Verdi: Overture to La forza del destino

Verdi composed La forza del destino in 1862 for the Bolshoi Theater in Saint Petersburg; a much-revised version was introduced at La Scala in February 1869, and the present Overture is part of that edition. About the opera: The tragedy is set in motion when Don Alvaro, set to elope with Leonora, daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava, accidentally shoots the Marquis. The antagonists in the story are Alvaro and Leonora’s brother Don Carlo. At the end, Leonora dies at her brother’s hand, and Don Carlo himself is killed by Don Alvaro. The work’s title is best translated as The Power of Fate. Tchaikovsky will have more to say about that subject later in this concert. Virtually all the music in the brilliant Overture previews material in the drama to follow.

Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43

Most late works by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) found few friends when they were new. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, from 1934, was an exception. For his theme, Rachmaninoff turned to Niccolo Paganini, the legendary violinist (and composer) who in his time (1782-1840) had a following as impassioned as a rock star's. Rachmaninoff found the music on which he bases his Rhapsody in Paganini's Caprice No. 24. This is what we hear: The first five variations are increasingly excited, the sixth relaxed. Variation 7 introduces the Dies irae from the Gregorian Mass for the Dead, wcih Rachmaninoff was fond of using in his music. Through Variation 10, Rachmaninoff explores everything sinister about it. Using Variation 11 as a transition, Rachmaninoff begins a new phase in Variation 12, which is in a demure minuet tempo. The basic allegro is soon resumed, but the chapter is rounded off with another Variation (No. 16) in a gentler tempo and scored almost as chamber music. Variation 17 is strange and dark. From this, the music emerges into the soft moonlight and inspired melody of Variation 18. The orchestra wakes the dreamer, and the piano responds with a bravura variation. Variation 19 begins the final chapter, saturated in sppoky Dies irae atmosphere. At the summit of a climax, the pianist launches into a thundering cadenza. The two final variations work up tremendos excitement, and the brief coda is a stroke of delicious wit. 

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikosvsky (1840-93) began his Fourth Symphony in April or May 1877 and completed the score in January 1878. Nadezhda von Meck had come into his life in December 1876. She was a rich widow who was passionate about music and obsessed with Tchaikovsky's work. The two began an intimate exchange of letters, and thousands of her rubles flowed into the composer's fragile account. Her one condition was that they never meet. Her absent presence was crucial during the first year of their friendship, because Tchaikovsky had just taken the most dangerous step in his life. He lived in terror that his homosexuality might become public, and he gave in to the advances of one of his former pupils. He married her, fled, attemped suicide, and with the support of relatives and friends got his life back on track. It was soon after Mmme. von Meck's emergence that he began the Fourth Symphony. He completed it in the aftermath of his catostrophic marriage. He dedicated his new symphony to Mme. von Meck, and when she asked what their symphony was "about," he obliged with a "program" in which an opening fanfare is identified with "Fate, the decisive force which prevents our hopes of happiness from being realized..." We hear this "fate" fanfare at the symphony's opening and close. The burden of the musical and extra-musical argument is in the large, brooding first movement. What follows is picturesque support, the second movement a melancholy song, the third a perpetual-motion pizzicato. The Finale is a full-blown extravaganza. The fanfare intrudes once more, making a musical as well as a programmatic point, after which the symphony rushes to conclusion. 

-Michael Steinberg