Program Notes by Jim Yancy

Eroica Trio

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

An Outdoor Overture

In his autobiography, Aaron Copland acknowledges that An Outdoor Overture owes it existence to the persuasive powers of Alexander Richter, Head of the Music Department of the High School of Music and Art {New York}.  “I liked the idea….that gifted students could prepare their careers in the arts at such a school without sacrificing a general education.”  Richter promised to make Copland’s music the “opening gun” for a campaign under the slogan “American Music for American Youth.”  Copland was so impressed that he interrupted work on the orchestration of his ballet Billy the Kid in the fall of 1938 to compose a short piece for the School’s orchestra.  When Copland played the piano sketch for Richter, the latter remarked that it seemed to have an open-air quality.  Together, they hit on the title An Outdoor Overture.

The overture premiered successfully in December 1938, and the following year, it began to appear regularly on the programs of symphony orchestras.  Unfortunately, the work’s original association with a school orchestra prejudiced some critics against it as “kid’s stuff.”  However, Elliot Carter, writing in Modern Music, declared that Copland’s overture “contains some of his finest and most personal music….It is Copland in his prophetic vein which runs through all his works…”  In his own program note on the Outdoor Overture, Copland offers the following description:

The piece starts in a large and grandiose manner with a theme that is immediately developed as a long solo for the trumpet with a string pizzicato accompaniment.  A short bridge passage in the woodwinds leads imperceptibly to the first theme of the allegro section, characterized by repeated notes.  Shortly afterwards, these same repeated notes, played broadly, give us a second, snappy march-like theme, developed in a canon form.  There is an abrupt pause, a sudden decrescendo, and the third, lyric theme appears, first in the flute, then the clarinet, and finally, high up in the strings.  Repeated notes on the bassoon seem to lead the piece in the direction of the opening allegro.  Instead, a fourth and final theme evolves another march theme, but this time less snappy, and with more serious implications.  There is a build-up to the opening grandiose introduction again, continuing with the trumpet solo melody, this time sung by all the strings in a somewhat smoother version.  A short bridge section based on steady rhythm brings a condensed recapitulation of the allegro section.  As a climactic moment all the themes are combined.  A brief coda ends the work on the grandiose note of the beginning.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op.68 (1862-76)

Writing a symphony for Brahms was not something he took for granted.  It took him more than twenty years to approach the challenge and several more years to complete it.  It was no “laughing matter,” he said, to write a symphony after Beethoven.  He confessed to his friend, the conductor Hermann Levi: “You have no concept of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him (Beethoven) behind us.”  For years, all Vienna knew that three movements had been completed and kept wondering when the completion would come.  The symphony he finally did produce was described by Hans von Bulow as “Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony,” while other critics pronounced it “the greatest first symphony in the history of music.”  Bulow’s comment was not at all derogatory, but rather an acknowledgement of two mighty composers establishing contact as romantic giants.  But Brahms was not just trying to recapture Beethoven.  He incorporated ideas and innovations that changed the traditional aesthetics of the classical/romantic symphony: for instance, the changing of the traditional minuet or scherzo of the third movement to an intermezzo and creating an exceptionally long introduction to the finale.

The opening thirty-seven bars are like a huge curtain being drawn upward to reveal the drama of the first movement.  Most striking is the exhilarating upward thrust of the strings against a descending woodwind phrase, all taking place against a background of tympani throbs.  Then there is a sweeping theme for the violins in contrast to a second theme in the woodwinds which brings repose, all adding to the sense of drama and contrast.   The dramatic intensity of the first movement gives way to the peace and serenity of the second movement.  With no introduction, the first theme is taken by the violins—a simple and lovely melody with no small hint of melancholy.  This is followed by a second theme voiced by the oboe and then by a third given to the solo violin doubled with a solo horn.  It is a movement of sublime contemplation and sober reflection.

The light and graceful third movement opens with a clarinet presenting a pastoral theme of disarming simplicity.  The second theme which dominates the movement to the end is a graceful passage in the woodwinds answered by the strings.

According to Charles O’Connell, the last movement “is one of the sublimist utterances human ears have heard.”  “Had he (Brahms) written nothing else, the man who evoked this music from his mind and heart must have won proud place among music’s immortals.”  The opening chromatic chords given to the winds give way to a violent sweep of the violins and then to a quietly ominous pizzicato in the strings.  The pace accelerates leading to a glorious song in the horn and repeated by the flute.  Then the most famous theme of the symphony takes over in the strings – a hymn-like theme forever to be compared to the great Ode to Joy of Beethoven’s final symphony.  Brahms himself did not find the comparison odious:  “Any fool can see that,” he said when someone mentioned the similarity.  This theme is developed through fascinating permutations leading to a reprise of the main melody in a glorious and magnificent conclusion.