From Music in Cincinnati

Stravinsky Returns to the Cincinnati Symphony

Posted in: 2007
By Mary Ellyn Hutton
Nov 2, 2007 - 12:00:00 AM

Igor Stravinsky, iconic composer of the 20th-century, guest conducted the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra three times.
   His first visit was in 1925 when he was 43 and the toast of the music world following the premieres of “The Firebird,” “Petrouchka” and especially “The Rite of Spring” with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris.  He returned in 1940, just after he had come to live in the United States, and again in 1965, six years before his death at age 89.
   The CSO, led by music director Paavo Järvi, will mark the 125th anniversary of the Russian master’s birth, with a two-week Stravinsky Festival beginning this weekend at Music Hall.
   Concerts are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10 at Music Hall.
   The CSO Chamber Players will perform Stravinsky’s “L’histoire du soldat” (“The Soldier’s Tale”) narrated by Stacey Woolley at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at Memorial Hall.
   This week’s CSO program includes Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” and Chorale-Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her” (“From Heaven High I Come to You”) after Johann Sebastian Bach.  Both feature the May Festival Chorus directed by Robert Porco.  The concert will conclude with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”).
   Weekend two comprises Stravinsky’s 1945 Symphony in Three Movements, Haydn’s Symphony No. 98 in B-flat Major and Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with CSO principal cellist Eric Kim.
   As a kind of extension of the Stravinsky Festival, Järvi will close the CSO season with “The Rite of Spring” May 2 and 3 at Music Hall.  Now one of his most popular works (Music Hall was sold out for its last outing by Järvi and the CSO in 2004), its savage rhythms and primitive theme (fertility rites in pagan Russia) caused the most celebrated riot in music history at its premiere in Paris in 1913.
   CSO violist Mark Cleghorn was a member of the CSO during Stravinsky’s last visit to the CSO in 1965.  “I’ll never forget the contact I made with him on a personal level, beyond the music, which was just incredible”(Stravinsky conducted his ballet “The Fairy’s Kiss,” guest conductor Robert Craft led “The Rite of Spring.”).
   “On the podium, it was all business.  Not that he was rude. He just didn’t want to fool around and do a lot of talking.  He was very clear in what he did.
   “I wanted to get his autograph so I took scores of “Le sacre” (“Rite of Spring”) and “L’histoire” backstage and knocked on his door.  I was 27 and totally spooked out about asking him.”
   Stravinsky’s wife came to the door and asked Cleghorn to wait while she spoke with her husband.
   “She said ‘he’s very tired right now, but he would like you to come back tonight and he will sign them.’  I thought, ‘OK, I got through this part of it, so I’m fine.’”
   Cleghorn was on the street behind Music Hall when, sure enough, Stravinsky and his wife came out.  Seeing Cleghorn, she beckoned him over.
   “I got right up next to him. You could count the whiskers on his face.  He said in very thick Russian, ‘My dear boy, I want you to understand that I was too tired to sign, but I really want you to bring the scores tonight because I do want to sign them for you.’
   “I’ll never forget how kind he was. To make sure I understood he wasn’t just putting me off.  I was very touched.”
   The idea for the Stravinsky Festival was to pair some of his lesser known works with other strongly established masterpieces, said Järvi.  Beethoven’s “Eroica,” which played the same revolutionary role in 19th-century music as “The Rite of Spring” did in the 20th-century, eminently qualifies.
   Composed in 1930, “The Symphony of Psalms” is “one of the great masterpieces of the last century, right at the top of the heap in terms of choral works,” said Porco.  A setting of Psalms from the Latin Vulgate, the three-movement work falls into Stravinsky’s  neo-classical period, a return to traditional forms and musical language following his earlier, folklore-inspired Russian period.
   In his Autobiography, Stravinsky famously proclaimed that “music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all.”
   “The Symphony of Psalms” is a good example of his self-proclaimed objectivity, said Porco.  “He was always a little bit acerbic or sarcastic referring to composers who set music in what he calls a sentimental style, and he always put ‘sentimental’ in quotes.”
   In fact, said Porco, “he takes a contrarian view.  For example, in the gorgeous finale of ‘The Symphony of Psalms,’ where the text (Psalm 150) talks about praising God with the cymbals and drums.  Where some other composer might have set that forte and in a big manner, he does it in a very hypnotic, soft, chorale-like way.
   “People have said it has some of his Slavic roots in it and it’s like chant, but he said there was none of that.  In the last movement, where the phrase ‘Laudate Dominum’ happens repeatedly, he puts the accent on the first syllable, which is liturgically incorrect.  He is aware of that.  He uses the text as sound, not as it might be used in syntax.”
   Regarding Stravinsky’s denial of expressivity in music, “who knows if he really felt that way?”  said Porco.  “He might have said some things just to roil the water.  Look at ‘The Rite of Spring.’  To me, it could not be more expressive than that.”
   Stravinsky’s 1956 Chorale Variations is a CSO premiere.  Although Stravinsky was in his third stylistic period then and had begun writing 12-tone (atonal) music, “Vom Himmel hoch” is neo-baroque and based on a chorale and variations by Bach.
   “Bach took a Christmas hymn and set keyboard variations on it.  Stravinsky takes the same chorale and does a bunch of his own variations on it.  It’s very Stravinskyian in its rhythmic activity and harmonies.  The chorus sings the chorale tune in octaves except for the last variation, where they sing it in mirror image, the basses upside down and the women in its original form.”
   The Symphony in Three Movements, to be heard next weekend, has been called Stravinsky’s War Symphony, since it was written between 1942 and 1945 in response to world events.  Stravinsky’s own commentary on the work speaks of having been influenced by a war film about scorched earth tactics in China and newsreels of goose-stepping soldiers.  The second movement was written (but never used) for the film “The Song of Bernadette” to accompany a vision of the Virgin Mary.  Though a product of his neo-classical period, the Symphony in Three Movements evinces some of the excitement of Stravinsky’s earlier ballet music.     
   ”Stravinsky is one of those composers who is instantly recognizable no matter which of his periods you’re dealing with – because of the rhythmic part of it particularly,” said Porco.
   The CSO intends to make the Stravinsky Festival affordable and fun as well as stimulating.
   Järvi and CSO assistant conductor Eric Dudley will present a special “Classical Conversation” one hour before the concerts on Nov. 2, 3 and 4.  Dudley and Joel Hoffman, professor of composition at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will do the honors Nov. 9 and 10.
   There will be a post-concert “Bohemian Bash” following the Nov. 10 concert in the Music Hall lobby, with live jazz by the Faux Frenchmen, beverages and dessert.  The event is free for concert attendee.
   Limited edition merchandise will be for sale at the Bravo Shop in the Music Hall lobby, including a CSO Stravinsky double CD set with “The Rite of Spring,” “Petrouchka,” “The Firebird” and “Scherzo a la Russe,” commemorative Stravinsky Festival poster and mug (“The Igor”).
   The CSO is offering a Stravinsky Festival Pass for $75 that includes one admission to any or all festival concerts, free festival poster, admission to the Nov. 10 “Bohemian Bash,” $5 off the CSO Stravinsky double CD set and $1 off the commemorative mug.   
   Concert tickets are $12-$75.25, $10 for students, half-price for seniors (evening concerts only), $5 for ages 6-18 (Nov. 4 only).
   Friday is “College Nite” at the CSO.  Following the concert, there will be a free party for college students in Corbett Tower at Music Hall with live gypsy swing band, appetizers, cash bar and door prize.
   Call (513) 381-3300, order online at www.CincinnatiSymphony.org, or in person at the CSO box office in Music Hall 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday  and two hours before the performance.
   Half-price ZIPTIX are available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. concert days at the Music Hall box office (Saturday for Sunday concerts).

CSO Stravinsky Festival.

[]Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Stravinsky, Chorale-Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch da komm’ ich her” (“From Heaven High I Come to You”) and “The Symphony of Psalms.” Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”). May Festival Chorus. Paavo Järvi, conductor.

[]Nov. 9, 10. Haydn, Symphony No. 98 in B-flat Major. Shostakovich, Cello Concerto No. 1. Stravinsky, Symphony in Three Movements. Eric Kim, cello. Järvi.

Concerts are at 8 p.m. at Music Hall, except Sunday (Nov. 4) which is at 3 p.m.

CSO Chamber Players.

[]Nov. 16. Stravinsky, “L’histoire du soldat.” Beethoven, Serenade in D Major, Op. 25, for Flute, Violin and Viola. William Kraft, “Encounters XI: “The Demise of Suriyodhaya” (for English Horn and Percussion). Mozart, Quartet in C Major for Flute, Violin, Viola and Cello.

 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall.

Tickets are $25 and $35 at (513) 381-3300 and www.CincinnatSymphony.org.

(first published in The Cincinnati Post November 1, 2007)


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