Program Notes
LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)
CANDIDE OVERTURE
Duration: ca. 5 minutes
When Stuart Malina began putting together a program
of American masters, he chose a modern symphony, a
jazzy tone poem and an off-beat concerto. But he needed
something else, and thought, “How do I begin?’’
“By getting the ball rolling, and Candide fits the bill,’’ said
TFO’s principal guest conductor. “It’s short, familiar to the
orchestra, and audiences love it. It’s an explosive piece
that doesn’t let up. It elicits smiles.’’
When Bernstein completed his operetta Candide in 1956,
he had hopes of a Broadway hit, which is exactly what
happened with his greatest achievement, West Side Story.
Based loosely on Voltaire’s 1759 novella of the same name,
Bernstein’s “Valentine card to European music’’ included
more than 30 numbers over two hours. But Americans
were turned off by its highbrow, esoteric libretto. It was,
simply, a flop.
Bernstein was too savvy to let the failure fester. He did
what any respectable composer would do: condense the
lengthy score into a concert appetizer. As an overture, it
worked perfectly, and after its first performance, the New
York Times critic Harold Schonberg called it “a smart,
sophisticated little piece.’’
Nowhere did Bernstein cram more variety into a tighter
space than in this gem, a potpourri of musical irony and
wit. The Rossini-like overture opens with an Olympicssounding
fanfare, followed by a can-can, war march, and
a cascade of counter melodies full of ironic bite – all in less
than five minutes.
The overture would be Bernstein’s most-often played
work, one reason the New York Philharmonic performed
it – without a conductor – at the composer’s memorial
service in 1990.
CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS (b. 1967)
SYMPHONY NO. 1
Duration: ca. 35 minutes
The longest work on tonight’s program is the Symphony
No. 1 by Christopher Theofanidis, a Texas-born composer
and professor at Yale University best known for his piece
Rainbow Body. Substantial and serious, “it fits well with
the jazziness of Bernstein and Gershwin and the soft
repetitions of Glass,” said TFO Principal Guest Conductor
Stuart Malina, who leads this weekend’s program.
“It’s profound but utterly palatable,’’ he said. “Chris writes
music that has an underpinning of the spiritual, and it’s
almost terrifying in its use of orchestral sonority. It’s a very
THE FLORIDA OR 44 CHESTRA | 2019-2020
powerful piece, a major work of American music.’’
First performed and recorded in 2009 by the Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra, the half-hour piece is cast in
four movements, two outer pillars surrounding two
lyrical inner sections. Here’s a description of each
movement, edited from the composer’s website:
I. A choir of woodwinds open this 12-minute intro,
soon joined by an explosion of the entire orchestra.
At times joyous, the music becomes “a slightly
out-of-control version of itself,’’ and offers an
emotional energy in contrast to the final movement.
II. This lyrical, eight-minute section surges upward with
great power and effect, peppered by woodblocks. Muted
trombones introduce an ominous theme taken up by the
strings, and members of the orchestra actually sing, their
“oohs’’ and “aahs’’ adding another dimension to the sound.
III. A four-minute scherzo, this section is a swirl of
dance rhythms sprinkled with plucked strings. Flutes
and clarinets offer a refrain repeated by the rest of the
orchestra. The “darting material of the strings provides the
fuel for all of the rest of the material in the movement. This
movement would have an almost classical feel to it, were
it not for the tidal surges of the brass and percussion.’’
IV. The finale opens with a thunderclap that sets up a
dark, ominous mood, the music “tormented by flashes of
light and beauty,’’ before the symphony ends on the dying
beats of the kettledrum.
“I think the audience is going to love this piece,’’ Malina
said of TFO’s first-ever performances of the symphony. “It
grabs you at the very beginning and doesn’t let go until
the end.’’
PHILIP GLASS (b. 1937 )
CONCERTO FOR SAXOPHONE QUARTET
Duration: ca. 23 minutes
Philip Glass may be the closest a living composer gets
to being a cultural phenomenon. We know him as one
of the founders of the minimalist movement, but we
can’t escape his presence in film, opera, theater, pop,
new age, and even advertising. Where most of today’s
composers are happy to sell a few thousand records, Glass
moves millions, enjoying the royalties that come with
commercial success. Not bad for a guy who once drove a
cab and installed dishwashers.
Minimalism grew out of reaction to the academic,
detached, cerebral music of the 1950s, much of which
rubbed people the wrong way and gave orchestras and
audiences little to chew. A “new Romanticism’’ followed,