Lamb & Hayward Curator's Series: Mozart, Pärt, Delius, Stravinsky

Programme Notes

Overture to Don Giovanni (1787)

MOZART (1756-1791)

Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of eight, and had ticked off his first opera by eleven – perhaps a rather fortunate early start when he would only live to be 35. A contemporary of Haydn’s in Vienna, Mozart gifted us with over 600 works in his short life, including symphonies, chamber music, operas, concertos, masses, and solo works.

1787 was brimming with musical activity for the 31-year-old Mozart: in January his Symphony No. 38 (Prague) was premiered, in August he composed the famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and by October his opera Don Giovanni was premiered in Prague. The local newspaper proclaimed “connoisseurs and musicians say that Prague has never heard the like.” The year prior, he had received such rave reviews for his new opera The Marriage of Figaro that the theatre in Prague had commissioned another opera from Mozart, using the same librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. The busy writer saved time by adapting an existing text on the story of Don Juan for Mozart, which became the basis for the opera Don Giovanni.

Set in Spain, it tells the tale of the notorious womaniser Don Giovanni. The opera explores love, morality, and the various ways in which actions have consequences – shown through encounters with a cast of characters including Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina. The opera is filled with some of Mozart’s most well-known music, with the dramatic overture often performed as a stand-alone concert opener on programmes around the world.

Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten (1977)

ARVO PÄRT (b. 1935)

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has done much to change the way we understand contemporary classical music – in the 1970s he created a unique musical language called tintinnabuli, a style he has continued writing in throughout his career. It is a style where the musical material is concentrated to a very minimal idea: “a distinct technique, which in essence unites two monodic lines of structure – melody and triad – into one inseparable ensemble.”

Pärt was deeply affected by the news of the British composer Benjamin Britten’s death in 1976, as he had just discovered his music and was quite attached to it. He was finishing an elegiac orchestral work at the time, and decided to dedicate it to the memory of his deceased colleague. It begins with bells tolling, followed by violins playing a descending scale, which is repeated by other string groups who enter afterwards in turn, using his tintinnabuli style, until there are five layers of melody in different registers, some playing at half speed to create a canon in slow-motion; one that evokes both peace and sadness.

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1910)

DELIUS (1862-1934) arr. Emil Richards

Our percussion section features in a setting of Delius’ charming On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring for two marimbas and vibraphone. The arrangement is by Emil Richards – legendary American percussionist, studio musician, recording artist, educator, and collector of percussion instruments. He performed and toured with the likes of Frank Sinatra, George Harrison, Frank Zappa, Doris Day, Marvin Gaye, The Beach Boys, and the Bee Gees. His recording credits are prolific – everything from the finger snaps for the famous Addams Family theme song, to the xylophone parts for the opening theme of The Simpsons – and his method books on mallet percussion are published by the Hal Leonard Corporation.

Our Principal Percussionist Brett Painter met Emil Richards at an international percussion convention in the United States in 2003, and the following year Emil travelled to New Zealand to perform with Pandemonium Percussion to over 4000 local school children, give workshops at CSO and the Jazz School, and teach individual lessons. Emil brought many gifts for Christchurch percussionists including his recordings, arrangements, method books, and mallets (which have since been used in many CSO concerts). Tonight’s ensemble arrangement of Delius’ On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring was one of his gifts, with Emil noting that his favourite composers were Delius and Debussy. Emil passed away in 2019, but his inspirational legacy lives on, and the performers dedicate tonight’s performance to him.

English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) wrote Two Pieces for Small Orchestra in 1912, one of which was On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, and it remains one of his most popular orchestral works. It is a vibrant tone poem about hearing the first cuckoo birds emerge as winter turns to spring, and features a melody from a Norwegian folk song “In Ola Valley,” which according to one of his students was chosen for its musical beauty: “as a vision of such sweet and tender loveliness that the heart stands still in contemplation of it, and the old unrest of the soul is put to sleep.”

Pulcinella Suite (1920)

STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)

Igor Stravinsky’s career is very interwoven with that of the choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, whose Les Ballets Russes ballet company became a huge part of his compositional life. Three epic ballet scores predate Pulcinella: Stravinsky was only 28 years old when The Firebird was premiered in Paris, which was quickly followed by Petrushka in 1911, and The Rite of Spring, complete with infamous premiere riot, in 1913. Seven years passed before Diaghilev came to Stravinsky with the concept for Pulcinella – music inspired by 18th century Italian musical styles, with sets and costumes designed by none other than Pablo Picasso.

Diaghilev suggested a score based on melodies he had collected, which were at the time believed to be the work of the composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36), and are since proven to also be from other 18th-century Italian composers. The ballet premiered in 1919 at the Paris Opera, billed as “music of Pergolesi arranged and orchestrated by Igor Stravinsky.” For the most part he kept the original Italian bass lines and melodies, and sprinkled his Stravinskian flair through harmony, intriguing rhythmic ideas, and a unique use of instrumental colour.

He went on to create a concert suite from the ballet for 33-piece chamber orchestra, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1922. This work was a crucial moment for Stravinsky’s compositional voice, his deep dive into what would later be called Neo-Classicism, which would dominate the following decades of his life. “Pulcinella was my discovery of the past - the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible. It was a backward look, of course – the first of many love affairs in that direction – but it was a look in the mirror, too.”

Pulcinella is a Pierrot-like character who originated in 17th century commedia dell’arte. In the Diaghilev ballet version he is something of a local Romeo where the girls fall in love with him, and their boyfriends plot against him – the seemingly inevitable disguises, swapped identities, murder attempts, and arranged marriages ensue.

Thank you to Hannah Darroch for our programme notes.