Debussy composed Children’s Corner between 1906 and 1908. He dedicated the suite to his daughter, Claude-Emma (known as “Chou-Chou”), who was born on 30 October 1905 in Paris. She is described as a lively and friendly child who was adored by her father. She was three years old when he dedicated the suite to her in 1908. The dedication reads: “A ma chère petite Chouchou, avec les tendres excuses de son Père pour ce qui va suivre. C. D.” (To my dear little Chouchou, with tender apologies from her father for what follows).
The suite was published by Durand in 1908, and was given its world première in Paris by Harold Bauer on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration of the work by Debussy’s friend André Caplet received its premiere, and was subsequently published.
The suite is in six movements, each with an English-language title. This choice of language is most likely Debussy’s nod towards Chou-Chou’s English governess. The pieces are:
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum Jimbo’s Lullaby Serenade for the Doll The Snow Is Dancing The Little Shepherd Golliwogg’s Cakewalk
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was a British composer and conductor. He was particularly known for his three cantatas on the epic 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Coleridge-Taylor premiered the first section in 1898, when he was 23. Coleridge-Taylor sought to draw from traditional African music and integrate it into the classical tradition, which he considered Johannes Brahms to have done with Hungarian music and Antonín Dvořák with Bohemian music.
After Coleridge-Taylor’s death in 1912, musicians were concerned that he and his family had received no royalties from his Song of Hiawatha, which was one of the most successful and popular works written in the previous 50 years. (He had sold the rights early in order to get income.) His case contributed to their formation of the Performing Right Society, an effort to gain revenues for musicians through performance as well as publication and distribution of music.
King George V granted Jessie Coleridge-Taylor, the young widow, an annual pension of £100, evidence of the high regard in which the composer was held.
Composed around 1720-25, this is the first of Bach’s four orchestral suites, which were a series of instrumental compositions that often featured dance-inspired movements showcasing varied tempos and textures. Scored for 2 oboes, bassoon and strings, it is written in the “French overture” style, very popular in Germany in the early 18th century. It hearkens back to works composed for the French court of Louis XIV (1638-1715).
The first movement, “Overture,” has a slow, grand opening to which a king might make an entrance, with sharply accented motifs; followed by a fast fugal section interweaving strings with the wind soloists before reprising the grand opening at the end.
Next are six different dance movements, each with its own unique character. The Gavotte, Bourrée, and Passepied each have “alternative” sections which feature both oboes and bassoon, either as a solo group or with string accompaniment.
Although the dance models were French, Bach put his own mark on everything. The oboes and bassoon double the strings, but sometimes go their own way too, thus creating a sort of concerto grosso in disguise.
Somehow Bach also found the time to direct the Collegium Musicum, an amateur ensemble founded by Georg Philipp Telemann. With most concerts held at a coffee house, it provided Bach a space where he could present secular music not fit for church, including the four surviving Orchestral Suites.
Peter Warlock was a British composer and music critic who was well-known for his interest in and reinvention of early music, particularly Elizabethan and Renaissance styles, and was also recognized for his original compositions, mostly songs. He was also known for his colorful and bohemian lifestyle. Peter Warlock, born Philip Heseltine, adopted several pseudonyms, with “Peter Warlock” being the most famous. He chose this name to reflect his fascination with the occult, as “Warlock” implies a practitioner of witchcraft. For his music reviews, Heseltine also used other playful pseudonyms, including “Rab Noolas” (“Saloon Bar” spelled backwards).
His Capriol Suite, composed in 1926, evokes the spirit of Renaissance dance. The piece is based on tunes from Thoinot Arbeau’s 1589 Orchésographie, a manual of French Renaissance dances. Warlock reimagined these historic tunes, infusing them with his own flair and creating a work that feels both nostalgic and modern. Each of the suite’s six short movements is inspired by a different dance form.
The opening Basse-Danse sets the tone with its stately rhythms, evoking the grandeur of a Renaissance court and is followed by the haunting Pavane. The energetic Tordion (from the French “tordre”, meaning “to twist”) lightens the mood with its brisk tempo while the Bransles (from the French “branler”, meaning “to sway”) provides a rustic charm. The gentle Pieds-en-l’air (meaning feet in the air) offers a serene interlude with its dreamy melody, leading into the bold, high energy final movement, Mattachins (Sword Dance).
Originally composed as a piano duet, the Capriol Suite is most often performed by string orchestras. It’s a perfect piece for both musicians and audiences, blending ancient melodies with modern flair.
Born in Germany the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach, Handel worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling permanently in 1712 in London, where he completed the bulk of his work. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.
The Water Music resulted from King George I’s commission for a grand, public concert on the River Thames. It premiered in 1717 from a barge of 50 musicians floating upstream on the evening tide, along with a barge carrying the king and several aristocrats. Many other Londoners also took to boats and barges to enjoy the concert. When the tide turned, the procession reversed course back to its starting point. The king was so pleased that he ordered the Water Music to be repeated at least three times in both directions.
The Water Music is divided into three suites, with Suite No. 2 known as the “Trumpet Suite.” The first, fast-tempo movement begins with a fanfare in the trumpet and horn and then moves to a regal dotted-note motif with other virtuoso twists. The second movement, “Hornpipe,” is one of Handel’s most famous instrumental compositions. Its syncopations make it an instant earworm. Although most often called a minuet due to its triple meter, the stately, binary-form piece that comes third in the D major suite in fact carries the heading “Coro,” or Chorus. The fourth movement, “Lentement,” is pensive and provides the only minor moment in the suite. The final movement, “Air” – really in the rapid style of the bourrée – is to be played three times, leaving it up to the musicians to decide what, if any, textural contrasts might be nice each time around.
Grieg subtitle this lush work a “suite in the olden style.” He wrote it to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754), a celebrated writer, poet and dramatist claimed by both Denmark and Norway as a native son and dubbed “the Molière of the North.”
In evident homage to the baroque era in which Holberg lived, Grieg composed his suite in five short movements harking back to baroque form – a prelude followed by four short dance movements.
The “Praeludium” begins with rising scales punctuated by vigorous accents, with intermittent contrasting lyrical sections, and sets up the rest of the dances. The slow and stately Sarabande is introspective and tender, with short cello and violin solos. The elegant Gavotte follows with accented offbeats and a charming musette featuring string drones. The Air, marked “Andante religioso,” is the heart of the Suite. It is suffused with wistful melody and deeply-felt dialogues between solo cello and violins. The concluding Rigaudon is based on a jaunty French dance, which Grieg adapts to his own Norwegian folk style. Featuring a rollicking solo violin and viola duet in its main section, a short minor-key interlude leads to a joyous reprise to end the suite.
Grieg initially composed an eight-piece set of incidental music for a historical play written by his friend Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. It was published as Op. 22 and first performed in Christiania in 1872. The play itself was based on the life of Sigurd Jorsalfar (“Sigurd the Crusader”), a king who ruled Norway from 1103-1130 and went on a crusade to Jerusalem. The plot focuses on the tensions between Sigurd and his brother/co-ruler Eystejn; a love-triangle of the brothers with Borghild; and the brothers’ reconciliation. In later years Grieg compiled a 3-movement orchestral suite based on the original incidental music. He published it as Op. 56, and it was premiered in Oslo in 1892.
The opening prelude, “In the King’s Hall,” is a graceful march, first stated in the winds and then taken up by the entire orchestra. A contrasting lyrical section featuring woodwinds leads to a reprise of the opening section. The Intermezzo (“Borghild’s Dream”) is dark and mysterious, with a contrasting agitated section punctuated by string and wind outbursts. The final “Homage March,” originally meant to signify the brothers’ reconciliation, opens with brass fanfares. The main martial theme is played first by four solo ‘cellos, and then broadened to include strings, solo winds, and brass. A contrasting middle section is introduced by percussion and harp and features the strings. The martial theme is repeated by the orchestra to end the Suite.
Mussorgsky was a member of an influential group of Russian composers known as “The Five” – Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin. Together they forged a uniquely Russian musical style based on the country’s folklore and history. Mussorgsky himself composed numerous works for piano, orchestra, opera and voice. Among his best-known works are the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain, and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition.
The piano suite was composed in 1874 and was based on a series of drawings and paintings by the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann. It proved so popular that numerous arrangements have been made of it (the Ravel orchestration done in 1922 is the best-known of these). The first orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition, which we are performing at this concert, was prepared in 1886 by Mikhail Tushmalov, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. Rimsky himself oversaw the editing of the score and conducted the première, in 1891.
This orchestral arrangement contains most of the original movements of the piano suite. After the opening Promenade, the mood shifts to the “Old Castle,” with haunting melodies introduced by bass clarinet and English horn. Next is the spritely “Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells” featuring strings and woodwinds; “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle” is a ponderous dialogue between two Polish Jews, one rich and the other poor. “Market at Limoges” depicts women arguing furiously in a small French town marketplace. The tone shifts abruptly in “Catacombs;” punctuated by sudden brass chords, it is based on a painting in which Hartmann is examining the famous underground catacombs of Paris by lantern light. In the following “Con mortuis in lingua mortua,” the opening “Promenade” theme is eerily reprised in a minor key. The “Hut on Hen’s Legs” is based on a Hartmann drawing of a clock in the form of a witch’s hut; Mussorgsky puts the focus on the witch’s flight, with dramatic scales and passages in thirds.
It leads directly to the grand last movement, “The Great Gate of Kiev”. It is based on Hartmann’s design of a monumental gateway to the city in an ancient massive Russian style, capped with a cupola shaped like a Slavonic helmet. Its familiar grand theme is repeated several times with increasing intensity, interspersed with wind interludes reminiscent of Russian Orthodox chants. It ends in a triumphal paroxysm of massive chords and pealing bells.
Lully was France’s most significant composer of the 17th century. Born in Florence as “Giovanni Battista Lulli,” he was brought to France as a teenager to help a noblewoman improve her Italian. He quickly became proficient in music and dance.
He captured the fancy of the young Louis XIV, with whom he became a ballet partner at the age of 20. Louis soon selected him as his own instrumental composer, and eventually appointed Lully as the chief composer and impresario of the realm.
Lully began many of the conventions of the French Baroque, including the characteristic “French” overture used by later baroque composers such as Bach, Handel and Telemann. He collaborated with noted French playwrights to compose theatrical entertainments for the king. Among these works was Molière’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” (“The Would-Be Gentleman”), a “comedy-ballet” which was first performed at Louis’ command in 1670. The plot details the misguided efforts of Monsieur Jourdain, a middle-class merchant, to raise himself to the nobility. Among other antics, he hires masters of music, dance, fencing and philosophy to tutor him in their arts; is fitted with ridiculous-looking clothes (which he thinks are the newest style); and denies permission to his daughter to marry her middle-class suitor. To trick Jourdain into giving permission, the suitor disguises himself as the son of the Grand Turk. A farcical ceremony is held to raise Jourdain to the imaginary rank of “Mamamouchi,” after which Jourdain consents to the marriage!
Lully’s music is an integral part of the play. The selections we’re performing include the Overture; a suite of dances performed by the dancing-master’s students; ceremonial music for dressing Jourdain in his new clothes, and the joy of the tailor’s assistants after Jourdain generously tips them; music for the “Turkish” ceremony; and two sets of dances (Spanish and Italian) from the “Ballet of the Nations” which ends the comedy-ballet.
Stravinsky’s music for Pulcinella marks his transition from a Russian idiom, evidenced in earlier works like the Firebird and Petrushka, to a “neo-classic” style focusing on smaller-scale works characterized by order, balance, style and clarity.
Pulcinella was originally conceived as a ballet, premiered in Paris in 1920 by the renowned Ballet Russes. Four great 20th-century artists collaborated to create the ballet — Stravinsky (music), Pablo Picasso (scenery and costumes), Léonide Massine (choreographer) and Sergei Diaghilev (impresario). At Diaghilev’s suggestion, Stravinsky based the ballet music on works composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, a gifted baroque Italian composer of the early 18th century — or so he thought! Modern musicological research has shown that many works formerly attributed to Pergolesi were actually written by other composers, having been spuriously attributed to Pergolesi after his death.
In the ballet, 11 of the 21 numbers are based on works written by obscure 18th- or 19th-century composers, including Domenico Gallo, Carlo Ignazio Monza, and Graf Willem Unico van Wassenaer (an 18th-century Dutch nobleman whose music we have played in previous concerts).
The Pulcinella ballet was a great success, and in 1922 Stravinsky combined 12 of the ballet’s musical excerpts into the 8-movement suite for chamber orchestra which we’re performing today. While the movements retain much of their 18th-century origins, Stravinsky recomposed and reworked them for modern instruments, while adding his own unique rhythmic and harmonic features. All of the suite’s movements contain baroque elements; it’s the orchestrations, sonorities, and rhythmic variations — some of which would certainly jar the baroque ear — which clearly stamp this as Stravinsky’s work.
