Program Notes | Daniil Trifonov Plays Beethoven

Jessie Montgomery
Born: 1981 in New York, New York
Currently residing in Princeton, New Jersey
Composed: 2012
World Premiere: September 2012 in Miami. The Sphinx Virtuosi performed.
NJSO Premiere: These performances are the NJSO premiere.
Duration: 4 minutes 

“Music is my connection to the world. It guides me to understand my place in relation to others and challenges me to make clear the things I do not understand. I imagine that music is a meeting place at which all people can converse about their unique differences and common stories.” – Jessie Montgomery

So reads the homepage of Jessie Montgomery’s website. She is a violinist and educator as well as an acclaimed composer who received the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation in 2017. Earlier this year, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra named Montgomery composer-in-residence in a three-year appointment that will continue through June 2024.

Montgomery grew up in a musical household on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Her parents worked in music and theater and were active in neighborhood arts initiatives. Montgomery earned her undergraduate degree from The Juilliard School in violin performance, and she subsequently completed a master’s degree in film composition and multimedia in NYU. She is currently a graduate fellow in music composition at Princeton.

Montgomery composed Starburst in 2012 on commission from the Sphinx Virtuosi, a self-conducted string orchestra of 18 Black and Latinx musicians. Her composer’s note explains the title and the connection with the Sphinx players: “This brief one-movement work for string orchestra is a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors. Exploding gestures are juxtaposed with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape. A common definition of a starburst: ‘the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly’ lends itself almost literally to the nature of the performing ensemble who premieres the work, The Sphinx Virtuosi, and I wrote the piece with their dynamic in mind.”

Upbeat and energetic, Starburst whirls along in a kaleidoscope of string energy. Somehow it achieves both mass and weightlessness, perpetual motion and steady repetition, swirls and straight-ahead lines, syncopations and broad, determined gestures, all in a span of less than four minutes. 

Instrumentation: string orchestra.

Bedřich Smetana
Born: March 2, 1824, in Litomyšl, Bohemia
Died: May 12, 1884, in Prague, Bohemia
Composed: 1872–79
World Premiere: April 4, 1875, in Prague. Adolf Čech conducted the Prague Provisional Theatre Orchestra.
NJSO Premiere: “The Moldau”: 1938–39 season; Rene Pollain conducted. Complete work: 1993–94 season; Zdenek Macal conducted.
Duration: 36 minutes

Most of us associate Czech music immediately with Antonin Dvořák. The Czechs themselves regard Dvořák’s older compatriot, Bedřich Smetana, as the father of Czech music and their first major proponent of nationalism. Unlike Dvořák (who, early in his career, played viola in Smetana’s orchestra), Smetana never received international recognition or great material success during his lifetime. Moreover, his life was dominated by misfortune and great tragedy. He lost his first wife and a 5-year-old daughter when he was still young. Growing deafness, disastrous for a musician, tormented him increasingly during the 1870s. By 1874, he was completely deaf, continuing to suffer from high-pitched noises that no doctor could quiet. Eventually he lost his sanity, and he died in a mental asylum.

During the second half of the 19th century, the modern-day Czech Republic—including Smetana’s Bohemia—was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by Hapsburg monarchs. Across Europe, many nations were discovering in their native folk music and dance rhythms the materials for an individual musical style. Nationalism in music was largely a reaction to German and Austrian dominance of musical forms. A staunch patriot, Smetana found in composing the outlet for his deep love of Bohemia. Most of his compositions are programmatic, inspired by an event in his life or an extra-musical association.

Má vlast was composed over a period of several years in the 1870s. Smetana probably began the first segment, “Vysehrad,” in 1872, then set it aside in favor of the operas Libuše and The Two Widows. He made a great deal of progress on the cycle in 1874 and 1875, completing four sections. Originally he had a four-movement scheme in mind, intending that the work would conclude with “From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields” and referring to it as a tetralogy in his correspondence. In summer 1878, however, he returned to the project, determined to expand it with an additional two movements. “Tábor” and “Blaník” were completed in March 1879, with a dedication of the entire group to the city of Prague.

Despite this patchy history, Má vlast is a unified cycle, both musically and spiritually. The six tone poems encompass Czech legend and landscape, geography and history, evoking both people and places. Best known by far is the second movement, “Vltava” (“The Moldau”), a favorite of most symphony goers. When heard within the context of the entire cycle, “The Moldau” has greater impact. Its monumental scale and the panoramic sweep of Smetana’s music represent virtually the entire history and heritage of a people. Smetana intended for the six tone poems to be performed together, and in his native land, Má vlast is usually presented in its entirety. Since the late 1960s it has become traditional to open the annual Prague Spring Music Festival with a performance of the cycle.

Smetana wrote commentaries for each segment, and believed that these were essential to the listener’s understanding of his music. Excerpts from his remarks are included in the summaries that follow, with the composer’s translated words in italics.

II. Vltava (The Moldau) is the river originating in southern Bohemia, converging with the River Elbe in the north. Smetana’s music illustrates the actual course of the river. He begins with the two springs, one warm water, the other cold, that feed it, joining to run through rustic countryside. Notes in the score indicate the river’s path as it meanders past forest hunting, a rustic village wedding, moonlight and the dance of water sprites, rapids and a final salute as the river passes by the noble rock Vyšehrad of the first movement.

III. Šárka is a valley that takes its name from an Amazonian warrior in Czech legend who, deserted by her lover, vowed revenge on all men. In the distance the hero Ctirad and his men approach. Suddenly they hear the feigned cries of a young woman (Sarka) bound to a tree. Upon seeing her, Ctirad is captivated by her beauty. He frees her and she offers him and his armor-bearers a drink that is really a sleep-inducing potion. On a prearranged signal (sounded by the horn), her warrior maidens, previously concealed at a distance, rush forward to commit their bloody massacre. The movement ends with the horror of mass murder and Sarka’s revenge.

VI. “Blaník,” Smetana tells us, is a continuation of “Tábor.” Following their eventual defeat, the Hussite heroes took refuge in Blaník Mountain where, in heavy slumber, they awaited the moment when they would be called to the aid of their country. … It is on the basis of the chorale melody that the resurrection of the Czech nation, its future happiness and glory, will evolve. The cycle thus concludes on a frankly nationalistic note of victorious triumph.

Má vlast is unique, both within Smetana’s oeuvre and in all music. Though he found his models for the programmatic symphonic poem in the works of Franz Liszt, Smetana’s concept of the large cycle is quite original. Only a general precedent could be argued with Liszt’s three-movement Faust Symphony (1854). Má vlast is, in a way, a large-scale symphony as well as a collection of tone poems. Certainly the last two movements may be thought of as a grand, expanded finale. “Šárka” is a sort of scherzo; “From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields” the pastoral slow movement. Heard as a whole, the cycle is a splendid encomium to the composer’s beloved homeland. In light of the composer’s physical and emotional torment during the years he composed it, Má vlast is finally a touching tribute to the man who found solace and spiritual relief from the misery of his life in creating it.

Instrumentation: woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle and strings. “The Moldau” adds harp and bass drum.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Born: December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany
Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria
Composed: by 1798; some sketches may date from as early as 1790. The version in which it is known today dates from 1801.
World Premiere: Beethoven is known to have played this concerto in Prague in 1798. He probably played it earlier in Vienna as well, but documentation is inconclusive. The Viennese house of Hoffmeister published the Second Concerto in December 1801.
NJSO Premiere: 1989–90 season. Enrique Graf was the soloist; Hugh Wolff conducted.
Duration: 28 minutes

Beethoven’s career in Vienna in the 1790s garnered him more prestige as a performer and keyboard improviser than as a composer. Wishing to promote his considerable talents as a pianist, he wrote many pieces for himself. Op. 19 falls into this category. In fact, it was the first major work for piano and orchestra he completed. Despite its numbering as Piano Concerto No. 2 and its later opus number (which reflects a later publication date of 1801) than the C-major concerto, Op. 15, the B-flat concerto is the earlier work. Recent scholarship indicates that Beethoven may have composed parts of it as early as 1785, when he was still a teenager in Bonn!

Beethoven himself did not consider either of the first two piano concertos to be among his finer works, but both pieces show him having graduated from gifted student to Viennese master. And the Viennese public received him with delight. He may have played the B-flat concerto in public as early as March 1790 (contemporary reports do not specify the key of the concerto); that performance is believed to be his debut with orchestra in the Austrian capital.

Op. 19 follows the Mozartean formal concerto model, with an extensive orchestral exposition in the first movement preceding the soloist’s entrance. Listeners more familiar with Beethoven’s C-major concerto will be pleasantly surprised by the intimate, chamber-music like quality of this work. Scored without trumpets or timpani, it permits more focus on the interaction of the piano with the delicate wind instruments. The outer movements, especially the finale, have an irresistible rhythmic vitality that encourages aural memory of their themes. The B-flat concerto is the forgotten jewel among Beethoven’s piano concertos, and its cadenzas give us a tantalizing glimpse at the young genius’ improvisatory technique.

Instrumentation: flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, solo piano and strings.