DVORAK: “AMERICAN” SUITE

The Suite was written in 1894, while Dvorak was living in America following his appointment as Director of the New York Conservatory. Because of it’s American provenance there is some speculation among scholars as to whether the inspiration sprang from American sources (as had some of the melodies of his “New World Symphony” composed the previous year) or from Czech folk music.

Certainly, though originally composed for piano, the music shares some features with its more famous symphonic cousin, most notably a “cyclic” form of construction, heard clearly in the finale’s triumphal recapitulation of the first movement’s main theme.

ADAMS: THE CHAIRMAN DANCES
Composer Note, (courtesy of G. Schirmer):

I started somewhat hazily working on the music, not knowing if it had the right tone, and pretty soon I realised it wouldn't work at all for the opera - it was a parody of what I imagined Chinese movie music of the '30s sounded like. ...[a] vast fantasy of a slightly ridiculous but irresistable image of a youthful Mao Tse Tung dancing the foxtrot with his mistress Chiang Ch'ing, former movie queen and the future Madame Mao, the mind and spirit behind the Cultural Revolution and the strident, unrehabilitated member of the Gang of Four.

Formally,The Chairman Dances is in three parts, A-B-A, with a persistent, chugging pulse in the basses marking the outer sections. Romance makes an appearance in the central, slower section.

— John Adams

BARTOK: CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA                                   

Written in America in 1943 (Bartok had, like so many other musicians, come to the USA to seek asylum from the war then raging in Europe) the Concerto for Orchestra has become one of the composer’s best loved and most frequently performed works.

The title gives the correct impression that the music affords the whole orchestra an opportunity for virtuoso display comparable to that typically given a concerto soloist. This no doubt endeared it to the musicians of the Boston Symphony, whose conductor, Serge Koussevitzky, commissioned the work through his foundation.

The five movements are arranged in an arch, with a central slow movement - Eligia -surrounded by scherzi -  presentando le copie and intermezzo interrotto – and bookended with sonata allegros – introduzione/allegro and finale.

The title presentando le copie perhaps requires explanation: the movement is structured in such a way that pairs (copie) of bassoons, oboes, clarinets and trumpets take turns in the limelight, with additional colleagues from their sections  joining them in the recapitulation.

In the fourth movement, the intermezzo, (a pair of lilting folk-like melodies) is interrupted by a ghastly, mocking, laughing parody of a march from Shostakovich’s Lenningrad  Symphony.