Overture to Egmont, Op.84
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Approximate duration 9 minutes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the most important figure in German literary romanticism. He was also Beethoven’s favorite writer. Thus in 1809, when the director of Vienna's Burgtheater decided to stage revivals of Goethe's Egmont and Friedrich Schiller's William Tell with new incidental music for both plays, Beethoven was keen to secure the commission.

His Viennese colleague Adalbert Gyrowetz was assigned the Tell music (which preceded Rossini's opera by two decades). Thus it fell to Beethoven to compose nearly 40 minutes of music for Egmont, a drama that was deemed unsuitable for music. Beethoven, of course, proved that opinion wrong.

Egmont takes place during the 16th century Counter-Reformation, when the Low Countries were under Spanish Habsburg rule. The hero, Count Egmont, perceives that the Netherlands will revolt and eventually free itself from Spanish domination, but his own courageous stand costs him his life. He is executed by the Hapsburg Duke of Alva. His spirit endures to help his people to overthrow the despotic ruler. Egmont's message was fully in keeping with Beethoven’s political and intellectual stance. Specifically, it was consistent with his aversion to the Napoleonic juggernaut.

The Overture exemplifies Beethoven's "heroic" style. In essence, the overture is a microcosm of Goethe’s drama. Formally, it comprises a slow introduction to a sonata-allegro movement; however, Beethoven adjusts sonata form to accommodate aspects of the underlying story. Beethoven's dark, dramatic music is fraught with the destiny of its hero. The opening chords symbolize fate; the flowing string theme of the Allegro has a surging forward momentum that carries us with the drama. The bright coda in F major represents victory over the political oppressors, and so on. Such emphasis on programmatic content was fairly new in 1809 and is particularly unusual in Beethoven. In that sense, it demonstrates a heady romantic streak in Beethoven that comes as a thought-provoking surprise so early in the century.

The Overture is scored for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.

Rissolty Rossolty (1939)
Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)
Approximate duration 3 minutes

Until the late 20th century, composition was not an easy path for a woman to pursue. Ruth Crawford was a pioneer among American women in that regard, forging ahead in a field overwhelmingly dominated by men. She began her career as a children’s music teacher in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1921 she moved to Chicago to study at the American Conservatory of Music. There she delved fearlessly into modernist techniques: polytonality, tone clusters, twelve-tone music, and microtones.

In 1929, the American radical experimentalist Henry Cowell arranged for her to study with Charles Seeger in New York. She married Seeger in 1932 and became involved in his folk song research. (The folksinger Pete Seeger was her stepson.)

Rissolty Rossolty was an outgrowth of Charles and Ruth Seeger’s friendship with the folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, who began his seminal radio program, “The Wellsprings of America,” in 1939. Crawford Seeger intended the piece for high school orchestra, but it is decidedly complex. She layers together three American pieces: the fiddle tune “The Last of Callahan” and the folk songs “Rissolty Rossolty” (about an unfortunate husband whose wife is slovenly and a poor housekeeper) and “The Old Grumbler” (also about a married couple squabbling about which of them does what). Her technique obscures the tunes by deconstructing them into fragments and recombining them in sophisticated counterpoint. Though brief, the piece is a rollicking good time and will set your feet to tapping.

Instrumentation: flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, and strings.

Adagietto from Symphony No.5 in C-sharp minor
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Approximate duration 9 minutes

The background of Mahler's Fifth Symphony is intimately tied to his romance with Alma Maria Schindler (1879-1964). He began work on the Fifth Symphony during summer 1901. A few months later, when he met Alma Schindler at the home of mutual friends in Vienna, Mahler was 41. She was only 22. The daughter of a prominent Austrian landscape painter, Alma was well-educated, well-born, well-spoken and musically talented. She was also considered to be one of Vienna's great beauties. Mahler was smitten, and the love affair developed rapidly. Barely four months later, she was already pregnant when they married. He proposed to Alma by sending her this Adagietto, which became the slow movement of his new symphony. The movement is his love song to his bride.

Tender and dreamy, the Adagietto alters the psychological makeup of the symphony. Mahler scored the movement for strings and harp, thereby creating an atmosphere of intimacy. The Adagietto was performed at the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968, and was also used in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film Death in Venice. Today it resonates with the integrity of a classic even to those who do not know its powerful context.

Instrumentation: harp and strings

Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Approximate duration 44 minutes

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is similar to its predecessor, the stormy Fourth Symphony, in that it focuses on mankind's futile struggle with destiny. This is, however, a more soulful work than the F minor symphony; specifically it deals with man's spiritual helplessness and inadequacy. These thoughts are most evident in the finale, which opens with great solemnity. But the entire symphony is filled with operatic crescendos and dramatic, sudden shifts in tempo, all of which bespeak a soul in torment, searching for its own catharsis.

Like Beethoven’s Fifth, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth is a ‘motto’ symphony, with a unifying motive that recurs periodically throughout the work and is particularly noticeable in the first and final movements. Its character changes from gloomy and menacing in the first movement, to gentle in the Valse, then ultimately victorious in the last movement.

Tchaikovsky is justly praised for his imaginative woodwind writing. From the opening measures, where the clarinet introduces the motto, the winds have wonderful cameo solos. They frequently play as a section in lively dialogue with the strings. The famous French horn solo in the slow movement is one of the glories of the literature.

The graceful third movement Valse reminds us that Tchaikovsky was a great ballet composer. This waltz holds its own with the wonderful ones from his ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. It also provides contrast to the marches that dominate the outer movements. Tchaikovsky turns his finale into a triumphal march with thrilling moments for the brass section. Emotional, dramatic, and melodious, this Symphony has it all.

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings