Program notes by J. Michael Allsen

Darko Butorac memorably stepped in on very short notice for the ailing Maestro Lowe last fall, and succeeded brilliantly. At this program, he makes a welcome return, to lead the Spokane Symphony in a program of three works, beginning with Gratitude, a 2015 piece by his fellow Serbian Aleksandra Vrebalov. The wonderful young violinist Karisa Chiu then join us as soloist for Mozart’s fourth violin concerto. After intermission, we turn to Prokofiev’s massive Symphony No. 5, a grand patriotic work from the Soviet Union, written at the peak of the second world war.

This was part of a larger work, the Sea Ranch Songs, composed in 2015 in honor of the unique Sea Ranch community in northern California.

Aleksandra Vrebalov

Born: September 22, 1970, Novi Sad, Serbia.

Gratitude

• Composed: 2015, for the Kronos Quartet.
• Premiere: May 23, 2015, at The Sea Ranch, California. The composer later created the string orchestra version of the Gratitude movement heard here.
• Duration: 8:00.

Background

Serbian-American composer Aleksandra Vrebalov divides her time between New York City and Serbia. (She became an American citizen in 2015.) Initially trained in her native Serbia, Vrebalov completed her studies in composition at the San Francisco Conservatory, the Prague Academy of Music, and the University of Michigan. She has composed well over 100 works, including operas, ballet scores, orchestral pieces, and chamber works. Vrebalov has had a particularly close relationship with the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet. Her Sea Ranch Songs were commissioned for the quartet in 2015, by the Sea Ranch, in honor of its 50th anniversary. The Sea Ranch is a unique settlement on the Pacific coast in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. Founded in 1965 as a planned community, it is remarkable for its unique architecture, painstakingly designed to complement the surrounding ecology, and for the community’s commitment to “living lightly on the land.” When the quartet performed the piece at Sea Ranch, it was accompanied by a documentary by Andrew Lyndon, and recordings of the surrounding landscape, and of the Sea Ranchers themselves. In answer to my question about the version performed at this program, Mr. Butorac replied:

I came across this piece while working with a chamber orchestra in Aleksandra Vrebalov’s hometown of Novi Sad, Serbia. She made a string orchestra version for performance of the last movement of her Sea Ranch Songs. In this form, the piece is simply known as Gratitude. It is inspired by the kindness she found while discovering the Sea Ranch community.

What You’ll Hear

In the original quartet version, Gratitude begins with the recorded sound of wind and waves and is overlaid by a track with the voices of Sea Ranchers, according to the composer, conveying “a sense of wonder, belonging, magic, and gratitude as they described their relationship to the Sea Ranch.” In the string orchestra version, the backing track, and accompanying video is absent, leaving the music in its purest form. Gratitude opens in a kind of minimalist texture, with short motives introduced above expansive pedal notes by the cellos and basses. This develops gradually, like the ecology of the Sea Ranch itself, throughout the opening section, finally morphing into a rather sentimental tune.

This is one of five violin concertos that the 18-year-old Mozart composed in 1775, when he was leading the orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. It is set in the standard three-part classical form: a broad opening movement in sonata form, a lovely Andante, and an upbeat rondo.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Born: January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria.

Died: December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, K. 218

• Composed: This concerto was completed in Salzburg in October of 1775.
• Premiere: Unknown, but it was probably played in Salzburg soon after its completion.
• Duration: 24:00.

Background

All five of Mozart’s violin concertos were written in a single year, 1775, when the teenage composer was working as concertmaster for the Archbishop of Salzburg. There is no record of when the Concerto No.4 was first performed, but it is likely that it was not too long after Mozart completed the score—new works seldom lay around for long in Salzburg. Nor are we sure who played the solo part. Mozart himself was a fine violinist, good enough to lead the Archbishop’s orchestra, and by his father’s account, a player with potential to become “the finest violinist in Europe.” Leopold Mozart was, as always, speaking with promotion and encouragement of his son in mind, but he was also a good judge of fiddling: he had published an influential text on violin-playing several years earlier. While young Mozart was certainly capable, he seems to have viewed playing violin as a somewhat unpleasant chore, and he abandoned the violin in favor of the piano as soon as he moved out from under his father’s wing. We do know that Mozart performed a few of the concertos in the next few years, but here are some indications, that at least some of the five concertos may have been written originally for his Salzburg friend Joachim Kolb, or for Antonio Brunetti, another violinist of Archbishop’s court orchestra.

These are youthful works, but they are also amazingly cosmopolitan in style. Mozart had spent most of his young life travelling across Europe as child prodigy, performing on both violin and harpsichord. Though Leopold never realized his goal of finding a lucrative court post for Wolfgang, his son picked up something equally valuable along the way, musical styles from across the Continent. The violin concertos bear traces of all the Austrian, German, Italian, and French courts he visited as a child. They also show the impact of the genial and rather free style of the serenades that were so popular in Salzburg in their profusion of musical ideas

What You’ll Hear

The Concerto No. 4 begins with an orchestral exposition (Allegro) that lays out two main ideas: a martial main theme and more graceful second idea, which are both then restated by the solo violin. The development is carried almost entirely by the soloist, in a part that rather slyly maneuvers back into a recapitulation of the main ideas. As usual in late 18th-century concertos, there is space just before the coda for a solo cadenza, usually improvised on the spot in Mozart’s day.

The galante-style slow movement (Andante cantabile) is based upon a gentle sighing operatic melody. The movement also develops a second, more playful theme. Both ideas are worked out in an unhurried way, until the orchestra steps aside for solo cadenza, and then returns for a quiet coda. True to his usual form Mozart sets the last movement as a rondo (Andante grazioso), but this is bit more relaxed—at least at the beginning—than most of his rondos and uses the dances he would have heard in Salzburg’s dance halls and street serenades. The main theme is a light Contredance. He alternates this with a much more lively triple-meter dance. There is also a relaxed country-style Gavotte, played by the soloist, in duet with the orchestra violins. In the end it is the quick dance that predominates in a brilliant coda.

Prokofiev’s grand, patriotic fifth symphony was written in 1944, as the Soviet Union was turning the tide of war against Nazi invaders. It is in four movements. The opening a with long complex movement that begins with quiet, subtly tense music and concludes in exultation. A sarcastic scherzo and a dark slow movement follow. The finale, set in rondo form, explores several ideas before ending in a victorious hymn.

Sergei Prokofiev

Born: April 23, 1891, Sonsivka, Ukraine.

Died: March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia.

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, Op. 100

• Composed: 1944.
• Premiere: January 13, 1945, in Moscow.
• Duration: 43:00.

Background

In Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union, composers served the State, and musical works were expected to conform to the political needs of the moment and the philosophy of artistic authorities. Prokofiev’s Soviet colleague Dmitri Shostakovich chafed against these restrictions though his whole career, and even in his big, patriotic wartime symphonies (the seventh and eighth), there are hints of sarcasm and bitterness. For his part, Prokofiev seems to have wholeheartedly supported the government, and provided unabashedly nationalistic works, such as the bombastic Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution (1937) and the cantata Hail to Stalin (1939). He made every effort to assist when the Soviet Union entered the war in 1941, providing dozens of smaller patriotic works. However, Prokofiev’s most important artistic responses to the Great Patriotic War were the two largest scores completed in these years, the opera War and Peace, and the Symphony No.5. In a postwar interview, he discussed the composition of the fifth symphony:

When the Second World War broke out, I felt that everyone must do his share and began composing songs and marches for the front. But soon events assumed such gigantic and far-reaching scope as to demand larger canvasses… Finally, I wrote my Fifth Symphony, on which I had been working for several years, gathering themes in a special notebook. I always work that way, and that is probably why I write so fast. The entire score of the Fifth was written in one month in the summer of 1944. It took another month to orchestrate it, and in between, I wrote the score for Eisenstein’s film Ivan the Terrible … The Fifth Symphony was a very important composition to me, as it marked my return to the symphonic form after a long interval. I regard it as the culmination of a large period in my creative life.

Several of Prokofiev’s colleagues and friends from these years have commented on his businesslike approach to composition—he apparently maintained a precise “9 to 5” schedule, with composition in the morning and orchestration in the afternoon. Even periods when his life was in turmoil seem to have left this schedule intact. Beginning in 1941, the Soviet government evacuated artists and composers out of Moscow to safer locations in the southern republics. Prokofiev moved almost constantly during the next five years, his marriage broke up, and he suffered a series of heart attacks, but still he remained extremely productive throughout the years of the war. One particularly fertile period was the summer of 1944, when Prokofiev was staying in Ivanovo, an estate managed by the Union of Soviet Composers. It was during this stay that he completed the Symphony No.5, a work that had been in the planning stage since the 1930s. Prokofiev conducted the premiere performance at a concert of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in early 1945, and the symphony was welcomed ecstatically by both the audience and the official critics. Tragically, this was to be Prokofiev’s last performance. He suffered a concussion soon afterwards, and during his last eight years, he was prevented from performing by ill health, although he continued to compose. In 1948, Prokofiev—who considered himself a Soviet patriot—was censured by the Politburo, along with Shostakovich and Khachaturian. That same year his estranged wife Lina was arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage and sentenced to 20 years hard labor. Prokofiev lived the rest of his life under a cloud of suspicion and largely withdrew from public life. In one of music history’s great ironies, he and Stalin died on the same day, March 5, 1953.

What You’ll Hear

The Symphony No. 5 is patriotic music on a grand scale. The opening movement (Andante) is in sonata form, but it is also a succession of long, arching melodies—“slowly singing strata,” in the words of one early critic—above a constantly shifting rhythmic and harmonic background. The opening theme is an asymmetrical melody that rises an octave and a half in the space of two measures. A bridge section, characterized by a rising bass line leads to the second main theme, a dolce melody introduced by the flute and oboe. The exposition’s closing section contains two new ideas: a forceful melody in dotted rhythms and a nervous sixteenth-note figure. Prokofiev’s development is concerned largely with the first theme and material from the closing section. There is a conventional recapitulation, and the movement ends with an exultant transformation of the opening theme.

The two central movements are a study in contrast. The second movement (Allegro marcato) is set in three-part scherzo form. The outer sections are loosely based upon two ideas: an ostinato-style bass line, and a shrill Russian-flavored dance. Prokofiev developed and varied both ideas extensively. The central trio presents a more lyrical melody that is tinged with humor. Many of the musical ideas in this rather sardonic movement were apparently leftovers from his work on the ballet score Romeo and Juliet in the middle 1930s.

After the witty scherzo, the Adagio is pensive and somber. The long, wandering first theme is presented by the clarinets and then repeated and varied. The dirgelike second theme contains references to both the first theme of this movement, and the main theme of the opening movement. A development section, which combines material from the transition and the second theme, builds gradually into a huge orchestral climax. The opening triplet figure returns, and there is a brief recapitulation of the first theme only. The coda introduces a final melody: a consoling answer to the first theme.

The final movement (Allegro giocoso) is a rondo. The quiet introduction gives no hint of what is to come. The violas abruptly break in with a rollicking eighth-note figure, and the sarcastic main theme of this movement is played by the clarinet. The next section contains a pointed staccato melody in the oboe and piccolo, and a lyrical figure played by the flute. After a return of the main theme, There is a startling change of pace. The central section is based upon a hymnlike melody that recalls the style of many of his patriotic vocal works. The movement continues with restatements of the main and second sections in the tonic key. The symphony closes with a massive coda, combining the hymn with elements of the main theme. Soviet victory was clearly in sight in 1944, and this symphony’s triumphant ending reflects optimism and joy after years of horrendous sacrifice and struggle.

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Program notes ©2025 by J. Michael Allsen