Elgar, Williams & Stravinsky: Oct 23-25, 2026
Edward Elgar
Introduction & Allegro
About the composer:
Edward Elgar 1857-1934 was an English composer who paved the path for Ralph Vaughan Williams and other English composers to make a sort of reawakening of English composition and style. He was largely self taught and a late starter. He enjoyed a fair amount of success during his lifetime but his music did wane in popular opinion and only found a revived sense of value in the mid 1900s. Other than the Cello Concerto, coming up on our season next month, his most famously popular works include the graduation hit Pomp and Circumstance, and the Enigma Variations.
About the music:
Edward Elgar composed Introduction and Allegro for Strings in 1905. It was premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra in an all-Elgar concert.
It's a very showy and extroverted piece of music scored for a solo string quartet of two violins, viola, and cello plus a string orchestra. In this way it reflects on the concerto grosso format in popular use during the Baroque and Classical eras. The ‘grosso’, or ‘large’, concerto is a sort of musical conversation between a small group of musicians within a larger group of musicians rather that between a single heroic soloist and a larger group that is normally associated with the term ‘concerto’.
Introduction and Allegro was an immediate success in Britain, and has remained a favorite for performance there. In fact, just before our first rehearsal this week, our British guest conductor Michael Francis very proudly stated “there is nothing that will make a string ensemble sound better than this piece will”. I mean… it’s great to have opinions and very sweet that he’s repping hard for his homeland. I told him so, and he doubled down on his statement even when I offered him Tchaikovsky’s and Dvorak’s Serenades to consider. :)
In Elgar’s own words: “Some three years ago in Cardiganshire I thought of writing a brilliant piece for string orchestra. On the cliff, between blue sea and blue sky, thinking out my theme, there came up to me the sound of singing. Fitting the need of the moment, I made the tune which appears in the Introduction (as a link) and in the Coda of this work … The sketch was forgotten until a short time ago, when it was brought to mind by hearing, far down our valley of the Wye, a song similar to that so pleasantly heard on Ynys Lochtyn. The singer of the Wye unknowingly reminded me of my sketch. This I have now completed, and, although there may be (and I hope there is) a Welsh feeling in the one theme … the work is really a tribute to that sweet borderland where I have made my home.”
The piece is very moody. There are sudden shifts of bright and dark, and a lot of hand wringing even with its beautiful moments. Since Elgar was known to have suffered from some mental illness similar to bipolar disorder, Michael Francis encouraged us to bring these wild mood swing elements out in the music.
A typical performance of Introduction and Allegro lasts about 15 minutes.
Resources:
John Williams
Concerto for horn
About the composer:
John Williams (1932 - ) is a US composer, conductor, and pianist primarily known for composing Hollywood film scores. He has won 27 Grammys, 5 Oscars, 7 BAFTAs, 3 Emmys, and 4 Golden Globes. After Walt Disney, he is the second most nominated person in Academy Award history with a staggering 54 nominations.
Williams has also written many concert pieces, including a symphony; a sinfonietta for wind ensemble; concertos for clarinet, cello, flute, violin, trumpet, bassoon, and most importantly for today’s chat a concerto for French horn.
He is one of the finest melody makers of the 20th and 21st centuries. His compositional style typically blends the romanticism of the 19th century and impressionism of the early 20th century with modern orchestration techniques.
About the music:
Concerto for Horn and Orchestra is a standard format concerto composition for solo horn and a large orchestra accompaniment. Williams wrote it in 2003 specifically for Dale Clevenger, the principal horn player of Chicago Symphony. The premiere performance took place that same year. It’s technically demanding of the performer, and Williams himself described it as a symphonic poem that explores a variety of colors and moods.
In Williams' own words:
"When I've tried to analyze my lifelong love of the french horn, I've had to conclude that it's mainly because of the horn's capacity to stir memories of antiquity. The very sound of the french horn conjures images stored in the collective psyche. It's an instrument that invites us to 'dream backward to the ancient time.'
Most cultures have had some form of horn in their histories. We remember the ram's horn Shofar, calling us to battle or prayer . . . or the conch, "fabled shell instrument of the Titans," or one can imagine the huge Viking horns that must have struck terror in the hamlets of northern Europe as the great ships were brought into the estuaries to begin their attacks. The horn stirs memories of fearful things, of powerful things, of noble and beautiful things!
In the first movement or section of my concerto, I begin with the distant pealing of the 'Angelus Bell', while the horn joins in, sending calls and signals to complete the picture.
This is followed by 'The Battle of the Trees', suggested by the famous Celtic poem of that name, which describes groves of trees transforming themselves into warriors and led in battle by the brave oak. The horn enters the fray, as the percussion section creates sounds of trunks, branches, and twigs all colliding in the struggle.
Nostalgia has been described as 'laundered memory' but our modern horn and oboe possess the power to produce it truly. They conjoin to 'dream backward' of a pristine glen in the third movement, 'Pastorale'.
In 'The Hunt', the horn plays its traditional role, getting the blood up, exhilarating the spirit and animating the chase.
Finally in 'Nocturne', the day's end grants repose and a simple song is offered.
With each movement title I've included a poetic quote, none of which is medieval, but simply chosen from writers that I've enjoyed, and in the music I have not deliberately adhered to, or purposely avoided, the modalities and grammar of medievalism. Instead I've written freely and with a sense of privilege and joy at working with the legendary horn player Dale Clevenger, who for so many years has been an inspiration to lovers and students, myself included, of the french horn."
A typical performance of the concerto lasts about 25 minutes.
resources:
Igor Stravinsky
The Firebird
DIVE IN!
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) was a Russian born composer, conductor, and pianist who immigrated to France in 1934 and then to the United States in 1945. He was very well established as a leading composer of the Modernist style growing out of the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, and continues to be one of the most highly regarded, influential, and most performed composers of the 20th century. This is true largely due to his fresh way of considering sounds, his use of tight punctuated rhythms, and his inventive new harmonies. He gained relatively early fame from the trio of large scale ballets he composed for Ballet Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). Stravinsky composed this ballet triptych in his Russian compositional period, during which time he was drawing frequently from Russian styles and folklore as he does very much for The Firebird.
About the Music:
Stravinsky was hired as a young and relatively unknown composer to write ballet music on The Firebird fairy tale by Ballet Russes director Sergei Diaghilev almost on a hunch alone after several previous composers declined or failed to produce. It was a major risk, but one that paid off in spades. The Firebird made Stravinsky an overnight international success and fundamentally altered the course of Ballet Russes as well.
The Firebird story tells of the downfall of a powerful, ogre-like figure of evil, through the intervention of a beautiful rare bird whosel feathers glitter and flicker like flames.
Stravinsky’s music is an engaging combination of orchestration techniques he learned from his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov along with Russian folk music. He loved The Firebird so much that he later created three different concert version which he also frequently conducted.
The most often performed of these is the 1919 version. No matter the version, this music still very clearly illustrates young Stravinsky at the doorstep of creating an entirely new sound world for symphonic expression.
For this performance the Colorado Symphony will be joined by Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company with new choreography for this original 1910 version of the complete 50 minute ballet.
Comments