Fourth Concert of the 50th Season

Introduction and March of the Royal Lion -- Hens and Cocks -- Wild Donkeys -- Tortoises -- The Elephant -- Kangaroos -- The Aquarium -- Persons With Long Ears -- The Cuckoo -- Aviary -- Pianists -- Fossils -- The Swan -- Finale

The Great Gate of Kiev

I. Overture
II. Menuett
III. Gavotte
IV. Fanfare
V. March

Saint-Saëns was an extraordinarily prolific composer who worked in a surprising variety of media, including film music. Oddly enough, The Carnival of the Animals, one of his most popular compositions, was written as an occasional piece, not to be played more than once (for a Mardi Gras celebration). Saint-Saëns considered it lightweight stuff, indeed. It is certainly playful. It is in the form of a suite, each movement of which has a characterictic mood. They are as follows:

1. Introduction and Royal March of the Lions
This begins with piano trills, steadily growing faster, and culminating with a piano fanfare, appropriately pompous for a lion. Then the regal march begins, with the pianos making runs like lion-roars. The strings take over the roars to the accompaniment of oriental tinkling on the pianos. Finally, the pianos resume the "roars."

2. Hens and Cocks
This is very "imitative," with the unmistakable pecking of the hens and the cock-a-doodle-do of the roosters.

3. Wild Jackasses
Here there is wild scampering of the pianos up and down the scales, forming a striking contrast with what is to follow.

4. Tortoises
Here is the first of many quotations from other composers. Saint-Saëns has taken the lively Can-can from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld and turned it into a ponderous melody suitable for the tortoise.

5. The Elephant
A similar joke has been played on Berlioz, as his delicate Dance of the Sylphes has been slowed, and given over to the double-basses for the dance of the elephants.

6. Kangaroos
Kangaroos is a piece for the pianos alone. The springy bounce of the animals is perfectly suggested.

7. The Aquarium
Here, the sinuous gliding of the silvery fish through shimmering water is suggested by piano arpeggios and tinkling cascades of the piano, aided by the xylophone.

8. Personages with Long Ears
We immediately hear the braying of the donkeys, a sly jab at Saint-Saëns' detractors.

9. The Cuckoo in the Forest
There is a slow, deliberate series of piano chords recalling Gregorian Chant, but which may be intended to suggest the swing of a pendulum. The clarinet plays the role of the cuckoo.

10. Aviary
Rapid flutterings of the flutes cleverly evoke the twittering of birds.

11. Pianists
All piano students and their parents will recognize the monotonous running of scales in different keys.

12. Fossils
The "fossils" here are the old war-horses trotted out for every summer concert at the town park. Works of several well-known composers are parodied. The first is a parody of Saint-Saëns' own work, Danse Macabre, about skeletons dancing in the graveyard. The xylophone plays the role of the dancing bones there, as well as here, the bony "fossils" being the old tunes.

After parodying his own music, Saint-Saëns turns his attention to a series of well-known French folk-songs. The first is J'ai du bon tabac ...The second is Ah Vous dirai je Maman ... The third is Au clair de la Lune ... The fourth, Going to Syria ..., and the last, a reference to The Barber of Seville, by Rossini.

13. The Swan
This is the only section Saint-Saëns allowed to be played during his lifetime, after the initial performance. It has become a favorite of cello performers.

14. Finale is an exuberant romp, recapitulating some of the pieces we have heard, and involving the entire orchestra.

Mussorgsky was a member of the great "Russian Five," together with Balakiref, Cui, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov, and as such, was a nationalist. Like them, he was strongly attracted to Russian folklore; folk songs influenced his music, and folk tales served as the literary basis for much of his work.

There seem to be three attributes to Mussorgsky. Some think he was merely a gifted amateur, and put some of the peculiarities of his music down to ignorance of established procedures. Others think he did everything deliberately, but was so far ahead of his time that he was simply not understood. Still others believe that he should be admired for his originality, but his musical illiteracy must be recognized. Perhaps there is a fourth point of view: he might have been a great composer if he hadn't been an alcoholic. Tolstoy remarked that he "...liked neither talented drunks nor drunken talents."

Mussorgeky's most popular work is Pictures at an Exhibition. It was written as a piano piece, but is best known in the orchestrated version by Maurice Ravel. It is a work with sufficient developmental potential as to provoke a number of people to provide their own orchestrations. In addition to the most famour one by Ravel, there were versions by Calilliet, Leonardi, Wood, Stokowski, and most recently an electronic version by Tomita. The orchestration we hear today, patterned closely after Ravel's, is by Bruno Reibold.

The work is a suite of tonal "pictures" unified by a "promenade" theme, as though the composer were strolling from one picture to another. The pictures in question were all by Vladimir Hartmann, who died in 1873, and whose retrospective exhibition was attended by his intimate friend, Mussorgsky.

The selection we are to hear today, "The Great Gate of Kiev," was based on an architectural drawing by Hartmann. A pageant of Russian history passes through the gate. This dramatic, richly orchestrated section provides a fitting conclusion to the suite, honoring both Hartmann and the Russian people.

Lully was born in Florence, but was taken as an adolescent to France under the sponsorship of the Chavelier de Guise. He was so adept at the violin and the dance that he came to the attention of Louis XIV, and soon became a favorite. He married well, and through great business acumen, he amassed a considerable fortune, buying much real estate near Paris.

He seems to have led a life of debauchery, characteristic of much of the aristocracy of the period, and only his immense charm kept him out of serious trouble. Shortly before he died, his priest agreed to give him absolution only if he burnt a manuscript which the Church deemed offensive. Lully did so, only to reveal shortly after the priest left that he had another copy! Lully has the distinction of being the only composer known to have beaten himself to death. He was conducting his Te Deum with such enthusiasm that he banged his toe with his baton (a wooden staff, really). The injury festered, blood-poisoning developed, and Lully died.

Lully was a remarkable composer who did much for the development of music at that time. He worked a great deal with Moliere, and produced music for many of his plays, most notable Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, in which he also acted. They teamed up to produce a number of mythological ballets in which Lully danced, often with Louis XIV as partner.

Lully's early operas were Italianate, but soon he adopted the French manner, made it his own, and originated new procedures. He abandoned the recitativo secco in favor of recitative that was attractively accompanied. He related the music to the word much more closely, and he established the so-called French Overture, so much imitated by the Germans and the English. Unlike the rival Italian Overture, this begins slowly and ends at a fast pace. The practice was adopted by Handel for the opening of The Messiah.

The King's Musicians is a suite divided into the following movements:

I. Overture
II. Menuett
III. Gavotte
IV. Fanfare
V. March

Leroy Anderson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1908, and died in Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1975. He is best known for his attractive melodies and jaunty rhythms in such pieces as Sleighride and The Syncopated Clock.

Anderson studied composition at Harvard with Georges Enesco and Walter Piston. He was a linguist, specializing in German and Scandinavian languages, and served with the U.S. Intelligence in Iceland and in the U.S. during the Second World War. In addition to the well-known pieces mentioned, he wrote a number of short works for unusual "instruments" such as the typewriter and sandpaper.

Mitch Leigh was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale, and spent the early part of his career writing television and radio commercials. He then founded a company for the production of commercials.

Although he has written a number of stage works, Chu Chem (1966), Cry for Us All (1970), Odyssey (1974), and Sarava (1978), the only work to receive notable success was Man of La Mancha.

As practically everyone knows, the "Man" in question is Don Quixote. The musical is based on his most famous of characters of the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.

Reunion Orchestra Personnel