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Joshua Weilerstein conducts Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, streaming March 17 on Seattle Symphony Live.

WILLIAM GRANT STILL
Poem for Orchestra

Born: May 11, 1895 in Woodville, Mississippi
Died: December 3, 1978 in Los Angeles, California
Work Composed: 1944
World Premiere: December 7, 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Rudolph Ringwall.

What to listen for:

• sudden transition from dissonant anguish to lyrical sweetness
• the haunting unresolved final chord

American composers have long blended careers in popular and classical music—think of George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. The incredibly prolific William Grant Still deserves the same household renown.

A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Harlem Renaissance collaborator, popular arranger, and film and television scorer, Still blazed the way for future Black American classical artists. Among his many achievements, he was the first Black composer to have a symphony performed by a major symphony orchestra. To name two of his diverse influences, he studied with the French-born avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse and worked for the blues composer and popularizer W.C. Handy. He drew on both the European symphony and African American musical heritage and innovation, exploring jazz and blues themes in classical forms.

Poem for Orchestra exemplifies these disparate inspirations and the unique spin he imparted. Still based the piece on a poem by his wife, the Russian American musician and writer Verna Arvey, who has explained that the music expresses “the concept of a world being reborn spiritually after a period of darkness and desolation.”

Written and performed toward the end of World War II, Poem for Orchestra evokes the agony of the massive and inhuman conflict. We might speculate that Still, who faced racism in personal and professional life and confronted themes of Black oppression and liberation, was also channeling the angst of segregated America. The first section evokes the torment of war, dissonant strings clashing with deep, unstable chords. Toward the middle of the piece, a calm, lyrical mood, buoyed by a folksy melody, abruptly sweeps away the gloom. This builds to a rousing ending, yet strangely, the dissonance returns: resolution is far from certain.

ERICH KORNGOLD
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35

Born: May 29, 1897 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary Empire (present-day Brno, Czechia)
Died: November 29, 1957 in Los Angeles, California
Work Composed: 1945
World Premiere: February 15, 1947 in St. Louis by the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Vladimir Golschmann with Jascha Heifetz as soloist

What to listen for:

• The opening lyrical theme spanning two-octaves hints at the seemingly endless melodies still to come
• The rambunctious final movement shimmers with tunes that harken back to old Hollywood

If the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold sounds cinematic, there’s an excellent reason: a sensational prodigy in the twilight of European empire, he achieved his greatest fame as a film scorer in Hollywood. His symphonic, Wagnerian style transformed movie music: John Williams, among others, has named him as an inspiration. Rather than saying that Korngold sounds cinematic, we ought to say that film music sounds like Korngold.

A famous composer since the age of 11, Korngold first left Austria for the US in 1934. He spent several successful years in Hollywood, even winning an Oscar, but he periodically returned to his classical work in Austria. In 1938, Korngold left his home country to compose his most celebrated score, for The Adventures of Robin Hood. Korngold’s jaunty, romantic composition gained him a second Academy Award and is still one of the most beloved scores in American film history. But as his Hollywood career soared, Nazism destroyed his home and country. Korngold, from a Jewish family, devoted himself to film music in America until the end of World War II. The Violin Concerto in D Major marked his attempted return to the classical milieu and the end of his long stint in the American film industry. “Fifty is very old for a child prodigy,” he told an interviewer. “I feel I have to make a decision now, if I don’t want to be a Hollywood composer the rest of my life.”

Yet he did not rupture with his previous work. In the concerto, the first movement—an unapologetically dreamy Moderato nobile, full of vast melodic leaps and virtuoso flourishes—uses themes from the 1937 movie Another Dawn and from 1939’s Juarez. The slow and wistful second movement, Romance, recalls the score of Anthony Adverse, the film that netted Korngold his first Oscar, while the finale, marked Allegro assai vivace, borrows an adventurous melody from The Prince and the Pauper (1937). It is not certain whether Korngold intended these themes for the concerto all along and used them in his film pieces, or whether he drew on the scores for his new classical work.

Sadly, until well after his death, Korngold did not regain the critical adoration from classical music critics that he had enjoyed in his youth. But since the 1970s, his compositions have found new audiences—a fitting afterlife for a resilient artist who kept creating to the end of his days.

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, TH 29

Born: May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, district of Vyatka, Russia
Died: November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg
Work Composed: 1888
World Premiere: November 17, 1888 in Saint Petersburg, Russia by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic conducted by Tchaikovsky

What to listen for:

• the “Fate” theme in the opening notes, which is repeated throughout the symphony and transitions in the final movement from minor to major
• the flowing and longing horn solo at the beginning of the second movement

It’s hard to imagine the Russian canon—or even orchestral music as a whole—without the work of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. One of the great Romantics, his ballets (like The Nutcracker) and operas (like Eugene Onegin), replete with beautiful melodies and voluptuous orchestration, immediately appealed to Russian and international audiences. Alongside this public adoration have come critical accusations of sentimentality, even frivolity: composer as “master confectioner,” in the words of Allan Kozinn. Where Tchaikovsky tackled more abstract, demonstrably “serious” forms, critics were often even harsher. Symphony No. 5 has been a frequent target. A Boston reviewer in 1892 grumbled that the Finale put him in mind of “a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy.” Yet Symphony No. 5 has remained cherished by audiences since its debut, particularly during some of Europe’s worst moments of the 20th century.

Tchaikovsky came of age at a turning point in Russian music, a time when composers argued passionately over the direction their art should take: should they pursue a uniquely Slavic approach, emphasizing folk tales and melodies, or should they embrace the Western European classical tradition? Tchaikovsky drew on both Russia and the West, resulting in an ambiguity that (many critics have argued) hampered him in writing the Western-style symphony. But more recent scholars argue that just because Tchaikovsky does not fully adhere to rigorous sonata form does not mean that his symphonies lack structure or development. Tonality and ambiguity play large roles in driving an emotional narrative.

Certainly, as for some of his other symphonies, Tchaikovsky found the composition process of the Fifth laborious. Writing in his house at Frolovskoye, he complained to his friend and patron Nadezhda von Meck: “I've still not yet made a start, because I've been working on various proofs. But I can honestly say that the urge to create has deserted me. What does this mean? Am I really written out?”

Though heartened by the symphony’s first performance, Tchaikovsky was again filled with self-doubt a month later. “There is something so repellent about such excess, insincerity and artificiality,” he lamented to von Meck. (The critic J.A. Westrup cited this letter when deriding Tchaikovsky and other Romantics for being “too strongly tempted by their own imagination” rather than applying themselves to the rigors of the symphonic form.) Yet mere months later, after a performance in Hamburg, Tchaikovsky changed his mind once more, pleased by the enthusiasm of the crowd.

Audience opinion has continued to favor Tchaikovsky’s happier verdict over his earlier misgivings. Though the composer did not provide a program (that is, a thematic scene, theme, or story to accompany the music), he was initially inspired by the idea of the individual’s struggle with Fate, torn between hope and despondent submission—only to triumph at the end. This journey from anguish to elation was particularly resonant during some of the darkest times of the 20th century; the work was on one occasion performed by the Leningrad Radio Orchestra while their city was besieged by Nazi forces. Today, during a very different kind of global struggle, Symphony No. 5 invites us to rebel against despair.

The symphony opens with the clarinet playing what is often called the “Fate theme,” backed by gloomy chords in the orchestra. The tempo picks up to an almost galloping rhythm as the music shakes off the forlorn mood. It builds in exuberance, developing sweeping and expressive new themes. The galloping theme is recapitulated according to sonata convention, with the final notes of the movement ashiver with an allusion to Fate.

The second movement opens with elegiac chords, followed by an achingly melancholic horn solo. This develops into a brief major-key duet with the oboe. The orchestra wavers between sorrow and hope. Toward the end of the movement, the orchestra intrudes with a modified restatement of Fate.

The third movement is a light-footed waltz, as elegant as any of Tchaikovsky’s, that begins in the string section and is answered by the reeds. After an exciting scherzo and a return to the waltz themes, Fate once again delivers a low, ominous warning, disguised in the same courtly rhythm.

The final movement begins with the Fate theme transformed into an exultant march. However, this triumph is premature, as the orchestra bursts into another tempestuous minor-key section. Only after a frenetic clash of various themes does this victorious mood return for good, with a short but unambiguously joyful coda.

© Joule Zelman