Nashua Symphony - Orchestra & Chorus

Manuel De Falla (1876-1946): Suite No. 1 from The Three-cornered Hat—1919

In the late 19th century, Spanish composers turned to the rich tradition of Spanish folk music for materials and inspiration. The most brilliant of those composers was Manuel de Falla. Fusing the rhythms and melodic traits of Spanish folk music with a modern palette of harmonies and instrumentation, Falla created music with the sophistication of Debussy, Ravel, or Stravinsky, but rooted in the folkloric soil of Spain. His is music that blends bright energy and languorous sensuality, strong rhythms and deep lyricism, qualities that have always been part of the mysterious Spanish soul.

Pedro de Alarcon’s popular 1874 tale El Sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), which tells the story of the ill-fated attempts by the corregidor (resident magistrate) of a small Spanish town to seduce the pretty wife of the local miller, is filled with humor and keen observation. As Alarcon told it (claiming that he was retelling an old ballad that supposedly had a basis in fact), the Corregidor is tempted to break the law by the entrancing beauty of the miller’s wife, a young woman who has married an ugly older man, but one who is astute and humorous. The individuals in the story are delightfully characterized by Falla’s music, which sometimes quotes fragments of traditional tunes and works them into a symphonic web as the characters become intertwined in their story.

Falla published very little, subjecting his works to careful revision before offering them to the public. The pains he took are evident in every bar. He was an inspired craftsman who combined an immersion in Andalusian and Catalonian folk music with a painstaking study of classical style and forms. Falla’s music is tuneful and approachable for both of these reasons, but he was also part of the European avant-garde: the Ballets Russes staged his The Three-Cornered Hat with sets by Picasso, a production that secured Falla an international reputation that shows no signs of fading.

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Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Concerto for Piano & Orchestra in G Major—1931

At about the same time that Paul Wittgenstein, a concert pianist who had lost an arm during World War I, asked Ravel if he would write a concerto for him, Ravel’s long-time interpreter Marguerite Long asked for a concerto for herself. Thus, although he had written no piano music for a dozen years, he found himself in 1930 writing two concertos more or less simultaneously. They were his last compositions in any form. The Concerto in G was begun first, but the Left-Hand Concerto was the first to be completed. At about the time he finished the two scores, Ravel spoke of them in an interview with a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph of London:

It was an interesting experience to conceive and realize the two concertos at the same time. The first [the G major], which I propose to play myself, is a concerto in the strict sense, written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. I believe that a concerto can be both gay and brilliant without necessarily being profound or aiming at dramatic effects. It has been said that the concertos of some great classical composers, far from being written for the piano, have been written against it. And I think this criticism is quite justified.

At the beginning, I meant to call [the G major] a "divertissement,” but afterwards I considered that this was unnecessary, as the name Concerto adequately describes the kind of music it contains. In some ways my Concerto is not unlike my Violin Sonata; it uses certain effects borrowed from jazz [Ravel had recently met George Gershwin and become familiar with his Rhapsody in Blue], but only in moderation.

The initial Allegramente, with its astounding vigor, has a shiny and almost brittle quality, due in large part to the edgy scoring for winds. Indeed, this movement is nearly a concerto for wind instruments, beginning with the crack of a whip and shimmering its way to a close.

The Adagio has been compared to a Lied, whose calm contemplation brings it into the sound world of Fauré’s gentle songs. The composer confessed to Mme Long, when she praised the free development of the leisurely melody, which she felt came on naturally, that he had written it "two bars at a time, with frequent recourse to Mozart's Clarinet Quintet,” and that he “nearly died in the attempt. But, once again, the original had become absorbed into the pastiche and entirely disappeared.

The conclusion is heralded by a terse Presto, at once brilliant, brief and scintillating—a chase goaded by galloping fanfares and not to be halted by the insouciant nasal braying of jazz.

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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92—1812

Richard Wagner called Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 "the apotheosis of the dance," meaning of course to praise its Dionysian spirit and the distinct rhythmic pulses that propel each of the four movements. But this glib catchphrase stuck like feathers to hot tar, encouraging musicological (and even choreographic) misinterpretation ever since. Wholly abstract and utterly symphonic, the seventh was Beethoven’s definitive break with stylistic conventions practiced by Mozart and Haydn. Thus the character of the seventh is based at least somewhat on the character of Beethoven himself; his relentless drive to exceed his previous accomplishments in the symphonic form resulted in this relentlessly driving – and effervescent – masterpiece.

Beethoven referred to the seventh as his "grand symphony in A (one of [his] most excellent works)". A slow introduction of impressive scale and grandeur precedes the dancing Vivace of the first movement. The second movement is a dignified and reflective Allegretto, consisting of ten different settings of a stately march-like theme. A Scherzo of, in the words of Robin Golding, “colossal exuberance”, leads us to the “mighty finale, whose irrepressible energy epitomizes the vitality of the whole symphony.”