Deep Forest
Mabel Daniels
Born 27 November 1877 in Swampscott, Massachusetts
Died 10 March, 1971 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Approximate duration 8 minutes

Peterborough’s MacDowell, founded in 1907 by the American composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist Marian Griswold MacDowell as the MacDowell Colony, is an artist residency program dedicated to nurturing the creative impulse. Its fellows include visual artists, architects, writers, film makers, interdisciplinary artists and composers.

Mabel Daniels spent an astounding 24 summers in residence at MacDowell, starting in 1914. Like the program’s namesake founder, she delighted in her bucolic surroundings there. At MacDowell she composed her best known orchestral piece, Deep Forest, in 1930. A single movement tone poem, the work opens swathed in shadow and mystery. Whole tone scales, prominent woodwind solos, and a major role for harp connect it to the world of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune; Daniel’s delicate orchestration and improvisatory writing suggest the influence of Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin du printemps. In an animated middle section, the strings’ assumption of a new theme help drive the work to an initial climax. Daniels shows an impressive command of the orchestra’s dramatic potential, using silence effectively to help decompress her music back to the mood of its tranquil opening. We are transformed by this eventful journey through the dark forest.

Though she is a footnote in American music today, Daniels was well known for her choral works during her lifetime. She was an accomplished soprano who sang in the Glee Club during her undergraduate years at Radcliffe, writing operettas for the group. After graduating, she studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick, then score-reading with Ludwig Thuille in Munich. Daniels taught at Simmons College until 1918, after which she focused on composing. Tufts University awarded her an honorary degree in 1933; Boston University followed with the same honor in 1939.

Instrumentation: woodwinds in pairs, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, glockenspiel, suspended cymbal, gong, harp, and strings

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born 1 April, 1873 in Oneg, Novgorod District, Russia
Died 28 March, 1943 in Beverly Hills
Approximate duration 33 minutes

The opening of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is one of the marvels of the literature. With no orchestral preparation, the pianist plays a series of quiet chords in F minor, alternating with a low F in the most sepulchral region of the keyboard. Seven times we hear the chord, each time with a slightly different harmony and another response from that low F. Each time the exchange takes place, the volume increases slightly. The eighth time, now quite loudly, the pianist thunders another big chord, then three portentous notes leading to a decisive landing on C. It is the first time Rachmaninoff has tipped his hand that his concerto is in C minor. His opening ploy has been a red herring, teasing us, building suspense, putting us on the edge of our seats, waiting for a door to slam, a shoe to drop – or a rocket to blast off.

Takeoff, as it happens, is immediate. The piano is off and running in a swirl of arpeggios. The orchestra, hitherto silent, plunges in with the passionate first theme, and the tapestry of Rachmaninoff’s music comes into focus. His remarkable opening is one of the most dramatic and original in the concerted literature. That simple, eight-bar piano introduction throws down a gauntlet, declaring the soloist’s hegemony from the orchestra, yet paradoxically indicating his codependence. He requires the orchestra to anchor the home tonality and the principal theme, thereby providing the framework for the pianist’s activity.

The relationship between piano and orchestra in this concerto is unusual. Throughout the work, Rachmaninoff entrusts most of the melodies to the large ensemble, while the piano takes a decorative, textural role. Keyboard provides lush embroidery for the dense fabric of the music. No transparent muslin or sturdy denim here. Rachmaninoff’s luxuriant materials are velvet, satin brocade, silk moiré and ermine trimming.

By the skin of its teeth, the Second Concerto is a 20th-century work. Rachmaninoff composed it in 1900 and 1901. For practical purposes, however, this is a late Romantic concerto in the tradition of the 19th-century virtuoso. What distinguishes it is glorious piano writing and Rachmaninoff’s increased skill in handling orchestral resources. He also strikes a fine balance between Russian gloom and rhapsodic ecstasy. It is little wonder that so many popular songs of the 1930s and 1940s were based on this concerto’s themes.

This concerto was a breakthrough work. It marked Rachmaninoff’s emergence from a deep depression that had gripped him for three years, following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No.1. It also boosted his international reputation as a master of the concerto, affirming his genius to a broad public.

Instrumentation: woodwinds and trumpets in pairs, four horns, three trombones, tuba, timpani, solo piano and strings.