Radiance and Fire - November 2 & 3, 2024

Henry Cowell

(Born in Menlo Park, California, in 1897; died near Woodstock, New York, in 1965)

Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10

For Oboe and Strings

Henry Cowell was one of the first modernist American-born composers, and his ideas and works spread their wings far across the musical landscape. Among his students, supporters, and devotees were Arnold Schoenberg, Burt Bacharach, George Gershwin, Charles Ives, and the ultramodernist John Cage (who steadfastly proclaimed Cowell as “the open sesame for new music in America”).

Born near San Francisco, Cowell was raised primarily by his mother and was largely educated at home and self-taught in music. Even at a young age, Cowell was being noticed as a musical genius, and in his late teens he studied music composition briefly with Charles Seeger (father of the famous Seeger family of folk singers) at the University of California, Berkeley, and equally briefly at the Julliard School of Music in New York.

But an academic approach did not suit the free-thinking Cowell. Instead, the young composer began a lifelong musical exploration, blending folk song and tonality with extended techniques for the piano. These techniques included nonconformist, creative ways of making music, such as playing tone clusters (chords that comprise at least three adjacent tones in a scale) with fists or forearms, hitting whatever notes they contact, and plucking strings inside the body of the piano. Some of his ultramodernist musical concerts erupted in riots.

Cowell wrote books about his ideas and methods, taught at several music schools, and influenced many classical American music composers of the 20th century. He was also a prolific composer, writing almost 1,000 works. But in the second half of his life, he became less aggressively avant-garde and looked increasingly toward tradition and tonality. Such was the case with the set of 18 works he called “Hymns and Fuguing Tunes,” composed between 1944 and 1964.

The Hymn and Fuguing Tune featured in our concert, No. 10, was completed in 1955. Cowell said the piece draws on the music “of Southern Revival meetings in which popular minstrel show rhythms were turned to religious purposes…. The tunes of course are my own.” All 18 of Cowell’s Hymns and Fuguing Tunes are gorgeous works, but No. 10 is perhaps the most popular, blending a folksong style with church hymns, yet wrapped in sophisticated compositional craft.

Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 has two parts, a hymn part and a fugue part. In the hymn part, which comes first, the strings open with a lyrical hymnlike song, a singable melody laden with a folk-like feel and with tinges of Renaissance-sounding ornamentation. The solo oboist takes over from the strings, and for about four minutes, the music feels as though it is eternally blossoming. An explicit cadence (the equivalent of a musical “period”) never seems to arrive; instead, the first strain of the hymn part continuously evolves, from strings to oboe, to other soloists in the string orchestra, and back around, like an infinity loop. Some lovely chromaticism intensifies this sense of continual unfolding until, at last, the hymn part comes to its peaceful ending.

After a brief pause, the second part of the work, the fuguing tune part, begins. Before we describe it, we should note that fuguing tunes are not like fugues by Bach but rather a song genre that came to America from England in the middle of the 18th century and became extremely popular. Originally, these were sacred choral works arranged for a four-part chorus and based on Protestant hymns. They followed a pattern of first introducing a tune in all four parts, and then proceeding in a kind of canon form with the theme being sung in staggered entrances and afterward being sounded simultaneously by the various voices of the chorus or instruments — as in the children’s song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

In the fuguing tune part of Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10, the oboe starts things off with a brief melody that is liltingly light on its feet and harmonious. As expected in this genre, various sections of the strings then take up the tune in canon sequence. But soon Cowell begins to play with the norms: A second short melody — a rippling run of notes — is introduced by the oboe, and the fuguing tune then increasingly becomes more of a rhapsodic fantasy of swirling voices playing counterpoint to each other in all sorts of instrumental and melodic combinations. This part of the work radiates with the intensity of the interactions between the oboist and various sections of the orchestra, yet always retains a light touch. At about two and a half minutes, the tempo pulls back for dramatic effect and all the instruments begin to pull together to end, at last, with three glowing, unison chords.

Franz Joseph Haydn

(Born in Rohrau, Austria in 1732; died in Vienna, Austria in 1809)

Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1

1. Moderato
2. Adagio
3. Finale — Allegro molto

For almost 200 years, the world thought there was only one Haydn cello concerto to be played, the lovely Concerto No. 2 in D major. Haydn’s own catalogs of his works mentioned a previous cello concerto, written in C major, but that work seemed to have been lost. Then in 1961, a fortuitous knocking-over-of-old-dusty-stuff at the Prague National Museum by a museum archivist named Oldřich Pulkert uncovered a manuscript of the C major concerto. Music historian H.C. Robbins Landon described this event as “the single greatest musicological discovery since the Second World War.”

The manuscript that was found in Prague was signed by the C major concerto’s original soloist, Joseph Weigl. Weigl was a friend of Haydn’s and one of the musicians in Haydn’s first orchestra at the estate of his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, of Hungary. The C major concerto was composed between 1761 and 1765 and written specifically for Weigl. (This was something Haydn did; he kept good musicians in his employ by rewarding them with juicy concertos to play). Judging by the virtuosic writing of the concerto’s cello passages, Weigl was indeed a superb cellist.

Haydn’s rediscovered Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major had its 20th-century premiere on May 19,1962, when Czech virtuoso Miloš Sádlo performed it with the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. Sádlo and Mackerras also made the first recording. The concerto has been beloved ever since.

This wonderful work is surely one of the loveliest things that Haydn wrote, filled with a freshness that makes each of its three movements a delight. It is among Haydn’s most inventive works, and it achieves that magical concerto balance of showing off the capabilities of the solo instrument and its performer, even as it brims with musicality, lyricism and surprises for the entire ensemble.

The first movement, Moderato (at a medium speed), is full of charm and beautiful melody. After the stately yet sunny introduction of the theme by the orchestra, the soloist jumps in happily, highlighting the luxuriance of the cello’s chocolatey low range, the richness of playing multiple strings (chords), and the cello’s musical agility. What’s most enjoyable about this movement is Haydn’s long, vocal-like lines for the soloist in a movement that truly sings throughout, reminding us that Haydn first became famous in the Esterházy Estate as an opera composer.

The middle movement, Adagio (slowly), offers the concerto’s most tender musical moments. Like the previous movement, it’s filled with lyricism, but here Haydn explores the cello’s middle and upper registers in ways that evoke the human voice. The movement begins with an introductory theme, played by the orchestral strings, that features several brief, downwardly rustling figures that create the effect of falling leaves. Then the cello enters, beginning very softly, playing a long, single note growing in gentle intensity, then continuing with the rustling figures previously played by the orchestra. In this dialogue, it feels as if we’re overhearing a love song of intimate beauty.

The third movement, Allegro molto (very fast), is brisk and bright and bouncy. It features virtuosic displays for the soloist, but all these runs and wicked-fast technical challenges create very listenable, lyrical lines. Notice, too, that throughout this movement Haydn revisits the motives from the earlier movements: the growling low notes and chords, as well as the upper-register playing. The most wonderful reprise happens when the cello first enters, at about one minute, returning with that growing-glowing note from the beginning of the previous Adagio movement but now transformed into a quicker, brilliant blaze of light. This movement’s pace is breakneck to the very end, and as the final notes are bowed, it is undeniable that this masterly concerto is indeed one of the greatest (and luckiest) musical discoveries of the 20th century.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(Born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756; died in Vienna, Austria, in 1791)

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550

1. Molto allegro
2. Andante
3. Menuetto — Allegretto — Trio
4. Allegro assai

In the summer of 1788, Mozart’s life was overwhelmed by tragedy. Having recently suffered several professional failures, Mozart’s debts had accrued beyond control, and this only doubled his grief over his infant daughter’s unexpected death earlier that spring. Yet almost miraculously, despite the weight of these events, Mozart wrote three astounding symphonies, numbered 39, 40, and 41, over a mere nine weeks hoping to perform them in some upcoming subscription concerts. These three symphonies would be his final symphonic works, and although each is an undisputed masterpiece, No. 40 in G minor has retained a special place in his oeuvre for its profoundly emotional nature. It is one of only two symphonies out of the 41 he wrote that he set in a minor key. He reserved this key for significant expressivity, and given this great symphony’s uncanny beauty, pathos, and angst, it surely seems that this work reflects the emotional trials he was undergoing when he wrote it.

The first movement, Molto allegro (very fast), is evocative, continually suggesting an anguish that is delivered with a searing lyrical beauty. The movement begins with a quietly undulating rhythm in the lower strings, a pulsing that almost never abates. In just several quick beats, the violins then enter above that agitation with one of Mozart’s most memorable themes. This theme first lifts upward with a sense of questioning and then tumbles down in small rhythmic segments as if in indignation — conveying a feeling of inner turmoil. Immediately thereafter, a small motive surges angrily from the basses with two longish, descending notes and infiltrates everything in the movement, stoking a sense of unrest. The movement agitates and questions and surges to its final bars.

The second movement, Andante (slowly, at a walking pace), begins with the strings presenting a gently throbbing theme that seems to slowly unfold with a glowing grace. Yet there is an unmistakable fragility lurking underneath in the way that Mozart fragments the theme among the string sections, beginning with violas, then the cellos and basses, and so on. This feeling of vulnerability becomes poignantly present at about three and a half minutes, when a flitting little rhythm in the winds continuously descends, like falling tears, through several sequences of richly dark harmonies from the strings. The last bars conclude quietly.

The first part of the third movement, Menuetto — Allegretto (minuet dance, not too fast), begins with the full orchestra playing a strident, defiant-sounding theme that is almost sarcastically ill-suited for a dance like a minuet. The theme migrates into a series of repetitions, being cast about between the instruments and colliding with each other, creating a startlingly dramatic effect. The second part of the movement, Menuetto — Trio, is much more delicately dance-like, and features a delightful spotlight on the oboes and horns. The movement ends with a return of the opening section’s forcefulness.

The finale, Allegro assai (very fast), is rife with a dark and relentless energy. The opening theme begins with the violins punching out a series of ascending notes and finishes with the full orchestra playing a hyper-oscillating rhythm. Despite the uncanny tunefulness of this theme, the feeling is anxious and insistent. A brief second theme, featuring a sweet duet between the clarinet and bassoon, is much more relaxed and lyrical, but nonetheless, this finale is more overtly concerned with power and propulsion, and the symphony’s last eight bars are almost wild with excitement.