Berlioz was interested in music at an early age, composing and becoming an accomplished performer on the flute and guitar. He was sent to Paris to study medicine, but immediately took advantage of the city’s musical opportunities. Not surprisingly, Berlioz abandoned medicine and entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1826.

He won the Prix de Rome in 1830, proving to his parents that he was serious about music providing him with a source of income. The required trip to Italy lasted 15 months and the location was especially influential on his music, including the opera Benvenuto Cellini. The opera was based on the memoirs of the title character, a Renaissance Italian artist and goldsmith, but unfortunately it was a resounding failure when it opened in 1838.

Earning little as a composer, he reluctantly turned to music journalism and criticism, soon gaining a better reputation as a critic than a composer. He was also devoting time to creating a comprehensive study of orchestration, The Grand traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration moderne, published in 1843. Inspired by a disastrous performance of one of his pieces, Berlioz became a leading modern conductor who was sought out for his interpretive skills. In his later years he retired from work as a critic and composer but continued conducting. He died in Paris in March 1869.

Composed in 1844, Roman Carnival Overture was based on musical material from Benvenuto Cellini. The work Berlioz created is an early example of the concert overture. This genre, as well as the other types of program music, attempts to musically depict nonmusical ideas, images, or events. He does this by making use of two themes from the opera. The English horn and then the violas play the music of the love duet between Benvenuto Cellini and Teresa. The opera’s carnival chorus is found in a faster section of the overture, but this theme originated in an even earlier work, Messe solennelle. Roman Carnival Overture concludes with a fast dance, the saltarello. The piece contains all of the surprising changes of key, dynamics, and texture that are characteristic of Berlioz and make his music so exciting. Berlioz was perhaps somewhat vindicated because the opera may have been a disappointment but an encore of this overture was requested at its premiere and it remains a favorite concert showpiece.

Passaggi: Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra
by Stephen Michael Gryc

Translating literally as “Passages,” this concerto depicts various stages in the development of a musician, from the earliest fascination with the beauty of music through a set of variations representing a formal musical education, and finally arriving in the tempestuous world of the professional performer.

Unlike the traditional concerto format, Passaggi begins with a slow movement, Preludio, dedicated to Daniel Livesay, a trombonist and teacher with whom Gryc studied while living in San Francisco. The opening is quiet and mysterious, as if the music is casting its spell over the future musician. Variazioni, the second movement, is based on an original two-part theme played by the bassoons and then by the trombone soloist. Each variation has its own character including Marziale, Tarantella, Recitative, Cantilena, and Finale Piccolo, and it concludes with a shortened version of the theme. In this movement the music student is put through his paces, playing all the materials required to gain the necessary skills. The dedication for this movement is to Gryc’s composition teacher, a former trombonist, Leslie Bassett. The last movement, Scherzi Tempestosi or “tempestuous jokes,” is described by Gryc as a “competition among professional musicians,” pitting “the soloist against the entire brass section of the orchestra. The orchestra’s principal trumpet player and principal trombone player both ‘horn in’ on the soloist’s attempts to play a cadenza.” This final movement is fittingly dedicated to the trombonist who commissioned the work, Joseph Alessi.

Stephen Michael Gryc was born in 1949 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he attended the University of Michigan where he earned four degrees, culminating in a Doctorate of Musical Arts in 1983. He is currently professor of music composition and theory at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford where is he director of the Hartt Contemporary Players and the Institute for Contemporary American Music and co-director of the Center for Computer and Electronic Music.

Gryc has written for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles and has had commissions from several of the world’s greatest soloists including the principal trumpet and trombone players of the New York Philharmonic. He has received numerous grants and fellowships and his awards include the 1986 Rudolf Nissim Prize in orchestral music and the James and Frances Bent Award for Artistic Achievement from the University of Hartford. A former trombone player, Dr. Gryc is fascinated by the sounds and colors possible with different instruments alone and in combination. As such, his understanding of the technical capabilities of instruments and use of orchestrational tone colors are hallmarks of his music.

Serenade for Strings
by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The leading Russian composer of the late 19th century, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) is known especially for his beautiful melodies and his skill at orchestration. He mixed Western European symphonic tradition with Russian nationalism to create a unique and original voice.

Entering the School of Jurisprudence in 1852, he took a post in the Ministry of Justice as a civil servant after graduation in 1859. Tchaikovsky began taking music classes from the newly formed Russian Musical Society, and quit his position to enter the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After graduating in 1865, he became the professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.

Struggling with feelings of being constrained by teaching and the time it took away from composition, Tchaikovsky found the solution in 1876 with a letter from Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow who proposed to provide him with an annual annuity. He quit his teaching position and embarked upon a 14-year relationship with von Meck, limited solely to correspondence.

In addition to composition, he was also called upon to conduct, touring both Europe and America. He conducted not only his own music but also that of other composers including Mozart and Beethoven.

Von Meck unexpectedly broke off their correspondence and the compositional annuity in 1890. In October of 1893, Tchaikovsky died. The exact cause has not to this day been determined, but his brother reported that the composer mistakenly drank a glass of unboiled water during a cholera epidemic.

Originally conceived as a string quartet and later revised for string orchestra, Serenade for Strings was composed in the fall of 1880 during the same compositional period as the 1812 Overture. In a correspondence to von Meck, Tchaikovsky wrote, “I composed the Serenade from inner conviction. It is a heartfelt piece….” His former teacher, Anton Rubinstein, thought it was Tchaikovsky’s best piece and the composer himself regarded it as one of his finest works.

Tchaikovsky had long admired the lyricism and elegance of the music of Mozart. He remarked to his brother that “Mozart neither overwhelms nor stuns me – but he captivates me, makes me happy, warms me, and the longer I live, the more I get to know him, the more I love him.” The first movement, Piece in the form of a Sonatina, is his homage to Mozart and an imitation of his style and Classical clarity seen through Romantic lushness. This movement begins with a slow introduction using a dignified theme that will return in the finale movement. This leads into an irregular sonata form that lacks the customary development section.

The simplicity and charm of the Waltz theme finds this popular second movement sometimes being performed alone. When Serenade for Strings was finally premiered a year after its completion, it was this movement that the audience demanded as an encore. The third movement, Elegy, opens hymn-like and the movement unfolds to reveal a tender, sweet melody supported by expressive accompaniment figures. The mood is somewhat dark but thoughtful not melancholy. The Finale, Tema Russo, is based on two Russian folk tunes with the opening theme of the first movement returning at the end to provide a satisfying symmetrical conclusion to this lovely work.

Notes by Kristin Hauser
October 21, 2007