Petrushka

A century ago this past May, Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev launched his Ballets Russes company in Paris, forever changing ballet – its music, choreography, décor,and capacity for innovation. He nurtured a number of the 20^th century’s most outstanding choreographers, such as Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, and George Balanchine; involved innovative composers and inspired them to expand the medium’s horizons, and their own – Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Serge Prokofiev, and others; and, even sought out world-famous iconoclastic painters for original and bold costume and scenery designs, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse being the most well-remembered. Ballets Russes lasted only 20 years, even if you count 1914-18 when World War I caused it to suspend operations entirely. It could not survive beyond the loss of its life force, Diaghilev’s passing in 1929 in Venice at age 57. From the very beginning, a great deal of the original music Diaghilev brought to the stage of Ballets Russes found a formidable presence as well in the concert hall, and it is in celebration of the centennial of the founding of this unique contribution that Maestro Lucas Richman concludes these KSO performances with Igor Stravinsky’s music for Petrushka from the third season of the Ballets Russes. During the company’s 20-year existence, Stravinsky composed specifically for it no fewer than seven ballet scores.

Prior to intermission, this KSO program of symphonic storytelling turns to works by Antonín Dvořák and Lucas Richman drawing inspiration from literary and dramatic sources.

An Overture to Blanche

Lucas Richman, born January 31, 1964, at Los Angeles.

Premiere: February 19, 1984 at the University of California at Los Angeles with the composer conducting.

KSO Performance History: This overture has been performed once before by the KSO on its Chamber Classics Series at the Bijou Theatre on May 13, 2007 with Lucas Richman conducting. The present performances are the first by the KSO on its Masterworks Series.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, tenor saxophone, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, suspended cymbal, high-hat cymbal, snare drum, drum set, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano, and strings.

Duration: 11 minutes.

George Gershwin was playing a game of pool when his brother Ira showed him the January 4, 1924 New York Herald Tribune report that he was “at work on a jazz concerto” for a Paul Whiteman concert taking place in less than six weeks. That was news to George, but the result was Rhapsody in Blue. Eighteen-year-old Lucas Richman must have felt somewhat like George Gershwin did in 1924 when, one day in 1982, his mother, Helen, who was in rehearsals as Blanche for an LA production of A Streetcar Named Desire, said: “I spoke to the director today about you. You are doing the music for Streetcar.” A daunting experience, no doubt, yet the young composer responded with a superb score for Dixieland jazz band and string quartet, a score most recently heard just last month in the University of Tennessee’s Clarence Brown Theatre production of Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning play.

The year following the LA production, Maestro Richman worked elements of his Streetcar score for full orchestra as An Overture to Blanche, writing at the time this brief note:

An Overture to Blanche is an expansion of a full score of incidental music that I wrote for a production of Tennessee Williams’s masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire. The music combines the Dixie-Jazz element of the New Orleans French Quarter with the contemporary classical fare. A plaintive melody which expresses the loneliness and sensitivity of the tragic Blanche DuBois is first stated by the saxophone in the form of a variation, to which was originally sung the words, “Late at night when children are asleep, whispering in the shadows all along the street, do the sounds of loneliness creep.” Subsequently introduced is a sardonic jazz melody that depicts the brutish character of Stanley Kowalski. Once into the allegro section, the third important motif is heard in a string quartet rendition of the Varsouviana, the simple waltz tune that is constantly reminding Blanche of her young husband’s suicide. Stanley’s theme comes to full force in a final conflict, overpowering the dreams and fantasies of Blanche, resulting in the breakdown of her sanity. The trumpet mockingly plays Blanche’s theme in the manner of a dirty blues, confirming Stanley’s destruction of the heroine’s trusting spirit.

Lucas Richman, 1983, Los Angeles

The Golden Spinning Wheel, Op. 109

Antonín Dvořák, born September 8, 1841, at Nelahozeves, a village on the Vltava River near Kralupy; died May 1, 1904, at Prague.

Premiere: The first performance of this symphonic poem took place privately June 3, 1896 in Prague with the Prague Conservatory Orchestra conducted by the conservatory’s director, Antonín Bennewitz. The first public performance was October 26, 1896 in London at The Richter Concerts in St. James’s Hall, Hans Richter conducting.

KSO Performance History: These are the first KSO performances of this work.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (one doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, harp and strings.

Duration: 27 minutes.

Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-70) was an early important figure in Czech nationalism through his research and writing. Although he arrived in Prague in 1831 to study law, he was soon preoccupied with matters of Czech culture and heritage. He began writing poetry in the Czech language based on indigenous folktales and legends in 1834, thirteen of which he published in 1853 as a collection entitled A Garland of National Folk Tales. This collection was extremely popular in Bohemia and was a favorite of Dvořák’s from an early age. Meanwhile, Erben collected more than 550 Folksongs in Bohemia published in three volumes from 1841 to ’45. In 1864 came his five-part collection of National Czech Songs and Rhymes. In 1850, Erben was appointed to the prestigious post of secretary of the archives in the National (Czech) Museum at Prague and, in the following year, was elected archivist for the City of Prague. Dvořák first turned to Erben’s Garlandcollection for use in a composition in his 1884 cantata, The Spectre’s Bride, Op.69.

The composer’s interest in Erben’s Garlandcollection was rekindled upon his return to Prague in 1895 following three years in America as director of New York City’s National Conservatory of Music. The absence surely heightened his interest in Erben’s poetic Czech folktales; and, although he completed them at different times throughout the year, Dvořák started work on his first four symphonic poems – the composer called them “orchestral ballads” – in January 1896, each based on one of Erben’s poems from the Garland collection: The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, The Wild Dove, and The Golden Spinning Wheel.

The Golden Spinning Wheel was the third of the four orchestral ballads to be completed, on April 25^th. As with many of Erben’s tales, The Golden Spinning Wheel was a rather gruesome one, and this, of course, impacts Dvořák’s musical depiction, as does the meter of Erben’s verses. Throughout this score, the pulse and rise and fall of the melodic lines suggest that the Erben’s verses could virtually be sung to this music. The Golden Spinning Wheel relates the tale of a young king who stops for a drink of water at a cottage where a young peasant girl, Dornicka, is at her spinning wheel. It is love at first sight, but Dornicka’s evil stepmother hatches a plan to substitute her own daughter, strikingly similar in appearance to Dornicka. The stepmother takes both girls deep into the forest, where Dornicka is murdered and dismembered. The stepmother sends her own daughter off to marry the king, sending with her Dornicka’s severed feet, hands and eyes with instructions to hide them at the castle. After the wedding – celebrated in Dvořák’s score with a sumptuous polka – the king is off to war. An old man discovers Dornicka’s body in a grotto in the woods. Determined to reunite all the body parts, he appears at the castle and, with the half-sister, exchanges a golden spinning wheel for Dornicka’s feet, hands and eyes. Upon the king’s return, the golden spinning wheel sings a song recounting the misdeeds of the stepmother and her daughter. The king rushes to the forest, finds Dornicka alive, and claims her as his true bride. Here, Dvořák ends his orchestral ballad; however, in Erben’s original the two evil-doers are savagely torn apart by wolves. In Dvořák’s score, the three principal characters are identified by recognizable leitmotifs: the young king by brass fanfares, Dornicka by lustrous flute figures, the two lovers together by soaring violins and, at times, by the clarinets, and the evil stepmother by the bassoon.

Petrushka (1947 version)

Igor Stravinsky, born June 17, 1882, at Oranienbaum; died April 6, 1971, at New York City.

Premiere: Petrushka, the second of three ground-breaking ballets produced by Serge Diaghilev’s Paris-based Ballets Russes for which Igor Stravinsky provided the scores between 1910 and ’13, premiered June 13, 1911 at the Théâtre du Châtelet with Pierre Monteux conducting.

KSO Performance History: This work has been performed by the KSO on only two previous programs. On January 23, 1968, during the orchestra’s 33^rd Season, it was conducted by David Van Vactor. Performances on February 21 and 22, 1991 were conducted by Kirk Trevor.

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (one doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (one doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle xylophone, cymbals, tamtam, tambourine, bass drum with attached cymbal, suspended cymbal, 3 snare drums, harp, celesta, piano, and strings.

Duration: 34 minutes.

Stravinsky came up with the idea of Petrushka as a concert work in summer 1910 at a time when Diaghilev expected him to be at work on the ballet music commissioned for The Rite of Spring. So, when Diaghilev visited the composer in Lausanne near summer’s end, he found him at work on something else altogether. As Stravinsky played at least two sequences of the Petrushka music on piano, however, the impresario immediately recognized its dramatic possibilities for a ballet, extended a commission on the spot, agreed to the production of Petrushka before that of The Rite of Spring,and the two began fleshing out the ballet’s theme of the puppet’s sufferings and even the scene of the action – the Shrovetide Fair in St. Petersburg, a Russian carnival that takes place in the three days before Ash Wednesday, somewhat analogous to Mardi Gras. The score was completed in May 1911.

Almost immediately after Petrushka’s premiere, Stravinsky took to retouching the score here and there; but, in 1946 he thoroughly reviewed the music anew. Whereas the original was written primarily in terms of a ballet score, the version Stravinsky published in 1947 was more in terms of concert performance. The primary wind instruments were reduced from aggregations of 4s to 3s. There were numerous time signature and metronome changes, parts of many individual instruments were altered (the piano part, especially, was extended in several places), and music figures harmonic in origin were done afresh along contrapuntal lines (challenging to the ears, but a bit thick for dancing). There were also, admittedly, financial reasons for making the revision. Stravinsky had become an American citizen in 1945 and could now better protect his rights and income to “new” works with a U.S. copyright, which does not expire on this version until at least 2042. Also, the new autograph created was sold for a substantial sum in 1948 to a collector at a sale in Zurich.

Both the 1911 and 1947 scores were prefaced with the same synopsis, the synopsis being printed in Russian and French in the 1911 score; and, in the 1947 score it was printed in French and English. The synopsis was written by the composer and one of Diaghilev’s set designers, Alexandre Benois. The following is a free summary of the 1947 English synopsis:

Tableau I. (The Admiralty Square, St. Petersburg, during the 1830s. It is a sunny winter’s day. The scene shows a corner of the Shrovetide Fair and, at its center, the Charlatan’s little puppet theatre.) Crowds of people, some with children, are strolling all about taking in the fair, its attractions and sales stalls. Drunkards are arm-in-arm, and rival street dancers are accompanied by hurdy-gurdies and musicboxes. As the street dancers retire, an old Oriental Charlatan jumps out through the curtains of his little theatre. The curtains are drawn back to reveal three puppets hanging on their hooks – Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Moor. With his flute, the Charlatan charms the puppets to life – at first jiggling on their hooks, but then, stepping down among the astonished audience to perform a wild Russian dance.

Tableau II. (Petruska’s Cell. On the wall is a portrait of the Charlatan scowling.) Petrushka rails against his fate and grotesque appearance. He is in love with the Ballerina, who briefly appears, but she is frightened away by his strange behavior. In despair, Petrushka curses the Charlatan, hurling himself at his portrait.

Tableau III. (The Moor’s Cell.) The Moor captivates the Ballerina with his magnificent costume, and she dances for and with the Moor to a pair of waltzes. Enraged by jealousy, Petrushka bursts in, but is handily thrown out by the Moor.

Tableau IV. (The Fair, as in Tableau I.) It is evening and the festivities are at their height. Groups of people are dancing about: wet nurses, coachmen and grooms, masqueraders, even a peasant with a bear. A merchant with a concertina and accompanied by two gypsies scatters banknotes among the crowd. At the climax of the revelry, a tremendous commotion is heard from the Charlatan’s theatre as the rivalry between the puppets takes a fatal turn. Petrushka bolts from the theatre, hotly pursued by the Moor who slays him with a single blow of his scimitar. As Petrushka dies, it begins to snow on the crowd that has gathered. All are appalled and, while the Charlatan assures the assembly that the puppet was simply wood and straw, Petrushka’s ghost appears on the theatre’s roof, jeering and mocking everyone the Charlatan has fooled.

Notes by Rudy Ennis