THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 53
Program Notes
a fiddle class at the Old Town School of Music in
Chicago. Like her double violin concerto, Prince
of Clouds – which was nominated for a Grammy
in 2015 – The Seamstress shows a knack for string
writing, especially the violin. Clyne drew inspiration
for The Seamstress from the short poem, A Coat, by
William Butler Yeats. It reads:
“I made my song a coat,
covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies,
from heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
for there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.’’
After the Chicago Symphony played the premiere
of the work, music director Riccardo Muti
described Clyne as “an artist who writes from
the heart, who defies categorization, and who
reaches across all barriers and boundaries.
Her compositions are meant to be played
by skilled musicians and can reach different
audiences, no matter what their background.”
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN C MINOR, Op. 68
Duration: ca. 45 minutes
“Composing a symphony,’’ Johannes Brahms
once said, “is no laughing matter.’’ Apparently not,
considering he worked for more than a decade on
his Symphony No. 1, which after its premiere was
dubbed “The Tenth’’ to announce a successor to
Beethoven’s nine masterpieces in the form. “You
can’t have any idea what it’s like,’’ Brahms declared,
“always to hear such a giant marching behind you.’’
Brahms was 43 when he delivered a symphony to
the world, and the wait was worth it. By then confident
in his mastery of orchestral forms, his C Minor
Symphony today ranks as the most popular “first’’
in the repertoire, and its ominous mood makes
an impression in any concert hall. The composer’s
admiration for Beethoven rings clear in this music,
and not just by sharing the same key as the famed
Fifth Symphony or its shift from C minor darkness C
major light. He actually quotes Beethoven, specifically
the Ode to Joy theme from the Ninth.
First performed in 1876, the symphony opens with
an anguished series of timpani strokes against
rising strings and woodwinds. Brahms introduces
new themes and invigorates them in an imaginative
display of contrapuntal skill worthy of Bach. A
sustained, eloquent second movement offers
contrast, the music falling over listeners like a
warm blanket of sound. A tranquil theme by the
woodwinds opens the third movement, and the
orchestra builds its lush textures in softly rolling
climaxes.
This leads without a break into the finale, an
epic battle in which moments of quiet give way
to displays of drama, done with an ingenious
suspension of meter. Brahms begins the movement
as an adagio, and increases the tension as more
and more members of the orchestra take up their
weapons and join in. Midway through, Brahms
shifts gears by introducing his inverted quote of
Ode to Joy, an obvious tip of the hat to Beethoven.
From there, the music dives back into the darkness
of the minor key and struggles to shake it off,
then reintroduces the Ode to Joy theme. A rousing
trombone chorale declares the arrival of C major,
and the symphony ends in triumph.
“The C Minor is one of the most innovative
symphonies that the later 19th century produced,’’
notes Jan Swafford in his 1997 biography on
the composer. “Brahms achieved a paradoxical
resolution of conservative and progressive
elements, and did it with a magisterial finality that
no symphonist of stature would ever match again.’’
Program notes © 2019 by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer
and former music critic for The Tampa Tribune.