Lachrymae, Opus 48a
Benjamin Britten
(b. Lowestoft, England, 1913; d. Aldeburgh, England, 1976)
One of the more interesting aspects of twentieth-century composition
is its complex and fertile relationship with the musical past. More than at
any previous time, composers in the modern period had knowledge of and access
to the works of previous centuries, and they frequently entered into creative
dialogues with their musical forebears. Some sought to update eighteenth-century
forms and styles as an antidote to what they felt was the overblown rhetoric
of the late Romantic era; Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony and Stravinsky's
ballet Pulcinella may be the most famous examples of this practice, but they
are far from unique. Other composers went further, appropriating not only
certain style traits but actual compositions from the old masters. Schoenberg
and Webern, for example, made transcriptions of Handel and Bach that are so
far-reaching that they must be considered original compositions rather than
just orchestrations. The same may be said of Richard Strauss« Divertimento
after keyboard pieces of Couperin. Stravinsky reworked music by Bach, Pergolesi,
Tchaikovsky and Gesualdo. More recently Lukas Foss, Luciano Berio, Jacob
Druckman and other composers have recycled older music in imaginative ways.
And then there was Benjamin Britten, the leading English composer of the
last century. Britten, too, took a lively interest in music from earlier periods.
As a pianist and conductor, he often performed works by Schubert, Mozart
and Bach. Not surprisingly, though, he was especially drawn to older English
composers, and his involvement with their work went beyond simply performing
it. Britten devoted considerable energy on behalf of Henry Purcell (1659-1695),
the foremost English composer of the Baroque period. He transcribed two of
Purcell's best-known instrumental pieces, the Chacony in G Minor and the
"Golden" Sonata, for modern instruments; realized from Purcell's figured-bass
shorthand the keyboard accompaniments for a collection of songs; and helped
prepare modern editions of two of Purcell's major dramatic compositions, Dido
and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen.
Another early English master much admired by Britten was the composer and
lutenist John Dowland (1563-1626). Britten's interaction with Dowland's music
was less extensive than with Purcell's, but more creative and original. Specifically,
it produced the composition that opens our program, the Lachrymae for viola
and string orchestra, Opus 48a.
Britten initially wrote this piece in 1950 as a work for viola and piano.
He created it for the great English violist William Primrose, reportedly to
induce Primrose's participation in the fledgling music festival the composer
had organized in his seaside village of Aldeburgh (though Britten surely had
more purely aesthetic purposes in mind also). More than a quarter-century
later, in 1976, Britten arranged the piano accompaniment for string orchestra
to create an alternative version of the work. It is this later setting, which
features the viola as essentially a concerto soloist, that we hear this evening.
Britten subtitled this composition "Reflections on a Song of Dowland." It
is, in fact, written as a set of loose variations on "If My Complaint Could
Passions Move," one of the love-lorn laments at which Dowland excelled. (This
and the quotation of a second melancholy song by Dowland account for the title
Lachrymae, or "Tears.") Being a modern work, Lachrymae does not present the
kind of strict strophic variations of its subject melody that we would find
in a theme-and-variations set by Beethoven or Schubert, for example, with
the harmonic skeleton and phrase structure of the theme preserved in each
successive paraphrase. Rather, it unfolds as a set of brief character pieces,
each based on a melodic fragment of Dowland's song.
Britten introduces Dowland«s melody in allusive fashion during the
opening moments of the piece, the solo viola musing on the first three or
four notes of the song against a muted and sometimes tremulous accompaniment
from the string choir. Then the cellos and a single bass, playing pizzicato,
pluck out a variant of the song melody (or part of it, anyway), while the
solo instrument provides atmospheric harmonies. The ensuing "reflections"—Britten's
somewhat vague term is perhaps more appropriate than "variations"—explore
not only the possibilities for elaborating Dowland's melody in a modern style
but also a wide range of string sonority. Among the more striking developments
are a running pizzicato line for the solo viola punctuated by organ-like chords;
the use of sul ponticello bowing, which produces a strangely metallic tone
quality, by both soloist and ensemble; and harmonics, with their glassy, whistling
tone. In one reflection, the ensemble plays agitated figures based on "If
My Complaint" while the solo instrument quotes from another of Dowland«s
songs, the famous "Flow My Tears."
Through all this, Britten has offered only fleeting glimpses of the song
melody on which the composition is based, and even then, the tune has generally
been obscured or distorted by modern turns of line and harmony. If the various
sections of Lachrymae are indeed "reflections" of Dowland«s song, the
mirrors in which the melody appears are bent and blemished. The tenth paraphrase
begins as another fantasy using motifs from the song theme, both the solo
viola«s moto perpetuo passagework and the much slower lines of the string
ensemble being derived from the initial measures of "If My Complaint." But
after quickly reaching a climactic point, the tone changes dramatically, as
first the solo instrument and then the accompanying strings turn to a straightforward
rendition of the song. In the end, Britten even harmonizes the melody in
Dowland«s manner, revealing at last the theme of the preceding variations
in its pristine form.
Symphony No. 8 in C Minor
Anton Bruckner
"Halleluja! At last the Eighth is finished, and my artistic father must
be the first to receive news of it . . . May it find grace." So wrote Anton
Bruckner on his sixty-third birthday to the man he had come to call his künstlerischer
Vater, the conductor Hermann Levi. The composer had reason to feel jubilant.
He had begun composing his Eighth Symphony more than three years earlier,
in 1884. By the summer of 1885 he had completed an initial draft of the work,
and a few days later gave it a preview of sorts by using themes from the symphony
in an extended organ improvisation at Saint Florian, the Baroque-era monastery
near Linz where Bruckner had attended school, worked as an organist and still
preferred to spend his summer vacations. The recital at Saint Florian did
not, however, mean that completion of the symphony was close at hand. Bruckner
spent the next two years refining, polishing and orchestrating the music.
The extent of this labor was prompted by the scope of the composition. Bruckner
had conceived his new symphony on a huge scale, one that surpassed even his
previous efforts, these having already extended the dimensions of symphonic
writing to unprecedented lengths. Moreover, the work entailed an intricate
and comprehensive elaboration of its thematic material, a quality that necessitated
both its spacious architecture and the composer's utmost powers of musical
invention.
Bruckner placed great hope in the approval of his "artistic father." Levi
had risen to prominence as one of the great conductors of his generation through
his performances of music by Richard Wagner, a composer whom Bruckner worshipped
with almost embarrassing fervor. His association with the author of The Ring
cycle and Parsifal gave Levi an exalted stature in Bruckner's eyes, and this
high regard combined with gratitude to produce an all but worshipful reverence
after the conductor took to championing his music. In March 1885 Levi led
a triumphant performance in Munich of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, overcoming
considerable resistance within the Munich orchestra to do so. He then organized
a collection to pay for publication of that work and the composer's Fourth
Symphony. In 1886 Levi scored another important success on Bruckner's behalf
with a performance of the composer's Te Deum.
In view of this, it is understandable that in 1887 Bruckner's elation at
believing the Eighth Symphony was at last finished was matched by his certainty
that his "artistic father" would receive the new work as enthusiastically
as he had the Seventh Symphony and Te Deum. As it happened, the composer was
wrong on both counts: his labors over the Eighth Symphony were far from over,
since Levi, after perusing the score, refused to perform it. Levi was one
of the few musicians of his day able to grasp the tremendous sweep of Bruckner's
compositional thinking, but the new symphony outstripped even his powers
of apprehension. Knowing how greatly the composer revered him, and knowing
also of Bruckner's shaky confidence and chronic doubts about his own worth
as an artist, Levi decided not to communicate his decision directly to Bruckner
but instead asked Joseph Schalk, Bruckner's pupil and assistant, to break
the news to his teacher as gently as possible. Schalk surely did so, but
he could do little to cushion the blow. Bruckner was used to adverse reception
of his music. He had suffered scathing reviews of nearly all his earlier
symphonies, but these verdicts had been delivered by critics openly hostile
to him. The incomprehension of someone Bruckner thought to be a kindred musical
soul was another matter. How badly Bruckner took Levi's rejection can be
gathered from Schalk's reply to Levi: "Your news came as a great blow to
Professor Bruckner. He is still unhappy about it and will not be comforted
. . . I hope he will soon calm down and start rewriting the composition in
light of your advice . . . At present it would be better for him not to work,
since he is agitated and in despair about himself, with no self-confidence
whatsoever."
As Schalk's remarks indicate, Levi had suggested that some revision of the
symphony might win it his approval. The proposal to rework the score was endorsed
by Schalk and others within the circle of Bruckner's friends, students and
admirers. Stung by Levi's verdict and seeing no alternative, Bruckner eventually
undertook a revision of the symphony, and did so with a vengeance. Over the
course of the next three years he cut substantial sections of the work and
rewrote others. For the first movement he composed a new ending, quite different
in tone from the original, and for the scherzo an entirely new trio section.
He altered much of the orchestration and many details related to texture,
harmonic shading and other matters. Much of the rewriting was done with the
help of Joseph Schalk. (In addition, Bruckner, suddenly uncertain of his
earlier achievements, now felt moved to perform similar operations on his
first four symphonies also, but that is another story.)
Most of the alteration of the Eighth Symphony was performed over the course
of a year, beginning in the spring of 1889. When it was concluded, Bruckner
had in hand two significantly different versions of the composition: the original,
completed in 1887 and rejected in the autumn of that year by Hermann Levi;
and the revision, fashioned with a good deal of input from Joseph Schalk and
finished in the spring of 1890. The later rendition served as the basis for
a performance in Vienna in December 1892, conducted by Hans Richter, who
was coming to replace Levi as the foremost champion of Bruckner's music. That
performance proved perhaps the greatest triumph of the composer's career.
The audience received the symphony with tremendous applause, and even some
members of Vienna's critical press, heretofore overtly hostile to Bruckner,
found reason to praise the symphony. (The most enthusiastic review was by
Hugo Wolf, a composer openly partisan on Bruckner's behalf, who declared that
"this symphony is the creation of a giant, surpassing in spiritual dimension,
fertility and grandeur all other symphonies by this master.") Among those
attending the premiere was Austria's Emperor Franz Joseph I, who was sufficiently
moved that he offered to finance printing of the work with funds from his
private purse.
This revised version of the symphony has served as the basis for nearly
all subsequent performances of the work. Although the original score of 1887
was finally published in 1973, there seems little chance of it supplanting
the later rendition, which most musicians and Bruckner specialists regard
as superior on various accounts. There are two competing editions of the 1890
revision, but the differences between them are slight when compared to the
original 1887 score. (Our performance uses the edition of the 1890 score
by the Bruckner scholar Robert Haas.)
Although laid out on an extremely large scale, the Eighth Symphony presents
the familiar four-movement symphonic profile: opening, scherzo, slow movement
and finale. The symphony commences with a theme given out in disjointed phrases
over a sustained pedal tone in the low strings. Initially it is quiet, almost
mysterious in tone, but it soon gathers momentum and asserts itself with elemental
force. We hear in this theme echoes of Bruckner's most important influences,
Beethoven and Wagner. The progression from hushed opening measures filled
with tentative phrases to a ringing statement of the theme is clearly patterned
on the start of the former composer's Ninth Symphony. (Subliminal references
to Beethoven's last symphony recur elsewhere in Bruckner's work, as we shall
see.) At the same time, the music's strong chromatic inflections, and the
feeling of harmonic restlessness these inevitably convey, reveal the extent
to which Bruckner had absorbed Wagner's tonal language.
If this initial subject bears the impress of the two brightest stars in
Bruckner's musical heaven, the second subject shows a distinctly Brucknerian
characteristic: a lyrical idea rising in sequences in the violins, it makes
conspicuous use of duple followed by triplet rhythms, a pattern so frequently
encountered in the composer's work that it is widely referred to as the "Bruckner
rhythm." One further subject completes the thematic exposition, a march-like
idea given out by the horns and woodwinds over pizzicato figures in the strings,
followed at once by descending scales in the brass. The length of this movement
forbids guiding the listener with any detailed account of the development
of these themes. Suffice it to say that Bruckner's treatment of his subjects
during the central portion of the movement relies to an unusual extent on
the process of melodic inversion, the contours of both the first and second
themes falling where they originally rose, and vice versa.
For the first time in his career as a symphonist, Bruckner places the scherzo
before the slow movement, an order first followed by Beethoven in his Ninth
Symphony. The movement is pervaded by a rising motif of five notes. Bruckner
called this figure der Deutscher Michel, "the German Michael," an embodiment
of the plain, hearty, long-enduring and honest, if not particularly refined,
German peasantry. The initial and closing sections of the movement's broad
three-part design convey "Michael's" robust energy, while in the intervening
central section, or trio, he contemplates the bucolic countryside that is
his home.
The slow third movement is the longest portion of the symphony and in every
way its center of gravity, a point of musical architecture that further bespeaks
the influence of Beethoven's Ninth. Its initial paragraph entails richly textured
string writing. Ensuing thematic ideas include a highly poetic melody for
the cellos and a chorale-like theme assigned to the brass. Bruckner's attention
alternates from one theme to another over long spans of time, his exploration
of each idea in turn taking on the quality of a loving meditation, but building
to a tremendous climax shortly before the close.
Only an expansive finale would not sound misplaced after such a slow movement
as we have just heard. Accordingly, the symphony's closing chapter presents
an epic journey through varied melodic ideas and far-flung harmonic terrain.
Bruckner begins with a theme of tremendous power, given out by the brass over
a pulsating ostinato in the strings. Subsequent material includes a deeply
tender theme for the strings and a solemn march. At least one commentator
has noted a resemblance between the initial subject and the "Siegfried" motif
in Wagner's Ring operas. These two ideas do share a heroic character as well
as a similar rhythmic profile, and soon there comes a brief cadential figure,
featuring horn and clarinets, reminiscent of the "Rhine" motif from the same
Wagnerian source. But more significant thematic references lie in store. Late
in the movement the trumpets proclaim an assertive version of the theme heard
at the start of the first movement, its reappearance all the more striking
for being surrounded by rapturous string sonorities. Then, in the coda, Bruckner
quotes themes from each of the previous movements. By this time, the music's
manifold harmonic tensions have resolved finally and for good in the bright
light of C major.
—Paul Schiavo
