Masterworks III

Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise by Peter Maxwell Davies
English composer Peter Maxwell Davies must be 76 years old now. In 1971, he moved to the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland where he has been living on the island of Hoy. In 1985, he composed this piece for John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra for their centennial celebration. This piece can be considered a “programmatic composition” in that Davies has actually indicated the specific visual scene he intended, section by section. “It is a picture-postcard record of an actual wedding I attended on Hoy in Orkney…with the guests arriving out of a violent weather…the processional…the tuning up of the band…the increasingly inebriated dance…the walk home through the night across the island, then the sunrise” (entry of the bagpipes).  For our concert, the Highland Bagpipe will be played by Sean Meehan from “Fiddler’s Hearth” restaurant in downtown South Bend.
 
Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch
Though he had lived in England for two years, German romantic composer Max Bruch had never been to Scotland. “Scottish Fantasy” was actually composed in Berlin during the winter of 1870-1880 for the great Spanish violinist Sarasate. It is a four movement bravura violinist fantasy on Scottish folk melodies known respectively as “Auld Rob Morris”, “The Dusty Miller”, “I’m Down for Lack of Johnnie”, and “Scots Wha Hae”.  In paying homage to Scottish tradition, Bruch gave a prominent place to the harp in the instrumental accompaniment to the violin. The violin soloist, Kyoko Takezawa, will be making her second performance with the South Bend Symphony. Her last appearance was on October 22nd, 1989 playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with the South Bend Symphony Chamber Orchestra.

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, “Scottish” by Felix Mendelssohn
During his tour in Scotland in 1829, Mendelssohn wrote, “We went in the deep twilight, to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved. There is a little room to be seen there, with a winding staircase leading up to it. That is where they went up and found Rizzio in the little room, dragged him out, and three chambers away is a dark corner where they killed him. The adjoining chapel is now roofless; grass and ivy grow abundantly in it; and before the ruined altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found the beginning of my Scottish Symphony there today.”The site Mendelssohn described was the Palace Holyrood House at Edinburgh where my family and I visited this past August. When I stood at the ruined chapel, exactly where Mendelssohn had been, I could clearly hear the slow and somber melody that starts the introduction of the first movement.  The scherzo second movement is much brighter and sunny in mood. One of a number of innovations that Mendelssohn introduced into the classical scheme of the symphony was casting the scherzo into sonata form, with a proper first and second theme that were developed and recapitulated. This structure certainly made this scherzo fuller in body. I must indicate the first theme, played brilliantly by clarinet, is reminiscent of a Scottish tune “Charlie is my darling”. That indeed makes this movement the most “Scottish” movement out of the whole symphony, musically.  The slow adagio movement returns to an emotional journey that expresses Mendelssohn’s feeling towards the last Queen of Scotland Mary Stuart’s rather short, stormy, and tragic life. While the first theme is an expressive song, the rhythmic second theme actually sounds like a royal processional march. The fourth movement is a fierce and fast movement. It brings back the opening theme from the introduction of the first movement and ends triumphantly with a maestoso coda in a major key.  The symphony was not completed until twelve years after its first conception (January 1842). It is in four movements that follow without break.

- Best Regards, Maestro Tsung Yeh

Location:
Morris Performing Arts Center
(574) 235-9190