THE COMPOSER — By 1909, Richard Strauss had securely established himself as a bona fide modernist, thanks to the deadly operatic sisters Salome and Elektra. Salome had already shocked the world in 1906 with its scandalous disruption of the operatic status quo (it was immediately banned in Austrian and English houses) when Elektra followed as confirmation that something subversive and special was afoot in German-language stage music. Celebrated Austrian author Hugo von Hofmannsthal had adapted the German dramatic version of Elektra in 1903, and the operatic treatment he worked on with Strauss in 1909 was the beginning of an important friendship. But, after so much blood and fire, where would Strauss go next?

THE HISTORY — There would be no third sister. Strauss had apparently walked a bit too far down the avant-garde path for his own comfort. After the lurid darkness of his back-to-back contemporary masterpieces, the composer was ready to look once again to music history’s past for inspiration. For their second collaboration, Strauss asked Hofmannsthal to consider the more civilized possibilities of an 18th-century comedy à la Mozart. Salome and Elektra had essentially been plays set to music, but for his next opera, Strauss was determined to co-create a libretto from scratch. The highly literary and successful Der Rosenkavalier (1911) was the happy result. In terms of structure and style, Rosenkavalier was different from the previous two operas in almost every possible way. It was cast in the customary three acts and employed a much more conventional musical language that even included waltzes, those out-of-fashion reminders of simpler times. It was all designed to fit the plot, which was, in fact, a wonderful echo of the traditional Mozartean farce set in the golden age of Viennese high society. It was filled to its limits with courtly intrigue, amorous entanglements, and cross-dressing hijinks. Rosenkavalier arguably remains the most popular of Strauss’ operas and is certainly the best-loved of the Hofmannsthal partnerships. Strauss was initially reluctant to excerpt a suite from the score, even though parts of it (the waltzes in particular) seemed perfect for concert performance. After first working with Hofmannsthal on an ultimately unsuccessful film version in 1925 and later creating his own waltz sequences, Strauss finally consented to a suite of key moments from the opera in 1945. The six movements make no attempt to trace linear highlights of the story, as Strauss’ selected scenes were not assembled with regard for narrative legibility. But they hold together quite nicely as a compact and musically sensible concert experience.

THE WORLD — Elsewhere in 1911, George V was crowned King of England, the Mona Lisa was stolen by a Louvre employee, Machu Picchu was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham, and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole.

THE CONNECTION — The Rosenkavalier Suite has been programmed rarely on Sarasota Orchestra’s Masterworks Series, last appearing in 2018 under Ward Stare.

THE COMPOSER — When Debussy died in 1918, Ravel found the throne of French concert music unguarded, and the unobstructed path did not suit him. For years, the two men had been set up as rivals in Paris, and though neither of them gave the topic any oxygen, it led to some mild resentment between them. Neither man liked being called an Impressionist (which they were then and still are today) and likely resented how the superficiality of the word masked their individuality as artists. In any case, Ravel had never wanted to be the top man of Parisian musical letters, and when that honor became suddenly inevitable, he demurred and moved away from the city.

THE HISTORY — Ravel reportedly believed that every composer, himself included, secretly wished they could write an excellent waltz, but most were scared off by the difficulty and the wealth of enviable examples already in the repertory. For years, Ravel had entertained the idea of creating an homage work to Johann Strauss, Jr. entitled Wien (Vienna) . When Serge Diaghilev approached him after World War I to write a new ballet, he thought he had finally found reason to see it through. Diaghilev’s name is synonymous with so many of the 20th century’s great orchestral scores that it is easy to forget the ones he rejected. Ravel gave the impresario a two-piano sneak peek of Wien in the spring of 1920. Poulenc and Stravinsky were in attendance as well, and Poulenc recalled the disastrous tension when Diaghilev referred to the music as “genius” but “not a ballet.” Ravel was highly offended and broke ties with Diaghilev on the spot. So enduring was the animosity between them that it is believed Diaghilev challenged Ravel to a duel a few years later. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. La Valse (instead of Wien) premiered as an orchestral work later in 1920 and was finally produced as a ballet in 1928 by none other than Ida Rubenstein (yes, the same competitor of Diaghilev that had commissioned both Bolero and Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss—which led to the latter’s own permanent split with the Ballets Russes). The grey, brooding mood of La Valse has been popularly attributed to Ravel’s impressions of the Great War and its numberless atrocities, but he remained ever resistant to that interpretation. Certainly, Ravel was unearthing something of a quaint relic with his waltz, since WWI had fully killed the 19th century and all of its confectionary comforts. Waltzes were just one among the many things of the past, memories of a time before trenches and gas clouds and mechanized slaughter. No subtext was needed to make the point. It’s all in there, though, just beneath the surface of La Valse. Whether or not Ravel wants us to think so.

THE WORLD — Elsewhere in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was created, legendary explorer Robert Peary died, the Ottoman Empire’s dissolution began, the very first “Ponzi” scheme was attempted, and Joan of Arc was canonized.

THE CONNECTION — La Valse has appeared on a Sarasota Orchestra Masterworks program only once before, in 2002, with Music Director Leif Bjaland conducting.

Anyone doing even a cursory Google search for information on Beethoven will inevitably encounter one word consistently within the first paragraph of any article: “heroic.” While Beethoven himself is widely considered a hero for having persevered in composing despite ever-increasing deafness, his music is also described as heroic, in that it pushed hard against the boundaries set by the musical conventions of its time. Beethoven’s works were bigger and bolder. He stretched the traditional, Classical-period rules of composition beyond what any composer had done previously. Abandoning the traditions of elegance and restraint, he wrote works of shattering sadness and ecstatic joy. Beethoven “let it all hang out” in a way that none before him had, and for this, he is now idolized as a hero who revolutionized music.

Beethoven himself also fixated on leaders he saw as heroic. His Third Symphony was originally dedicated to Napoleon, whom Beethoven initially admired greatly. When the Frenchman declared himself emperor, however, Beethoven angrily erased Napoleon’s name from the cover page of the symphony’s score—with such ferocity that it left a hole in the paper. Beethoven craved heroism, and when his heroes disappointed him, his judgement was fierce.

Perhaps it is not surprising then that in 1807, when Beethoven needed an opening work for a private concert to be held at the palace of his patron Prince Lobkowitz, he turned to Shakespeare’s fallen hero, the Roman general Coriolanus, who legendarily took up arms against his homeland in the fifth century BC. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, written around 1608, is a political tale of greed and hubris as the one-time war hero is exiled after expressing his hatred of the common people. In anger, he returns to try to conquer his former city. When he and his army reach the city gates, the Romans, as a last resort, send Coriolanus’ mother out to plead with him to stop his assault. She eventually prevails, after which Coriolanus is murdered. This story had also been the inspiration for an 1804 play titled Coriolan by Heinrich Joseph von Collin. Collin’s play had enjoyed some limited success and was being revived for a one-night-only performance at Lobkowitz’s palace. Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto would also be on the program, and it may be that Collin’s play was revived that night specifically to present Beethoven’s overture. Regardless of the intent, the overture immediately outshone Collin’s play. While Collin’s work has long ago lapsed into obscurity, the overture has retained its popularity as Beethoven’s searing eight-minute description of the fallen hero Coriolanus stirred far more emotion than Collin’s full-length production.

At the opening of the overture, we meet Coriolanus, the swaggering hero, in three sets of dramatic chords. An agitated melody then begins in the strings as we sense Coriolanus’ anger and a general sense of foreboding. A second theme eventually emerges, much more lyrical, representing Coriolanus’ mother and her pleas for her son to stop his assault. These two contrasting themes, one dark and foreboding, the other tragically pleading, form the basis of the entire overture. In contrast to many of Beethoven’s other “heroic” works, however, this piece does not end triumphantly. Rather, it culminates in a searing final restatement of the opening chords as Coriolanus dies. (In Shakespeare’s play, Coriolanus is murdered. In Collin’s version however, Coriolanus commits suicide.) A lesser composer might have ended the work there, but Beethoven, in a stroke of genius, instead allows the music to slowly disintegrate as the life ebbs from the fallen hero. In the end, as Coriolanus’ heartbeat fades away, we are left with three soft pizzicato plucks from the string section...and a lesson in the futility of greed that is deafening.

Recognized as among the most important Mexican composers of our time, Arturo Márquez was born in 1950, in the town of Álamos located in the Northwest Mexican state of Sonora. Both his father and paternal grandfather were mariachi musicians who introduced Márquez to a variety of musical styles during his childhood. Educated at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the California Institute of the Arts, where he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1990. His Danzón No. 2 for orchestra skyrocketed him to international fame when it was featured on a 2007 tour by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, led by conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The popularity of Danzón No. 2 has led it to be dubbed Mexico’s “second national anthem” and has sparked international interest in Márquez’s wider catalog of compositions.

Commissioned by violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, Fandango for violin and orchestra was premiered at the Hollywood Bowl on August 24, 2021 by Akiko Meyers and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Gustavo Dudamel. The composer has provided the following program notes on the piece:

“The fandango is known worldwide as a popular Spanish dance and specifically, as one of the fundamental parts (palos) of flamenco. Since its appearance around the 18th century, various composers such as S. de Murcia, D. Scarlatti, L. Boccherini, Padre Soler, W. A. Mozart, among others, have included fandango in concert music. What little is known in the world is that immediately upon its appearance in Spain, the fandango moves to the Americas, where it acquires a personality according to the land that adopts and cultivates it. Today, we can still find it in countries such as Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico, in the latter and specifically in the state of Veracruz and in the Huasteca area, part of seven states in eastern Mexico, the fandango acquires a tinge different from the Spanish genre; for centuries, it has been a special festival for musicians, singers, poets and dancers. Everyone gathers around a wooden platform to stamp their feet, sing, and improvise tenth-line stanza of the occasion. It should be noted that fandango and huapango have similar meanings in our country.

“In 2018 I received an email from violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, a wonderful musician, where she proposed to me the possibility of writing a work for violin and orchestra that had to do with Mexican music. The proposal interested and fascinated me from that very moment, not only because of Maestra Meyers’ emotional aesthetic proposal, but also because of my admiration for her musicality, virtuosity, and, above all, for her courage in proposing a concerto so out of the ordinary. I had already tried, unsuccessfully, to compose a violin concerto some 20 years earlier with ideas that were based on the Mexican fandango. I had known this music since I was a child, listening to it in the cinema, on the radio, and listening to my father, a mariachi violinist (Arturo Márquez Sr.), interpret huastecos and mariachi music. Also, since the ‘90s I have been present admiring the fandango in various parts of Mexico. I would like to mention that the violin was my first instrument when I was 14 years old (1965). Curiously, I studied it in La Puente, California, in Los Angeles County, where fortunately this work will be premiered with the wonderful Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of my admired Gustavo Dudamel. Beautiful coincidence as I have no doubt that fandango was danced in California in the 18th and 19th centuries.

“Fandango for violin and orchestra is formally a concerto in three movements:

1. Folia Tropical
2. Plegaria (Prayer) (Chaconne)
3. Fandanguito

“The first movement, Folia Tropical, has the form of the sonata or traditional classical concerto: introduction, exposition with its two themes, bridge, development, and recapitulation. The introduction and the two themes share the same motif in a totally different way. Emotionally, the introduction is a call to the remote history of the fandango; the first theme and the bridge, this one totally rhythmic, are based on the Caribbean clave and the second is eminently expressive, almost like a romantic bolero. Folias are ancient dances that come from Portugal and Spain. However, also the root and meaning of this word takes us to the French word folie: madness.

“The second movement, Plegaria, pays tribute to the huapango mariachi together with the Spanish fandango, both in its rhythmic and emotional parts. It should be noted that one of the palos del flamenco andaluz is precisely a malagueña, and Mexico also has a huapango honoring Malaga. I do not use traditional themes, but there is a healthy attempt to unite both worlds; that is why this movement is the fruit of an imaginary marriage between the Huapango-Mariachi and Pablo Sarasate, Manuel de Falla, and Issac Albéniz, three of my beloved and admired Spanish composers. It is also a freely treated chaconne. Perhaps few people know that the chaconne, as well as the zarabanda, were two dances forbidden by the Spanish Inquisition in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, long before they became part of European Baroque music. Moreover, the first writings on these dances place them in colonial Mexico of these centuries.

“The third movement, Fandanguito, is a tribute to the famous fandanguito huasteco. The music of this region is composed of violin, jarana huasteca (small rhythm guitar) and huapanguera (low guitar with five orders of strings) and of course accompanies the singing of their sones and the improvisation sung or recited. The Huasteco violin is one of the instruments with the most virtuosity in all of America. It has certain features similar to Baroque music but with great rhythmic vitality and a rich original variety in bow strokes. Every Huasteco violinist must have a personal version of this son, if he wants to have and maintain prestige. This third movement is a totally free elaboration of the Huasteco fandanguito, but it maintains many of its rhythmic characteristics. It demands a great virtuosity from the soloist, and it is the music that I have kept in my heart for decades.

“I think that for every composer it is a real challenge to compose new works from old forms, especially when this repertoire is part of the fundamental structure of classical music. On the other hand, composing in this 2020 pandemic was not easy due to the huge human suffering. Undoubtedly my experience with this work during this period has been intense and highly emotional, but I have to mention that I have preserved my seven capital principles: tonality, modality, melody, rhythm, imaginary folk tradition, harmony, and orchestral color.”