talented young composers, for orchestration. It was during the Weimar period that he returned to the two pieces now designated piano concertos that he had sketched out much earlier.   Both went through a number of revisions with assistance from Raff, and both are essentially one movement works utilizing the technique of thematic transformation of a single theme. The first Piano Concerto in E-flat, the flashiest of the two was premiered in 1855 with Liszt as the soloist and Berlioz conducting.

On January 7, 1857 Liszt conducted the first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major, the more “symphonic” and poetic of the two, giving the solo part to his student, Hans von Bronsart. While the tendency in concerted writing is to either feature the solo part sharply contrasted with the orchestra, or, to integrate the solo part into the orchestral texture, Liszt uses each approach at different times in this piece. The solo clarinet dreamily introduces the melody on which this symphonic poem for piano and orchestra is founded. Listen as the theme unfolds: lyrically, martially, solemnly, serenely, delicately, heroically, and finally jubilantly, continually infused with pianistic fireworks and delicate filigree and featuring wonderful solos from the horn, oboe, and cello.

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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Symphony No. 5 in d minor, op. 107 "Reformation"

Andante~Allegro maestoso
Allegro vivace
Andante
Choral~Allegro vivace~Allegro maestoso

Felix Mendelssohn’s contribution to the symphony began at a very early age with the composition of his twelve youthful string symphonies which he was able to try out in private concerts held in the large Mendelssohn home in Berlin. With his musical directorship in Düssledorf and more consequentially, of the Gewandhaus Concerts in Leipzig, Mendelssohn made a lasting contribution to symphonic concerts, tirelessly working to improve the quality of musicianship of the players and their working conditions, programming a balance of the great compositions of the past as well as new works, bringing in top soloists for concerted works, and programming works in their entirety. (The practice had been to break up multi-movement works with solo pieces, the prevailing opinion being that the public couldn’t handle large works in one piece.) In short, Mendelssohn pioneered in his few short Leipzig years what is today the conventional public concert arrangement–overture or other short piece; concerted or large symphonic work; an additional large work with perhaps a shorter piece to conclude.  In addition to the aforementioned early string symphonies, Mendelssohn contributed concertos, overtures and other orchestral pieces in addition to the five large multi-movement works that he designated “symphonies” to the symphonic repertoire. The numbering of the symphonies may seem confusing as the work that was composed second is actually Symphony No. 5 due to the fact that it was published last.

Through correspondence with his family we learn that Mendelssohn, while traveling in Britain, began to consider writing a large orchestral work in commemoration of the June 1830 300th anniversary of the Augburg Confession–the Lutheran confession of faith written by Luther and Melanchthon, a defining document of German Protestantism. Mendelssohn, a baptized Lutheran had, the previous year, organized a performance of Bach’s St.Matthew Passion and was thoroughly immersed in the spirit of the baroque and in particular Bach as the “musical representative of Protestantism.” Mendelssohn exhibited much enthusiasm for this project, but a commission to have it performed at the tercentenary festivities in Berlin or anywhere else in Germany never came about. His disappointment grew as several other possibilities of performance vanished one by one: Leipzig, Paris, Munich. The symphony was finally premiered under the title “Symphony to celebrate the Church Revolution” in Berlin two years later to mixed reviews. The work received only one more performance in Mendelssohn’s lifetime, and by that time he had lost his resolution to publish it. Symphony No. 5 in D Major, Op. 107 was published 20 years after the composer’s death, and continues to grow in popularity with concert audiences. A programmatic work cast roughly in a symphonic structure of four movements, the piece begins with a slow introduction raising from the lower strings; the ensuing Allegro con fuoco is certainly meant to depict the Catholic/Protestant conflicts. The Dresden Amen is used to fine effect as a point of rest in the midst of the conflicts. The second movement sets a festive mood engaging in turn the woodwinds, strings, then full orchestra. The short contemplative andante alludes to a baroque adagio. (An earlier version of this movement included reference to the German chorale Glory to God on High the Protestant Gloria of the Mass.) This abbreviated movement leads directly to the finale Chorale and Allegro vivace; Allegro maestoso on Luther’s chorale A Mighty Fortress is our God. Introduced by solo flute (Luther was a flutist), then woodwind chorus, the chorale leads into new material in sonata form. Phrases of the chorale reappear in the development, growing in strength in the recapitulation. The work concludes with a coda majestically intoning the hymn for full orchestra.

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