Oct 13-15, 2023

Camille saint-saëns
Bacchanale from Samson et Delilah

DIVE IN!
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921 ) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic era. In addition to the Bacchanale his best known works include Carnival of the Animals, Symphony #3 (nicknamed the Organ Symphony), and - special for Halloween family concerts everywhere - Danse Macabre. Bacchanale is a fun concert opener which nicely compliments the Khatchaturian and Shostakovich works on the program.

RESOURCES:

A live performance by the National Orchestra of France

Just for fun because it's the spooky month. :)

HIGHLIGHTS:
Bacchanale is part of the opera Samson et Delilah, composed in 1877. It features in the final act when Delilah mocks Samson with a wild and provocative dance.

The piece opens with an oboe solo that suggests some serious drama and storytelling before the dance really gets going in the orchestra.

Part of the allure of this music is due to its use of something called an "augmented 2nd", which is an interval between two adjacent notes in a scale that would otherwise be fairly close but the space between them has been stretched a bit, or augmented, to mimic an eastern European/Northern African/Middle Eastern sounding scale.

A typical performance lasts about 7 minutes.

Enjoy listening!
Aram khatchaturian
violin concerto

DIVE IN!
Aram Khatchaturian (1903-1978) was a Soviet Armenian composer and pianist from the middle Romantic era. His style is "characterized by colorful harmonies, captivating rhythms, virtuosity, improvisations, and sensuous melodies". Violin Concerto is one of his most popular large ensemble works along with the Sabre Dance from his ballet Gayane.

RESOURCES:

A recording of the first movement, featuring guest artist Nemanja Radulovic.

Armenian folk song Qele Qele - "Strolling", also "Stalk Along" - to compare to the opening of the first movement

HIGHLIGHTS:
Aram Khatchaturian composed Violin Concerto in 1940 when he was 37 years old, and just 4 years after his Piano Concerto brought him recognition internationally as a major composer.

Violin Concerto is in three movements. The first is and third are filled with folk flavored fiddle flashiness, and the second movement is dripping with evocative sensual melodies.

Right away in the first movement, about 15 or 20 seconds into it, you'll hear material that sounds VERY similar to the Armenian folk song 'Qele, Qele'. While it's not confirmed that Khatchaturian purposely included this tune it's hard to argue that he wasn't influenced by his own cultural heritage.

A typical performance of Violin Concerto lasts about 40 minutes.

NERD ASSIGNMENTS!

Start with a Conversation:
A concerto is a type of musical form that creates dialogue and drama between a single instrument or small group of instruments, and a much larger group of instruments. What exactly is dialogue? How is dialogue made? Think about constructing a brief dialogue between two people. What can you do to alter this dialogue so that one participant becomes a whole group of people? What are some examples of this type of dialogue you can think of in your every day life? [call and response in pep rallies, a religious service, etc.] Now imagine what it might be like if each person in the large group had an individual response in this dialogue. Would we be able to understand all the responses simultaneously? In music, many different sounds (often called ‘voices’) can be processed simultaneously by the human ear. Because of this it’s possible to have a two part musical dialogue with many individual voices!

Try an Activity!
Go ahead and dive down that internet rabbit hole! Listen to at least three different recordings of Aram Khatchaturian's Violin Concerto for comparison and contrast. How do you find the interpretation of different soloists and orchestras affect the overall piece of music? What specific things do you notice? Do you have any favorite interpretations or moments? What draws you toward some and/or turns you away from others?

Listening for dialogue and interpretation
Listen to the performance live and again via recording if possible. Try to listen carefully for musical dialogue and dramatic interpretive elements in this composition. How did the conversation and comparison/contrast activities help you to better engage as a listener?
Dmitri shostakovich
Symphony #5

DIVE IN!
Dmitri Shostakovich is one of the most influential and revered composers of the 20th century, and his Symphony #5 is holds a similar place of honor. It is easily his best known work, captivating listeners with the same intensity of engagement after multiple hearings as the first. Enjoy learning about Shostakovich and the piece, and listening to your Colorado Symphony’s performance.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Dmitri Shostakovich composed Symphony #5 in just 4 months during 1937 when he was 31 years old. It was premiered in Leningrad that same year and was an immediate success.

Symphony #5 lasts for about 45 minutes and is in four movements, or musical chapters. The symphony follows a traditional structure of fast paced outer movements with dance form and slow inner movements.

Symphony #5 was unusual in that it was considered successful by both the public and by official Stalinist regime music critics. Authorities who had previously threatened Shostakovich for composing anti-Stalinist music found he had conformed to their requirements, while the general public heard it clearly expressing their point of view of suffering under Stalin’s regime.

Shostakovich’s score calls for 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 clarinets and E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, a whole bunch of percussion - snare drum, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, 2 harps, piano, and celesta - and the usual string section of violins, violas, cellos, and basses.

Random fun fact: No matter how young or old he is in his photos, people always seem to note that Shostakovich resembles Harry Potter.

RESOURCES:

A live performance recording of the full symphony

LISTENING MAP:
Movement 1: Moderato - Allegro non troppo (in English: Moderate - Quick but not too much)
The first music we hear is a quick rising and falling gesture in the strings which is layered in such a way as to sound like a very stressed out round or canon. It feels a little like we’ve happened upon a story partway into its telling. Then we hear the violins playing a broad lyrical main theme. A second theme built around a less stressful sounding version of the opening rising and falling gesture is introduced by the violas beginning in their higher pitch range and then descending to a cello hand-off. These two themes become the subject of experimentation in the middle section of the piece from different instruments playing in different styles before they are returned near the end to their original state. The music finishes with a fade-out on the celesta.

Movement 2: Allegretto (in English: Less quick)
This movement is in a standard three part, or ABA, form in which we start and finish with similar music. It begins with a deliciously dark dance rhythm set up for us in the basses followed by a cascade of various wind instruments carrying the melody over to the strings before a rather manic sounding outburst, complete with snare drum recalling an odd march quality. This dissolves into a deceptively sweet bit of music featuring lighter instruments in a music box style before returning to the original heavy dark dance. Here the opening music is presented again in the bassoons and pizzicato strings with a great effect of experiencing it through a hyper magnifying glass, and then another outburst sends us back into manic carnival mode.

Movement 3: Largo (in English: Broad)
For this powerfully emotional slow movement, Shostakovich splits the string sections into multiple parts throughout. Rather than the usual 2 violin parts there are 3. Violas, cellos, and basses are all split into 2 parts instead of the usual 1. He begins the opening theme with the 3rd violins. The other two sections are slowly layered in and continue to unfold the melody for us. This music has a paler quality to the sound partially due to Shostakovich deciding against using brass instruments and only limited percussion. There are haunting solos and duets of wind instruments over a shivering violin sound. Later, hymn-like music accompanies these solos, further drawing us into this introspection. There is tension introduced with layered strings before the shivering music returns and a more searing version of the melodic material is introduced. The movement ends much the way it began, with a more inward feeling to it, and on a tentative beautiful unexpected major chord.

Movement 4: Allegro non troppo (in English: Quick but not too much)
This final movement starts off with a bang and proceeds to take us on a journey through textures, styles, and moods right through to the triumphant sounding ending. Shostakovich incorporates themes from the previous movements as well as introducing new ideas. The twists and turns that this material makes are possibly most evident in his presentation of those ideas over a foreboding and somewhat funereal march. He wraps everything up by pushing the music through to a major key ending in a forceful sounding way, leaving it open to interpretation whether we are authentically feeling in a better place or made to exhibit it falsely.

CONSIDER AND DISCUSS:
Shostakovich lived in a difficult time to be an expressive creator. During the time Stalin was in power in Russia, all art needed to be turned toward pro Stalin propaganda or its creator would be denounced and possibly imprisoned or killed. It’s challenging for Americans to fully comprehend the level to which writers, artists, composers, choreographers, and other creatives had to hide their true voice within their work during this time. Our era of McCarthyism comes close, but the United States’ collective cultural trait of stubborn optimism differs substantially from that of Russian cultural traits that have been trained to look for encoded messages in support of truth, even if it confirms tragedy and suffering.
Shostakovich composed his 5th symphony at just 31 years old, after he had become influential as a rising star composer, but before his career had been fully established. He had received harsh criticism from the government for works just prior to Symphony #5 and was therefore treading very very carefully to compose music that would speak to the Russian people at the same time it would mollify official Stalinist regime art critics. He was writing for his life, but also to respect the lives and the cultural expression of his community. Amazingly, in Symphony #5 he managed to successfully do both. Regime officials bought into his PR spin, their official critics determined he had upheld the required artistic pro Stalin standards, and the people heard their own truths of suffering and resilience reflected in the music.

TRY - Storytelling With Hidden Messages
If this was your first time listening to Shostakovich’s Symphony #5 and you knew nothing about the history of its creation you might almost hear it as grand scale adventure story with a LOT of drama, a few brief hopeful moments, and all of a sudden a quick happy ending. Take a moment to recall a story from your youth that wraps up with some version of “and they all lived happily ever after”. Usually there’s some wild and scary stuff happening in that story. Really awful villains making a lot of really awful trouble for a really long time, and then the hero pops up and does something good and the story is over just like that! Shostakovich wrote his music with hidden messages just like some of these stories have. What do you think might happen in the story or stories you’ve recalled if they didn’t end with “and they all lived happily ever after”? What happens the next day? How are the characters in the story affected by their experiences? What about their families, their communities? Gather your nerd buddies and have a contest to come up with some alternate “what happens next” endings! Set a timer and work quickly without thinking too much about it. Compare your alternate endings and discuss their similarities or differences. Go ahead and argue for which you think are the best and why! Now think about Shostakovich’s Symphony #5. Was he writing a true “happily ever after” ending or do you think he had more story to tell? If there’s more to the story how do you think he might’ve told it in music? How would you write the story of YOUR life in music? Give it a try!

LISTENING:
Now that you’ve had a chance to consider, discuss, and get active around Shostakovich’s Symphony #5 it’s time to listen to the Colorado Symphony performance. There are all sorts of ways to engage as a listener, especially when listening at home instead of the concert hall. Sing/hum/whistle along, move and dance, journal or draw what you hear, or just turn the volume up and listen for sheer pleasure!
Please share your experience with me! I would love to hear about it or see any of your activities, journaling, or creations!

What educational resource website would be complete without including photos of Shostakovich, Khatchaturian, and Beeson with pigs?