John Dowland (1562-1626)
Lachrimae antiquae
Approximately 5 minutes
Composer: John Dowland (Born in Westminster, London, England in 1562 or 1563; Died in London in 1626)
Work composed: 1604
World premiere: Unknown, but likely performed in 1604 for the audience of Anne of Denmark (wife of England’s King James I, his employer), who had been newly crowned as Queen of England and Scotland (1604), and to whom Dowland dedicated the work.
Instrumentation: Orchestral strings
John Dowland was for a time England’s greatest musician. A talented singer, virtuoso lutenist (the lute is an early version of what we now know as the guitar), and a celebrated composer in his lifetime, Dowland was nicknamed “Anglorum Orpheus,” or the “English Orpheus,” in homage to the mythological Greek character celebrated for his otherworldly abilities to charm all living things with his music. Little is known about Dowland’s childhood – even his birthplace is contested by some – but his late teens (1580s) through to his last known work (1612) are fairly well-documented.
After finishing his musical studies at the University of Oxford, Christ Church, he sought work at Queen Elizabeth I’s court as a lutenist around 1594, but Dowland claimed that, as a Roman Catholic, he was denied employment in the Queen’s Protestant court. He then traveled continental Europe, especially in the Italian provinces and Venice, until eventually being employed by Christian IV of Denmark, where he wrote most of his exceptional works for lute. During his service in Denmark, however, he also traveled frequently to England to promote and publish his compositions, often overstaying his leave allowances, until King Christian fired him.
Returning to England for a final time in 1612, Dowland was at last hired to the Royal Court by King James I, and from here until his death in 1626, facts of his life and compositions become obscure. But during the 1600-1620 period, Dowland was famous around the Western world for his talents in writing deeply moving works of what was then called “melancholy” – tunes that touched the heart with uncanny sadness and gravity. After his death, new musical trends soon overshadowed Dowland’s legacy, although later musicians continued to cherish his set of Lachrimae, of which this concert’s work, Lachrimae antique, is a part. It wasn’t until the 20th century that Dowland’s music found its own renaissance, particularly in the 1970s when Early Music ensembles became popular and “rediscovered” him.
Musically, the then-fashionable idea of “melancholy” for an educated and devout Elizabethan person was best represented by the motive of falling tears – lachrimae in Latin translates to “tears” – which would be phrased as a short set of 3-4 descending pitches. This motive has remained well known throughout music history, and many composers, including Anna Clyne (also featured on this concert), have referenced the “falling tears” motive to express sorrow. It was Dowland, perhaps, who exploited this motive more than any other composer. He even came to identify himself with the falling-tear motive, occasionally signing his name as “John Dolandi de Lachrimae” or “John Dowland of the Lachrimae.”
Dowland’s fame with the lachrimae began with a wildly popular pavan (typically spelled “pavane,” a slow and stately court dance that he would have studied in Italy) for lute that he wrote in 1596 called Lachrimae. This piece was so successful that he revised it in 1600 as a duet for high voice and lute, calling it Flow My Tears. Here is the first verse (of five) from its pathos-laden lyrics (in modern English):
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled forever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Flow My Tears itself became so popular that in 1604 Dowland revised it yet again as a theme-and-variations suite, titling it Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares, Figured in Seaven Passionate Pavans, creating seven stately pavanes based on the original tune (several additional pieces were added to this publication as well). These variations were arranged for five viols (Renaissance violins) and lute, and the written music was meant to be laid out on a table, around which all six players, called a consort, would crowd round to read it and perform in a circle. (This version, however, has been newly arranged for a string orchestra.) In the written introduction to Seaven Teares, Dowland explained that there were different kinds of tears that humans experience – tears of grief and sorrow, tears of bitterness, tears of joy, of love, and so on – and each of the seven variations explores the corresponding tearful emotion, creating a sort of emotional journey from grief to cleansing.
The first of the suite (and the only one of the seven performed tonight), Lachrimae antiquae (“Old Tears”), reflects tears of grief. The first four notes we hear are the four falling pitches of teardrops, heard predominantly in the upper strings. Its very first note lingers slightly, just as a tear would well up in the eye, and then three pitches fall rapidly downward as though gracing a cheek. Dowland adds several other touches that musically speak of sadness, and which were understood as such in his day – the very next note after the four falling tears is an interval that rises up as a minor sixth (six pitches away from the last) – perhaps denoting a quick inhalation between sobs – as well as using minor thirds shortly thereafter. The accumulating effect was intended to signify melancholy and to remind the Elizabethan listener that after Man’s Fall from eternal grace in the Garden of Eden, the greatest piety is to be in a state of constant regret.
But what we hear is Dowland’s exquisite gift for creating a beautiful melody – one that seems to float in a state of constant gracefulness, ethereal and heart-touchingly reflective, and tinged with sorrow.
Anna Clyne (1980-)
Within Her Arms
Approximately 15 minutes
Composer: Anna Clyne (Born on March 9, 1980 in London)
Work composed: 2008
World premiere: The work was commissioned in 2008 by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the then conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was first performed by Salonen and the LA Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on April 7, 2009. Within Her Arms is an elegy composed in memory of Clyne’s mother, who died in 2008.
Instrumentation: 15 orchestral strings
English-born composer Anna Clyne is a truly trans-Atlantic composer. She spent her undergraduate years at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and then completed her master’s degree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where she currently lives. Having composed over 100 works in her 44 years, Clyne has been steadily commissioned, and notably, she has been the composer-in-residence for many orchestras around the world, including in the US, the UK, Norway, Finland, Holland, and Australia. She’s been called a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods,” and her works are imaginative, inventive, and without fail, engaging to listen to.
As one of the most performed modern composers in the world, Clyne is rarely without a commission to fulfill. Such is the origin of her 2008 work, Within Her Arms, which was commissioned by Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was then the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Shortly before the commission, Clyne’s mother passed away. Clyne fulfilled the commission by writing Within Her Arms, both a powerful elegy in her memory and a balm to Clyne’s own grief. She provided this about the piece:
Within Her Arms is music for my mother, with all my love.
Earth will keep you tight within her arms dear one –
So that tomorrow you will be transformed into flowers –
This flower smiling quietly in this morning field –
This morning you will weep no more dear one –
For we have gone through too deep a night.
This morning, yes, this morning, I kneel down on the
green grass –
And I notice your presence.
Flowers, that speak to me in silence.
The message of love and understanding has indeed come.
—by Thich Nhat Hanh, from “Message” in Call Me By My True Names (1999)
Written solely for strings – just 15 players – Within Her Arms also remembers some of the great string works of England’s Renaissance composers. Of note, and pointed out by musicologist Alex Ross of The New Yorker, Clyne’s lament “bring[s] to mind English Renaissance masterpieces of Thomas Tallis and John Dowland.” And indeed, the opening motive of Within Her Arms resembles the falling-tears motive that begins Dowland’s Lachrimae antiquae with three downward-tumbling notes.
The three falling notes open Clyne’s Within Her Arms, but then she flips the pitch upwards, creating a wry sense that this motive could have just as easily been the start of a British jig or folk dance, but it abruptly comes face-to-face with the composer’s grief. The last of the notes hangs for some time, perhaps lost in a memory that Clyne could not bear to play out. This opening motive begins to grow in complexity – adding additional instruments and wandering out into pitches further afield.
Especially potent is Clyne’s use of portamento (sliding between pitches), suggesting the feeling of surrealness and metamorphosis. The music continues to transform, sometimes wandering upon chords of almost overwhelming beauty with evocations of deep sorrow, as well as moments of absolute musical stasis. Occasionally, the music tumbles into almost chaotic rhapsodizing. The effect of this opening section is of traveling on a very inward journey, of confronting grief and loss – “through too deep a night.”
At about ten-and-a-half minutes, a very long pause occurs, as though all of the memories and what-ifs have come to a silence that speaks more loudly than volume, the “Flowers, that speak to me in silence.” The first chord after the grand pause adds a quiet, high, and resonant pitch in the upper violins over a soft and deep chord in the rest of the strings, drawing out a sense of light gleaming through the shadows. And then, from this point forward, the work begins its journey into acceptance, morphing further into more homogenous musical phrases, the rhapsodizing less chaotic as though the music is finding its way towards strength and beauty.
Portamentos flitter through the musical fabric, sliding both upwards and downwards, like fireflies across the once dark path. Finally, just before the closing measures, the three downward-falling notes of the opening motive are at last turned upwards, as if to say, “The message of love and understanding has indeed come.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
Approximately 28 minutes
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Born in Salzburg,
Austria in 1756; Died in Vienna in 1791)
Work composed: 1785
World premiere: Mozart performed the solo piano part at the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 21 at a subscription concert at the Burg Theater in Vienna on March 9, 1785.
Instrumentation: solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons,
2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Andante
III. Allegro vivace assai
In 1784, just a few years after arriving in Vienna from his hometown of Salzburg, Mozart quickly began achieving success as one of the Austrian capital’s most popular pianists and composers. Whereas audiences in Salzburg had treated the young Mozart as a second-class employee of the Archbishop, the Viennese were singing his praises with glowing superlatives, and virtually all the wealthiest aristocratic families were inviting him to their houses. So popular had Mozart become that he felt emboldened to participate in a subscription series for these many potential patrons to pay to hear him perform his own works. These subscriptions became hugely popular, adding even more acclaim to Vienna’s newest musical darling, and Mozart proudly wrote home to his father, Leopold, of his success. Mozart was now experiencing one of the greatest moments of his adult life – fame and ever-ready audiences awaited him.
During Mozart’s second season of these subscription concerts in 1785, he composed his ebullient Piano Concerto No. 21 for the March 9 subscription event, and it became yet another of his triumphs. Mozart had persuaded his father to come to Vienna to visit and attend some of these performances, and after hearing the concert featuring this concerto, Leopold proudly exclaimed that the piano part was “astonishingly difficult.” A contemporary music critic also praised Mozart, saying that his playing “captivated every listener and established Mozart as the greatest keyboard player of his day.” This masterwork of musical beauty and compositional craft has become one of the favorite piano concertos for pianists and audiences alike, and so cherished is its dreamy Andante movement that a touching 1967 Swedish art film, Elvira Madigan, used it in its soundtrack, skyrocketing this great concerto to even greater fame.
The first movement, Allegro maestoso (fast but in a majestic manner), begins with a theme played basically in unison by the entire orchestral string section. It’s charmingly optimistic and chipper, like a quiet, easygoing little march. That it’s marked maestoso (majestic) is in slight contrast to its sense of comedy, as though Mozart was beginning a comic opera with a buffoonish-like entrance of a royal procession. The rest of the orchestra quickly adds their colors, soon introducing two new themes that are equally breezy and cheerful, and which are increasingly lyrical. The piano takes some time to enter, but when it does, it’s with little fanfare, as if merely joining the orchestral fabric. From here, the playfulness between the piano solo and the orchestra is treated with near-equal importance – the pianist will carry on with some new themes of its own as the orchestra accompanies in the background, and conversely, the piano will at times accompany the orchestra. In one particularly lovely example just before seven minutes into the movement, the soloist plays a rather melancholic, deeply lyrical little song that has been morphed out of the opening march theme, while the strings add yearning sighs below. And then the winds broaden that sad theme while the pianist adds quiet flourishes underneath, creating a moment of wonderful emotion, colors, and beauty. Throughout, though, Mozart gives the piano soloist virtuosic moments – after all, these concertos were written to impress his would-be patrons with his piano-playing prowess. The solo part is often ablaze with “astonishingly difficult” passages, leading eventually to a bedazzling cadenza at just about twelve minutes. Mozart’s own cadenza, if it was ever committed to paper (which was often not the case), has been lost, and the tradition is for the soloist to provide their own cadenza material. After this extended solo, the orchestra adds a brief closing that recalls the little march theme, and the movement ends in a delightfully subtle manner.
The meltingly gorgeous second movement, Andante (slowly), has captured audience’s hearts since its premiere, and as mentioned, became particularly famous when it was featured in the 1967 cinematic tear-jerker Elvira Madigan. For some time thereafter, in fact, this entire concerto was even nicknamed the “Elvira Madigan.” The main theme begins with the strings. Overtop of slowly rocking, plucked basses and cellos, the violas and second violins use mutes on their strings and play a constant murmuring of soft triplets. And then above this burbling brook-like sound bed, the upper violins, also muted, play an achingly lyrical theme. Ingeniously featured in this theme are wide leaps of intervals – although gentle in their execution, they evoke the feeling of constantly reaching for the heavens and constantly being drawn back down. The piano soon enters and plays its version of this lyrical tune alongside the plucked strings; meanwhile, the winds begin to play a series of long, diminished seventh chords. This chord – a series of stacked-up minor thirds – was used specifically in Mozart’s day to signify a sense of very strong emotion, usually of grief or sadness, here highlighting underlying pathos. The movement drifts through shades of tenderness and melancholy, with Mozart creating some exquisite instrumental pairings along the way, until the music comes to a sweetly gentle close.
The final movement, Allegro vivace assai (fast and very lively), jumps immediately into joyful jolliness. The tempo is brisk and the first theme is as light and airy as acrobatic swallows. Opening with the strings, the winds then enter as an important element in this movement. At under half a minute, the piano soloist bursts onto the stage with a brilliant little flourish. Through much of the rest of this movement, the soloist, strings, and the winds trade off brief musical statements. One expressly enjoyable example of this happens at just under four minutes into the movement, where piano and winds speak back and forth, almost as if they’re daring each other in a little friendly repartee, until they come together and the strings join in. All the while, the soloist skips about with the most fleet of fingers, until about two minutes later, as the final cadenza arrives filled with virtuosity and lyricism. When the orchestra joins back in, the music then sets its course to conclude this great concerto, as it whirls and laughs into its exuberant final bars.
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36
Approximately 35 minutes
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (Born in Bonn, Germany in 1770; Died in Vienna, Austria in 1827)
Work composed: 1801-1802
World premiere: Beethoven himself conducted the premiere of his Symphony No. 2 on April 5, 1803, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. In this concert, Beethoven also premiered his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives and his Piano Concerto No. 3 (Beethoven performing as the piano soloist).
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings
Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36
I. Adagio motto – Allegro conbrio
II. Larghetto
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Allegro molto
In 1784, just a few years after arriving in Vienna from his hometown of Salzburg, Mozart quickly began achieving success as one of the Austrian capital’s most popular pianists and composers. Whereas audiences in Salzburg had treated the young Mozart as a second-class employee of the Archbishop, the Viennese were singing his praises with glowing superlatives, and virtually all the wealthiest aristocratic families were inviting him to their houses. So popular had Mozart become that he felt emboldened to participate in a subscription series for these many potential patrons to pay to hear him perform his own works. These subscriptions became hugely popular, adding even more acclaim to Vienna’s newest musical darling, and Mozart proudly wrote home to his father, Leopold, of his success. Mozart was now experiencing one of the greatest moments of his adult life – fame and ever-ready audiences awaited him.
During Mozart’s second season of these subscription concerts in 1785, he composed his ebullient Piano Concerto No. 21 for the March 9 subscription event, and it became yet another of his triumphs. Mozart had persuaded his father to come to Vienna to visit and attend some of these performances, and after hearing the concert featuring this concerto, Leopold proudly exclaimed that the piano part was “astonishingly difficult.” A contemporary music critic also praised Mozart, saying that his playing “captivated every listener and established Mozart as the greatest keyboard player of his day.” This masterwork of musical beauty and compositional craft has become one of the favorite piano concertos for pianists and audiences alike, and so cherished is its dreamy Andante movement that a touching 1967 Swedish art film, Elvira Madigan, used it in its soundtrack, skyrocketing this great concerto to even greater fame.
The first movement, Allegro maestoso (fast but in a majestic manner), begins with a theme played basically in unison by the entire orchestral string section. It’s charmingly optimistic and chipper, like a quiet, easygoing little march. That it’s marked maestoso (majestic) is in slight contrast to its sense of comedy, as though Mozart was beginning a comic opera with a buffoonish-like entrance of a royal procession. The rest of the orchestra quickly adds their colors, soon introducing two new themes that are equally breezy and cheerful, and which are increasingly lyrical. The piano takes some time to enter, but when it does, it’s with little fanfare, as if merely joining the orchestral fabric. From here, the playfulness between the piano solo and the orchestra is treated with near-equal importance – the pianist will carry on with some new themes of its own as the orchestra accompanies in the background, and conversely, the piano will at times accompany the orchestra. In one particularly lovely example just before seven minutes into the movement, the soloist plays a rather melancholic, deeply lyrical little song that has been morphed out of the opening march theme, while the strings add yearning sighs below. And then the winds broaden that sad theme while the pianist adds quiet flourishes underneath, creating a moment of wonderful emotion, colors, and beauty. Throughout, though, Mozart gives the piano soloist virtuosic moments – after all, these concertos were written to impress his would-be patrons with his piano-playing prowess. The solo part is often ablaze with “astonishingly difficult” passages, leading eventually to a bedazzling cadenza at just about twelve minutes. Mozart’s own cadenza, if it was ever committed to paper (which was often not the case), has been lost, and the tradition is for the soloist to provide their own cadenza material. After this extended solo, the orchestra adds a brief closing that recalls the little march theme, and the movement ends in a delightfully subtle manner.
The meltingly gorgeous second movement, Andante (slowly), has captured audience’s hearts since its premiere, and as mentioned, became particularly famous when it was featured in the 1967 cinematic tear-jerker Elvira Madigan. For some time thereafter, in fact, this entire concerto was even nicknamed the “Elvira Madigan.” The main theme begins with the strings. Overtop of slowly rocking, plucked basses and cellos, the violas and second violins use mutes on their strings and play a constant murmuring of soft triplets. And then above this burbling brook-like sound bed, the upper violins, also muted, play an achingly lyrical theme. Ingeniously featured in this theme are wide leaps of intervals – although gentle in their execution, they evoke the feeling of constantly reaching for the heavens and constantly being drawn back down. The piano soon enters and plays its version of this lyrical tune alongside the plucked strings; meanwhile, the winds begin to play a series of long, diminished seventh chords. This chord – a series of stacked-up minor thirds – was used specifically in Mozart’s day to signify a sense of very strong emotion, usually of grief or sadness, here highlighting underlying pathos. The movement drifts through shades of tenderness and melancholy, with Mozart creating some exquisite instrumental pairings along the way, until the music comes to a sweetly gentle close.
The final movement, Allegro vivace assai (fast and very lively), jumps immediately into joyful jolliness. The tempo is brisk and the first theme is as light and airy as acrobatic swallows. Opening with the strings, the winds then enter as an important element in this movement. At under half a minute, the piano soloist bursts onto the stage with a brilliant little flourish. Through much of the rest of this movement, the soloist, strings, and the winds trade off brief musical statements. One expressly enjoyable example of this happens at just under four minutes into the movement, where piano and winds speak back and forth, almost as if they’re daring each other in a little friendly repartee, until they come together and the strings join in. All the while, the soloist skips about with the most fleet of fingers, until about two minutes later, as the final cadenza arrives filled with virtuosity and lyricism. When the orchestra joins back in, the music then sets its course to conclude this great concerto, as it whirls and laughs into its exuberant final bars.
