THE FLORIDA OR CHESTRA | 2017-2018 39
Program Notes
is no conclusive evidence to support any single theory.
The explanation currently given the greatest credence is
that Schubert thought he could not match the wonderful
inspiration of the first two movements in what was to follow,
so he abandoned this Symphony for work on another project
and simply never returned to complete it.
What To Listen For
The first movement is a sonata form that begins without
introduction. The first theme, in the dark tonality of B minor,
is made up of three components: a brooding, eight-measure
phrase heard immediately in unison cellos and basses; a
restless figure for violins; and a broad melody played by oboe
and clarinet. The music grows in intensity as it approaches
the second theme, played in a brighter key by the cellos over
a gently syncopated accompaniment. A series of decisive
chords and a tossing-about of fragments of the second theme
bring the exposition to a close. The development, based
entirely on the movement’s opening phrase, begins softly in
unison cellos and basses. This lengthy central section rises to
great peaks of emotional tension before the recapitulation
begins with the restless violin figure of the first theme. The
oboe-clarinet theme is heard again, as is the second theme,
before the movement ends with restatements of the cellobass
phrase that began the exposition and the development.
The second movement is in the form of a large sonatina
(sonata form without a development section) and flows like
a calm river, filled with rich sonorities and lovely melodies.
PAUL HINDEMITH
SYMPHONIC METAMORPHOSIS OF THEMES
BY CARL MARIA VON WEBER
Duration: ca. 21 minutes
Overview
Hindemith first explored the idea of using Weber’s themes
in 1940, when he was planning a ballet in collaboration with
the legendary choreographer Leonide Massine. Hindemith
sketched out some ideas based on Weber’s music, but
Massine found them “too personal,” and the composer
himself had misgivings about the project when he found out
that Salvador Dali would be designing the production. Dali,
it seems, had been responsible for a staging for Massine of
the Bacchanale from Wagner’s Tannhäuser filled with “a
series of weird hallucinatory images” that Hindemith felt
were “quite simply stupid.” By mutual consent, composer
and choreographer abandoned the plan. Practical musician
that he was, however, Hindemith did not let the work done
on the ballet come to nothing. Perhaps prodded by his
publisher, B. Schott, who was looking for a composition that
would appeal to the prevailing American taste for colorful
orchestral showpieces, he again took up the sketches in 1943
and gave them final form as the Symphonic Metamorphosis of
Themes by Carl Maria von Weber.
What To Listen For
The first movement is based on the fourth of Weber’s Huit
pièces for Piano Duet, Op. 60. Vigorous and straightforward,
the music preserves the Gypsy spirit of the original, marked
“All’ Ongarese.” The second Metamorphosis is a scherzo
using a melody from the overture Weber contributed to the
incidental music for Schiller’s play Turandot. Just as Schiller’s
drama was an adaptation of Carlo Gozzi’s 18th-century play
(which was also the source for operas by Puccini and Busoni),
so Weber borrowed his theme from an earlier source, Jean-
Jacques Rousseau’s 1767 Dictionnaire de musique. Rousseau
in turn got it from a noted Sinologist, Father Jean Baptiste
Duhalde, who brought it back as a souvenir of his travels
in China. In Hindemith’s Metamorphosis, the melody is
first given simply in moderate tempo by the woodwinds.
There follows a series of variations that gradually build in
intensity until the entire orchestra is summoned to provide
a brilliant climax. The movement’s central section is an
orchestral greeting card in which all the instrumental choirs
are introduced with consummate contrapuntal mastery.
First the brasses come to call, and then the woodwinds. The
shimmering percussion instruments arrive, and soon all
of the orchestra takes up the Turandot theme again for the
closing variations. Last to be heard are the tinkles and taps of
the percussion, which spread an atmospheric Oriental tonal
mist over the closing pages of the movement.
The haunting theme of the third movement, an arrangement
of a gentle siciliano from Weber’s Six Pièces for Piano, Four
Hands, Op. 10, No. 2, is first sung by clarinet. The central
section is marked by a simple, lyrical strain from cellos and
clarinets played against an undulating accompaniment.
The opening theme returns, decorated with elaborate
arabesques in the flute. The vibrant closing movement,
derived from No. 7 of Weber’s Huit pièces, Op. 60, is one of
the most stirring marches in the orchestral repertoire.
© 2017 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
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