Carnival Overture, Op. 92 — Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904) Program Notes by Susan Key

Dvorák’s 1892 triptych “Nature, Life, and Love” consists of three overtures: In Nature’s Realm, Carnival, and Othello. The work served as both a musical farewell and greeting for the conductor / composer, who premiered it in Prague just before heading to New York to assume his post as director of the National Conservatory of Music, and reprised it at Carnegie Hall on his first American program.

His description of Carnival juxtaposes an observer and the scene he observes: “The lonely, contemplative wanderer reaches the city at nightfall, where a carnival is in full swing. On every side is heard the clangor of instruments, mingled with shouts of joy and the unrestrained hilarity of people giving vent to their feelings in their songs and dance tunes.”

The opening syncopated rhythmic motive drops us right into the atmosphere of dancing and shouting. There is a contrasting middle section that brings us back to the perspective of the “contemplative wanderer” in a lovely interlude on English horn and flute, backed by shimmering strings.

Pines of Rome — Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) Program Notes by Laney Boyd

One of the leading Italian composers of the twentieth century, Ottorino Respighi is today best known for his “Roman Triptych,” a trilogy of orchestral tone poems. Though similar in structure to traditional symphonies, tone poems differ in that they are meant to illustrate a non-musical source such as a poem, story, or landscape and inspire pictorial or dramatic associations rather than present and focus on purely musical content and structure. The three tone poems of Respighi’s Triptych – Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928) – each richly evoke different aspects of Roman landscapes and culture. As can be gleaned from its title, the four-movement Pines of Rome depicts pine trees in four locations throughout Rome at varying times of day and in various historical periods. Of the three tone poems, Pines is the most frequently performed work.

Respighi chose and musically rendered his four Roman locations with care, each distinctly lovely in its own way. The lively first movement starts the work at the Villa Borghese, a palace built in the seventeenth century complete with charming pleasure gardens. The contrasting second movement, somber and mysterious, depicts early underground Christian burial chambers. Resphighi then illustrates the Janiculum, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, with serene and melodic strings and a soaring clarinet solo. This third movement ends with a recording of a nightingale’s song, making it one of the earliest works to use electronics within its orchestration. The tone poem’s final movement recalls the ancient glories of the Appian Way, an important early Roman road, with an ever-building surge of sound that concludes in a blast of triumphant brass and percussion.

Respighi himself wrote detailed programmatic descriptions of each movement within the score to Pines of Rome:

The Pine Trees of the Villa Borghese – Children are at play in the pine groves of Villa Borghese; they dance round in circles, they play at soldiers, marching and fighting, they are wrought up by their own cries like swallows at evening, they come and go in swarms. Suddenly the scene changes.

Pine Trees Near a Catacomb – We see the shades of the pine trees fringing the entrance to a catacomb. From the depth rises the sound of mournful psalm-singing, floating through the air like a solemn hymn, gradually and mysteriously dispersing.

The Pine Trees of the Janiculum – A quiver runs through the air: the pine trees of the Janiculum stand distinctly outlined in the clear light of a full moon. A nightingale is singing.

The Pine Trees of the Appian Way – Misty dawn on the Appian Way; solitary pine trees guard the magic landscape; indistinctly, the ceaseless rhythm of unending footsteps. The poet has a fantastic vision of bygone glories. Trumpets sound and, in the brilliance of the newly risen sun, a consular army bursts forth toward the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph to the Capitol.