From the repertory of Adam’s operas comes a delightful overture, a favorite in the semi-classical repertory, even though the opera itself is rarely heard. It is the Overture to If I Were King (Si j’étais roi). This comic opera was first performed in Paris on November 4, 1852; the libretto was by D’Ennery and Brésil. In Arabia, the fisherman, Zephoris, has managed to save the life of Nemea, beautiful daughter of King Oman. But Nemea is being pursued by Prince Kador, who does not hesitate to employ treachery to win her. Nemea is determined to marry none but the unidentified man who had saved her life. Eventually, the fisherman is brought to the palace, placed in command of the troops, and becomes a hero in a war against the Spaniards. Kador is sent to his disgrace, and Zephoris wins the hand of Nemea.
The oriental background of the opera permeates the atmosphere of the overture. A forceful introduction for full orchestra and arpeggio figures in harp lead to a skipping and delicate tune for first violins against plucked cello strings. The flutes and clarinets respond with a subsidiary thought. A crescendo brings on a strong subject for the violins against a loud accompaniment. After a change of tempo, another light, graceful melody is given by solo flute and oboes. The principal melodic material is then amplified with dramatic effect.
Richard Addinsell
Richard Addinsell was born in Oxford, England, on January 13, 1904. After studying law at Oxford, he attended the Royal College of Music in London and completed his music study in Berlin and Vienna between 1929 and 1932. In 1933 he visited the United States, where he wrote music for several Hollywood films and for a New York stage production of Alice in Wonderland. He has since made a specialty of writing music for the screen, his best efforts being the scores for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Blithe Spirit, Dangerous Moonlight, Dark Journey, and Fire Over England. During World War II he wrote music for several documentary films, including Siege of Tobruk and We Sail at Midnight.
Addinsell’s most frequently played composition is the Warsaw Concerto, for piano and orchestra. He wrote it for the English movie Dangerous Moonlight (renamed in the United States Suicide Squadron). Anton Walbrook here plays the part of a renowned concert pianist who becomes an officer in the Polish air force during World War II and loses his memory after a crash. The Warsaw Concerto, basic to the plot structure, recurs several times in the film. It first became popular, however, on records, and after that with “pop” and salon orchestras. Though the composer’s indebtedness to Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is pronounced, the Warsaw Concerto has enough of its own individuality and charm to survive. Structurally, it is not a concerto but a rhapsody. It opens with several massive chords, arpeggios, and scale passages in the piano. This dramatic opening leads to the sensitive and romantic principal melody, heard in the strings. Later on there appears a second lyric thought, but the rhapsodic character remains predominant. The composition ends with a final statement of the opening phrase of the first main melody.
Addinsell is also sometimes represented on semi-classical programs with a light-textured and tuneful composition called Prelude and Waltz, for orchestra. This also stems from a motion picture, in this case the British screen adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Albéniz, one of Spain’s most distinguished composers, was born in Camprodón, Spain, on May 29, 1860. He was a child prodigy who gave piano concerts in Spain after some spasmodic study in Paris with Marmontel. In 1868 he entered the Madrid Conservatory, but in his thirteenth year he ran away from home and spent several years traveling about in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the United States, supporting himself all the while by playing the piano. He was back in Spain in 1875, and soon thereafter undertook music study seriously, first at the Brussels Conservatory and then at the Leipzig Conservatory. He settled in Paris in 1893, where he wrote his first important works, one of these being his first composition in a national Spanish idiom: the Catalonia, for piano and orchestra, in 1899. After 1900 he lived in his native land. From 1906 to 1909 he devoted himself to the writing of his masterwork, the suite Iberia, consisting of twelve pieces for the piano gathered in four volumes. Iberia is a vast tonal panorama of Spain, its sights and sounds, dances and songs, backgrounds. Albéniz died in Cambo-Bains, in the Pyrenees, on May 18, 1909.
Albéniz may well be regarded as the founder of the modern Spanish nationalist school in music. This school sought to exploit the rhythms and melodies and styles of Spanish folk music within serious concert works, thus providing a musical interpretation to every possible aspect of Spanish life.
Albéniz’ first work in the national style is also one of his rare compositions utilizing an orchestra. It is the Catalonia, written in 1899, and introduced that year at a concert of the Société nationale de musique in Paris. This work is sometimes erroneously designated as a suite, but it is actually a one-movement rhapsody. A single theme, unmistakably Spanish, dominates the entire work. A brief rhythmic middle section for wind, percussion, and a single double bass provides contrast. This middle part is intended as a burlesque on a troupe of wandering musicians playing their favorite tune: the clarinet plays off key and the bass drum is off beat. The original dance melody returns to conclude the work.