Maurice Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin (1919)

Maurice Ravel’s (1875–1937) Le Tombeau de Couperin was originally written between 1914 and 1917 as a six-movement suite for solo piano, each dedicated to the memory of a friend lost in combat during the First World War. The work is better known today by its four-movement orchestrated version written by the composer himself in 1919 at the request of his publisher. The Couperin in the title is the French composer François Couperin (1668–1733), and the word “Tombeau” has less to do with Couperin or his actual grave than it does with the 17th century meaning of the word as a memorial. Ravel’s intent, as seen in the work’s structure, was to compose an homage to the sensibilities of the French Baroque keyboard suite. The orchestrated version opens with an energetic, perpetually-moving Prelude featuring the oboe and winds. Next comes a joyful Venetian folk dance, the Forlane. The Menuet, an elegant classical dance, brings in a hint of sadness, with the concluding Rigaudon returning to the spiritedness of French folkdance.

Anna Clyne: Restless Oceans (2019)

Anna Clyne (b. 1980) is an English composer residing in the US, where she has been composer-in-residence with the Baltimore, Chicago, and Berkeley symphony orchestras, along with holding residencies in France, London, Finland, Scotland, and Norway. Clyne was nominated for a Grammy in 2015 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Prince of Clouds, a double violin concerto. She incorporates both the literary and visual arts into her compositions, especially poems exploring strong emotions and imagery. According to Clyne’s own program notes, Restless Oceans “draws inspiration and its title from ‘A Woman Speaks’—a poem by Audre Lorde and was composed with [an] all-women orchestra in mind. In addition to playing their instruments, the musicians are also called to use their voices in song and strong vocalizations, and their feet to stomp and to bring them to stand united at the end. My intention was to write a defiant piece that embraces the power of women.” Lorde’s poem employs the universe as a metaphor for Black womanhood, as seen in the conclusion of the first stanza: “if you would know me/look into the entrails of Uranus/where the restless oceans pound.” Clyne’s brief, energetic and propulsive work, which is dedicated to American conductor Marin Alsop, was composed for the World Economic Forum’s 2019 meeting in Davos, Switzerland.  

Felix Mendelssohn: Overture in C major, Op. 101, “Trumpet Overture” (1826; revised 1833)

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) composed the Overture in C major, Op. 101 in 1826 when he was just 17 years old, the same year he wrote his famous concert overture for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just the year before, he completed his first masterpiece, the Octet in E-Flat major. Also known as the “Trumpet Overture,” the work on tonight’s program received its alternate name from Mendelssohn’s family, who were pointing out that the majority of young Felix’s compositions to date were written for strings, including the thirteen string symphonies he wrote between the ages of 12 and 14. 

The Overture in C major was first performed in Berlin in April 1828 and was later revised to incorporate trombone parts in April 1833 for its London premier. As is the case with the more well-known A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hebrides overtures, the “Trumpet Overture” was not composed to accompany a theatrical production but was rather intended as a standalone concert piece. The work’s nickname is somewhat misleading, because although the brass and winds do indeed play a major role, especially in the opening fanfare, this early work still highlights the energy and lyricism of Mendelssohn’s string writing over the relatively minor role played by the trumpets through the rest of the overture. 

Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”

The New World Symphony was composed by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) while he was living in America from 1892 to 1895 as the director of the National Conservatory of Music. The Czech composer brought with him the Romantic-era fascination of embracing native folk songs and dance rhythms known as “musical nationalism,” as seen, for example, in the music of Béla Bartók (Hungary), Ralph Vaughn Williams (England), and Jean Sibelius (Finland). In the US, for Dvořák that meant finding inspiration from Native American and African American musical traditions. As the composer put it: “I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil.” Similarly, twenty-two-year-old Englishman Frederick Delius was deeply influenced by the spirituals he heard while managing an orange plantation in Florida in 1884, as exemplified in his 1887 Florida Suite.

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered under the baton of Anton Seidl at Carnegie Hall on December 16th, 1893. In a New York Herald article appearing the previous day, Dvořák said, “I have not actually used any of the [Native American] melodies. I have simply written original themes embodying the peculiarities of the Indian music, and, using these themes as subjects, have developed them with all the resources of modern rhythms, counterpoint, and orchestral colour.” Further, he says that the second movement, marked “Largo,” was a “sketch or study for a later work, either a cantata or opera . . . which will be based upon Longfellow’s [The Song of] Hiawatha.” Though this follow-up work never came to fruition, the movement presents Dvořák’s most celebrated melody. Interestingly, the above-mentioned Delius had already composed a tone poem titled Hiawatha himself in 1888.