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the rite of sPRING

T H A N K YO U TO O U R S P O N S O R S

OFFICIAL PARTNER

C L A S S I C A L S E R I E S

NASHVILLE SYMPHONYGIANCARLO GUERRERO, conductorTODD WILSON, organ

DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE / ORCH. CARLOS CHÁVEZChaconne in E minor

TERRY RILEYAt the Royal Majestic

I. Negro Hall II. The Lizard Tower Gang III. Circling Kailash

Todd Wilson, organ

INTERMISSION

IGOR STRAVINSKYThe Rite of Spring (original version)Part I: The Adoration of the EarthPart II: The Sacrifice

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, AT 7 PM | FRIDAY & SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 & 25, AT 8 PM

VANDERBILT

A E G I S

EST. 2013

FOUNDATIONS C I E N C E S

This weekend’s performances of The Rite of Spring made possible

in part by Jennifer and Gus Puryear.

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TONIGHT’S CONCERTAT A GLANCE

IGOR STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring

• One of the most influential works in the history of modernism, The Rite of Spring is legendary in part because of the riot it provoked at its premiere at Paris’ Théâtre Champs-Élysées in 1913. Though best known as a concert work today, the piece was originally conceived as a ballet, and the crowd’s reaction was more likely caused by Vaslav Nijinksy’s unusual choreography, which evoked the inherent brutality of the music.

• The Rite of Spring is divided into two parts: “The Adoration of the Earth” which is inspired by pagan rituals, and “The Sacrifice,” in which a young woman dies in a frenzy of dancing. So while the piece is hailed as a modernist classic, it’s also deeply rooted in Russian folklore. Along with the propulsive, lurching rhythms and the dense layers of sound, the piece is notable for its opening, in which the bassoon sets the scene by playing a sinuous melody in its upper register.

TERRY RILEY At the Royal Majestic

• During his lifetime in the 17th and early 18th centuries, Buxtehude was widely regarded as a master of the organ. Johann Sebastian Bach reportedly traveled 250 miles on foot to hear Buxtehude perform, and Handel also made a pilgrimage to hear the composer.

• In 1937, Mexican composer Carlos Chávez marked the 300th anniversary of Buxtehude’s birth by arranging his solo organ work Chaconne in E minor for a full orchestra. Chávez was drawn to the work, in part, because the Chaconne originated as a dance in Latin America. The form is based on a repeating motif, here in triple meter, that becomes the springboard for a wide variety of musical treatments.

DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE Chaconne in E minor (orch. By Carlos Chávez)

DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE

Composed: Buxtehude’s Chaconne may have been written in the 1690s; Chávez arranged and orchestrated the piece in 1937, revising it in 1960First performance: Unknown First Nashville Symphony performance: These are the orchestra’s first performances.Estimated length: 7 minutes

Born c. 1637, possibly in Helsingborg (then part of Denmark, today on the coast of Sweden); died on May 9, 1707, in Lübeck, Germany

We begin our program with a modern orchestral transcription of music by

one of the past masters of the organ. When most music lovers first encounter the name Buxtehude, they almost invariably associate it with his much younger Baroque colleague J.S. Bach, who took on Buxtehude’s mantle as a great organist. The legend goes that in 1705, when he was only 20, Bach made a musical pilgrimage on foot, covering more than 250 miles to reach to the northern German city of Lübeck to hear the elder master in action at the organ and to spend time learning from him.

Buxtehude was a magnet for many other musicians, from established figures to other up-and-coming composers like Handel, who had also made the visit. Near the end of his life, after close to 40 years of service as organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, Buxtehude commanded a powerful reputation as a brilliant improviser and virtuoso. Bach acquired numerous secrets of his art during this visit — which he extended

without authorization, risking his current job — and would continue to look to Buxtehude as a model musician.

Fast-forward to the 20th century, when the prolific Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez (1899-1978) arranged and orchestrated Buxtehude’s Chaconne in E minor, originally for solo organ, to mark the 300th anniversary of the Baroque composer’s birth. Chávez thereby made his contribution to the fresh reassessment of “early music” already under way. Similar efforts can be seen in the transcriptions of Bach’s organ music for large orchestra by the likes of Leopold Stokowski, which were then fashionable.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

Chávez was intrigued by the Latin American origins of the chaconne. It started as a lively,

animated dance, likely in Mexico after the Spanish conquest, but acquired a slower, more solemn character as the chaconne traveled across Europe. The formal idea involves a repetitive structure — a kind of proto-Minimalism — based on a harmonic sequence that repeats incessantly, typically in the bass. Brahms was later inspired by some aspects of the chaconne for the final movement of his Fourth Symphony, which revives the Baroque form but drapes in it Romantic language.

In the Chaconne in E minor, the sequence is only four bars long, in a characteristic triple meter: it’s the music we first hear the strings play. Buxtehude’s feat was to generate variety amid this continually repeating basic figure, which repeats a total of 30 times. Chávez applies his own ingenious fantasy by using orchestral colors, volume, and texture to vary the material, creating a miniature epic that covers a remarkable span of emotions.

The Chaconne is scored for 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.

CARLOS CHÁVEZ (ORCH.) Born on June 13, 1899, in Calzada de Tecube, Mexico (near Mexico City); died on August 2, 1978, in Mexico City

• Riley is frequently celebrated as one of the pioneers of Minimalism, thanks to his landmark 1964 work In C, which consists of a series of short musical phrases that can be played in any order and in any combination. Riley and his work — which also includes the electric piano improvisation A Rainbow in Curved Air — have made a huge impact on popular music, most notably on artists including The Who and Brian Eno.

• To be recorded for a forthcoming release on Naxos, At the Royal Majestic is a much more recent work inspired by Riley’s encounter with the pipe organ at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, which he nicknamed “Hurricane Mama” in honor of its sheer force. Riley’s musical language extends far beyond Minimalism, and this three-movement concerto shows the sheer breadth of his expression, which encompasses everything from American jazz and R&B to Indian classical music to ancient Greek modes.

Chávez applies his own ingenious fantasy by using

orchestral colors, volume and texture to vary the material.

Chaconne in E minor

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TERRY RILEY

Composed: 2013First performance: April 11, 2014, with Cameron Carpenter as the soloist and John Adams conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic First Nashville Symphony performance: These performances are the first by the Nashville Symphony and will be recorded live for a forthcoming Naxos release.Estimated length: 35 minutes

At the Royal Majestic

Born on June 24, 1935, in Colfax, California; currently resides in Camptonville, California

This season is a year of milestone birthdays: both Steve Reich and Philip Glass recently

became octogenarians. Terry Riley beat them to that particular achievement, having turned 80 two years ago. But he has always been the maverick of the mavericks. A composer, performer, artistic pioneer, and all-around musical guru, Riley became a formative influence on modern music over a half-century ago, and he has never stopped evolving in new directions.

The native Californian’s early breakthrough work, In C (1964), is regarded as a cornerstone in the development of American Minimalism; its widespread impact has been compared to that of The Rite of Spring. Riley’s influence crossed barriers between contemporary classical and popular music, leaving traces in the work of such artists as Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, and Pete Townshend. Townshend even gave a nod to his influence by titling one of The Who’s greatest hits “Baba O’Riley.”

Though he is often still labeled a Minimalist, the techniques of repetitive process associated with that movement are just one part of an expansive and colorful palette. As the music critic Mark Swed aptly remarks: “ ‘Minimalist’ is a strange tag for Riley. It suits him in that he has never lost his love for interlocking repetitive figures imbued with the strength to send the brain into psychedelic reverie. But Riley is really a musical accumulator.”

Riley has always been an intrepid musical traveler, drawing on inspirations that span a spectrum from Miles Davis to a diversity of non-Western musics. Along the way, he has found impulses in his close study of Indian classical and folk traditions, as well as experimentation with a variety of electronic organs, synthesizers, and sequencers. Added to the mix are Riley’s countless collaborations over a long career of performing and improvising with various bands and ensembles.

Nashville Symphony audiences had a chance to experience all of this firsthand when the orchestra premiered The Palmian Chord Ryddle, Riley’s concerto for electric violin and orchestra, in 2012. At the Royal Majestic is another recent example of Riley’s work with a symphony orchestra and a virtuosic soloist, in this case organist Todd Wilson. (Soloist Cameron Carpenter, who premiered the work in 2014, was unavailable for these performances.)

Riley’s new organ concerto originated from his hour-long work for solo organ, The Universal Bridge, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2008. During an edition of the Philharmonic’s “Minimalist Jukebox” festival, he’d been intrigued by the pipe organ in the orchestra’s home, Disney Hall, and even dubbed the instrument “Hurricane Mama.” Riley recalls that he was allowed to have several all-night sessions with this organ: “Some of the unused improvisations and sketches I made then later found their way into At the Royal Majestic.”

Riley has always been an intrepid musical traveler, drawing on inspirations that span a spectrum from Miles Davis to a

diversity of non-Western musics.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

The concerto’s three movements — two long panels framing a much shorter middle one

— require the soloist “to explore many different roles,” writes Riley. The title At the Royal Majestic evokes “the mighty Wurlitzer housed in the grand movie palaces,” which are juxtaposed with “fragments of calliope, Baroque chorales, [the] occasional craggy dissonance of clashing pipes, and boogie.” The organist is also required occasionally “to coexist in a large orchestral soup with many parts having equal prominence.” Another musical image the composer applies to the concerto overall is that of the “geometric formations seen in starling flight patterns.”

The first movement draws on unused material for The Saint Adolf Ring, Riley’s 1990 chamber opera based on the drawings and poetry of Swiss artist Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), who spent his life confined to a psychiatric hospital. The movement’s title (“Negro Hall”) refers to a colored-pencil drawing of the same name by Wöffli.

“I was intrigued by what Wölfli, who never traveled outside of Switzerland…thought about Negro culture,” Riley writes. “I tried to imagine what a dance hall in the Waldorf Astoria in NYC in the 1930s might be like (from Wölfli’s perspective), a gaggle of black dancers in outlandish jitterbug and boogie-woogie routines in a polymetric, changing-tempo frenzy. I used Wölfli’s beautifully geometric mandala-like drawings to inspire my own composing process. The wish was to set down music with an identifiable pop/jazz framework of the 1930s but transformed by a dreamlike vision. A cosmic cartoon, if you will.”

Following the brief second movement (“The Lizard Tower Gang”), the finale refers to the pilgrimages annually made to the sacred site of Mount Kailash in Tibet, where the Hindu deity Shiva is believed to dwell.

Terry Riley has provided the following description of At the Royal Majestic:

“The concerto begins simply with the organist playing a relaxed, gospel-flavored solo that eventually winds its way to a darker, edgier mood. The orchestra joins the soloist and builds to a full crescendo just before polytonal block chords in

the organ give way to a slow-rocking minor-third pulse supporting a sinuous virtuosic bass clarinet duel. Following sections display quickly shifting metric pattern development, unveiling disjointed, psychedelic, jitterbug extravaganzas propelling the orchestra into sudden shifts in meter and tempo. A slow A-B-A romantic waltz elbows its way into the plot, undergoes a quick development, and gives way to more polymetric patterns and unison crescendos before closing with punched-out syncopated chords.

“ ‘The Lizard Tower Gang’ attempts to juggle chaos and symmetry in its opening statement, displaying a jagged alto saxophone solo, alternating Chinese gong pulses, water drum heartbeats, string glissandos, ripping elephant tubas, chattering flutes, bassoons, and trumpets. The organ enters with rich chords punctuated over a suspended drone. A slow, ragtime-like sequence in the organ introduces part two, a grinding blues dirge giving way to the coda closing the movement.

“The opening theme of ‘Circling Kailash’ is first stated in the violas and cellos and then taken up by the organ, brass, and bassoons. It is interrupted by an 11-beat descending pattern passed around the orchestra before the opening theme returns and the section idles to a close. The second part of the movement is marked by a slow theme outlined by pizzicato basses. A variation of the theme is then turned into a chorale for organ and brass. Crystalline C-major patterns led by the mallet instruments combine with a restating of the theme in diatonic clusters by the organ to announce the closing section. The C-major patterns pass around the orchestra as they undergo pan-modal coloration changes. The movement ends with a short, plaintive solo organ phrase over an E Phrygian modality.”

In addition to solo organ, At the Royal Majestic is scored for a large orchestra of 3 piccolos, 2 flutes, alto flute, 2 bass clarinets, alto saxophone, 5 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 4 trumpets, flugelhorn, 2 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, 5 percussionists, and strings.

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TODD WILSONorgan

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

R egarded across America and

around the world as one of today’s finest concert organists, Todd Wilson is head of the

Organ Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music and director of music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition, he is curator of the E.M. Skinner pipe organ at Severance Hall, home of The Cleveland Orchestra, and house organist for Aeolian organ at the Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron, Ohio.

Wilson has won numerous competitions, including the Grand Prix de Chartres (France) and the Ft. Wayne Competition. An active member of the American Guild of Organists, he holds the

Fellow and Choirmaster certificates. He has been a featured performer at numerous conventions of the American Guild of Organists, including the 1996 Centennial National Convention of the Guild in New York City, and at the 2012 Convention of the Guild in Nashville, where he previously performed with the Nashville Symphony.

Wilson has performed in many major cities throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including concerts at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Dallas’ Meyerson Symphony Center, and Symphony Hall in Birmingham, England. In October 2004 he performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on the first orchestra subscription series concert featuring the new organ at Disney Hall. Other orchestral appearances include The Cleveland Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, and City of London Sinfonia.

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Composed: 1911-13; revised 1947First performance: May 29, 1913, in Paris, with Pierre Monteux conducting production by the Ballets RussesFirst Nashville Symphony performance: October 21 & 22, 1963, at War Memorial Auditorium with Music Director Willis PageEstimated length: 35 minutes

Le Sacre du Printemps (“The Rite of Spring”)

Born on June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, Russia; died on April 6, 1971, in New York City

T he “scenes of pagan Russia” depicted in the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite

of Spring) inspired Stravinsky to imagine a revolutionary music that became a milestone of modernism. The score’s bold rhythmic innovations and ingenious orchestration continue to influence composers today.

Stravinsky was only in his late 20s when he began working on Rite. In 1910 he became an international celebrity overnight with The Firebird, his first major work for the Paris-based Ballets Russes. The company’s director, Sergei Diaghilev, had taken a major risk by commissioning the virtually unknown 27-year-old composer to write new music for a richly costumed extravaganza.

While he was still composing The Firebird, Stravinsky embarked on a collaboration with the mystically inclined archeologist and painter Nikolai Roerich to come up with the scenario for a new ballet that would evoke the spirit of archaic Russia. Stravinsky later recalled having a dream involving “a pagan ritual in which a chosen sacrificial virgin danced herself to death.”

Stravinsky seems to have realized immediately that the music he was beginning to imagine would push his creative instincts to the limit. He therefore put the Rite idea aside and composed the ballet Petrushka, which premiered in 1911 and won another success with his Parisian

admirers. Rite was finally ready to be unveiled in the late spring of 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The riot-inducing first performance has become the stuff of legend. Yet, according to Stravinsky experts, much of the audience’s reaction was likely directed at the novel, weirdly gestural choreography devised by Ballets Russes star Vaslav Nijinksy, who had his dancers contorting in violent, earthbound patterns. The battling factions in the audience became so noisy that they eventually drowned out the music.

The notoriety of that opening turned out to be good publicity for the ballet. Outrage gave way to approval as the run continued. Despite Rite’s initial reception, the score almost immediately established itself as perhaps the seminal work of 20th-century musical innovation. Although Stravinsky had not set out to write a manifesto of new music, Rite became the rallying cry of modernists.

Nowadays, this music is typically encountered as an abstract concert piece, rather than as a ballet score. Yet Stravinsky deeply immersed himself in the world of pagan Russian folk culture to create an intensely theatrical work. From its original conception, Rite married music with visceral images of the elementary bond between human bodies and the earth. Inherent in the score, therefore, is a fascinating tension between the primal and the ultra-modern. And — as the unfolding horrors of the 20th century would soon bear out — these apparent opposites share an implacable, pitiless savagery.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

T he Rite of Spring is divided into two parts, each prefaced by hypnotically evocative

introductions. Part One (“The Adoration of the Earth”) centers on ancient Slavic rituals, which proceed from playful to fiercely combative. “All this,” Stravinsky says, “is interrupted by the procession of The Old Wise Man, who kisses the earth,” after which “the first part ends in a frenzied dance of the people drunk with spring.” Part Two (“The Sacrifice”), which takes place at night, culminates in the “Chosen One” from among the young women being glorified, surrounded by a circle of Old Wise Men, and dancing herself to death in a sacrificial dance. At the end, the elders rush forward to prevent her lifeless body from

touching the earth, raising her up to the sky.Rite’s propulsive, jagged rhythms are probably

its best-known feature. Stravinsky’s innovations liberate meter and rhythm from the predictable, symmetrical patterns that had dominated Western classical music since the Baroque.

Stravinsky overlays differing metrical patterns, sometimes generating immense energy from the complex totality. The conclusion of each of the ballet’s two parts features a monstrous climax composed of multiple tracks of instrumentation and meter. Stravinsky stacks these together, creating a sense of tightly controlled complexity at the precipice of chaos. The radical perspectives of Cubism are often cited as a visual counterpart.

The composer’s radical rethinking of musical language works on many levels in Rite, though, paradoxically perhaps, folk music sources have been shown to be intimately embedded amid Stravinsky’s modernist innovations as well — a fact which the composer went to lengths to disguise. Stravinsky’s innovative use of the orchestra is another gripping feature of this music. In the opening, the bassoon plays at the high end of its register to suggest the rawness of untrained village singers. Throughout, Stravinsky mixes an unusual, dazzling palette of instrumental combinations, often spotlighting sections

(especially percussion) previously relegated to a background role in the orchestra, while de-centering the traditional “backbone” role played by the strings.

While Rite builds several times to a kind of brutalizing frenzy before its final meltdown, the music also explodes in moments of overwhelming — if impersonal — joy. The entire opening section has never been bettered in its depiction of the swarming, anarchic joie de vivre of spring awakening. This is perhaps the greatest paradox of this seminal score: Stravinsky’s ability to evoke a joyful, affirmative sense of the life force that underlies even the most violent, death-prone extremes of the music.

The Rite of Spring is scored for 2 piccolos, 4 flutes, alto flute, 4 oboes, 2 English horns, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, 2 bass clarinets, 4 bassoons, 2 contrabassoons, 8 horns (7th & 8th doubling Wagner tuba), piccolo trumpet, 4 trumpets, bass trumpet, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, 2 timpani, bass drum guiro, cymbals, antique cymbals, gong, triangle, and strings.

— Thomas May, the Nashville Symphony’s program annotator, is a writer and translator who covers classical and contemporary music. He blogs at memeteria.com.