When Erik Korngold was serving in the first world war as music director for his regiment, the General once remarked: “Isn't it a little fast, Korngold? The men can't march to that”. To which Korngold replied: “Ah yes, well, you see Sir, this was composed for the retreat”. Being Austrian by birth , but of Jewish descent, Korngold, a few years later, was to organise his own “retreat”, escaping to the USA when the Nazi regime came to power. Although composing scores for opera was his forte, Korngold was persuaded by Warner Brothers to write incidental music for films. He regarded his films as ‘operas without singing’, and it is said of him: “he was the musical prodigy who brought the sound of Wagner and Puccini to Hollywood”. Sensing, however, that when a film left public view so did his music, Korngold returned to more serious composition. His violin concerto nearly didn’t make it past its premiere. Panned by critics as “more corn than gold” it rocketed to fame when no less a violinist than Jascha Heifitz took it on board, and the rest is history, as they say. Interestingly the opening melody is the flight/love theme from the film “Another Dawn” – which Korngold had envisaged as a concerto theme years before the film. This concerto was the foundation on which the second of our sessions for June was based: a Cuban Overture by George Gershwin, a Spanish dance by Maurice Ravel, and the Symphonic Suite from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story making up the programme.

The month’s earlier session was somewhat more traditional, although Brahms’ 3rd Symphony was not regarded by the composer as such, casting it as ‘contemporary’. Seen by some as ‘modernist’ and ‘romantic’, the symphony does break away from common convention ever so slightly - its successive movements, for example, each end quietly. Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, a Chopin Polonaise, and a piano concerto by Felix Mendelssohn scintillatingly played by Stephen Hough, served, however, to keep the programme in ‘traditional’ mode. Session notes and recordings played may be accessed by clicking on the relative links below.

Bill Squire.
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13th June

Session Notes
Dvorak - Carnival Overture
Brahms - Symphony No.3
Chopin - Polonaise Opus 44
Mendelssohn - Piano Concerto No.1

27th June

Session Notes
Gershwin - Cuban Overture
Korngold - Violin Concerto
Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso
Bernstein - Symphonic  Dances from West Side Story

Yoko Ono, when married to Beatles star John Lennon, created, with Lennon, three albums titled “Unfinished Music”, and Ono herself a book titled “Everything in the Universe is Unfinished”. “I never want projects to be finished”; said Ono, “I have always believed in unfinished work”. I got that from Schubert, you know, the ‘Unfinished Symphony.’”

Whether Schubert’s eighth Symphony was deliberately left unfinished or whether he forgot to finish it, or whether it was really ‘unfinished’ at all, has been debated ever since the work was discovered. Antonin Dvorak nearly didn’t get to complete his Violin Concerto because a world-renowned violinist kept wanting him to make changes to it, So Dvorak called ‘time’ and gave the concerto to another violinist to premiere.

​On the other hand, in the tradition of Christina Rosetti who claimed that the only thing sadder than an unfinished work, is one never begun, Felix Mendelssohn’s 3rd (or Scottish) Symphony, nearly didn’t get started. Having written down notes for it during a trip to Scotland, he embarked on a trip to Italy and was so taken with sights and sounds he found there that he forgot - until he went to write was to become his 4th (or Italian) Symphony.

No such concerns, however, for Mozart – so much music was there in his head! And especially should there be a young woman in the offing, and more so, again, if her father was a man of influence. Finished in seemingly no time at all, Mozart’s 9th Piano Concerto was his first fully mature piano concerto, dedicated to the young woman in question, and one he took as a show piece for a tour of Mannheim and Paris.

Details about our September programme and links to the recordings played can be found below.
 
 
Session Notes  13th September
Rossini - Overture to The Silken Ladder
Mendelssohn - Symphony No.3
Dvorak - Violin Concerto
 
Session Notes  27th September
Smetana - Overture to The Bartered Bride
Schubert - Rondo in A
Schubert - Symphony No.8
Mozart - Piano Concerto No.9
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“Here they grow in mountain depths. Far from any dwelling place. And no one comes to view their blooms” (from a poem by Japanese noble woman, poet, and author, Lady Sarashina). Ann Boyd, the first woman to be appointed as professor of music at the University of Sydney said in reflecting on those words: “It felt to me like it was the voice of all the women composers that had ever composed in the world before”. “They create great beauty but no one listens, no one hears, they don’t have a permanent place. And I felt one of them”. An ABC presenter introducing a programme for International Women’s Week on ABC FM a couple years ago took a more positive stand: “Throughout history people have said some very strange things to, and about, women in classical music. And for just as long, women have been doing incredible things anyway”.

It was with both those thoughts in mind that one of our sessions in March was given over to honour the music and the fortitude of women composers and musicians down through the ages and to showcase some of their wonderful music.  You can read about and listen to just some their music as was presented to our group by clicking on the links below. For the record, the other March session featured works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Felix Mendelssohn, and Max Bruch – all of them male composers. But don’t let that put you off -  it’s equally good and enjoyable music, too; and likewise, the links to the notes and recordings are posted below.   
              
Bill Squire

Session Notes – 22nd March Women Composers

Fanny Mendelssohn - Overture in C
Hildegarde of Bingen - De Spiritu Sancto
Emilie Mayer -  Piano Concerto in B flat major
Clara Schumann - Three Romances for Violin and Piano
Germaine Tailleferre - Sonata for Harp
Maddalene Lombardini-Sirman - Quartet No.3 Opus 2

 
Session Notes – 8th March
Additional Notes to Bruch's Scottish Fantasy
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Rimsky-Korsakov - Russian Easter Festival Overture
Mendelssohn - 5th Symphony
Bruch - Scottish Fantasy

​Two musicians of the romantic period were our focus for May – Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann lived at the same time as each other. The music that came from both of them is firmly classical in form and romantic in nature. But there the similarity fades.

Much of Felix Mendelssohn’s music came as a result of his travels. He toured Europe visiting a number of countries where he sketched musical fragments later to be turned into concert works, which is why a number of them bear titles suggesting these countries (the titles are not his doing, but publisher’s- he hated the idea). For example, he visited Scotland, writing the seeds for his Scottish Symphony and the Fingal's Cave overture (following a trip to visit the Isle of Staffa, near Mull) and meeting Sir Walter Scott. He sketched his Italian Symphony while visiting Rome and Naples.

Although some of Mendelssohn’s  compositions were clearly inspired by external events and bear highly descriptive titles, he shied away from any programmatic interpretations voicing the opinion that music was to be interpreted by the listener. 

Schumann on the other hand composed a far amount of music that was programmatic – much of it evocative of the love of his life, Clara.  Schumann was not so widely travelled and his compositional life was sporadic due to health issues (he was bi-polar) and periods of separation from Clara ( her father took to all sorts of measures early on keep them apart and discourage any relationship). His early works of piano miniatures and songs in earlier years gave way, in the later years, through Clara’s inspiration and encouragement to symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and stand-alone concert overtures and more.

You can read more detail of the lives and music of both composers on the Music Appreciation Page of the U3A website. There you will find also links to Youtube for the music we listened to at both sessions.

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Bill Squire