Programme Notes for tonight's Grand Concert

R Wagner Overture - Rienzi

(1813-1883)

Wagner’s life journeys from the heights of Romanticism to the movement’s supreme crisis that he himself

orchestrates.His musical language overturns all the accepted concepts of harmony as it points to the

beginnings of the post-Romantic period and beyond.His work is, undoubtedly, one of the pillars on which

Western music subsequently rests.His music-dramas, conceived within the framework of his famed

Gesamtkunzwerk – loosely meaning the incorporation of all the art forms in one Art – are massive structures

 steeped in Teutonic legends, myth and mythology and a supreme sense of nationalist fervour.Rienzi not

only becomes Wagner’s first success, making his name and giving him a position; until recently, it filled opera

 houses with its clamour even though its Meyerbeerian stance is as completely incompatible with the norms

of Wagnerian music drama as The novice of Palermo, Wagner’s first opera, had been.Rienzi is about the

hero that gives the opera its name.It celebrates the exploits, trials and tribulations of the last Roman tribune

and what, in Wagner’s eyes, is the first bourgeois terrorist.The Roman insurrection that is the central action

in the drama is directed against the libertine style of life exemplified in Rienzi, and not against the class enemy.

Emerging as a kind of Cromwell, set on saving the world from tyranny only to thrust this same world and its

people in chaos, Rienzi symbolises the true nature of the hero whose real achievement is the acquisition of

self-knowledge.Self-praise and pomp – features of Wagner’s entire output and the emblems of Fascism –

spring from the presentiment of the transient nature of bourgeois terrorism, of the death instinct implicit in

the heroism that proclaims itself.Behind Wagner’s facade of liberty, death and destruction stand waiting in

the wings of the historic ruins that come crashing down on the heads of the defeated Gods and the guilt-laden

world of the Ring.Wagner completed the opera in 1839 and it was premiered in Dresden in 1842.Following

generally traditional lines, the ‘Overture’ to the opera is substantial, what one could rightly call a work of

Wagnerian proportions. It starts with a trumpet call, which in Act III becomes the battle-cry of the Colonna

 family, and features the melody of Rienzi’s prayer at the start of Act V.Eventually, this wonderful tune

becomes the opera’s best-known aria.This leitmotif is echoed by woodwinds and brass with accompaniment

on the strings.At the close of the repeat, the main section begins with the theme which in the opera is sung

by the chorus at the end of Act I.Here, the listener is regaled with the massive Wagnerian soundscape, which

is the battle hymn assigned to the brass marked fortissimo.An episode based on the theme of the slow

movement leads to the second subject, sung in the finale of Act II.In the reprise, the second subject is

connected with a counter theme on the trombones.The ‘Overture’ comes to a close with a dazzling military

march.

J de HaanFree World Fantasy

(b. 1959)

Contemporary Dutch composer Jacob de Haan composed this work under commission by the Dutch province

of Groningen for the celebrations commemorating the liberation festivities in 1987.Thanks to his pianoforte

and trumpet lessons he was, at an early age, able to develop his creativity that would later mark him out as

one of the foremost composers of his generation.His repertoire for concert band consists of works of

varying degrees of difficulty, namely, short concert pieces, popular music and others with a more classical

bent.In Free World Fantasy, the dream of a world without war is symbolized. It is the first composition in

a series in which Jacob de Haan combines concert music with pop music in a style reminiscent of film

sound tracks.It is full of colourful effects and has an improvisatory feel to it that loosens up the structure

somewhat without de-formalising it.

G VerdiSelection from La Traviata

(1811-1901)

Verdi’s choice of Alexandre Dumas’s La dame aux camélias as the subject for an opera is both original and

a stroke of genius.There is no work in which he can have found a model for such an opera.Admittedly, the

medium affects the message.One may suspect that the heroine of the original true life story of Dumas fils’s

love affair with a courtesan is hardly acceptable as a role for an operatic diva of the 1850s.Even in Dumas’s

 novel in which he first idealises her, she is, although a woman of charm and grace, a swearing, drinking young

woman who is far from the conventional heroine.Her red camellias worn on the days of the month when she

 is ‘not available’ acknowledge a physical fact not generally referred to in polite society.In the play in which

Dumas takes one further step from reality, this meaning of the camellias does not feature, along with the lewd

language – and also much of the obvious enjoyment of the promiscuity in which the heroine indulges.From

the play it is not a far cry to Piave’s libretto, and although there are necessary cuts that may damage its

delicate psychology, as the legendary critic Ernest Newman alleges, the courtesan now emerges as the victim

of self-sacrifice that fits in well with the conventions of Romantic opera.However, this hitherto unknown

approach to realism poses such problems that Verdi never attempts such a subject again and when the veristi

of the fin-de-siècle follow up his suggestion they vulgarise his conception.

The difficulties that loom up are, in the first place, those of a musical language.Realism involves an

abandonment of at least the most improbable operatic conventions, the inevitable succession of cavatina and

cabaletta, and the reliance on aria.Verdi, never a revolutionary but always an innovator, has yet more or less

solved these problems in Rigoletto, with its single true full-scale aria – “Caro nome” – and its exploitation

of a peculiarly subtle accompanied recitative and arioso, the result of the development of techniques known to

Rossini and Donizetti where, by using the orchestra to give continuity of melody, the action can continue

naturally without the protagonists singing in clear-cut, rigid patterns.The strong, regular musical phrases,

the constant repetition of tight, short, rhythmic motives, no doubt appropriate to the heroic figures of historical

 drama, do not fit the bourgeois, un-heroic (in the traditional sense) characters of this new style of story.

A more conversational melody has to be created, for both orchestra and voice.When Verdi says that he

considers Rigoletto his favourite from the professional point of view, he probably means that he has

succeeded in precisely this.When he declares his leanings for La Traviata as an amateur (a word that implies

 ‘love’ rather than ‘technical perfection’) he may well have been referring to his compromise – for there is

much of the old cavatina/cabaletta here, although subsumed into the continuous flow of music in such a

highly imaginative way that one may agree to disagree with his own assessment: for what is greater skill than

the assimilation of existing, well-tried and tested forms into something new, integrating the past with the

present in a seamless fabric of wonderful music?Finally, there is a need for a new orchestration.Again,

Rigoletto has led the way.The composer who uses the low register of the clarinet and the high one

of a muted double bass to convey the sinister atmosphere of the assassin’s alley near the Mincio is

ready for further adventures in sound.It is in La Traviata that these succeed.

The Selection from La Traviata is a dazzling panoply of ravishing melodies which succeed one upon the

 other with bubbling energy and an all-consuming passion.It is intoxicating, sparkling yet not without its

poignancy and dramatic nuance.

Clarinet: Mario Galea

Trumpet: Michel Refalo

Althorn: Ino Attard

Euphonium: Anton Sacco

R DerongéWalking on Music

(b. 1971)

In 2004, Belgian composer Roger Derongé wrote Walking on Music for the 10th edition of the Church

Concert of his own brass band Bravoer.To mark this occasion, the organisation chose a soloist who

had some affinity with the history of the band.Belgian euphonium player Stef Pillaert had, as a young

boy, been an active member of the Bravoer music camps and had been a soloist with the same band on

 numerous occasions.Derongé chose to showcase the lyrical side of the euphonium and the

accompaniment is quite austere and sparse.The title of the piece is indicative of the way every

euphonium virtuoso would be expected to interpret this little gem of a piece, floating as easily as

‘walking on music’.It is a work which is very demanding, perhaps not so much technically as in a fast,

virtuosic piece, but intellectually and musically.Opening with an unaccompanied passage for the

soloist, it is predominantly slow, concentrating on the smooth, melodic characteristics of the instrument,

 and with a final note that seems to go on forever. It asks for a subdued lyrical approach and control

which can only come from the very best of soloists, and which attests to the

interpretativeprowess of the player.

Euphonium: George Camilleri

N Rimsky-KorsakovCapriccio Espagnol

(1844-1908)

In his autobiography, My Musical Life, Rimsky-Korsakov recalls that in 1886 he had been pleased

 with the Fantasy on Russian Themes, for violin and orchestra, which he had composed that year

... and took it into my head to write another virtuoso piece for violin and orchestra, this time on

Spanish themes. However, after making a

sketch of it I gave up that idea and decided instead to compose an orchestral piece with virtuoso

 instrumentation. [This piece] was to glitter with dazzling colours. . . .

The opinion formed by both critics and the public, that the Capriccio is a "magnificently orchestrated

piece," is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant composition for orchestra. The change of timbre, the

 felicitous choice of melodic design and figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument,

brief virtuoso cadenzas for solo instruments, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc.,

constitute here the very essence of the composition and not its garb or orchestration. The Spanish

themes, of dance character, furnished the composer with rich material for putting in use multiform

orchestral effects. All in all, the Capriccio is undoubtedly a purely external piece, but vividly

brilliant for all that. The Capriccio, composed in 1887, was given its premiere in St Petersburg on

October 31 of that year, with Rimsky-Korsakov himself conducting. The work is laid out in five brief

sections, which fall into two larger divisions. The first of these larger divisions comprises a

vigorous Alborada for full orchestra, a set of five Variations on a theme announced by the horns,

and a repetition of the Alborada with certain changes - and, one might say, exchanges - in the

instrumentation. (A clarinet solo from the first section is assigned now to the violin, a violin cadenza

given now to the clarinet, etc.)In this third movement, the Alborada presents the same Asturian

dance as the first movement and it is identical except in the use of key.The second major division

is a two-part finale whose first section, the Scene and Gypsy Song, is a sequence of five cadenzas

(to balance the five variations heard earlier) for various solo instruments or small groups, capped

 by the impassioned and soaring Gypsy song in the strings. This is broken off by the assertive arrival

of the Fandango of the Asturias, in which themes from the preceding sections are recalled along the

way to the tumultuous conclusion. Tchaikovsky, who saw the score before the work's premiere,

ended a letter to Rimsky-Korsakov with the declaration "that your ‘Spanish Capriccio' is a colossal

masterpiece of instrumentation, and you may regard yourself as the greatest master of the present day.

" The letter was followed up on the day after the premiere with a gift of a silver laurel wreath. The

musicians in the orchestra were no less enthusiastic, interrupting rehearsals frequently to applaud

the composer-conductor. At the premiere itself the audience demanded a full repetition as soon as the

first performance ended. When the score was published, Rimsky-Korsakov saw to it that the dedication

 was not merely to the orchestra as a collective body, but to every one of the musicians, whom

he named individually.

Clarinet: Mario Galea

Horn: George Refalo

J VellaLudus Tonalis

(b. 1942)

As musical director of La Stella Philharmonic Band, Joseph Vella has enriched the Band’s library

with countless compositions, ranging from full-scale symphonic works to marches.His inimitable,

 scholarly style has unarguably raised the standard repertoire to unprecedented levels, and even

 a ‘simple’ band march is indicative of the composer’s technical prowess and refined musical sense.

Ludus Tonalis is a new work which is being premiered this evening.It is written for and dedicated

to La Stella Philharmonic Band on the occasion of the composer’s 40th anniversary as its Musical

 Director.The work is an Overture-style piece in one movement, but which includes various

contrasting sections.At the very start, the euphoniums announce a lilting theme in triplets over a

piano timpani beat.This theme, almost in ostinato fashion, slowly builds up both in intensity and

vigour, in the process also presenting a subsidiary theme on the clarinets, and works itself up to

a fortissimo.An imitative three-part passage introduces more fanfares on the trumpets and

eventually leads to a new idea in the major mode.The solo clarinets then direct the musical flow

to an Un poco meno section, where the music becomes more staid and cantabile.On top of

this, however, short references to the opening theme are heard.As the music fades away, it then

goes back to the Primo tempo where the composer shows a touch of his technical skill by presenting

 a strict canon in three parts, the subject of which is a variant on the opening triplet idea.Material

from all the previous sections is then re-proposed and this leads towards the final section, marked

Solenne.This can be described as a chorale in thanksgiving.From a straightforward, simple

presentation of the chorale, the work becomes more harmonically lush and forceful to lead to a big

climax for a grand finale.The composer headed the composition by a dedication in Maltese, which reads:

" Lil Banda La Stella,

F'għeluq l-40 sena mill-ħatra tiegħi bħala Surmast Direttur,

Li matulhom maghħa ħdimt, għallimt,

... u tgħallimt!"