Secrets & Surprises

May 21 & 22, 2022

Gabriel Fauré
(Born in Pamiers, Ariège, Midi-Pyrénées, France on May 12, 1845; died in Paris in 1924)
Masques et Bergamasques Suite, Op. 112

Overture. Allegro molto vivo
Menuet. Tempo di menuetto—Allegro moderato
Gavotte. Allegro vivo
Pastorale. Andantino tranquillo

In 1918 Prince Albert of Monaco commissioned the aging Gabriel Fauré to write the music for a divertissement (a short ballet) to be performed at the Monte Carlo Theater. Fauré, age 73, was still busily directing the Paris Conservatoire and was battling a curious form of deafness that warps pitches. With little free time, instead of composing an “occasion” piece for this commission, Fauré partly expanded an earlier work, his Clair de lune from his Fêtes galantes of 1902. But at this stage in Faure’s career, the Monte Carlo piece was also intended to be a kind of musical autobiography. And so, in the end, it contained eight songs and instrumental pieces, some of them previously published as far back as 1869 and some newly composed. The work was well-received, and Fauré quickly refashioned it into a four-piece suite that had its premiere in 1919 under the title Masques et Bergamasques.

The program for the Monte Carlo event noted that the inspiration for the ballet’s characters came from the Italian commedia dell’arte:

The characters Harlequin, Gilles and Colombine, whose task is usually to amuse the aristocratic audience, take their turn at being spectators at a ‘Fêtes galantes’ on the island of Cythera. The lords and ladies, who as a rule applaud their efforts, now unwittingly provide them with entertainment by their coquettish behavior.

Fauré’s Clair de lune had been based on a poem of the same name by the French poet Paul Verlaine. And the curious title of Fauré’s 1919 suite was taken from the first stanza of Verlaine’s poem, which reads as follows:

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques,
Jouant du luth et dansant, et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantastiques!

(Your soul is a chosen landscape
charmed by masquers and revelers
playing the lute and dancing, and almost
sad beneath their fanciful disguises!).

Fauré’s suite may therefore be read as a kind of hidden camera on aristocratic reveling. The music strives, like Verlaine’s decadent poems, to portray a deeper pathos underneath the polished veneer of such festivities. The overture, originally from Fauré’s Fêtes galantes of 1902, begins in a sprint, with lighthearted vigor. The revelers are no doubt giddy and full of expectancy as they arrive at the grand party. But a second theme, though luxurious and soaring, seems to uncover a melancholy. All the same, it’s ignored quickly enough with the return of the energetic first theme.

The two middle dance movements, the Menuet (newly composed) and the Gavotte (from 1869), broaden the underlying dissatisfactions in the revelers, though the formal appearances are upheld. Fauré keeps the dance forms structurally accurate, but the Menuet drives through an unsettling number of key changes and introduces a sort of reveler petulance in the Trio section with plodding brass and low pitched timpani. Likewise, the Gavotte has an absolutely lovely first theme but is tinged with dark harmonic hues, suggesting an underlying melancholy. It continues with a frenetic and driving repetition of notes in the liquid-like middle section, portraying a vapid chattering. And yet, though this music flirts with shallowness and pathos, it also contains some of Fauré’s most exquisite melodies.

The suite ends with an unexpectedly placed Pastorale. Perhaps the sleepy and drunken revelers are taking a walk under the moonlight: The music is gentle and dreamy, lightly cascading in the strings and harp. The music grows and sweeps, breathes deeply and deliciously, and all are under the spell of Fauré’s musical charms. But near the Pastorale’s end a breathtaking set of harmonies stagger the melodic cadences. The harmonies shift about and don’t want to come back to the home key; although brief. These shifts cleverly create an atmosphere of surrealism à la Verlaine––though lush and sated, there is a feeling of being unsure, and alone.

Camille Saint-Saëns
(Born in Paris in 1835; died in Algiers, Algeria in 1921)
Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33

Allegro non troppo
Allegretto con moto
Allegro non troppo (Tempo primo)

Following France’s loss to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Paris began calling for a new, French-minded music to reassert its national self-esteem, and Saint-Saëns was at the ready. One of his first responses was to compose a concerto for cello, an instrument that at the time was highly overshadowed by the public’s obsession with showy German piano and violin concertos. His Cello Concerto No. 1 premiered in 1873 to thunderous nationalist acclaim.

Two distinctive features of the concerto made it stand out immediately in 1870’s French music: The first and most obvious feature is the way the Concerto begins with an unaccompanied cello solo that completely skips the typical orchestra-only introduction. The second striking feature is the innovative manner in which Saint-Saëns blends all three movements into a single movement without pauses in between.

Few concerti begin as stridently as this one, as the opening cello solo immediately sweeps us up with its majestic power and rich singing ability. The delightful transition into the slower next movement is one of Saint-Saëns’ most novel techniques––the music abruptly begins slowing down, as if the engine had run out of fuel.

The Allegretto second movement is one of those wonders that take us to another realm of beauty. Saint-Saëns does this by capturing a feeling of antiquity and simplicity, filled with lyrical themes that hint of older times and offer nothing showy. A brief reprise of the main theme returns at the end, serving as a musical bridge to the next movement, again, without pause.

The finale offers both tunefulness and a certain operatic drama that trade off in turns. The cello passages both melt and burn, the themes blending melancholy, intrigue and excitement with gleeful gymnastics. The movement paces itself perfectly into a quickening of tempo and an exciting, yet stately, ending––not grandiloquent but the perfect finish to a work of such mastery. It’s hard not to marvel that Saint-Saëns, in his first attempt at a cello concerto, could have gotten it so right.

Felix Mendelssohn
(Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1809; died in Leipzig, Germany in 1847)
Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op 90 (Italian)

Allegro vivace
Andante con moto
Con moto moderato
Finale. Saltarello—Presto

When Mendelssohn was a young and precocious lad of 12, he met the great poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and it was then that this elder statesman of German literature encouraged the young Felix to travel and see the world and thereby learn. By the time the extraordinarily talented Mendelssohn was 21 in 1830, he had already composed two astonishingly great pieces: his octet at age 16, and his masterpiece, the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, at 17. Despite these successes, he wondered whether music was to be his true path, and so with his family’s financial backing and Goethe’s advice to inspire him, he set out into the world for what he called his “Great Trip.” His destinations were London, Paris, and key cities in Germany, Scotland and Italy. In each place, Mendelssohn gave keyboard concerts, soaked in the atmosphere, met other famous musicians, and painted. But mainly he absorbed musical inspiration. After a little more than two years on this journey Mendelssohn returned home a richer man in spirit, dedicated to music as his vocation, and having mostly completed both his Scottish Symphony No. 3 and his Italian Symphony No. 4.

The nicknames that Mendelssohn gave these symphonies tell only of his inspirations from those countries, rather than any storyline or place depiction in them. Nonetheless, judging from the copious letters he wrote during his travels, Mendelssohn was utterly in love with Italy: enchanted by its history, its congeniality, and its sun-soaked climate. There can be no better musical souvenir of his jubilant impressions than the opening of his Italian symphony (which premiered in 1833). Beginning with a grand pizzicato in the strings, the winds then race off into rapid-fire motion, underneath a wonderfully bright melody in the violins above them. Its sprightliness and vigor are infectious and clearly reflect Mendelssohn’s exuberant delight with Italy.

The beautiful and arching second movement, Andante, captures something of the faded grandeur of a country that once ruled and cultured the Western world. The solemn main theme paints nostalgic frescos in long, cinematic sweeps, but a delicately subtle simplicity and naiveté also shines through.

The third movement, Moderato, sings with a tender touch, but it is darkened ever so skillfully with a more somber Trio in the middle section that is reminiscent of Mozart’s magical and evocative minuets that Mendelssohn so adored.

The Finale is fashioned after an old Italian dance form called a saltarello, although some musicologists insist it is a tarantella––that frantic, jumping dance prescribed as an antidote to a tarantula bite. Whichever its inspiration, after the stomping-like opening chords, the animation is set in high motion. What makes it so fantastic is the way Mendelssohn manages to continue increasing the excitement amid its unrelenting pace, leading to its final bars brimming with exhilaration.