THE COMPOSER — The musical career of Jimmy López began in his native Peru, but he has since become a truly international artist. From a young age, López was intrigued by his sister’s electric keyboard, but it wasn’t until he was 12 and encountered Bach that the spark of a future composer was ignited in him. López eventually sought training in Finland and the United States, where the music of Sibelius and Mahler began to influence him deeply. Lopez can now, at 45, look back on relationships with the finest orchestras and festivals in the world. Among his many high-profile successes was an opera based on the bestselling book Bel Canto for Chicago Lyric Opera in 2015. It was broadcast nationally on PBS two years later.

THE HISTORY — López’s most popular work, by far, is Fiesta!, subtitled Four Pop Dances for Orchestra. He couldn’t have known this piece would be his Bolero or his 1812 Overture when he wrote it in 2007, but he does admit now in interviews that its popularity has “paid for many meals.” Since he completed the score, Fiesta! has been performed over a 100 times worldwide and continues to be programmed regularly. Here’s what López wrote about it in 2008: “During recent years, eclecticism has become an important part of my musical language. The challenge of creating musically sensible interactions out of the juxtaposition of apparently incompatible musical sources—some of which result in unexpected contrasts—fascinates me. Fiesta! draws influences from several musical sources including: European academic compositional techniques, Latin American music, Afro-Peruvian music, and today’s pop music. It utilizes elaborate developmental techniques while keeping the primeval driving forces still latent in popular culture.” He went on to remark, “This is the first piece where I have made explicit use of elements from popular music, but it is certainly not the first time it’s being done. Composers from the past, especially during the Baroque, would write suites that would consist of a series of dances with names such as allemande, gigue, sarabande, etc. These dances were very popular at European courts: the nobles would gather and dance to the accompaniment of a small, instrumental ensemble-in-residence. Later on, some composers decided to use these dances and make them more sophisticated. That was part of my intention when picking up the genres that I mentioned earlier. I believe they have enough potential to justify further development, but always keeping those primeval driving forces present in them.”

THE WORLD — Elsewhere in 2007, Apple introduced the first iPhone, J.K. Rowling released the final book in the Harry Potter Series, Pratibha Patel was sworn in as India’s first female president, and Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum.

THE CONNECTION — This is the first time Jimmy López’s Fiesta! has been performed on a Sarasota Orchestra program.

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.