The LCO will present the three works described below at its inaugural concert of the season, scheduled for September 19, 2025, at the Crickets Theater. For tickets go here.
Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings – 1st Movement
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was the first Russian composer to achieve fame outside his native land. Despite the success of many of his countrymen who followed him, he remains the most popular and performed of all Russian composers.
His four-movement Serenade for Strings was written in the autumn of 1880 while he was staying at his sister’s country estate in Kam’ianka, Ukraine. At the same time, he was working on the 1812 Overture. He wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck: “The overture will be very noisy. It was written without much warmth or enthusiasm; therefore it has no great artistic value. The Serenade, on the contrary, was written from an inward impulse; I felt it and venture to hope that this work is not without artistic qualities.”
Tchaikovsky’s relationship with von Meck is likely the strangest in musical history. Beginning in 1877 and continuing until 1890 she gave the composer an annual stipend of 6,000 rubles – a considerable sum at the time. The financial support was given on the stipulation that they never meet. Her support enabled Tchaikovsky to leave his post at the Moscow Conservatory to focus on his compositions. During this span, they exchanged 1200 letters filled with intimate details about Tchaikovsky’s personal life, creative process, and philosophical thoughts.
When he started the sketches for what became the Serenade, he had a multi-movement work in mind, neither a string quartet nor a symphony. Working quickly, he finished a four-movement work for string orchestra. The work was first performed for a private audience at the Moscow Conservatory on December 3, 1880.
It proved successful from the start, reaching New York by 1885. During Tchaikovsky’s American tour in 1891, which included directing the first concert at the then new Carnegie Hall, he conducted the Serenade in Baltimore.
The first movement, which opens this evening’s concert, is marked “Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo — Allegro moderato.” It is intended to be a tribute to Mozart, who was Tchaikovsky’s favorite composer. It imitates Mozart’s classical style while still maintaining Tchaikovsky’s unique musical identity.
The movement begins with a slow, chorale-like introduction (Andante non troppo). After the introduction, the tempo shifts to an Allegro moderato, revealing a lighter and more dance-like character. This section of the movement shows both its classical influence and Tchaikovsky’s lush harmonies. The movement is in the form of a sonatina, meaning it lacks a full development section. The movement ends with a repetition of the introductory section.
Daugherty Ladder to the Moon Violin Concerto
Michael Daugherty (b 1954) is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Daugherty is Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. He obtained a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from North Texas State University in 1976. He received his doctorate in composition from Yale University in 1986. His teachers at Yale included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Roger Reynolds, and Bernard Rands.
He is well known among contemporary composers of the postmodern school. His interactions with prominent late 20th century composers such as Milton Babbitt and Pierre Boulez greatly affected his compositional development. He is also interested in jazz and has worked as a jazz pianist.
Ladder to the Moon was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2006, which was also the year of its first performance. It’s written for solo violin, wind octet, double bass, and percussion. Given the prominence of the solo violin, one could call the piece a violin concerto, but it’s more accurately described as a chamber work. It consists of two movements entitled:
I. Night, New York
II. Looking Up
Ladder to the Moon is also the title of a 1958 painting by the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe moved from New York City to New Mexico in 1934. From 1925 to 1930 she created over 20 paintings of newly built skyscrapers. Her paintings of these buildings have been described as both realistic and abstract.
Looking up was one of the perspectives that O’Keeffe was known for. This unusual perspective is best illustrated in her 1925 painting The Lawrence Tree, but it’s also a feature of her New York buildings’ paintings. It is these works of art that inspired Daugherty’s composition.
Had the composer not told his audience of the connection of this composition to O’Keeffe’s art, the listener would never have made the link. Like all music with a program, no matter how nebulous or remote, the piece stands or falls on its own musical merit.
The first movement is built around the interval of a descending minor third (a musical interval where the second note is three semitones lower than the first note). The Star Spangled Banner and Hey Jude begin with a descending minor third. The solo violin, a prominent feature of the piece, uses repeated pizzicato (plucked) and arco (bowed) patterns.
After a slow introduction, the second movement speeds up and, at times, is reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein’s style. Bits of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony are disguised throughout the movement. You have to listen very hard to discern these quotations. The composer has confessed to inserting them.
This Ladder is an interesting piece with a fine and challenging part for a violin soloist. Well worth a place in a chamber concert. Whether it will find a permanent place in the chamber orchestra repertoire is uncertain.
Mozart Symphony No. 40
Mozart wrote his final three symphonies (39-41) in an explosion of creativity in the summer of 1788. Each is a sublime masterpiece. The reason for their composition has been debated ever since. As long as his father was alive, we know the details of his life and work from the many letters the composer sent to him. But Leopold Mozart died in 1787, and thus no written record exists explaining the reason for the composition of the three symphonies.
Mozart almost always composed for an obvious reason. He had a commission; he intended the be the soloist in a new piano concerto; he planned for a work or works to be part of a special event. No such reason is apparent for the compositions of three large scale works.
Symphony No. 40 was likely performed shortly after its composition, as two versions of it exist – one with clarinets and one without them. It seems likely that the composer added the clarinet parts after hearing the piece performed. Speculation aside, the first documented performances of the symphony took place in Vienna on April 16 and 17, 1791, and were conducted by Antonio Salieri.
The pianist and scholar Charles Rosen (in The Classical Style) called the symphony “a work of passion, violence, and grief.” Earlier writers had taken a more relaxed view of the work. Rosen’s impression is that held by most modern commentators.
The symphony was a hit right from the start and is among the composer’s most often performed works. In G minor, it is only the second of all his symphonies in a minor key. The other is Symphony No. 25, also in G minor, is known as the little G minor symphony. This earlier symphony is the masterpiece of Mozart’s teenage years.
G minor seems to have had a special emotional meaning to Mozart. Some of his most emotive music is written in that key. One such example is his Piano Quartet No 1 in G minor, K 478.
Another G minor gem is his String Quintet No. 4, K 516. This one, like all Mozart’s string quintets is scored for string quartet plus an extra viola.
Symphony No. 40, as is typical for a classical symphony, is in four movements – fast, slow, minuet, and fast. All the movements except the third are in sonata form.
The first movement (marked molto allegro – very fast) starts without the customary slow introduction going directly into its famous opening theme that conveys a sense of the dramatic contrasting with the graceful second theme.
The second movement (andante) is in 6/8 time. It is a lyrical setting in a major key (E-flat major).
The third movement (Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio) is a moderately fast dance movement. It’s a minuet in name only. It’s too intense to be a courtly dance. The trio section is simpler and mellow.
The Finale – Allegro assai opens with a series of rapidly ascending notes outlining the tonic triad illustrating what is commonly referred to as the Mannheim Rocket. This term derives from a technique developed by the court orchestra of the Elector of Mannheim. The rocket was just one of many techniques developed by the orchestra that played an important role in the development of the classical period’s genres and of the classical symphony itself.
Another noteworthy feature of this movement is the modulating passage that occurs at the beginning of the development section. It contains every note in the chromatic scale except G. During this brief passage, it’s hard to tell what key the music is in. It’s almost a tone row anticipating Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg by more than a century.
The movement is vigorous almost to the point of violence. The coda brings the symphony to a brilliant conclusion.
The symphony retained its popularity in the 19th century as interest in the classical period waned. Its impassioned nature kept it in the repertory. Both Beethoven and Schubert copied part of it. Haydn quoted the second movement in his oratorio The Seasons as a tribute to his late friend, whom he thought the greatest of all composers.
