Centennial Sinfonía india (Eroica) Allegro con brio

Program

One Hundred Twentieth Season Global Sponsor of the CSO

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Riccardo Muti Music Director
Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus
Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant

Thursday, October 7, 2010, at 8:00
Friday, October 8, 2010, at 1:30
Saturday, October 9, 2010, at 8:00

Asher Fisch Conductor

Wagner
Centennial March

Chávez
Sinfonía india (Symphony No. 2)

Intermission

Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (Eroica)

Allegro con brio
Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
Scherzo: Allegro vivace
Finale: Allegro molto

These concerts are part of Mexico in Chicago 2010, a citywide celebration of the bicentennial
of Mexico’s independence and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution.

Steinway is the official piano of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Comments by Phillip Huscher

Richard Wagner
Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Germany.
Died February 13, 1883, Venice, Italy.

Centennial March

In 1876—fifteen years before he without significance”—Thomas
moved here to found the Chicago only strengthened his resolve to
Symphony—pioneering conduc- keep programming Wagner’s music.
tor Theodore Thomas served as (“I will play it till they like it,” he
music director of the Philadelphia is reputed to have said.) On the
Centennial Exposition. As first of his celebrated all-Wagner
Wagner’s leading advocate in the programs in 1872, when he led the
United States, Thomas got the idea American premiere of “The Ride of
of commissioning his favorite com- the Valkyries,” audience members
poser to write music honoring our stood on their chairs and cheered,
country’s first one hundred years. swept away by music they had never
heard before. After the concert, he
Thomas had introduced some of announced that he was establishing
Wagner’s most important works a New York Wagner society to raise
to this country—the Prelude to funds for the first Ring at Bayreuth.
Tristan and Isolde in 1866, less
than a year after the world pre- Although Thomas and Wagner
miere of the opera in Munich (the never met—Thomas unsuccessfully
complete opera waited another tried to visit the composer while he
twenty years for its first American was in Europe during the summer
staging) and the Meistersinger of 1867—they did exchange letters.
Overture seven months later. In 1871, Thomas wrote to Wagner,
When the critics railed against asking for his permission to pro-
the Tristan prelude—the New York gram orchestral excerpts from The
Times dismissed it as “absolutely Ring, which was not yet finished.

Composed First CSO contrabassoon, four horns,
February–March 1876 three trumpets and bass
performance trumpet, three trombones
First performance April 6, 1900, Theodore and tuba, timpani, triangle,
May 10, 1876, Philadelphia, Thomas conducting, bass drum, snare drum,
Theodore Thomas Auditorium Theatre cymbals, tam-tam, strings
conducting
Instrumentation Approximate
three flutes and piccolo,
three oboes, three clarinets, performance time
three bassoons and 12 minutes

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Wagner turned him

down. (He was probably

nervous about American

copyright laws, which

didn’t protect foreign

composers.)

That same year,

Thomas and Wagner

corresponded frequently

about the new march

Wagner would write for

a country he had never

visited, but which had

long intrigued him. In

the early 1850s, just as he

was beginning the Ring

cycle, he said that it was

his intention to “perform

it only on the banks

of the Mississippi.” In

1859, he made plans to

spend five or six months

in the U.S. the follow-

ing winter, but gave up

on the idea when he Wagner’s Centennial March also was the first work

realized that he needed performed at the closing ceremonies of the 1876
to finish writing Tristan Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

and Isolde and didn’t

dare let anything stand in its way. to the American commission.

After that, he mentioned coming Negotiations were cordial, although

to the U.S. less often, except as compromised from the start by

an occasional threat when he was Wagner’s insistence that he be paid

fed up with the artistic climate in $5,000, an astronomical sum at the

Germany, or when he suspected time. Wagner based his fee—“I

there was big money to be made do not know whether it appears

in America. (Even as late as 1880, appropriate,” he admitted—on

Wagner toyed with moving his what he had been offered for

entire family to “some climatically similar compositions, of which he

beneficial state of the Union,” and had composed practically none,

launching an annual Wagner fes- and the unrelated fact that “Mr.

tival here to replace Bayreuth—in Verdi received circa one-half

her diary, Cosima says he was million francs from his publisher,

thinking about Minnesota.) Ricordi, for the . . . rights to his

Early in 1876, Thomas wrote Requiem.” Despite the promise of

to Wagner, asking him to agree a big paycheck, Wagner found it

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tough to muster much enthusiasm and that its impressive orchestral
for the assignment; he was unused writing did not make up for its
to writing music to order and for “lack of thought.” Wagner later
events with which he had no per- confided to his friends that the best
sonal connection. On February 14, thing about the piece was his fee.
Cosima wrote in her diary: “R. still
working complains of being unable The march is indeed a curiosity in
to visualize anything to himself in Wagner’s output—the rare occa-
this composition; it had been differ- sional instrumental work, made to
ent with the Kaisermarsch, he says, order, from a composer otherwise
even with Rule Brittannia, where known for a string of immense
he had thought of a great ship, but music dramas written essentially to
here he can think of nothing but please no one but himself. With its
the 5,000 dollars he has demanded powerful main theme and elaborate
and perhaps will not get.” Meistersinger-like development,
Wagner’s March represents him,
In March, Wagner finished the not surprisingly, at his most gran-
work “under great strain,” as he put diose and ceremonial. It is all the
it, complaining that Thomas should more astonishing, then, to realize
have contacted him much earlier. that Wagner was at work on the
“On pages 23 and 24 of the work,” Flowermaidens’ delicate, other-
he continued, “I have designated worldly music for act 2 of Parsifal
the large pauses whose festiveness at the time. (He even scribbled
at the first gala performance can “Amerikanisch sein wollend!”—
be enhanced by the discharge of “Wanting to be an American”—in
cannons . . . in the vicinity—but the margin of a sketch for this
some distance away.” “The march Parsifal scene.
immensely pleases my friends here,”
he concluded. It did not, however, After the Philadelphia commis-
thrill Thomas, who probably knew, sion, Thomas and Wagner had no
even before he looked at the score further contact. Thomas continued
when it arrived that April, that he to champion Wagner’s music—with
had seriously overpaid. his own orchestra, he gave the U.S.
premiere of the Sieg fried Idyll in
The premiere took place in 1878. In Chicago, he launched the
Philadelphia as part of the exposi- Chicago Symphony’s first concert
tion opening ceremonies, before with Wagner’s A Faust Overture,
President Grant, members of led the Orchestra in the Centennial
Congress, and justices of the March several times at the World’s
Supreme Court. The New York Columbian Exposition—though
Tribune called Wagner’s Centennial just once, in 1900, on downtown
March a masterpiece and the concerts—and programmed
Herald critic found it noble and Wagner’s works on more than half
grand. But the New York Times the Orchestra’s subscription pro-
concluded that it was “altogether grams during his fourteen seasons
devoid of pomp and circumstance,” at the helm. 

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Carlos Chávez
Born June 13, 1899, near Mexico City, Mexico.
Died August 2, 1978, Mexico City, Mexico.

Sinfonía india (Symphony No. 2)

Musicians in the United States is deeply unconventionalized,”
first learned of Carlos Chávez he wrote. “The source of it is the
from Aaron Copland, who enjoyed Indian background everywhere—
a friendship with the Mexican even in the landscape.” (It was
composer that lasted more than half Chávez who took his New Yorker
a century, during which he regularly friend to the dance hall El salón
played, conducted, and championed México on this visit, inspiring one
his colleague’s music. We don’t of Copland’s most popular scores.)
know for certain when Copland
and Chávez met. (At a party given Chávez was born in a suburb
in their honor in the late seventies, of Mexico City. He was not truly
Chávez said, “We met in Paris.” self-taught—he studied first with
Copland replied, “In Paris? No, his brother and later with Manuel
in New York—I think!” “In ’26,” Ponce—but he resisted conven-
Chávez pronounced. “Really?” tional training in music theory,
said Copland.) In any event, when preferring to learn by examining
Copland finally visited Chávez in the scores of the great masters.
Mexico in 1932—falling madly in At the age of twenty-one, Chávez
love with the country and its peo- encountered international musi-
ple—he understood at once what cal modernism firsthand when he
made Chávez’s music so distinctive traveled to Vienna, Berlin, and
and unassumingly right. “Mexico Paris (where Paul Dukas urged
offers something fresh and pure him to become for Mexico what
and wholesome—a quality which Falla was to Spain—a composer
who creates a unique musical style

Composed First CSO two trombones, percussion
1935–36 (indian drum, maraca, metal
performance rattle, soft rattle, suspended
First performance July 22, 1941, Ravinia, the cymbal, tenor drum, snare
January 23, 1936, in New composer conducting drum, claves, xylophone,
York City, the composer rattling string, güiro, bass
conducting Instrumentation drum, rasping stick),
three flutes and two piccolos, timpani, harp, strings
three oboes, two clarinets,
E-flat clarinet and bass Approximate
clarinet, three bassoons,
four horns, two trumpets, performance time
12 minutes

5

by thoroughly assimilating his the Pan American Association
native folk music). Chávez spent of Composers. Chávez played
the winter of 1922–23 in New York the part of musical ambassador
City and returned again in 1926, extremely well, and he regularly
this time to stay for two years. visited the United States, not
only to see old friends such as
Back home in Mexico, Chávez Copland, but also to teach and to
quickly became the central figure perform his music—and to make
in his country’s musical renais- new friends for Mexican culture.
sance, and he soon was a national (He was the guest conductor of
celebrity. He helped to establish the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
the first permanent symphony on February 12 and 13, 1942, in a
orchestra in Mexico—the Orquesta program that included his Concerto
Sinfónica de México, which he for Four Horns and Sinfonía india.)
led for twenty years—and, in
1928, he became director of the Like the Mexican painters Diego
National Conservatory. Chávez Rivera and José Orozco, Chávez
also was highly influential in tried to create a popular art form
inspired by the Indian culture of
Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician the pre-Columbian period. “For
José Vasconcelos the first time in the history of
art,” Rivera said, “Mexican mural
the growing cultural transaction painting made the masses the
between the Americas, and, with hero of monumental art.” Chávez’s
fellow modernists Edgard Varèse music tried to achieve the same
and Henry Cowell, he founded blend of modern and ancient (and
of popularity and timelessness). In
his 1958 Norton lectures, Chávez
recalled the work of Rivera and
his fellow muralists: “In trying to
be accessible to the people, as they
called it (or, as we would prefer
to say, to the average audience),
they did not descend to a level of
vulgarity. They maintained a classic
dignity, at times truly superb, and
whether or not they were accessible
to the ‘people,’ it is good that their
work was achieved and stands for
posterity.” It was with the Sinfonía
india that Chávez came closest to
achieving the muralists’ accessibil-
ity and dignity while reviving his
country’s folk heritage.

Chávez had begun to incorporate
Aztec elements and native Indian

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music into his own work as early as expressions. That is, while it
1921 with the ballet The New Fire, is certain that contact with
commissioned by the same José European art has produced in
Vasconcelos who invited Rivera to Mexico a mestizo (mixed) art in
participate in his program of public constant evolution, this has not
art. Although Chávez did not meant the disappearance of pure
regularly use native material in his indigenous art.
compositions, his musical language
was forever marked by its influence; With its exotic colors, repeti-
in the chamber piece Xochipilli tive phrases, irregular rhythms,
(1940), he even went so far as to and driving energy—Chávez
attempt “to reconstruct—as far once wrote a work called H.P. (for
as it is possible—the music of the horsepower)—the Sinfonía is decid-
ancient Mexicans.” edly non-European in sound and
structure. One expansive, open-air
The Sinfonía india of 1936—the melody at the heart of the score,
second of Chávez’s seven however, suggests that Chávez was
symphonies—is one of the few deeply influenced by Copland’s
scores in which Chávez actually brand of lyricism. (Chávez gave
quotes Indian music; here he uses the premiere of Copland’s Short
three ancient melodies—one from Symphony in 1934, not long before
the Seris of Sonora; one from the he began this work, and wrote to
Huicholes of Nayarit; and one from the composer of his great admira-
the Yaquis, also of Sonora. Chávez tion for such natural and unaffected
told his friend Herbert Weinstock music.) To recreate an ancient
that he picked these three because sound world, the Sinfonía india calls
they came from the northern Pacific for a large percussion section, with
coast of Mexico and shared a modern instruments substituting
certain unity. As he told Weinstock: for primitive Indian ones—the
tenor drum for a water gourd, a soft
The essential characteristics of rattle for the tenabari (a string of
this indigenous music have been butterfly cocoons), a rattling string
able to resist four centuries of of hard, wooden beads for the griju-
contact with European musical tian (a string of deer hooves). 

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Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany.
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55
(Eroica)

The story of how the Eroica Mussolini. For me it is simply
Symphony got its title is nearly Allegro con brio.”
as famous as the music itself. We
know that Beethoven intended Beethoven had been contem-
to name his third symphony for plating a symphony inspired by
Napoleon Bonaparte and his fight General Bonaparte since 1798.
against political tyranny, that he Most of the music was composed in
tore up the title page in a fit of rage the summer of 1803, only months
when he learned that Napoleon after Beethoven wrote his most
had appointed himself emperor, revealing nonmusical work—the
and that he opted for the title Heiligenstadt Testament—a pain-
Sinfonia eroica (Heroic symphony) ful confirmation of worsening deaf-
instead. The subtexts—idealism ness and thoughts of suicide. It was
and disillusionment, personal one of the lowest points in a life
greed and the lust for power, the that understood despair only too
struggle between art and politics, well. The composition of an impor-
among others—are intense, and tant and substantial new symphony
they have come to overshadow was Beethoven’s great rallying
one of the most remarkable, even cry—a heroic act in itself. The
revolutionary works of art we first draft was probably completed
have. A century after Beethoven, by November 1803. Beethoven’s
Toscanini tried to restore reason, extensive sketches, nicely preserved
famously brushing aside a hundred and often studied, confirm that the
years of connotations: “Some say new symphony gave its composer a
it is Napoleon, some Hitler, some lot of trouble. In May 1804, when
the news reached Vienna that

Composed First CSO Approximate
1803 performance time
performance 50 minutes
First performance January 15, 1892, Theodore
April 7, 1805, in Vienna, the Thomas conducting, CSO recordings
composer conducting Auditorium Theatre 1954 with Fritz Reiner
conducting for RCA; 1973–74
Instrumentation and 1989, with Sir Georg
two flutes, two oboes, two Solti conducting for London
clarinets, two bassoons,
three horns, two trumpets,
timpani, strings

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The title page for the Eroica Symphony, showing where Beethoven deleted the dedication
to Napoleon

Napoleon had declared himself a Bonaparte symphony would be
emperor, Beethoven felt betrayed. just the thing for his upcoming trip
According to the account later to Paris.
written by his student Ferdinand
Ries, when he broke the news to In 1806, when it came time to
Beethoven, the composer “went to publish the E-flat major symphony,
the table, took hold of the title page Beethoven suggested “Sinfonia
by the top, tore it in two, and threw eroica, composed to celebrate the
it to the floor.” memory of a great man,” without
mentioning Napoleon. Beethoven’s
What Ries didn’t mention was last reputed words on the subject,
that Beethoven’s own motives were full of the anger and resentment
sometimes suspicious themselves. he surely felt, came later, after
Although Beethoven had long Napoleon’s victory at Jena: “It’s a
intended to name the symphony pity I do not understand the art of
after Bonaparte, he quickly war as well as I do the art of music.
dropped that plan when he learned I would conquer him!” History
that Prince Lobkovitz would pay doesn’t tell us what, if anything,
him handsomely for the same Napoleon thought of Beethoven’s
honor. Later, after he had ripped up music. When Cherubini, whom
the title page, Beethoven temporar- he did admire, once suggested that
ily recanted when he realized that Napoleon knew no more about

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music than he knew of battle, the today, brought certain expectations

emperor immediately stripped him to the concert hall, and knowing

of his offices and power, leaving the length of a piece is one of them.

him with virtually no income. But Beethoven’s Allegro con brio

was longer—and bigger, in every

The Eroica is perhaps the first sense—than any other symphonic
great symphony to have movement (the first movement of

captured the romantic imagination. Mozart’s Prague Symphony comes

It’s not as openly suggestive as the the closest). It’s also a question of

later Pastoral, with its bird calls and proportion, and Beethoven’s central

thunderstorm, nor as specific as development section, abounding in

the Ninth, with its unmistakable some truly monumental statements,

message of hope and freedom. But is enormous.

to the Viennese audience at the It has been suggested that

first performance, on April 7, 1805, Beethoven was writing without

Beethoven’s vast and powerful first themes at the beginning of the first

movement and the funeral march movement; the comment is not

that follows must have sounded like meant disparagingly, but as proof

nothing else in all music. that the essence of Beethoven’s

Never before had symphonic language is not melody, but tension

and movement.

Donald Tovey

insisted that many

of Beethoven’s

themes “can be

recognized by

their bare rhythm

without quoting

any melody at all.”

The very opening

of the Eroica con-

sists of no more

than two E-flat

major chords,

played forte, fol-

lowed by the cel-

The Lobkowitz Palace in Vienna; engraving by V. Reim. Prince los jumping back

Lobkowitz was an excellent violinist and maintained a private and forth over
orchestra which gave the first performance of the Eroica Symphony. the notes of an

E-flat triad. The

music aspired to these dimen- first exceptional event comes when

sions. We’re told that a man in the the cellos stumble on C-sharp, a

gallery shouted down: “I’ll give note we never expected to hear, and

another Kreutzer if the thing will one that opens unforeseen vistas

only stop!” Audiences then, just as only seven bars into the piece.

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From there, Beethoven continues ends with some consolation, but © 2010 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
to spread his wings, even settling even more grief.
comfortably in the very remote key
of E minor just moments before he Beethoven’s funeral music gives
whisks us back to the E-flat major way to a brilliant (though often very
chords with which he began. quiet) scherzo, just as the prisoners
in Fidelio emerge from the dungeon
Beethoven’s writing, in the most into the blinding daylight. Here,
expansive piece he had yet com- the modest minuet of Haydn and
posed, is tight and closely unified. Mozart has become something
Although analysts often point out truly symphonic in scope.
the unprecedented use of a new
theme in the development section, Beethoven’s finale is a set of
it’s not unique (see Mozart’s Thirty- variations on a theme he had
third Symphony), nor is the theme used several times before, princi-
truly new. pally in his ballet The Creatures of
Prometheus. This is an unusually
Ries was perhaps the first person complex and multifaceted piece of
to be misled by the “premature” music. It’s not just the conclusion,
entry of the horn four bars before but the culmination, of all that
the start of the recapitulation, and came before. Beethoven begins
he lost Beethoven’s respect forever with a simple, unattached bass line
when he rushed up to tell him that before introducing the theme itself.
the player had come in at the wrong The variety and range of style are
place. It’s one of Beethoven’s little extraordinary: a fugue on the bass
jokes, all the more effective for line, a virtuoso showpiece for flute,
being told at a whisper. The coda a swinging dance in G minor, an
is as big and important as a move- expansive hymn. Beethoven moves
ment in itself, but something of this from one event to the next, making
stature is needed to bring us back to their connections seem not only
earth before we move on. obvious, but inevitable. Some of it
is splendid solemnity, some high
The Adagio is a funeral march humor, and Beethoven touches on
of measured solemnity, pushed much in between. A magnificent
forward by the low rumble of the coda, which continues to stake out
basses, like the sound of muffled new territory even while wrapping
drums. Beethoven raised some things up, ends with bursts of joy
eyebrows by placing the funeral from the horns. 
music so early in the symphony,
but this is music, not biography, Phillip Huscher is the program annota-
and chronology is beside the point. tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The two interludes are particularly
moving—the first because it casts a
sudden ray of sunlight on the grim
proceedings; the second, because it
carries the single thread of melody
into a vast double fugue of almost
unseemly magnificence. The music

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