Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season January-February 2016 | Page 18
{ program notes
permeates the entire work. Barely audible
in the veiled tones of muted solo cello,
clarinets, and horns, it suggests Russian
Orthodox chant in its restrained stepwise
motion. After the orchestra explodes into
life, the plaintive tones of oboes and bassoons sing the principal theme: a lovely
expansion of the motto, over a gently
rocking violin accompaniment. Intensifying the mood of yearning for a lost
paradise, the cellos enter with the bittersweet second theme, the symphony’s
most memorable tune. All this material
is repeated before agitated violas, baleful
bassoons, and wailing oboes introduce
Rachmaninoff’s greatest development
section, rich in atmosphere, adventurous harmonies, and fantastic scoring. It
reaches a nightmarish climax, punctuated by the return of the motto theme,
harshly intoned by brass. The opening
music recapitulates, but cannot recover
the purity and sweetness of its earlier
existence. The movement subsides with
a final ominous appearance of the motto
in trumpet and trombone.
Embedded within the C-sharp-minor
slow movement is a sardonic little scherzo. In a haunting opening, the solo horn
mournfully sings the motto motif over
strummed harp chords and is answered
by a weeping violin solo. The violins’
poignant main theme, wistfully colored
with trills, again grows out of the motto
idea. The tempo accelerates to the scherzo,
featuring a cheeky, crisply articulated
march tune whose tone grows increasingly
macabre and unhinged. Buzzing strings
return to the slow-tempo music.
The finale jolts us with its sudden shift
to noisy bustle and from the minor mode
to A major. Its mood of frantic, slightly
meaningless activity culminating in a ferocious little fugue suggests Rachmaninoff’s
own whirlwind schedule as globetrotting
virtuoso. After the opening music recapitulates, stopped horns and muted trumpets
snarl out a version of the Dies irae (Day of
Judgment) chant from the medieval Catholic funeral rite. At the close, Rachmaninoff
intriguingly sends a harmonic cloud over
his sunny happy ending.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2016
16 O v ertur e |
www. bsomusic .org
Off the Cuff:
Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3
Music Center At Strathmore
Friday, January 8, 2016 — 8:15 p.m.
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
Saturday, January 9, 2016 — 7p.m.
Marin Alsop, Conductor
Richard Kogan, Piano
Sergei Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, opus 44
Lento — Piu vivo
Adagio ma non troppo — Allegro vivace
Allegro
Music Center At Strathmore
The concert will end at approximately 9:30 p.m.
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
The concert will end at approximately 8:15 p.m.
Marin Alsop
For Marin Alsop’s bio., please see pg. 7.
Richard Kogan
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
at Weill Cornell
Medical College and
Artistic Director of the Weill Cornell
Music and Medicine Program, Richard
Kogan has gained world renown for
lecture/concerts that explore the role of
music in healing and the influence
of psychiatric and medical illness on
composers such as Mozart, Beethoven,
Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin,
Bernstein and Joplin. He delivered an
address entitled “The Power of
Music in Healing Mind and Body” at
the World Economic Forum in Davos
and the Hindustan Times Leadership
Summit in New Delhi, and recently
performed “The Psychiatrist at the Keyboard” in London, co-sponsored by the
BBC and the Wellcome Trust.
Dr. Kogan recorded the DVD Music
and the Mind: The Life and Works of
Robert Schumann for Yamaha. Dr. Kogan
has won numerous honors including the
Concert Artists Guild Award, the Liebert
Award for Applied Psychoanalysis, and the
Alexander Award in Psychiatry.
A graduate of the Juilliard School
of Music Pre-college, Harvard College
and Harvard Medical School, Dr.
Kogen has a private psychiatry practice
in New York City.