Pavane pour une infante défunte
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Run Time: Approx. 7 minutes
Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) was originally written for solo piano in 1899. Ravel revisited the work in 1910, resetting it for orchestra as he did with many of his piano works.
In English, the translated title of “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” usually alludes to somber funeral music, however this translation is somewhat misleading. Ravel’s intended meaning might better translate to something like “bygone princess” or a princess of another era. In discussing the work, Ravel admitted that he chose the words “infante défunte” because he liked how they sounded together, and implored listeners to not “attach any importance to the title. It is not a funeral lament for a dead child, but rather an evocation of the pavane which could have been danced by such a little princess as painted by baroque artist [Diego] Velásquez.”
The pavane to which Ravel refers is a popular court dance of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was a stately couples’ dance characterized by a slow two-step pattern in which lines of female and male dancers weave in and out of one another. In fact, the modern translation of the French word pavane is “strut.” Many have postulated (though Ravel denied it) that the little princess to whom Ravel alludes may have been Margarita Teresa of the House of Hapsburg, who features heavily in Velásquez’s paintings.
Pavane pour une infante défunte has become one of Ravel’s most beloved works and is frequently performed by both pianists and orchestras. The piece highlights both Ravel’s gift for sublime melody and his incredible skill as an orchestrator, evoking at once the unmistakable sound of the French impressionists and the timbres of the baroque era—a bygone musical world. The piece opens with shimmering lines from the horns and woodwinds woven together over pizzicato (plucked) strings, instantly conjuring a regal musical portrait of a young princess from the Spanish Golden age.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Run Time: Approx. 34 minutes
In the first part of his compositional life, Beethoven diligently studied the works of other masters like Mozart and Haydn. The influence of these classical-era composers is apparent in his earlier music, but shortly after 1800, around his 30th birthday, he began to explore his own more liberal path. His music grew more expansive, he injected more drama, enlarged the orchestra, and began exploring grand humanistic ideas. Sometimes known as Beethoven’s middle period, the years between 1802 and 1812 were extraordinarily productive for the composer, and during this time he produced some of his most famous works including the Eroica (Heroic) Symphony, and the famous Fifth Symphony. The Third Piano Concerto, written in 1803, stems from the early years of this exploration, and showcases some of Beethoven’s first exploration into the grandeur that would come to define his compositional output.
Beethoven selects C-minor for the work, a favorite key of his and one that carries particular weight. Beginning in the Classical Era, certain key centers became associated with specific thematic material; C-minor was often reserved for works of great turbulence and dramatic arc. For Beethoven, the key seems to encompass the depth of human struggle and sorrow, often exuding a particular expressive urgency. Notably, his most famous and turbulent Fifth Symphony also employs this key.
The first movement of the concerto features two diametrically opposed themes. The opening immediately introduces the ominous first theme which increases in insistence throughout the movement until it is finally played by the timpani. The second theme, introduced first by the clarinet, is more serene, a calm answer to the impassioned cries of the opening.
The second movement contrasts the drama of the first with an air of reverence. The piano begins alone with an elegant and understated melody. As with much of Beethoven’s music, the magic is in the harmonies he selects, and with the opening of the second movement, he creates an intimacy that seems to dare the audience to make a sound.
The concerto concludes with a rondo, a lively galloping form typical of the classical concerto. Here, Beethoven returns to C-minor and, like the first movement, alternates between his ominously percolating main theme and episodes of lighthearted, almost humorous music.
Overture to Don Giovanni
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Run Time: Approx. 6 minutes
One of Mozart’s most famous operas is a darkly humorous retelling of the legend of Don Giovanni (Don Juan in Spanish), the infamous romantic trickster of Seville. The work features some of Mozart’s most dramatic writing and continues this program’s exploration of opposing musical subjects—light and dark, love and tragedy, and in the case of Mozart’s opera, comedy and menace. Mozart begins with four stormy chords, perhaps offering a glimpse into Don Giovanni’s ultimate fate, before embarking on a romping main theme. His characterization of Don Giovanni as a carefree lothario, flitting about on fast string passages and bright chords is colored often by glimmers of more menacing music, reminding us there is a price to pay for a life lived in pursuit of personal pleasure.
Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Run Time: Approx. 20 Minutes
Shakespeare’s cherished story of star-crossed lovers has been explored throughout the arts, inspiring countless books, movies, paintings, and, of course, musical compositions. The timeless tale has attracted many composers including Prokofiev, Berlioz, Gounod, and Bernstein. But perhaps the most famous musical retelling is from Tchaikovsky.
One of his greatest works, the ill-fated love story between Romeo and Juliet is vividly borne out in just 20 minutes of music. Tchaikovsky begins the tale with an extended introduction, setting the scene and introducing Friar Lawrence. The somber opening chords played by the woodwinds state the friar’s theme and are written in the style of a four-part church hymn. As Tchaikovsky develops this concept, the tone grows ominous and foreshadowing. The music builds and with a strike of the timpani, transitions into a fiery episode colored by fast passages in the strings and great strikes by the brass and percussion. This new music represents the conflict between the Capulets and the Montagues. Tchaikovsky was a prolific composer of ballet music and here one can clearly envision dancers sashaying across the stage in an epic sword battle.
But the frenetic interlude quickly dissipates, and we finally arrive at the tender love theme between our two main characters. The sweeping melody is brilliantly juxtaposed over a tentative ostinato which echoes the nervous heartbeats of the young lovers. The theme is passed around the orchestra but always played in pairs of instruments, fittingly representing the star-crossed couple’s first encounter.
Soon their moment is interrupted, and the conflict returns, first subtly stated by the horns but then building until it takes over. The two themes continue to chase each other around the orchestra, one interrupting the other as the lovers try desperately to unite amid the turmoil of their circumstances. The conflict grows more persistent and the love theme more desperate until they come to a head—the low strings and percussion bringing the orchestra to a halt with a dramatic descent.
As the story wraps up, Tchaikovsky returns to the music of Friar Lawrence, played once again by the woodwinds. Just as in Shakespeare’s story, the friar finds the pair after Romeo is already dead. When Juliet awakes and the friar realizes what has happened, he leaves her alone with Romeo’s dagger to decide her fate. Here, Tchaikovsky returns us to the tender, aching love theme, uttered one last time by the strings. The music ascends, seeming to float off into the distance, and with a roll and final strike of the timpani, Juliet dies, and the story is over.
Don Juan
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
In 1888, the 24-year-old (but already quite successful) Richard Strauss was conducting a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Munich. Over the course of rehearsals, he became quite taken by the opera’s female lead, Pauline de Ahna, whom he eventually married. Perhaps inspired by the opera and by his own amorous longing, he began work on his own version of the Don Juan legend, based on Nikolaus Lenau’s unfinished play, Don Juans Ende.
The resulting work is one of the composer’s first forays into the Symphonic Poem, a musical form in which a specific narrative arc is depicted with no adherence to standard musical structures. Strauss would spend the rest of his career expanding on and perfecting the form, eschewing the traditional symphony and ultimately composing ten such poems in total.
In Don Juan, Strauss gets straight to the point, opening with a flurry of notes as the Don bursts onto the scene. After prancing floridly around the orchestra, he comes upon a beautiful woman with whom he is immediately taken, and Strauss introduces the first of several iterations of his love theme. First sounded by the violin, clarinet, and horn together, the melody begins with an ascending major 6th, an interval that has since been used by many composers to depict budding love. To hear an ascending major sixth, simply hum the first two notes of My bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. After the rising interval, Strauss pauses briefly—a small catch of the breath as the couple meets. Perhaps in a nod to Strauss, John Williams begins his iconic Han Solo and the Princess theme with the exact same figure.
As the story progresses, Strauss winds his themes together, the music becoming increasingly more passionate. But the climate is unexpectedly dark, perhaps hinting at Don Juan’s fate, or suggesting that his continued pursuit of pleasure is ultimately fleeting and unfulfilling.
Nevertheless, he presses on and soon encounters his next romantic entanglement, played tenderly by the solo oboe. Though Strauss never offered explicit narration, many believe that this iteration may be Donna Anna, the only woman with whom, in many versions of the legend, Don Juan had a true emotional connection. But the Don ultimately balks at their connection, interrupting the detente with an even more insistent hero theme played by four horns in unison.
The music then begins to spin out of control as Don Juan’s exploits get out of hand. People are starting to catch on to him, and he must continually elude angry fathers and husbands. The English horn reiterates the main love theme, but this time in a haunting minor. Perhaps his escapades have lost their delight?
Eventually, Don Juan tires of his endless cycle of seduction and allows himself to be bested in a duel by the father of one of his lovers. Unlike Mozart’s version of the story, Strauss forgoes the famous Last Supper scene in which the avenging ghost of the Commendatore drags him to hell. Instead, Strauss allows Don Juan to die a relatively peaceful death as trembling strings fade into two final, eerie chords.
Like many of Strauss’s scores, Don Juan is devilishly challenging for the orchestra. Famously, after a rehearsal for the premiere, one of the horn players cried, “Dear God! What sin have we committed for You to send us this rod for our backs!” Today, the work is a favorite for orchestral auditions, and just about every musician on stage will have played some passage from it as part of their audition for the ASO.
– Valerie Sly, 2024