by Christopher Wilkins
Our season finale—which we proudly present in partnership with the Esplanade Association—is a musical love letter to nature. Each of the three works draws on natural imagery, unfolding through stories rooted in the natural world. And as a fitting conclusion to a glorious season, each is also the work of a composer with an exceptional ear for the orchestra and instrumental color.
Composer Zhou Tian was born in 1981 in Hangzhou, China. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, with a master’s degree from Juilliard and a doctorate from the University of Southern California, he currently teaches at Michigan State University. Zhou’s Concerto for Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2018, making him the first Chinese-born composer to be so honored.
Zhou writes: “The poetry and calligraphy of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) has long been a staple in Chinese culture, and so when Hangzhou, once the capital of Southern Song—and my hometown—asked for a new piece to celebrate the city’s magnificent cultural heritage, I was beyond excited. It was like a musical homecoming. In Broken Ink, an orchestral suite inspired by the poetry of the Song dynasty, I sought to capture the poetic flavor that was lost in translation. The work is a mosaic of Chinese musical traditions, conveying a sense of spiritual bliss… The Mighty River Runs Eastward [the fourth movement of Broken Ink] is inspired by the “First Ode on the Red Cliff” by Su Shi (1036–1101) recalling the Battle of Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms while boat riding on the Yangtze River.”
In the opening and closing sections of the movement’s three-part structure, The Mighty River Runs Eastward depicts the famous Battle of Red Cliff. Zhou’s orchestration features percussion inspired by traditional instruments: Chinese cymbals, taiko drum, and finger cymbals. The central section of the movement reflects the beauty of the river, but also perhaps a central idea in Su Shi’s poem. Living in Hangzhou near Red Cliff in the year 1082, Su Shi describes looking down on the river from a cliff to see a well-known rock formation—the “eight-formation diagram”—which according to legend depicts troop positions in the historic battle. But in a dream, Su Shi saw the rocks not as soldiers, but as neighboring peoples living in harmony with one another. The meaning of the dream was clear: reconciliation is better than warfare.
Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé is a miracle of orchestral color and tone painting. Composed for Sergei Diaghilev and the renowned Ballets Russes, the ballet premiered in Paris in 1912, just ten days after the scandalous debut of Nijinsky’s choreography for Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Described by Ravel as a “choreographic symphony,” it is scored for an exceptionally large orchestra and stands as his longest work. From the complete ballet, Ravel later fashioned two orchestral suites, the second of which has become one of the most beloved works in the symphonic repertoire.
The scenario, adapted in three parts by choreographer Michel Fokine from a 2nd-century Greek romance, tells the story of the goatherd Daphnis and his love for the shepherdess Chloé. The Second Suite contains most of the music from the third and final part of the ballet.
Sunrise
Harps and flutes, alternating with clarinets, mimic the swirling mists and rivulets of dew outside a grotto in pre-dawn stillness. Daphnis lies asleep at the entrance to the cave, still dreaming. Birdcalls signal that daybreak is imminent, as the sun begins its ascent. The distant whistling of a shepherd is answered by another, farther away. Daphnis awakens to the morning greetings of a group of fellow herdsmen. He looks around anxiously for his beloved Chloé. She appears, surrounded by shepherdesses, and the lovers embrace passionately.
Pantomime (The Love of Pan and Syrinx)
The old shepherd Lammon explains to Daphnis that the god Pan has saved Chloé from harm in an act honoring the nymph Syrinx. To one of the most celebrated flute solos in the repertoire—performed eloquently by Principal Flute Lisa Hennessy—Daphnis and Chloé act out the ancient myth. Syrinx has transformed herself into reeds on a riverbank in order to evade the lustful advances of Pan. Finding only reeds where she once stood, Pan fashions a flute out of the reed and plays upon it, naming it Syrinx in her honor. As Daphnis mimics Pan’s “playing” of Syrinx (Chloé), their miming becomes more and more impassioned until finally they fall into each other’s arms.
Danse Générale: Bacchanale
The shepherdesses begin a wild dance of celebration, shaking their tambourines as the herdsmen rush on stage, urging the whole company to join in a bacchanale.
Gustav Mahler was a composer of symphonies and songs—two forms inseparably linked in his work. He loved the orchestra—which he knew intimately as one of the foremost conductors of his generation—and he loved singers. His Songs of a Wayfarer, with his own text, grew out of an affair with soprano Johanna Richter of the Kassel Opera. These songs supplied much of the thematic material and emotional impulse for the First Symphony.
What is most astounding about Mahler’s First Symphony is how unmistakably Mahlerian it is. While it reflects the influence of giants who preceded him—Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner—it ultimately sounds like no one but Mahler. We hear his distinctive musical voice in every bar: sounds evoking the natural world; song-inflected phrasing; the ideals of chamber music applied to a vast orchestra; and above all, the conviction that a symphony must embrace all of life. From the beginning, Mahler viewed composition as a vehicle for exploring his own experience of the world: his struggles, passions, sorrows, and triumphs.
The symphony opens as if at the dawn of time. A single pitch reverberates across the entire spectrum of the strings—lowest to highest—while primordial bits of melody in the woodwinds appear and disappear like strands of DNA. Snatches of fanfares in clarinets and offstage trumpets dissipate in the wind. Out of this budding soundscape, the Wayfarer’s tune emerges as he strides cheerfully out into nature on a spring morning, finally bursting into full-throated song. In the middle of the movement, the stillness of the opening returns, drained of all energy by the summer heat. Gradually the walking pace returns, building steadily to an ecstatic finish.
The two middle movements evoke rural life. The second movement presents two versions of the Austrian Ländler, a country dance in triple meter. One is vigorous and boisterous, the other graceful and beguiling. The third movement pictures a world turned upside down. A funeral cortège moves through the forest. But the deceased is the hunter and the mourners are the animals gleefully carrying him to his grave. The theme is a children’s song—“Frère Jacques”—begun in the minor key by a solo double bass. Suddenly, a klezmer band appears, as if at a Jewish wedding. Such abrupt juxtapositions baffled Mahler’s early audiences, but today they are recognized as central to his style. In the middle section, the symphony’s “hero” rests beneath a linden tree. The music quotes the closing line of Songs of a Wayfarer, when the heartsick lover bids farewell to life: “My only comrades were love and sorrow.”
The finale opens with a lightning bolt and a thunderous crash, as the symphony’s “hero” battles powerful headwinds. An upwardly striving four-note figure in the minor key hints at victory, though triumph remains far off. Relief appears in the form of one of Mahler’s most beautiful melodies. A premature “false” victory sounds, but it is unearned and fleeting. Mahler recalls the opening of the first movement: bird calls, fanfares, and the symphony’s first theme. A cello soliloquy leads to a wistful oboe melody, quoted from one of Mahler’s earlier love songs. The upward-moving figure returns in the violas, and a slow, determined build toward true victory begins. In the final pages, a radiant hymn bursts forth, its contours recalling a famous chorus that never fails to inspire and thrill audiences of all faiths: “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah.
CHRISTOPHER WILKINS was appointed Music Director of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra in the spring of 2011. Since then, he has expanded the orchestra’s mission of making great music accessible to the whole community. He has also helped develop the orchestra’s Breaking Down Barriers initiative, making accessibility a priority in all aspects of the orchestra’s activities.