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Ruth Reinhardt conducts Sibelius' Symphony No. 1 and a new work by Ellen Reid, streaming February 3 on Seattle Symphony Live.

ELLEN REID
TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY AND TODAY
Born: March 23, 1983, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Work composed: 2021
World Premiere: February 3, 2022, with Seattle Symphony conducted by Ruth Reinhardt at Benaroya Hall in Seattle

What to Listen For:

• Smeared notes called glissandi in the strings and other instruments where one note glides into another.
• Startling “scratch” tones in the finale's strings.

It should be no surprise that the title of Ellen Reid's single-movement symphonic work echoes the monotony most everyone experienced during the pandemic: lockdowns and bouts of working from home (or not working at all), blurred hours and days into weeks and months. According to the composer, the repetition in the title not only portrays what she remembers as “the cyclical feeling of those daily routines,” but optimistically also seeks “the magic that happens when those routines are broken and something erupts within the day that’s surprising and exciting.”

TODAY […] begins with a sudden drone that seems to surface from oceanic depths. Tense clusters continue to edge skyward until held by a giant chord that's powered by the brass. Fierce downward strums on the harp signal the strings to divide into subgroups in a segment labeled by Reid as “Dark, Murky.” Several short episodes follow, veering from unsettled agitation to moments of uneasy repose with apt directions such as “Slowly Degrading” and “Sheer Will.”

Midway through, the music halts, leaving only the timpani to pound a loping riff, which is picked up by entire orchestra. Ribbon-like ascending scales recall the introduction, but faster and higher, blurring into shimmering textures. A variation emerges, reminiscent of the agitated strings heard previously, but elongated as a barrage of tuttis. These chords peter out, leaving quiet pulses on the piano supported by two violas and a contrabass. A fierce brass chord announces a surprising percussion interlude of swaggering congas, bongos, bass drum and piano.

The final section unleashes a brief jolt of “scratch tones” where the strings rumble and creak, like prying open the rusty portcullis of a giant castle. Heard up close, such tones can be discomfiting, but in a concert hall, clouds of microscopic harmonics hover and float. The percussion and orchestra then converge in a joyous ending.

SERGEI RACHMANINOV
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Born: April 1, 1873 in Oneg, an estate outside of Novgorod, Russia
Died: March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California
Work composed: 1934
World Premiere: November 7, 1934, in Baltimore, Maryland with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski and featuring the composer at the piano

What to Listen For:

• The “Dies irae” theme in the 10th Variation. Rachmaninov was very partial to this Gregorian chant (“Day of Wrath” in Latin) heard in the Mass for the Dead. Is this a sly nod to Paganini, whose celebrated virtuosity was rumored to derive from a deal with the Devil?
• Marked Andante cantabile (“flowing and songlike), the utterly beautiful 18th Variation embodies romantic longing, perhaps tinged with sorrow and guarded hope.

Unlike Jean Sibelius, who enjoyed an annual government stipend, Rachmaninov faced a choice confronting almost every young composer-pianist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: ’teach or tour’. Rachmaninov chose the latter, debuting in 1892 as a virtuoso pianist and continuing to tour across five decades. When the increasingly fatigued Russian composer in the summer of 1930 grumbled about “artists who rush about all the time giving concerts,” he surely was referring to himself.

Between concert seasons, Rachmaninov did manage to write music, but summers were by then mainly devoted to family, preparing performances for the next tour, business affairs and recovering from various ailments, including lumbago and arthritis. Composing was confined to spare weeks and quiet days, which makes Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini a rare gift from a composer who had felt in 1933 “unable to compose” since leaving Russia. He added, “I still write music, but it does not mean the same to me now.”

Composed in just six weeks in the summer of 1934, the Rhapsody reinvigorated Rachmaninov, who borrowed the vibrant melody from the Caprice No. 24 for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840).

Instead of a grand peroration, the introduction is brief with fast, leaping figures that culminate in a crisp tutti. Rachmaninov presents the first variation and then we hear Paganini’s theme played by the strings and punctuated by the piano. There is no need to count or tally variations; most of them glide by elegantly or erupt, bracketed by changes in mood, a pause or cascading keyboard notes. The longest and most famous variation –– the 18th –– is unmistakable for its tender piano figurations and soaring string lines. Rachmaninov then propels the orchestra and pianist into a series of jubilant orchestral exclamations; even the dour “Dies irae” theme glitters with sunny ebullience, as if Paganini might beat the Devil after all.

JEAN SIBELIUS
Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39
Born: December 8, 1865, in Hämeenlinna, Grand Duchy of Finland
Died: September 20, 1957, in Järvenpää, Finland
Work composed: 1898-1899, revised 1900
World premiere: July 18, 1900, in Berlin, Germany, with the Helsinki Philharmonic conducted by Robert Kajanus

What to Listen For:

• The double basses in the middle of the first movement create tidal, almost tectonic movement by trading off rapidly ascending scales.
• In addition to “conversing” with other instruments, the harp also often heralds transitions to new sections.

Sibelius found success in his tone poems in the 1890s, yet like many young composers, he struggled with his first purely orchestral, four-movement symphony. The Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39 has a fitful origin. Brief sketches made in 1898 were immediately set aside for other projects. The next year, Sibelius resumed working on the symphony. Wisely, the composer retreated to the countryside, away from the city and its distracting opportunities to tempt his famed penchant for drinking and carousing.

The 1899 premiere garnered considerable acclaim. However, Sibelius found the music unsatisfactory. Spurred by an imminent tour of Europe in 1900, Sibelius claimed to have revised his First Symphony in just two days and three nights. While musicologists continue to untangle what the first version of the Symphony might have sounded like, we do know that Sibelius made one of the boldest moves in the symphonic repertoire: adding (or perhaps swapping) the iconic clarinet solo to the beginning of the first movement.

Supported by softly rumbling timpani, the clarinet plays a lonely, inquisitive melody that reappears in various guises throughout the symphony. Tremolo violins interject and charge towards grand climax, the first of many tidal surges. Interludes with the flute and harp as well as charming solos from the violin and bassoon borrow and rephrase parts of the initial clarinet melody. The movement concludes with the return of the clarinet, which in turn introduces a dialogue between the trumpet and flute. Frantic, frustrated tuttis and tremolo strings close the movement.

Marked semplice (Italian for “simple”), the Andante starts with humble plucks of the harp undergirding a bereft song by muted violins and cellos. Fragments of the clarinet theme return in a colloquy for clarinets and bassoons, and later flutes and oboes. Episodes with violins, horns and harp arpeggios follow, again transmuting motives and fragments from the opening clarinet melody. Sibelius again takes us back to the beginning of the movement with the harp tolling low E in octaves and a gentle variation of the movement’s opening melody.

Pizzicati — plucked notes on string instruments — in the violas and cellos conjure the sonic image of a giant guitar in the Scherzo. Urgent strings hammer home a seven note, a sped-up motive heard at the start of the symphony. Flutes and other winds gambol here and there, however the Scherzo turbocharges the languid strums heard earlier with crashing timpani and determined tuttis.

Theodor Adorno loathed Sibelius, but the habitually grouchy philosopher’s criticism of the Finnish composer encapsulates the closing movement perfectly: “If he has a relationship with nature, then it is only inwardly. His realm is not of this world. It is the realm of the emotions.” Indeed, the Finale is a churning tempest where the moods are many and manic. Pining proclamations and ever-accelerating episodes of scherzo-like chases among the wind instruments usher in the symphony’s unmistakably transcendent theme. But our time in this inward, intoxicating realm, like any untethered crowning view, is too brief. Sibelius cuts his victorious cadence short with two subdued pizzicato — a reminder of, or perhaps a rescue from, our own limits.

© 2022 Christopher DeLaurenti