The work was well received by the audience. In a letter to his brother, Christian, Sibelius wrote, “You couldn't hear a single note of the music — everyone was on their feet cheering and clapping.”
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Curiously, he found his new home, the Eternal City, rather much and even frightening for the country bumpkin from the Italian countryside. The grandeur and movement of the city, the architectural magnificence, the culture – all this was intimidating, and the hustle and bustle too distracting for his work.
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But with Brahms, one had to take the good with the bad. Brahms’ great friend, the Hungarian born violinist and conductor Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), to whom Brahms’ violin concerto is dedicated, famously said that, “Sitting next to Brahms is like sitting next to a barrel of gunpowder!”
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The symphony opens in an atmosphere of mysterious beauty. In the first movement, tempo molto moderato, one might imagine time-lapse photography of wildflowers unfolding in a vast landscape, or as Sibelius wrote, “I begin to see dimly the mountain I shall ascend. God opens His door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.”
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Elgar did not need to have some unifying theme more than the sea itself in this work. His home audience knew the sea well and did not require an academic discussion to remind them how important it was for their way of life. Pure enjoyment of poetry on the sea set to music sufficed.
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He was awed not only by the beauty of the river, but also how the river was an integral method not just for travel, but entertainment. So moved from what he saw, in a span of nineteen days (as noted in his diary), Smetana composed this tone poem to musically portray the river.
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My take on music, nationalism, politics, and my slightly different approach to writing program notes for the Magarò, Smetana & Sibelius concert.
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“A sacrifice to the bitch goddess of greed and nothing else. He had no success in the United States and Europe for several seasons, and his concerts in the Soviet Union were triumphs. When I saw him for the last time he was despondent about his material fate in France. He returned to the Soviet Union, and when he finally understood his position there it was too late.”
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Bach was quickly scooped up by Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. What this meant for Bach was that he was freed from church duties and able to compose secular music for some of the best musicians in Europe.
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“All I know of love is the pain it causes!”
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“The applause went on for nearly an entire hour. People were in uproar, and ran up and down through the streets of Leningrad until the small hours, embracing and congratulating each other on having been there. They had understood the message...”
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