History of the Music

By Jeff Counts

The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra

Duration: 12 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – JOHN ADAMS (b. 1947) – Few American composers have an opera catalogue as robust or varied as that of John Adams. Carlisle Floyd comes close, and Philip Glass has perhaps set a bar too high for anyone to reach, but Adams has earned his reputation as one of our country's greatest living opera creators through savvy thematic choices and a roguish toughness in the face of controversy. His highly personal musical language is present throughout his stage music career, of course, but the subjects he tackles are varied and thought-provoking. From The Death of Klinghoffer to The Gospel According to the Other Mary to Doctor Atomic, a John Adams production might not always illicit protest, but intense conversation is a common guarantee.

THE HISTORY – Nixon in China, based on the American President's 1972 visit to the People's Republic, was premiered by Houston Grand Opera in 1987. While completing that score, Adams was inspired to coincidentally explore the topic in a stand-alone concert piece he called The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra. As always, nobody writes better about a John Adams piece than John Adams. He describes The Chairman Dances as "an 'outtake' of Act III of Nixon in China.Neither an 'excerpt' nor a 'fantasy on themes from', it was in fact a kind of warmup for embarking on the creation of the full opera." Adams admits that, at that moment in 1985, he was behind on a commission project for the Milwaukee Symphony and found inspiration in the scenario he had been presented for his new opera's final Act. "So," he continues, "The Chairman Dances began as a foxtrot for Chairman Mao and his bride, Chiang Ch'ing, the fabled 'Madame Mao, firebrand, revolutionary, executioner, architect of China's calamitous Cultural Revolution, and (a fact not universally realized) a former Shanghai movie actress." As promised by Adams' explanation, the scenario of The Chairman Dances indeed departs slightly from the related moment in the opera that influenced it. To better explain the divergence, he included a synopsis of the orchestral work in the score, in which we learn that "Madame Mao has gatecrashed the Presidential Banquet. She is first seen standing where she is most in the way of the waiters. After a few minutes, she brings out a box of paper lanterns and hangs them around the hall, then strips down to a cheongsam, skin-tight from neck to ankle and split up the hip. She signals the orchestra to play and begins dancing by herself. Mao is becoming excited. He steps down from his portrait on the wall and they begin to foxtrot together. They are back in Yenan, dancing to the gramophone…"

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1985, the Live Aid concerts took place around the world, New Coke was introduced to disastrous effect, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro was highjacked.

THE CONNECTION – The most recent performances of The Chairman Dances by Utah Symphony where in 2005 under the baton of Scott O'Neil.

Piano Concerto No. 2 for Piano in G minor, Op. 16

Duration: 31 minutes in four movements.

THE COMPOSER – SERGE PROKOFIEV (1891-1953) – Just before graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatory as one of its most beloved enfants terrible, Prokofiev made one of the closest friendships of his life. It was also one of the briefest. Maximilian Schmidthof was a kindred spirit if there ever was one, delighting in the same kind of philosophical sparring that Prokofiev loved and inspiring the young composer to expand his already intrepid reading habits. Tragically, Max was also a deeply troubled person, and he killed himself in April of 1913. "I am writing to tell you the latest news," wrote Max bluntly in a suicide letter to Prokofiev, "I have shot myself…The reasons are unimportant."

THE HISTORY – Prokofiev was understandably devastated, and he dedicated his new piano concerto (parts of which he had previewed for Max over the preceding months) in memory of his dear, lost friend. The intensely dramatic concerto that continued to grow out of this difficult time, his Second, premiered a few months later in the St. Petersburg suburb of Pavlovsk with Prokofiev at the keyboard. Accounts of that performance do vary, but only with regards the ferocity of the negative audience reaction. They were "frozen with fright, hair standing on end" in the words of one critic. "The audience is scandalized," claimed another, "most of them hiss…the cats at home can make better music than this!" Prokofiev's own diary entry for the event speaks to a more equivocal response from the patrons in their mix of "applause and boos" and the composer claimed, in the moment at least, to be "pleased that the Concerto provoked such strong feelings…" His claims that an encore was demanded by such a crowd are perhaps hard to accept, but he did apparently play one, likely with an impish grin on his face throughout.

No matter whose memory we trust most, we today cannot ever know exactly what the audience heard that night since the score was destroyed in a revolutionary fire just a few years later. Prokofiev rebuilt it from notes and sketches in 1924 for a Paris re-premiere but later told a friend that the new version of the Second Concerto was different enough to be "considered the Fourth" (the Third was already in existence then). Few of those lucky enough to have heard both concerts agreed with him and, either way, it must be assumed that a great deal of the raw emotional power and uncompromising technical demands of the original remained. Even altered, it is a mighty work, an insistent and incendiary work, and there amidst all the virtuosic flourishes and daring formal brilliance, if you listen closely, you can still hear the pain of losing Max in it.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1913, civil war raged in Mexico, King George I of Greece was assassinated, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion premiered in Vienna, and New York's Grand Central Terminal was opened in February.

THE CONNECTION – The most recent Masterworks performance of the Second Piano Concerto was in 2018. Karina Canellakis conducted and Conrad Tao was soloist.

Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10

Duration: 28 minutes in four movements.

THE COMPOSER – DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) – At the age of 19, young Dmitri Shostakovich was showing exceptional potential in the composition class at the Leningrad Conservatory. But he struggled financially. It's a common enough theme, and only the most fortunate among us get through college without having to take a job we didn't like—several, more likely. So, to help make ends meet, Shostakovich applied to be a film accompanist at the Splendid Palace cinema. It was his second such position and, though it paid better than the previous one, he was just as bored with the repetition and frustrated to be distracted from composing. He was sure his fortunes would change for the better if he could somehow arrange a live performance of his graduation piece.

THE HISTORY – That piece was none other than his First Symphony, an initial utterance in a genre about which Shostakovich would have so much to say throughout his life. The Conservatory, at that time in the mid-1920s, was a highly conservative place. Shostakovich's teachers were Maximilian Steinberg and Alexandre Glazunov. Glazunov is well known to us, but Steinberg, not so much. He was the son-in-law of Rimsky-Korsakov and the once great hope of Russian music lovers who thought Stravinsky was taking their national traditions in too modern a direction. Steinberg saw right away how special Shostakovich was and, even as he tried to instill a 19th-century ethic in him, he knew couldn't stop his pupil from becoming, if not another Stravinsky, himself—Dimitri Shostakovich. It is to Steinberg's eternal credit that he never let his disappointment shade his duties as a guide and a nurturer. He supported his star student with care, even as the younger man strayed off onto paths of compositional thought he could not follow. The story of First Symphony premiere, in fact, provides proof of Steinberg's commitment to Shostakovich's awakening as a cypher for his time and people. Shostakovich had been hopeful that another professor, Nikolai Malko, would agree to conduct the first public performance of the piece with the Leningrad Philharmonic. It was a bold enough ask under any circumstances but, here again, a lack of funds threatened to derail the idea before it could even be considered. Even with the movie house job, Shostakovich could not afford to have the orchestra parts copied. In those analog times, this would have meant the end of the discussion, but Steinberg stepped in and convinced the Conservatory to cover the expense. The audience response to the concert was incredibly positive. They couldn't have known it then, but the career of the 20th-century's greatest symphonist had just begun.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1925, Mussolini assumed dictatorial control of Italy, British Explorer Percy Fawcett sent his final telegram before disappearing into the Amazon, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, and The New Yorker magazine released its first issue.

THE CONNECTION – Shostakovich's First Symphony was last performed in Abravanel Hall in 2008. Keith Lockhart conducted.