Pretty
Julia Wolfe
Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them.
In addition to winning the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Anthracite Fields, Wolfe received the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” grant in 2016, and was recently appointed a Guggenheim Fellow. Wolfe also earned the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music, and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. She is perhaps best known as a co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. Wolfe is currently a professor of music and Artistic Director of Composition at NYU Steinhardt.
“The word ‘pretty’ has had a complicated relationship to women,” writes Wolfe. “It implies an attractiveness without any rough edges, without strength or power. And it has served as a measure of worth in strange, limited, and destructive ways. It has a less sweet origin from the old English—‘cunning, crafty, clever.’ As words evolve, it morphed to a much softer sentiment. My Pretty is a raucous celebration—embracing the grit of fiddling, the relentlessness of work rhythms, and inspired by the distortion and reverberation of rock and roll.”
From its opening bars, Pretty declares both the deliberate irony of its title and expands preconceptions of how “pretty” should be defined. Wolfe creates an aura of both anticipation and menace, as when waiting for a massive storm to break. Relentless pulses propel the music forward, while the harmonic language remains static for long stretches; the combination of modo perpetuo and sedentary harmony creates a tension that builds inexorably through the 20-minute work. Around 12 minutes in, the percussionists attack their battery of instruments with startling ferocity, which both releases tension and generates additional edge-of-the-seat waves of anticipation. In this music, Wolfe demonstrates that “pretty” is also immensely powerful.
© Elizabeth Schwartz
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major, Op. 102
Dimitri Shostakovich
If you heard this concerto without knowing its composer, you could be excused for thinking it the work of someone other than Dmitri Shostakovich. In this piece, unlike most of his other music, Shostakovich exposed seldom-expressed aspects of his musical personality: merriment, a straightforward, pleasant melodic arc, and a notable lack of irony.
The light, playful aspects of this concerto could be a musical reflection of Shostakovich’s feelings for his son Maxim, for whom it was written. Shostakovich had written piano music for his daughter Galina when she was a girl, and had earlier gifted Maxim with a “concertino” for two pianos. As he approached his 19th birthday, Maxim was preparing for his entrance to the Moscow Conservatory. His performance of this concerto earned the young man a place in the prestigious music school.
Maxim was thrilled with his father’s concerto. “My dream,” he remembered, “was for a big, serious piano concerto … I was especially proud of the fact that my father dedicated it to me. Learning the score when it was still fresh, I often rehearsed it on two pianos with him. We argued, and I defended heatedly my youthful ideas. I recall that in musical circles, when it became known that father had written this concerto especially for me, it was jokingly noted, ‘Have you heard that Shostakovich has composed a new concerto for Maxim and orchestra?’”
The style and structure of the concerto follow the outlines of a standard piano concerto: three movements, with two lively outer sections bracketing a slower central movement. The outer movements feature Shostakovich’s signature nervous energy, but they also exude a twinkling-eyed mischief and humor. We can almost see Shostakovich playing with his children, or engaging in good-natured debate with Maxim over a particular phrase of the concerto. The octave phrases add to the brilliance, intensity and difficulty of these movements. In the Andante, Shostakovich gives voice to a melody of surprising intimacy and tenderness.
© Elizabeth Schwartz
Suite for Orchestra No. 3 in G Major, Op. 55
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s orchestral suites are not programmed as often as his symphonies, an oversight easily remedied. These four suites are among the lesser-known gems of the orchestral repertoire; Tchaikovsky’ third suite, the best known of the four, was written while he was taking a break from the demands of larger symphonic forms. It reveals a gentler, more relaxed aspect of a composer known for his dark moods and tortured soul.
In 1884, Tchaikovsky wrote a letter to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck: “I have begun a new composition in the form of a suite. I find this form extraordinarily sympathetic, since it isn’t constraining, and demands no dependence on any tradition or rules.” Freed from the rigid parameters of conventional symphonic writing, Tchaikovsky freed himself from formal and thematic expectations. Even so, this suite also features several lyrical, graceful melodies, a Tchaikovsky signature.
The Elégie (Andante molto cantabile) introduces a reflective string melody, with subdued comments from flute and harp. This elegy is neither mournful nor sad; instead, it is calm and graceful. As the movement evolves, a romantic second theme sounds in the winds and strings. The two themes mingle together in the center of the movement and combine to create a powerful emotional climax, and the movement ends quietly with a solo for English horn.
In the Valse mélancolique (Allegro moderato), Tchaikovsky gives the flutes a melody best-suited to that instrument’s ease with legato phrases. Its title notwithstanding, there is nothing especially melancholy in this waltz, other than brief hints here and there. The breathless energy of the strings and woodwinds in the Scherzo recalls Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The melody jumps and skips about in delight, like a rabbit hopping across a sunny meadow.
So pleased was Tchaikovsky with his fourth movement theme and variations that he wrote to his publisher, “There never yet was a work of greater genius than my new Suite!!!,” In the next sentence he added, self-mockingly, “Such is my usual disinterested attitude towards my offspring.” The simple theme is put through twelve different variations that range from Baroque-style counterpoint to chorales, rough peasant dances, brief studies, and a mini-violin concerto for the concertmaster. Tchaikovsky also includes a brief quote from the requiem liturgy, the Dies irae (Day of Wrath). The final variation, a grand polonaise featuring the brasses, is a tribute to Poland.
Six days after the St. Petersburg premiere, Tchaikovsky wrote to Mme. von Meck, “I have never before experienced such a triumph. I saw that the entire mass of the audience was moved, and grateful to me. These moments are the finest adornment of the artist’s life.”
© Elizabeth Schwartz
NOTE: These program notes are published by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at http://classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.
Elizabeth Schwartz is a musician, writer, and music historian based in Portland, OR. She has been a program annotator for more than 25 years, and writes for ensembles and festivals across the United States and around the world. Ms. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today,” (now heard on American Public Media). http://classicalmusicprogramnotes.com