Boldly Brahms Program Notes

Boldly Brahms | October 26th, 2024 | 7:00 PM | Union Colony Civic Center

Program Notes by Nicholas Gilmore

Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna Overture (9’)

“Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien” (Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna) is one of the well-known overtures written by Franz von Suppé during his time as the Kapellmeister at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna. Comedic musical plays were extremely popular at the time, and overtures were generally commissioned to start the theatrical events. Suppé wrote over 130 works for the theater, often to create a jovial and exciting mood for the crowd. While the play closed after only a handful of performances, the overture was extremely popular and continued to live on after the closing of the production. It gained new popularity in an arrangement for wind band by Henry Fillmore in 1922.

Symphony on Themes of John Philip Sousa (6’)

Ira Hearshen is an American composer whose works can be heard from stage to screen and his popular Symphony on Themes of John Philip Sousa was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. Written for wind band, Hearshen originally imagined the second movement as a singular work with the primary theme of Sousa’s TheThunderer slowed down and written for full orchestra in the style of Mahler’s Third Symphony. The concept simply had too many possibilities to flesh out, and the work became the second movement of a full wind symphony. Subtitled here “In Memoriam,” the work harnesses Mahler’s understanding of deep loss and mourning that is truly unique to the human race. This is the world premiere of the full symphonic orchestration.

Estancia (12’)

Estancia was commissioned in 1941 by the American ballet Caravan as a musical and dance representation of Argentine life. Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera worked through his life to combine Indigenous, European, American, and Contemporary styles to become one of the most influential composers of the 20th Century. The ballet features sung, danced, and even spoken aspects of storytelling in its complete form. Because of difficulties within the dance company, the suite of dances presented here debuted at the Teatro Coloactum in Buenos Aires in 1943, almost ten years before the first performance of the full ballet. The dances represent Argentine cowboys, field hands, musical pictures of the harvest, and folk dances.

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (46’)

Brahms’ first symphony has a bit of a strange beginning. After hearing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in c minor, he wrote to his friend Joseph Joachim that he intended to write a symphony of his own in the same key with similar emotional weight, and that he already has sketches for the work. He ended up using pieces of it in a sonata for two pianos, the First Piano Concerto, and even the last movement of his German Requiem. When Brahms again made an attempt at penning a symphony, he continued to look to Beethoven for inspiration. He finished a first version of the score in 1862, but Brahms was famously self-critical and continued to rewrite parts of his symphony until he finally allowed a premiere performance in 1876. Brahms wrangles the influences of Liszt and Wagner alongside Beethoven to create a true triumph of a first symphony, and the chorale melody in the final movement has often been called Brahms’ “Ode to Joy” as the work comes to a grand finish.