Einojuhani Rautavaara is probably the best-known Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and – on the recommendation of Sibelius himself, received a Koussevitzky Foundation fellowship to study in the U.S.A., where his teachers were Vincent Persichetti, Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. When he returned to Finland, he taught at the Sibelius Academy from 1966 until 1991.

Rautavaara composed in most genres. His 12 concertos include one for double bass and one, Cantus Arcticus, a concerto for birds and orchestra that features his recordings of arctic birds. In the course of his career he has experimented with most contemporary musical languages, but even his serial experiments retained a melodic tone. His eight symphonies and nine operas cover subjects from Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin to painter Vincent Van Gogh in the opera Vincent, which describes various events in the life of the painter.

Rautavaara composed Into the Heart of Light for string orchestra in 2011. Its soundscape, especially the brass, recalls that of Sibelius, but less “tuneful.”  Its melodic thread is changed subtly with each repetition. It has been described as “creating the illusion of being under water in the darkness, looking upward towards a distantly shining light.” But perhaps a better description is of viewing the spectacular Northern Lights, which regularly flash across Finland’s skies – subtly similar and repetitive, but never the same.

If ever we needed evidence that art and politics can make for a lethal mix, the life of Dmitry Shostakovich provides it. A son of the Russian Revolution, he started off as a true believer. But in his early twenties he got caught up in the Stalinist nightmare, apparently surviving the purges only because Stalin liked his “politically correct” music for propaganda films.

In January 1936 an article appeared in Pravda severely criticizing Shostakovich’s highly successful new opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtzensk District. Immediately, upon the order of the government, the opera was withdrawn from the stage and performances of all of the composer’s music banned. For the first of many times Shostakovich was cast into Soviet limbo, his music unperformed, his livelihood taken and his very life in jeopardy. In later years he recalled that he was so certain of being arrested that he used to sleep with his suitcase packed near the front door so that if the secret police were to pick him up, they would not disturb the rest of the family.

World War II brought a breather and an upsurge of patriotism, with the horrors of the ’30s temporarily forgotten. But in 1948 came a resurgence of purges, suppression and disappearances, orchestrated by the cultural commissar Andrey Zhdanov, whose decrees permitted only cheerful, uplifting and folksy art. With Stalin’s death in 1953, however, things began to look up; and later in the decade, when Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization program was underway, Shostakovich felt freer to express himself without fear of retribution. Throughout this political roller coaster, he maintained his artistic integrity by continuing to compose “for the drawer.”

Few musicians in the last century inspired more composers to write for them than did cellist and conductor Mstislav “Slava” Rostropovich. A long-time friend of Shostakovich, with whom he frequently performed around the Soviet Union, Rostropovich had long hoped that the composer would write a cello concerto for him. He recalled that when he raised the question of a commission with Shostakovich’s wife, she answered “Slava, if you want Dmitry to write something for you, the only recipe I can give you is this – never ask him or talk to him about it.” True to form, in 1959, the composer surprised his friend with the Cello Concerto in E-flat.

Although the times may have been calmer, the Concerto opens with a grim four-note theme on the cello that dominates the movement and recurs throughout the work. Not only is there the inherent musical tension in the chromatic theme but also in the cello part, which begins in the low register, gradually ratchets higher and higher, transforming the theme into a shriek. The second theme offers less contrast than one might expect in a sonata form, but at least it attenuates the anger; the composer, however, couldn’t resist appending his grim motto.

The lyrical second movement opens with a plaintive theme based on a Jewish folksong. It is one of Shostakovich’s most romantic movements and leads into a huge written-out cadenza that the composer notated as a separate movement. In it, the grim four-note motive from the opening movement reappears, and the tempo slowly increases until the cadenza transitions into the Allegro finale.

It is characteristic of many of the finales of Shostakovich’s symphonies and concertos to have a playful and often satiric bite. Stalin may have been dead and even discredited, but Shostakovich could not let him off that easily. Hidden in the last movement is a parody of one of the dictator’s favorite sentimental ditties, Suliko, the same one the composer parodied in the satirical cantata Rayok (The Peep Show), lampooning Zhdanov’s and his followers’ decrees. The cantata, probably composed in stages between 1947 and 1967, remained hidden “in the drawer” until after the composer’s death. Shostakovich also brings back and prominently features the four-note motto, concluding with a reprise of the opening of the Concerto. If there is any personal or political significance or symbolism associated with it, none has been determined with any certainty.

Franz Schubert had “burned out” and abandoned teaching after two years in his father’s school, joining instead nineteenth-century Vienna’s “hippie” subculture. His hangouts were cafés, beer halls and dance halls, and he never held a steady job except for occasional private teaching. Luckily, his better-heeled friends were generous with funds, and he repaid them with his Lieder – often scribbled on napkins and scraps of paper – and informal performances, nicknamed Schubertiaden. These evenings, with Schubert playing his music surrounded by colleagues and friends, were popular – if unremunerative – entertainment in Vienna. One of the tragic consequences of this lifestyle was the syphilis which was diagnosed in 1822 and which would kill him six years later.

That same year, the Styrian Music Society in Graz presented Schubert a Diploma of Honor, which the composer acknowledged with the gift of the symphonic fragment to its representative and his friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a minor composer. Hüttenbrenner, however, did not disclose its existence until 1865 when he used it as bait to get one of his own compositions performed. The mystery that surrounds its composition and subsequent fate has probably elicited more conjecture and learned papers than any other symphonic work.

Schubert is notorious for leaving behind unfinished manuscripts. We still do not know, and probably never will, why Schubert never completed the symphony. He had already composed six symphonies, but these were relatively youthful products, the latest composed in 1818. The incomplete autograph manuscript also includes a fragment of a third (Scherzo) movement. At the time he was composing this symphony, Schubert was in awe of Beethoven, especially his Fifth Symphony, and harbored an almost naïve desire to emulate him. Perhaps he felt that he was unable to live up to such lofty standards. The Scherzo ends abruptly after only 20 measures, followed by a number of blank lined pages. Schubert’s piano draft of this movement has also survived and ends only a few bars later, in the middle of the trio.

Despite the Symphony’s most famous theme – the second melody in the first movement – the first movement leaves an overwhelming atmosphere of melancholy. It opens with a brief, barely audible introduction in the basses that returns to conclude the movement. The Allegro that follows begins as a sighing motive that ratchets up the tension with its pounding timpani and climbing sequences. Then comes the “famous tune” like a ray of sunshine. The problem is that for the bulk of this long movement Schubert pretty much ignores it, choosing instead to focus on the gloom.

Slow movements of Classical works are usually constructed in ABA form, consisting of a principal melody (A) and a contrasting middle (B) section, often based on the theme. The second movement opens in a more promising mood with a lovely cantabile melody in the upper strings. But in the B section there ensues an emotional battle: a mournful clarinet solo recasts the theme, immediately followed by the oboe in the major mode; but this is interrupted by an angry, despairing orchestral outburst. Schubert frequently employs shifts between major and minor to create abrupt musical mood swings. The fact that he takes the opportunity to repeat the two contrasting sections enhances the emotional tension, which is only released in the final bars of the movement.

Beethoven was a perfectionist. He made numerous major revisions to his only opera, Fidelio, before he arrived at the final version we know today. The overture to the opera underwent even greater transformations. The composer wrote four different overtures, all quite different from each other and all still popular in the concert hall. The first three are called Leonore Nos. 1, 2 and 3 respectively, after the name of the heroine of the opera and originally the opera’s title; the fourth is known as Fidelio, the pseudonym she adopts when disguised as a young man.

Leonore, a brave and faithful wife – hence her adopted name – saves her husband, Florestan, from his unjust incarceration by his villainous and powerful enemy Pizzaro. Disguised as Fidelio, she enters into the service of Florestan’s jailer to be nearer her husband. In the end, she manages to liberate not only Florestan, but a whole band of political prisoners when the prison is inspected by the Minister, who has heard rumors of the illegal incarcerations.

Beethoven’s difficulties with the three Leonore overtures stemmed from the fact that they were too dramatically and musically explicit, thus giving away the most exciting moments of the opera, including the appearance of the Minister.

Beethoven composed Leonore No. 3 in 1806 for an abridged performance of the second version of the opera but realized at once how inappropriate it was. It became an independent orchestral composition with one of the most dramatic trumpet calls heralding the Minister’s arrival – and, of course, revealing the denouement before the action even starts.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com