PROGRAM NOTES
GEORGE WALKER
(Born in Washington, D.C. in 1922; died Montclair, New Jersey in 2018)
Lyric for Strings
A string of firsts dominated George Walker’s long life and career. He was the first African American graduate of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music with a dual diploma in both piano and composition. In 1945, he was the first African American to debut with a solo recital at Manhattan’s Town Hall and the first to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra as the soloist for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. In 1950, he became the first African American artist to sign with a major artist management company, and he spent the next several years playing a string of high-profile concerts in nearly every European capital. In 1956, Walker became the first African American to graduate with a doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music. In 1961, he was hired by Smith College where he became the first tenured African American faculty member in any department. And finally, in 1996, Walker was the first African American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in recognition of his composition Lilacs for voice and orchestra. At his death in August 2018, Walker was one of the most decorated and revered composers in American history.
Lyric for Strings was composed when Walker was only 24 years old, but it has remained one of his most enduring compositions. The sound, structure, and instrumentation of the piece are all clearly inspired by the famous Adagio for Strings composed by Walker’s Curtis Institute classmate Samuel Barber in 1936. Walker first conceived the music that became Lyric as a middle movement for his first string quartet and originally titled it “Lament” in dedication to his grandmother who died the year prior. The piece fluidly and dramatically alternates between lush harmonies and stark solo passages which showcase the range of sounds possible in the string orchestra. In an interview not long before his death, Walker commented: “I never played a string instrument, but somehow strings have always fascinated me.” In Lyric, we hear the beginning of this life-long fascination.
The Billings Symphony first performed this graceful elegy in October 2007 under the direction of Maestra Anne Harrigan.
SERGE PROKOFIEV
(Born in what is now Sontsivka, Ukraine in 1891; died in Moscow, Russia in 1953)
Piano Concerto No. 3
The leading Soviet musician of his time, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony (1918) is one of the most frequently performed symphonic works written in the 20th Century, and his orchestral fairy tale, Peter and the Wolf (1936) is a beloved children's classic. Among Russian composers he is second only to Tchaikovsky as a creator of memorable melodies, and for all his works remain resolutely tonal, his use of off-kilter harmonies, acerbic wit, and motor-like rhythmic drive cemented his reputation in Czarist Russia as “The Bad Boy of Russian Music.” Indeed, the contradictions of his creative personality—at once modern and old-fashioned, serious and ironic, lyrical and savage—give Prokofiev's music its unique flavor.
Although Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was slowly compiled over ten years, its elements are united in an exciting and colorful display piece that betrays no signs of its long gestation period. The first movement’s keyboard fireworks are balanced with a theme which seems at once passionately romantic and melancholy, before entering a harmonic free fall with swirling chromatic (incremental) motion. The second movement is a theme and variations built on a delightfully quirky melody, full of the composer’s wit and sarcasm. The soaring romanticism of the final movement—which Prokofiev described as an argument between piano and orchestra—might remind you of his later ballet score for Romeo and Juliet (1935–36) or West Side Story, as Leonard Bernstein seems to have had these sounds in his ear when he composed his take on the Shakespearean play.
Prokofiev, himself, gave the premiere with the Chicago Symphony in December 1921 during his self-imposed exiled from his native Russia. While not an immediate success—that came after its European debut—the concerto went on to become the most popular of his five piano concertos.
Tonight’s performance is the Billings Symphony’s premiere of this Prokofiev work.
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
(Born in Paris in 1835; died in Algiers in 1921)
Symphony No. 3, “Organ”
Camille Saint-Saëns lived a long life and was remarkable for his wide-ranging intellectual interests and abilities. As a child he was, of course, a precocious musical talent, but even then, he evinced a strong natural interest in almost every academic subject—including, but certainly not restricted to, astronomy, archaeology, mathematics, religion, Latin, and Greek. In addition to a life of musical composition and virtuoso keyboard performance, he also enjoyed success as a music journalist, champion of early music (Handel and Bach), and leadership in encouraging French musical tradition. Saint-Saëns lived an active life, filling an important role in the musical life of France—as performer, composer, author, spokesman, and scholar. He was peripatetic—researching Handel manuscripts in London, conducting concerts in Chicago and Philadelphia, visiting Uruguay and writing a hymn for their national holiday, and vacationing in the Canary Islands. He celebrated seventy-five years of concertizing in August of 1921 in his eighty-sixth year and died a few months later.
Perhaps his most well-known and successful work is his opera, Samson et Dalila, one of a dozen. However, other works vie for that honor, for he was a most prolific composer, working in almost every genre common at that time. Despite this versatility he perhaps did his best work in the traditional Classical models—symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and sonatas. Symphony No. 3 (1886), the so-called “organ” symphony, was his last symphony, but only one of a large number of works for orchestra. He composed symphonic poems, suites, concertos, marches, and dances—dozens of them. Calling for a large orchestra, including two pianos and a large organ, Symphony No. 3 is heard as two large movements, but really is in four, with the first two and last two movements connected and heard respectively as one.
One will clearly hear in this work two of Saint-Saëns’ trademarks: a repetitive rhythm that dominates a movement, and his gift for lovely, sensuous melody. He was a gifted melodist and compared his talent with the natural fecundity of a fruit tree. This you will hear in the lush second movement (second half of the first continuous section). The initial entry of the organ often surprises folks, so be prepared. The spectacular sonic combination of the fortissimo organ and the percussive pianos juxtaposed on the large orchestra is particularly felicitous and is a triumph of Romantic orchestral imagination (Richard Strauss wasn’t the only game in town in this regard). All in all, this symphony is characteristic of much of Saint-Saëns’ work: not necessarily profound, but crafted with great skill, innate musicianship, and typically Gallic in its clarity of expression and form. And, it must be said—almost always immensely appealing. (Notes freely provided by William E. Runyan, PhD | © 2015)
Previous Billings Symphony performances of the “Organ Symphony” occurred in November 1963 under the baton of Maestro George Perkins and in January 1995 under the baton of Maestro Uri Barnea.
Subscribe to our channel
