Concert 1



Claude Debussy
1862-1918

Claude Debussy
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun)

The publication in 1876 of symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s subtly sensual poem, L’après-midi d’un faune, created a furor in the cultural circles of Paris with its hints of bisexuality and lesbianism. The figure of the youthful, erotic faun appealed to Debussy, who in 1892 planned a three-part composition, Prélude, interludes et paraphrase finale pour l’après-midi d’un faune, to serve as background music to readings of the poem. In the course of the composition, however, he was, sidetracked by his work on the opera Pelléas et Mélisande. As a result, only the Prélude was ever written.

The poem depicts a sensuous faun, a rural deity represented as a man with the ears, horns, tail and hind legs of a goat, silently contemplating cavorting nymphs and other forest creatures on a warm sunny afternoon. The suggestive music captures the erotic atmosphere of the poem with consummate skill and is one of the first and most evocative examples of musical Impressionism. The Prélude was first performed in Paris in December 1894 and was an instant triumph, the only work of Debussy ever to receive an encore at its premiere. Mallarmé himself praised the music, saying that it extended the emotion of his poem and provided it with a warmer background. Debussy regarded the music as “a very free illustration and in no way as a synthesis of the poem.”

The Prélude requires a full orchestra, but with a touch as light and evanescent as the poem; often the pauses in the music are as dramatic as the music itself, which relies mostly on the woodwinds and the harp to create the dreamy atmosphere and imagery. In 1912, however, Sergey Diaghilev, the impresario of the Ballets Russes, urged the dancer Vaclav Nijinsky to choreograph and dance the role of the faun in a ballet based on Mallarmé’s poem and Debussy’s music. Nijinsky’s interpretation of the role turned out to be much more literal than Mallarmé’s symbolist poetry. His openly erotic interpretation of the faun became a major scandal, primarily because of the final scene in which the faun, frustrated and saddened by the inability to seduce his nymph playmates, consoles himself by sensuously fondling a scarf that one of the nymphs has dropped in her escape.

The signature theme of the Prélude, which opens the piece as a flute solo, is so well known that it barely requires repeating.

It reappears in many variations, re-harmonized and re-orchestrated, with even little snippets – prticularly the first six notes – incorproated into other melodies. It seems to symbolize the faune, although there is nothing in the score or the ballet to prove the association. The end of the complete theme, where the horn enters, also undergoes various transformations. In this example, which begins a new section of the Prélude, only traces of the original harmony from the horn cadence are evident, but its source is clear; the succeeding chromatic passage is an embellished motive from the main theme.

The overall form of the Prélude is ABA. The middle section includes two brief subsidiary themes, the first introduced by the oboe,

the second by the upper woodwinds.

This latter melody dominates the section before Debussy brings back the "faune" theme, but the return of the A section is not strictly a repeat; rather, it comes a series of harmonic transformations and variations on the theme.



David Ott
b. 1947

David Ott
Music for the Canvas

In 1990 the Indianapolis Museum of Art approached David Ott with a commission for a work to inaugurate their new pavilion. The first exhibit was by abstract expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992), and Ott decided to use some of the artist’s paintings as inspiration for the music.

The first movement, Allegro ma non troppo; Maestoso, came easy: The painter had a large canvas from 1942, titled “Symphony No. 1, The Transcendental,” a painting inspired by music, and Ott reciprocated. “The painting recalls medieval stained glass windows, a maze of lines and swirls dominated by purples and browns. It contained symbols that I interpreted as trumpets and angelic figures, so I have reflected that by opening and closing the movement with a fanfare.”

Ott has the central portion mirror the dark colors in the painting by giving solos loosely based on the fanfare theme to lower instruments like the trombones

bassoon

bass clarinet and contrabassoon.

After going through many canvasses for the second movement, molto cantabile e dolcissimo, Ott became fascinated by the technique for a painting called “White on White”, which involved the three-dimensional layering of white paint as a base, covered with thick layers of various colors before painting over them with another thick layer of white. Ott, who had never actually seen the painting, begins with a texture of harp and strings.

He then throws “splotches of musical ideas into the score, creating a texture of color and dissonance, held together by a little motive derived from the opening passage.

For the third part of the movement, Ott recaps the original material, but from a different perspective.

Interestingly, the movement becomes a classic ABA song form, used for centuries as the basic structure for slow movements. It is as if Pousette-Dart had created his triple-layered painting as the visual equivalent of the ABA structure.

For the finale, Allegro prestissimo, Ott searched for a “fiery and continual energy” painting, settling on a 1970s painting of the creation of the universe, described by Ott as “basically red in color and extremely abstract.” It is unified by a nervous little motive first heard in the strings.

Ott creates a very gradual buildup until the intensity of the “red” breaks out in the full orchestra.

The end of the movement recalls the themes from the opening movement.

A graduate of Indiana University and the University of Kentucky, composer and conductor David Ott taught at Houghton College (NY), Pfeiffer College (NC) and DePauw University (IN). He currently resides in Florida.



Aram Khachaturian
1903-1978

Aram Khachaturian
Violin Concerto in D minor

One of the most popular musicians in the former Soviet Union, Aram Khachaturian was trained as a biologist. Already an amateur composer, he gradually added lessons in cello and composition, finally succumbing to his passion by entering the Moscow Conservatory for professional training.

An Armenian – although born in Georgia – Khachaturian had a knack for driving rhythms and stirring melodies, blending the orientalism of his native folk idiom with the lush tradition of Russian Romanticism. Beginning with his Piano Concerto in 1936, the later Violin Concerto and the ballets Gayane and Spartacus, he created a series of compositions that garnered worldwide popularity.

In spite of his leadership role in the Soviet Composer’s Union and his expressed opposition to modern experiments, Khachaturian was not spared the scrutiny and interference of the Soviet musical bureaucracy. Like Shostakovich, Prokofiev and a host of lesser composers, he was severely criticized in 1948 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party for his “formalist” transgressions. Only after Stalin’s death in 1953 did he feel free again to compose.

Khachaturian wrote his Violin Concerto in 1940, dedicating it to the great violinist David Oistrakh who advised him on the composition of the solo parts and premiered it in November of that year. Its traditional classical form, lyricism, colorful orchestration and dazzling virtuosity made it instantly a popular success. In 1968, at the composer’s suggestion, Jean-Pierre Rampal transcribed it for flute.

Although the Concerto is technically in D minor, the composer explores Armenian modes that alter the sequence of whole and half steps within the octave. It opens with a few bars of a dance motive, immediately followed by the flute’s introduction of the principal theme.

The tempo slows for the dreamy, flowing second subject reminiscent of Borodin.

This second theme reappears in the finale. The soloist also introduces new musical material with every entrance during the exposition. Khachaturian develops all three musical ideas, expanding and combining them freely. He also inserts three cadenzas into the movement, one before the development; another, a duet with the solo flute, has a bird call quality.

The bassoon solo that begins the second movement suggests a Middle Eastern improvisation,

its serpentine melody taken up by the clarinet. The soloist enters with a hauntingly beautiful theme over muted strings.

As the theme slowly unfolds, Khachaturian elaborates it with modal decorations.

A brilliant flourish by the full orchestra signals the rondo finale, blaring out the rhythm of the rondo theme.

After the soloist enters,

the gentle second theme from the first movement returns, only now transformed into a lively dance.

Later, the melody from the second movement recurs in the violin’s lowest register and at double the speed over a chattering string accompaniment.

As the soloist develops the themes, the distinction among them blurs so that they seem to blend together into one large musical idea. The melodies are combined contrapuntally between the violin and orchestra in a brilliant finish.