Lili Boulanger | D’un Matin de Printemps
D’un Matin de Printemps, meaning Of a Spring Morning in French, is an energetic yet delicate piece by the young French composer Lili Boulanger. The lively theme moves from instrument to instrument until slowing down as the violin takes up the melody. Several times the orchestra regains some of its lost momentum before settling down once more with the violin’s gentle solos. But at last the orchestra finds its vibrant self once again, finishing in a sublime, energetic manner.
D’un Matin de Printemps was originally written as a piano and flute duet in the spring of 1917. However, Boulanger wrote a version of the piece for piano, cello, and violin before preparing a third version in 1918, this time for orchestra. Each version is slightly different, but each is an example of French “Impressionist” music. Impressionist music focused on communicating the broad emotions and mood inspired by the subject, in this case a spring morning. Famous composers like Clause Debussy, Eric Satie, and Maurice Ravel wrote in the impressionist style as they preferred to focus on a general mood over explicit details.
D’un Matin de Printemps was Lili Boulanger’s last orchestral piece. Just two months after finishing the orchestral version in January 1918, she died on March 15 at the age of 24. Her tragic death ended a sickly, but prolific life. At age two, her parents noticed her musical inclinations and began to educate her in music. A terrible sickness forced her to be homeschooled but in spite of this she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome in 1913. Receipt of this prestigious award and scholarship would have a promised a long and successful career for Boulanger, but first World War I and then extended bouts of sickness interrupted her work. In 1916, she was told she had two years to live and began to work at a frantic pace on her opera La Princesse Maleine, which was to be her great achievement. By the time of her death, the opera was nearly complete, but ultimately unfinished with most of the score going missing.
Bright Sheng | Wild Swan Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra
Throughout history, composers have continuously sought inspiration from folk music. In the early 20th century, the likes of Bela Bartok and Leoš Janáček used the music of Hungary and Czechia to write songs that appealed to millions across the world. Composer Bright Sheng, in Wild Swan, attempts to do the same. Sheng uses folk tunes from western China compiled over a long career to form this piece. While most Chinese folk music uses the pentatonic scale, giving it a distinctive sound, this particular region’s music is not dissimilar to Western church music.
Wild Swan first began as a song for clarinet and a string quartet, which uses two violins, a viola, and a cello. At the time the piece was first written, in 1994, the piece was merely called ‘Concertino for Clarinet and String Quartet’. The name Wild Swan came from a 2005 performance in Massachusetts that embodied both the beauty and fierceness of the animal. The orchestral arrangement came a year later in 2006.
Bright Sheng is a renowned composer who, drawing on his early years in China and his later years in the U.S., has combined East and West to create unique musical works that have been played and celebrated across the world. Growing up in China, he began to learn the piano at age four from his mother. But during the Chinese Cultural Revolution he was persecuted because of his family and artistic background. Sheng was sent to western China where he performed in the province’s theater troupe as a pianist and percussionist. In 1978, Sheng was one of the first admissions to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music when it reopened. After moving to New York City in 1982, Sheng continued his studies at Queen’s College, Columbia University, and eventually under Leonard Bernstein. Today Sheng is a professor at Michigan’s School of Music, Theater, and Dance, where he is the Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Music.
Sergei Rachmaninoff | Symphony No. 2
On March 28, 1897, Rachmaninoff premiered his first symphony. It was a complete disaster. The symphony was under-rehearsed, the conductor may have been drunk, and the orchestra was bland at best. The conservative critics hated the piece because it was too modern and too original. But worst of all, Rachmaninoff himself hated the performance and upon reflection, gave up composing for two years amid a crisis of confidence. Eventually, Rachmaninoff underwent hypnotic therapy at the request of friends and family. After three months, his confidence was somewhat restored and he composed his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1900, a work that proved to be ver popular.
In 1906, Rachmaninoff left Russia for Dresden, Germany, where he felt he would have fewer distractions while composing. It was in Dresden that Rachmaninoff finally began writing his second symphony. The composition process was slow but the work finally premiered in 1908 to great acclaim. The symphony won Rachmaninoff his second Glinka award and vindicated him as a composer to be reckoned with, much to Rachmaninoff’s relief.
Rachmaninoff was born into a Russian aristocratic family in 1873. Their musical and religious background introduced Rachmaninoff to the Russian style of music that became prevalent in his early works. He was simultaneously known both as a modern composer and as one that followed in the footsteps of the earlier Russian composer, Tchaikovsky. Over time though, the political situation in Russia became so unbearable that he began to travel to the West with greater frequency before eventually immigrating to the United States. After immigrating, Rachmaninoff composed far less while stepping up the number of piano performances he presented. Due to his unnaturally large hands and great talent, Rachmaninoff was known as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. Since his death in 1943, Rachmaninoff has been esteemed as both an excellent pianist and one of the best composers of his generation.