Pablo Returns and Copland’s Third Symphony
What to listen for
Fantasía: refined balanced phrases suitable for dancing; Baroque or “old-style” quality rather than something written in 1954. Much guitar virtuosity.
Symphony No. 3: Grand expansive style. First movement is abstract (no specific story or narrative); each movement builds to the closing section, which is based on Copland’s iconic Fanfare for the Common Man.
Other works by these composers
Rodrigo: Concierto Aranjuez; Concierto Andaluz
Copland: Suite from Appalachian Spring; Lincoln Portrait
Joaquín Rodrigo: Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasy for a gentleman)
Composer: born November 22, 1901, Sagunto, Spain; died July 6, 1999, Madrid
Work composed: 1954, commissioned by and dedicated to guitarist Andrés Segovia. The “gentilhombre” of the title refers both to Gaspar Sanz, a 17th century Spanish composer and guitar virtuoso, upon whose music much of the Fantasía is based, and to Segovia himself.
World premiere: Segovia performed the solo part in the premiere, with Enrique Jordá leading the San Francisco Symphony, on March 5, 1958.
Instrumentation: solo guitar, 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo), oboe, bassoon, trumpet, and strings.
Estimated duration: 21 minutes
Joaquín Rodrigo’s greatest contribution to music is the body of work he wrote extending and popularizing the repertoire of the classical guitar. Considered one of Spain’s foremost 20th century composers, Rodrigo wrote a number of works for guitar, most notably his famous Concierto de Aranjuez, although, interestingly, Rodrigo did not play guitar himself (he was a pianist). Rodrigo’s guitar music reflects the rich legacy of Spanish musical history, particularly the stylized dance forms of Baroque music.
In 1954, Spanish guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia commissioned a new work from Rodrigo, and for inspiration, Rodrigo drew from the work of another Spanish guitar virtuoso, the 17th century guitarist, teacher and composer Gaspar Sanz.
Sanz’s most famous work is his 1697 three-volume treatise Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española (Musical instruction for the Spanish Guitar), a cornerstone of guitar pedagogy, which includes 90 compositions. When Rodrigo began composing the Fantasía para un gentilhombre (paying tribute to both Sanz and Segovia with the title), he borrowed several themes from Sanz’ short guitar pieces, sometimes completing melodies Sanz had left unfinished. Rodrigo said his intention with his orchestration was to create a sound in the “manner of strong spices that were so popular in the victuals of the period.”
The four movements of the Fantasía begin with the Villano y Ricercare, which features the villano, a popular 17th-century dance. Its light-hearted character, embodied by solo flute, suggests the warmth of a sunlit Spanish sky. This is paired with the stately grace of the ricercare, an incomplete fragment by Sanz that Rodrigo finished by weaving orchestra and soloist in gentle counterpoint.
Españoleta y Fanfare de la Caballería de Nápoles combines the haunting, exquisite melody of the españoleta with a robust fanfare for the Neapolitan cavalry (Naples was ruled by Spain in Sanz’s time). The fanfare features a string technique known as col legno, in which the players bounce their strings with the wood of their bows, simulating the beat of horses’ hooves.
The vigorous Danza de las Hachas (hatchet dance) is customarily performed with flaming torches. Soloist and orchestra alternate leading and accompanying the dance.
In the concluding movement, Rodrigo features the canario, a lighthearted dance from the Canary Islands. This gently lilting melody, in 6/8 time, provides the backdrop for an increasingly intense competition between soloist and orchestra, in which both trade (steal?) phrases with (from?) the other, in the manner of Dueling Banjos. The solo flute concludes with a lip-popping cadenza.
Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3
Composer: born November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, NY; died December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, NY
Work composed: 1944-46. Copland’s Third Symphony was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation and Copland dedicated it “to the memory of my good friend, Natalie Koussevitzky.”
World premiere: Serge Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 18, 1946.
Instrumentation: piccolo, 3 flutes (one doubling 2nd piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, anvil, bass drum, chimes, claves, cymbals, glockenspiel, ratchet, slapstick, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tam tam, tenor drum, triangle, wood block, xylophone, celeste, piano, 2 harps, and strings
Estimated duration: 38 minutes
In 1922, Nadia Boulanger, who taught composition to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers, introduced conductor Serge Koussevitzky to one of her young American students. From that moment, Koussevitzky and Aaron Copland forged a reciprocal collaboration that lasted until Koussevitzky’s death, in 1951. Koussevitzky championed Copland’s music and taught him the nuances of conducting; in turn, Copland encouraged Koussevitzky to focus on American composers, particularly at the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music Center), which Koussevitzky established in 1940 in Lenox, MA.
In 1944, Copland received his last commission from Koussevitzky’s Foundation; this evolved into his most substantial orchestral work, the Third Symphony. Copland explained, “I knew exactly the kind of music he [Koussevitzky] enjoyed conducting and the sentiments he brought to it, and I knew the sound of his orchestra, so I had every reason to do my darndest to write a symphony in the grand manner.”
In his autobiography, Copland wrote, “If I forced myself, I could invent an ideological basis for the Third Symphony. But if I did, I’d be bluffing – or at any rate, adding something ex post facto, something that might or might not be true but that played no role at the moment of creation.” Nonetheless, one cannot help hearing Copland’s Third Symphony as the expression of a country emerging victorious from a devastating war. Copland acknowledged as much, noting that the Third Symphony “intended to reflect the euphoric spirit of the country at the time.”
Copland described the Molto moderato as “open and expansive.” Of particular note is the second theme, a singing melody for violas and oboes, which sounds like an inspirational moment from a film score.
The Andantino quasi allegretto contains the most abstract and introspective music in the symphony. High strings wander through an empty landscape, like soldiers stumbling over a field after a bloody battle. A solo flute intones a melody that binds the rest of the movement together with, as Copland explains, “quiet singing nostalgia, then faster and heavier – almost dance-like; then more childlike and naïve, and finally more vigorous and forthright.” As the third movement’s various themes weave and coalesce, sounding much like sections of Copland’s ballet music, they produce a half-conscious sense of déjà vu – have we heard this before? Not quite, but almost, and as the third movement dissolves without pause into the final movement, we hear the woodwinds repeating a theme present in all three of the preceding sections. Now the theme shifts, the last jigsaw puzzle piece locks into place, and the Fanfare for the Common Man emerges.
Although the Fanfare is instantly recognizable today, at the time Copland was writing the Third Symphony it was little known. In 1942, Eugene Goossens, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony, commissioned Copland and eighteen other composers to write short, patriotic fanfares for the orchestra to premiere during their 1942-43 season. Copland explained his choice of title: “It was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army. He deserved a fanfare.”
Copland wanted a heroic finale to represent the Allied victory in WWII, and the Fanfare epitomized it. The flutes and clarinets introduce the basic theme, before the brasses and percussion burst forth with the version most familiar to audiences.
Reviews were enthusiastic, ranging from Koussevitzky’s categorical statement that it was the finest American symphony ever written to Leonard Bernstein’s declaration, “The Symphony has become an American monument, like the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.”
© Elizabeth Schwartz