The Rustic Wedding Symphony (Laendliche Hochzeit), op. 26 (1876) is a programmatic composition for orchestra in five movements. The first is a “Wedding March” in which the main melody (given in fragments in the lower strings) is subjected to thirteen variations. The second movement is a “Bridal Song,” a lovely tune mainly for oboe in which the first-movement march subject occasionally intrudes in the background in the basses. This is followed by the third-movement “Serenade,” its main subject being a spacious melody mainly for the violins. The fourth movement, “In the Garden,” depicts the walk of two lovers in a garden as they exchange tender sentiments. The symphony ends with a vital “Dance,” in which the main theme receives fugal treatment.
The concert overture for orchestra, Sakuntala, op. 13 (1865)—with which the composer achieved his first major success and which is still one of his most popular works—was based on the celebrated story of Kalidasa. Sakuntala is the daughter of a water nymph who is raised by a priest as his own daughter. The King falls in love with her and marries her, giving her a ring which will always identify her as his wife. A powerful priest, seeking revenge against Sakuntala, effects a loss of memory in the king, who now no longer recognizes her as his wife. To complicate matters further, Sakuntala has lost her ring while washing clothes in a sacred river. After being repudiated by the king as a fraud, Sakuntala returns to her water-nymph mother. The king’s memory is restored when the ring is found, and he is overwhelmed with grief at his loss of Sakuntala.
A somber introduction is highlighted by a rippling subject in lower strings and bassoons suggesting the water which was Sakuntala’s original abode and to which she finally returns. After a change of tempo, clarinets and cellos in unison offer a beautiful love melody. This is followed by a hunting theme in first violins and oboes while the second violins and violas present a fragment of the love song as a countersubject. After this material has been amplified into a loud and dramatic climax there comes still a third idea, in oboes and English horn against chords in harp and arpeggios in strings. In a free fantasia section some of this material is reviewed after which the coda offers the hunting theme, and after that the love melody. A climax is realized with the hunting theme bringing the overture to a dramatic ending.
Rubin Goldmark
Rubin Goldmark, nephew of Karl, was born in New York City on August 15, 1872. After studying music with private teachers in New York, he attended first the Vienna Conservatory in Austria, and after that the National Conservatory in New York where one of his teachers was Antonin Dvořák. His primary energy was directed to teaching. For six years he was the director of the Colorado College Conservatory, and from 1924 until his death head of the composition department at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. As a composer, Goldmark is most often remembered for the Negro Rhapsody and the Requiem for orchestra, the latter inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Goldmark died in New York City on March 6, 1936.
It is with the Negro Rhapsody (1923) that Goldmark is most often represented on concert and semi-classical concerts. As its title suggests the work is made up of Negro melodies. After a slow introduction, the cellos and violas in unison offer the strains of “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen.” Before long, the basses are heard in “O Peter, Go Ring Dem Bells.” The main section of the rhapsody begins with a variation of “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen” and a repeat of “O Peter.” The violins then engage “Oh Religion, I See Fortune,” and the English horn is heard in “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” After the solo cello quotes two measures of “Oh, When I Come to Die,” the last Negro melody of the rhapsody appears. This melody comes from an untitled song found by Goldmark in a magazine, a tune sung by Tennessee Negroes while working on the river.
François Gossec
François Joseph Gossec was born in Vergniès, Belgium, on January 17, 1734. After receiving some music instruction in his native town, he came to Paris in 1751, and three years after that was attached to the musical forces employed by La Pouplinière. For these concerts, Gossec wrote many symphonies and chamber-music works. He later worked in a similar capacity for the Prince de Conti. In 1770 he founded the Concerts des Amateurs, in 1773 became director of the Concert Spirituel, and from 1780 to 1785 was conductor at the Paris Opéra. When the Paris Conservatory was established in 1795 Gossec became Inspector and professor of composition. In the same year he also became a member of the newly founded Institut de France. During the French Revolution he wrote many works celebrating events growing out of that political upheaval, allying himself with the new regime. He lived to a ripe old age, spending the last years of his life in retirement in Passy. He died in Paris on February 16, 1829.
Gossec was a significant pioneer of French orchestral and chamber music, though little of his music is remembered. What remains alive, however, is a graceful trifle: the Gavotte, one of the most popular pieces ever written in that form. This music comes from one of his operas, Rosina (1786); a transcription for violin and piano by Willy Burmeister is famous.