Program Notes: Beethoven Symphony No. 7

FRANCIS POULENC 
Les Biches Suite 
BORN: January 7, 1899, in Paris, France 
DIED: January 30, 1963, in Paris, France 
WORK COMPOSED: 1923 
WORLD PREMIERE: January 6, 1924, at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo in Monte Carlo, Monaco with sets, costumes and curtain by Marie Laurencin and choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. 

What to Listen For: 

• In the Rag-Mazurka, Poulenc frequently changes the music’s meter — and in turn, how we sense regular groups of beats — in a way that echoes American jazz.  

In the Rag-Mazurka, Poulenc frequently changes the music’s meter — and in turn, how we sense regular groups of beats — in a way that echoes American jazz.  

Francis Poulenc was in his early 20s when Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned him to write the music for a new production, which would become Les Biches (1923). Poulenc initially envisioned the work as a one-act ballet with no central narrative. At the time, he told Igor Stravinsky, “I have a clear conception of my ballet which will have no subject — simply dances and songs.”  

Les Biches trades the more typical narrative drama for a veiled exploration of sensuality and sexuality that parallels Poulenc’s closeted identity as a gay man in postwar France. “Les biches” literally translates to “female deer” but doubles as an affectionate term for flirtatious young women in the same spirit as “sweethearts” or “darlings,” with the scenes on stage depicting these women at a house party. Poulenc describes the setting for the ballet in the score as follows: “The action passes in a large, white drawing room with just one piece of furniture, an immense blue sofa. It is a warm summer afternoon and three young men are enjoying the company of sixteen young women. Just as in 18th-century prints, their play is innocent in appearance only.” 

The alluring production was a success with audiences and critics alike, and by 1948, Poulenc had reorchestrated and refashioned the full ballet score into the five-movement suite that is performed in this program. Poulenc’s ballet exemplifies the neoclassical values of his peers in the Paris-based group of composers Les Six, who were united by their distaste for what they saw as the leaden Romanticism of Wagner and the murky Impressionism of Debussy and Ravel. Les Biches is often referred to as a “neoclassical” work in that it utilizes an anachronistic classical approach to harmony across its unlinked movements — a throwback to the earlier Classical era in which balance, unity and order were intrinsic to the musical style. 

The suite’s opening Rondeau movement begins with a moment of calm clarity before a bright trumpet heralds the arrival of the rollicking, playful music that follows. The trumpet theme returns several times throughout the movement, punctuating Poulenc’s pithy tour across a diverse array of musical characters. The Adagietto spotlights sweeping waves of passion interspersed with calmer thematic material in the woodwinds. Despite Poulenc’s use of flirtatious chromaticism and lyrical thematic writing, the movement never develops beyond a casual fling.  

The music of Scott Joplin and Frédéric Chopin might spring to mind at the title of the third movement, Rag-Mazurka. However, its capricious character and shifting sense of pulse projects a wholly unique sound world that is both whimsical and daring. In the Andantino movement, Poulenc makes thematic callbacks to the opening Rondeau, this time recontextualizing them within a sultry, breezy sound world. The orchestra’s virtuosity is on full display in the exhilarating Finale as it navigates the movement’s snappy character changes and incisive rhythms.  

FRANCIS POULENC 
Concerto for Organ in G minor 
WORK COMPOSED: 1934–1938 
WORLD PREMIERE: Private premiere on December 16, 1938, at Princess Edmond de Polignac’s salon in Paris, France, with Nadia Boulanger conducting and Maurice Duruflé on organ; public premiere June 1939, in Paris, France, with Roger Désormière conducting the Paris Symphony and Maurice Duruflé on organ. 

What to Listen For: 

• The concerto features an unusual instrumental force, with only organ, string orchestra and timpani. This minimal instrumental palette allows for Poulenc to feature the dizzying array of timbres on the organ, ultimately creating a multitude of sound worlds. 

The concerto features an unusual instrumental force, with only organ, string orchestra and timpani. This minimal instrumental palette allows for Poulenc to feature the dizzying array of timbres on the organ, ultimately creating a multitude of sound worlds. 

Completed just 15 years after Les Biches, Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ in G minor showcases a wholly different side to the composer. Spurred by the gruesome death of his colleague and friend Pierre-Octave Ferroud in 1936, Poulenc visited The Black Virgin of Rocamadour — a cliffside commune in the south of France. Inspired to revisit his Christian faith while there on holiday, he later reflected upon the experience: “As I meditated on the fragility of our human frame, I was drawn once more to the life of the spirit.” The events surrounding the work’s composition set in motion a new seriousness in Poulenc’s music, one that was largely ignored by critics — who tended to favor his earlier, more lighthearted works — until decades later.  

The concerto was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac, the American-born heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. While the Princess originally intended to perform the concerto herself, the work soon took on a virtuosic and grandiose life of its own. While it was premiered privately in the Princess’ salon in Paris (her home featured a hall seating 200 and a suitable pipe organ), the illustrious Maurice Duruflé advised Poulenc on the registrations of the organ part and ultimately performed the work publicly.  

Around 20 minutes in duration, the concerto is performed as one continuous movement marked by seven distinct tempos that vary in character, tone and style. For the Seattle Symphony concerts, Paul Jacobs performs on Benaroya Hall’s magnificent Watjen Concert Organ. (Read more about it HERE.) 

The concerto opens with cacophonous chords in the organ that are trailed by dark and wistful phrases in the orchestra. In the following Allegro giocoso section, the tempo surges to a breakneck speed as the orchestra and organ trade off with scalar passagework. The string orchestra gives a lush, lyrical intermission to the intensity in the Très calme: Lent, which, in turn, gives way to a quirky and chromatic romp in the Tempo de l’allegro initial. Poulenc concludes the work with an understated benediction followed by a final earth-shattering chord on the organ. 

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 
BORN: December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany 
DIED: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: 1811–1812 
WORLD PREMIERE: December 8, 1813, at the University Concert Hall in Vienna, Austria.  
FIRST SEATTLE SYMPHONY PERFORMANCE: March 31, 1910, at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, with Harry Hadley conducting. 

What to Listen For: 

• This symphony is celebrated for its use of rhythmic momentum to generate narrative drama. Listen for the thrilling mad dash at the end of the Poco sostenuto—Vivace, the noble, downtempo march feel to the Allegretto, the light-footed dance quality of the Presto, and the exuberant, rip-roaring energy of the Allegro con brio for the final dramatic sendoff.  

This symphony is celebrated for its use of rhythmic momentum to generate narrative drama. Listen for the thrilling mad dash at the end of the Poco sostenuto—Vivace, the noble, downtempo march feel to the Allegretto, the light-footed dance quality of the Presto, and the exuberant, rip-roaring energy of the Allegro con brio for the final dramatic sendoff.  

Ludwig van Beethoven began composing his Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 while vacationing in the Bohemian spa city of Teplitz in the Czech Republic. At that point, the Napoleonic Wars had been in full swing for years and Napoleon was planning a campaign against Russia. Interestingly, Beethoven originally looked to Napoleon as the embodiment of democratic ideals and even dedicated his Third Symphony to him years earlier, an honor which he soon revoked after Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804. Beethoven conducted the premiere of his Seventh Symphony at a concert to benefit Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded in the battle of Hanau.  

A favorite of audiences and critics alike — and even called his “most excellent symphony” by Beethoven himself — the Seventh Symphony featured a much larger symphonic force at its premiere than any of the composer’s prior symphonies. The impact of this larger symphonic sound is felt in the cataclysmic climaxes of the opening Poco sostenuto—Vivace. A brief silence signals the final section of the movement, out of which the basses emerge and linger on deep, wavering tones. Momentum builds as the full orchestra re-enters, spinning with dizzying motion to a rapturous finale.  

A favorite of concertgoers to this day, the Allegretto movement was so well-received at its premiere that the audience demanded an encore performance immediately after. But the brilliance of this movement may not be apparent from the start. Cast in a slow military march tempo backed by an obstinate rhythmic motive, the movement inches forward without immediate embellishment or fanfare. And yet, note by note, Beethoven ushers us from the ordinary into the sublime. Leonard Bernstein once said of this transcendent movement that it was as if Beethoven “had some private telephone wire to heaven which told him what the next note had to be.” 

The third movement Presto opens with a mirthful scherzo in F-major, in which the orchestra exchanges chittering phrases with equal parts humor and precision. This material is contrasted with the trio sections in D-major, in which the woodwinds summon a graceful and bucolic theme based on an Austrian pilgrims’ hymn set over a lush backdrop of sustained pitches in the strings. 

The fourth movement Allegro con brio opens with a kinetic theme in the strings, as quick gestures spiral and turn before leaping to new heights. This theme is partially drawn from the composer’s arrangement of the Irish folk song “Save Me from the Grave and Wise,” though here it is recast in a foot-stomping duple meter. Beethoven sends off the Seventh Symphony with unrivaled exuberance and flair, a grand finale for an equally grand symphony.  

Tristan McKay © 2024  

Tristan McKay is a pianist, educator and writer. His research on contemporary music is featured in A Semiotic Approach to Open Notations (Cambridge University Press) and The American Journal of Semiotics, among others. Tristan has premiered dozens of new works as a solo and chamber artist, and he maintains a virtual piano studio from his home in Michigan. He holds a PhD from New York University.