The composer has provided the following comments:
This piece is based on the poem “Li Po” by Mexican poet José Juan Tablada, who based his poem on the life of the Chinese poet Li Po. Tablada traveled to the Far East during the first years of the last century where he discovered the poetry of Li Po. This poem is based on Li Po’s biography and on a free Spanish translation of his “Drinking alone with the moon.”

“Li Po” is unique in Mexican literature for it depicts the story by drawing beautiful calligrammes with the words. The first time I saw this poem I was immediately captured by its visual presentation, but when I discovered that this nice set of calligrammes hid even more exquisite poetry, I surrendered myself to Tablada. I recognized the power of combining the eye with the ear, semantics with phonetics, east and west, and I knew I had to compose a work based on this poem …

First, I recorded myself reading the poem, once and again, until satisfied with my own interpretation. I then transcribed this recording into a musical score, writing down the notes, the rhythms and the phonetics. I also recorded each phoneme of the poem separately, and by means of a spectral analyzer, obtained the series of partial notes that constitute their acoustic spectra. Secondly, I prepared the electronic part of the work by using the separate phonemes as well as the recording of my reading. Finally, using the poem as structural basis, I composed the ensemble parts using the transcription of my reading and the analyzed spectra as raw musical material.

In 1883 Brahms reached his 50^th year. There are signs that he was growing weary of his part in life, and was starting to despair for the world he saw around him. The previous year he had set a text by Goethe called the Gesang der Parzen (The Song of the Fates); this was to be his last major choral work. The penultimate stanza begins “The rulers turn away their blessed eyes from entire races of people,” and that could serve to sum up the state of affairs in Austria in the 1880s. While Vienna waltzed and sang and enjoyed a superficial bourgeois prosperity, the Austrian “Empire” was limping toward complete collapse. To appease the increasing nationalism growing among its many ethnic minorities, the government granted greater freedom in using local languages for official business. This move only accelerated the centripetal forces pulling the fringes of the Empire away from its German cultural core.

Brahms wrote to his publisher in 1883, the year of the F Major Symphony:

“In a city and a land where everything not rolls, but tumbles downhill, you can’t expect music to fare better. Really it’s a pity and a crying shame, not only for music but for the whole beautiful land and the beautiful, marvelous people. I still think catastrophe is coming.”

And to quote the final stanza of the Gesang der Parzen:

So sang the Fates;
the banished one listens
in his night-dark caves
to the songs of the ancient ones,
thinks on children and grandchildren
and shakes his head.

A deep strain of nostalgia runs through Brahms’s music. To some extent it comes with the territory of Romanticism and the world-view of the 19^th century. In Brahms’s case, it gets an extra boost from his antiquarian tendencies. More than any other composer of his time, he embraced the music of past ages, especially that of his 17^th-century German forerunners. He also saw himself as carrying forward the great German Classical tradition, from Bach and Handel through Haydn and Mozart to Beethoven, then on to Schubert and Schumann and thus to him. Yet who would carry the torch after he was gone? As Brahms grew older, concerns about the future of that tradition, of the artistic culture he cherished, and of his society added extra poignancy to his nostalgia and gave him reason to shake his own head.

But, such thoughts were not necessarily an everyday burden, and often external circumstances could snap Brahms out of a dark mood or rekindle his old self-confidence. For example, Brahms had been, at first, a hesitant symphonist. Well aware of his position as principal heir to the classically-oriented German symphonic lineage, he felt overwhelmed by the weight of history. He labored over his first symphony for over two decades, completing it only in September of 1876, well into middle age. The work’s moderate success emboldened him to persevere, and his second symphony followed in less than a year. He turned then to other genres for several years, but eventually produced another pair of symphonies, complementary in character, in quick succession: the third in 1883, and the fourth, his final, in 1885.

It seems likely that the impetus for the second round of symphonic composition was provided by Brahms’s new association with the court orchestra of the Duchy of Meiningen. Meiningen is in Thuringia, in central Germany, near J. S. Bach’s home territory. The realm has a distinguished artistic tradition: the court orchestra dates back at least to 1690. Duke Georg II, who reigned from 1866–1914, built up the ensemble and in 1879 invited Hans von Bülow to take up the post of conductor. Bülow used his tenure there to mold one of the finest orchestras in Europe. Thanks to the Duke’s generous patronage, Bülow had extensive rehearsal time with the orchestra, and instituted novel practices, such as holding separate rehearsals with small groups of players, concentrating on details of interpretation. As a result, the orchestra soon came to be regarded as a marvel.

Bülow’s conducting career had been built on his position as one of the chief interpreters of the radical Liszt-Wagner school; but after his wife, née Cosima Liszt, abandoned him for his best friend, Richard Wagner, he found his devotion to the cause waning. He found a new appreciation for the music of Brahms, which he had previously thought of as dry and academic. While giving concerts in Vienna in 1881, Bülow told Brahms of his work with the Meiningen Orchestra, and when the composer expressed his admiration and encouragement, Bülow offered the orchestra to Brahms as a sort of laboratory where he could try out new works. (Out of gratitude to the Duke, Brahms dedicated the Gesang der Parzen to him in late 1882).

Brahms spent much time away from Vienna during the early months of 1883, making multiple trips to Germany, including visits to the Rhineland and Meiningen. After a festive 50^th birthday dinner with three close friends back home in Vienna, he was off to the Rhineland again. While passing through Wiesbaden, something struck his fancy. He impulsively decided to spend his summer vacation there, rather than in Bad Ischl in the Austrian Alps, his preferred resort for many years. It seems the idea for the Third Symphony came to him at the same time, for once he got comfortable in Wiesbaden he began a period of concentrated work that saw him complete the entire symphony in just a few months.

The F Major Symphony bears all the earmarks of having been produced in one continuous flash of inspiration. When Clara Schumann, Brahms’s old and dear friend and his most perceptive critic, first encountered the work, she remarked, “All the movements seem to be of one piece, one beat of the heart.” It is not only the shortest of Brahms’s symphonies, it is also the most tightly composed. Melodic material and harmonic gestures first presented in one movement may reappear in another. But on a deeper level, the four movements seem interrelated in such a way that makes them four episodes in a single story. This kind of large-scale unification in multi-movement works was common in the 19^th century going back to Beethoven and his Symphony No. 5, but it is not often encountered in Brahms’s œuvre.

Also uncharacteristic for Brahms is his use of an overtly personal reference as the very opening gesture: the rising figure F-A-flat-F recalls a motto Brahms had used going back to his younger days. In the 1850s, his close friend, violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, chose as his motto “Frei aber einsam” (“free but lonely”), which could be represented in music by the notes F-A-E. Brahms responded by tweaking the motto to suit his own situation: “Frei aber froh” (“Free but happy”), or F-A-F. Unlike many composers of the Romantic era, Brahms tended to keep his instrumental music “pure” or free of extra-musical associations, but it is telling that within a month of reaching the half-century mark still as a bachelor, Brahms chose to open a new symphony with the proud statement “Free but happy.”

But just how much pride is behind that statement? In these opening measures Brahms uses an A-flat rather than an A in the motto so it outlines an F minor interval. This conflicts with the F major chord we have just heard, and the dissonant harmony underlying the A-flat heightens the conflict even further. It also undercuts the self-assurance behind the “free but happy” line. This tension between major and minor colors the entire symphony, and contributes in no small degree to the feeling of poignancy that runs through the work. Perhaps lifelong freedom does not confer happiness after all? The three-note musical motto will recur throughout the rest of the symphony, providing one of the signal features that helps to bind the work together.

After the bold opening statement, the symphony continues with the main theme, a downward striding melody that is immediately followed by a minor-inflected variant. This theme is only one of several in the work that recall the Symphony No. 3 (nicknamed the “Rhenish”) of Robert Schumann, another close friend from Brahms’s youth. That work also opens with a powerful, surging first movement in triple meter, and was also inspired by a visit to the Rhineland. It seems possible that having just experienced a significant milestone in his own life, Brahms was in a nostalgic state of mind, and that traveling along the Rhine revived intense memories of his youth which triggered emotions that he chose to deal with by composing the F Major Symphony. Of course, this is only speculation and can never be proved one way or the other; but the sudden decision to drop whatever he was doing and hole up to write a major work seems significant. And it can hardly be a coincidence that Wiesbaden is the closest place along the Rhine to Frankfurt, where Clara still lived in 1883.

The major/minor duality affects not only local harmonic events, but also governs the structure of the symphony as a whole. The second and third movements share the same tonic center: C, which is unusual enough, but the second is in C major and the third is in C minor. The second movement is a serene pastoral, which gives pride of place to the clarinets. Clara described the symphony as “elegiac,” and this quality is expressed nowhere so clearly as in the third movement. The melody, first heard in the cellos, struggles in vain to climb but is continually thwarted and falls back, defeated. The orchestration of this movement is exquisite: the autumnal palette perfectly matches the prevailing mood of poignant yearning.

Walter Frisch writes of the finale:

“In a more fundamental and satisfying sense than in either of the first two symphonies, the finale of the Third serves as the true culmination of the work as a whole. The thematic and harmonic set in motion but left unresolved in the previous movements find a magnificent fulfillment.”

This “magnificent fulfillment” takes place largely in the coda at the end of the movement. Echoes of the second movement start the buildup to the return of the main theme of the opening movement. The opening motto sneaks in first, then the main theme is revealed, newly garbed in shimmering strings and in pure F major. Light has won a victory over darkness yet again, but this time there are no heroics, as the symphony with all of its drama fades away into silence.

–©Victor Gavenda

“My next major work will be a cello concerto. The first movement, an allegretto in the style of a jocular march, is already complete. There will probably be three movements in all. I would find it difficult to say anything about its content . . . I can only say that this Concerto was conceived quite a long time ago. The original impulse came from hearing Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonie concertante for cello and orchestra, which interested me greatly and aroused my desire also to try my hand at this genre.”

So said Shostakovich in 1959 about his First Cello Concerto, which was written for and dedicated to the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Cellists still marvel at Rostropovich’s feat of learning and memorizing the challenging work in only four days, in time to play it for the composer with piano on August 6. On September 21 Shostakovich introduced the work to his colleagues at the Composer’s Club, and Rostropovich gave the public premieres on October 4 in Leningrad and October 9 in Moscow.

Later that month Shostakovich made an extensive tour of the United States with a distinguished group of Soviet composers and musicologists. During the tour Rostropovich gave the Cello Concerto its American premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. On this historic occasion, in addition to the Soviet musicians in attendance, were a great number of distinguished American composers, including Henry Cowell, Roger Sessions, Samuel Barber, Gian-Carlo Menotti, and Vincent Persichetti. The new work, its soloist and composer, the orchestra, and conductor were all enthusiastically applauded.

November 8, 1959, in the Columbia studios in Philadelphia, marked the first time a Soviet composer attended an American recording session of his own works. Shostakovich closely collaborated with the conductor, instrumentalists, and recording engineers on a recording that included the First Cello Concerto, performed by the same forces that had just given the American premiere.

Auspicious occasions aside, the First Cello Concerto stands as a great piece of music. Much like Shostakovich’s recently completed Violin Concerto, the Cello Concerto employs a similar unconventional sequence of movements. The most salient of these, the cadenza—a complete movement instead of a brief insert into another movement—serves to develop ideas in the preceding movements. Both Concertos employ Shostakovich’s own brand of expressive lyricism in their slow movements and present high-spirited folk-influenced finales. Both are also notable for featuring the celesta in the instrumentation.

Though the composer described the Cello Concerto’s first movement as a “jocular march,” it also shows something of the grim tension Shostakovich so often achieved with his driving fast movements. A four-note motto permeates the movement and returns in the finale. The single horn plays a prominent solo role alongside the cello.

The broad, singing slow movement again features the horn before introducing the plaintive cello melody, which is based on a Jewish folk song. Wonderful dissonances creep into the texture as the result of independent voice leading. Shostakovich introduces a new melody, every bit as poignant, before launching a more agitated climax. The return of the first theme in glassy harmonics, colored by the delicate chiming of the celesta, lends a ghostly atmosphere to the proceedings.

Music from the slow movement’s second melody leads without pause into the cadenza, which Shostakovich labels as a separate movement. Though intensely virtuosic, the cadenza is no mere display piece for the cellist. In addition to developing ideas from the slow movement it alludes several times to the first movement motto. The cadenza builds climactically to the finale, which enters fiercely with no break.

Rostropovich pointed out that the five-note phrase played by the strings soon after the finale’s opening alludes to Stalin’s favorite song “Suliko,” but so altered that even the cellist did not recognize it at first. Such a disguise seemed necessary even six years after the tyrant’s death—Shostakovich subjects this idea to a brutal transformation and repetition. In many of its various details, the intense music of the finale shows the influence of Prokofiev’s Sinfonie concertante, which Shostakovich so admired; Rostropovich mentioned in particular the decisive timpani strokes toward the end. A return of the motto music of the first movement initiates the finale’s relentless drive to the finish.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe