Bellis, program notes
As part of her Undergraduate Research Assistant Position at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Corey Bellis created a concert program (with program notes) based on themes of nature. This program was intended for educational purposes and has not been performed.
for music and nature concerts (songs and orchestral music)
Notes on the Forest:
Orchestral Selections of a Wooded Theme
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884):
Z českých luhů a hájů (From Bohemian Fields and Woods)
From Má vlast (My Fatherland)
Sequoia Joan Tower (b. 1938):
Symphony no. 3 in F major “Im Walde” (In the Forest)
Joachim Raff (1822-1882):
Abteilung: Am Tage. Eine Drucke und Empfindungen: Allegro
Abteilung: In der Dämmerung. Traumerei: Largo
Abteilung: Tanz der Druaden: Allegro assai
Abteilung: Nachts: Allegro
Notes:
Human cultures have long made practice of emulating and interpreting the aesthetic aspects of nature and landscape in the creative arts. In Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, Schama explores landscapes that have historically served as cultural. In each field of creative art, artists, writers, and composers have explored the beauty of nature and the relationships people have observed and incurred with nature and landscape. In the works sampled here, you will hear three orchestral pieces that were inspired by aspects of a forest landscape.
Smetana, from Má Vlast
Czech composer Bedřich Smetana composed the symphonic poem Z českých luhů a hájů during the summer of 1875 and included it in Má Vlast (My Fatherland). Z českých luhů a hájů has no distinct story like the other pieces in the set, but it is acknowledged to evoke the contrasts of a summer day in the forest (shadow/light, solitude/company) displayed in major and minor keys. This is interjected by a vivacious polka, suggesting that Smetana’s countrymen might conduct a polka (an iconic dance tradition of their culture) in the woods, making the forest a significant place of social interaction. This very infusion epitomizes a main theme from Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, that as we infuse nature or a landscape into our cultural identities, we also infuse our culture into that landscape’s identity. As if illustrating this human-place interaction, the polka is playfully introduced in interjecting snippets starting at the “Allegro (Quasi Polka)”. The heavy woodwind timbre of the polka contrasts at first with springy timbre of the forest as they alternate as if in disagreement, until finally the forest concedes and joins the polka’s theme. This musical interaction between forest theme and polka theme reflects the recognition of a relationship between the Czech people and music and the forest.
Tower’s “Sequoia”
Composed in 1981 and premiered the same year in New York, Joan Tower’s “Sequoia” won the composer national acclaim for its intelligible depiction of the growth and life of the large Sequoia trees of the Western United States. Tower’s original program notes indicate that she composed the piece to illustrate the idea of balance through every medium in the work including motivic development, timbral contrast, and the overarching structure of the piece. The composer drew her inspiration for the balance theme from two other wise unrelated sources: the impressive Sequoia trees and the music of Ludwig von Beethoven. According to Tower, the music of Beethoven has impressed her with its use of balance, and in learning about the Sequoia trees, the massive red-wood trees of Northern California, Tower was similarly struck by the incredible balance in the growth of the tree to such heights and widths. The resulting orchestral work emulates the growth of branches on the tree with a series of musical “branches” and “sub-branches” that develop out of the symmetrically built harmonies from the beginning of the work. The influence of Beethoven’s use of balance is in the palindromic format of the continuous movements (fast-slow-fast) and in the development and recapitulation of motivic elements throughout the piece.
Raff, “Im Walde”
Joachim Raff’s 3rd Symphony, “Im Walde” was composed in 1869 and premiered at his home in 1870. This symphony soon found success in the concert hall and along with Raff’s “Lenoire” Symphony, and led the composer to great popularity among contemporary audiences and critics. Seven of Raff’s eleven symphonies have subtitles relating to nature or landscape. The program notes that Raff published for the 3rd Symphony include descriptive titles that emulate the popular German Romantic notion of wandering through the woods. The first movement, subtitled “By Day. Impressions and Feelings,” depicts various serene impressions one encounters when walking through the woods – the rustling of the leaves, the sound of a horn, and the like. “In the Twilight: Dreams,” the second movement of the symphony, uses a smooth-flowing melody to convey the delighted feelings of wandering through the twilight forest. The next, the “Dance of the Druids,” is a vivacious scherzo in ternary form, and is followed by the final movement, “Night. The Living Stillness of Night in the Forest. Arrival and departure of the Wild Hunt, with Frau Holle and Wotan. Daybreak.” Russian composer Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky reviewed the “Im Walde” Symphony and said of the fourth movement, “The symphony closes with a triumphantly radiant theme, which is quite appropriately played by the four French horns and leaves the listeners with an impression of the mighty beauty of the bright daylight that is shining on eternally beautiful Nature.” The whole symphony epitomizes the range of emotions and experiences that the German Romantics popularly associated with the forest – feelings of serenity and excitement coupled with the images of dancing mythic creatures and woodland hunting parties. Raff’s work, along with the selections above by Smetana and Tower, exemplify the ideas of Schama’s study of Landscape and Memory, that nature and culture are often intimately related. The imitation and integration of this relationship into musical compositions reflects the strong association that various societies have made between the elements of the forest and their cultural identity.