The Austin Civic Orchestra
Paint to Music: The Art All Around Us
May 18, 2025
Program Notes
Claudia Chapa’s Biography and Veronica Salinas’ Biography
City Beautiful – (note by the composer) “A city is not beautiful by accident” writes historian William H. Wilson. “City Beautiful” takes its title and inspiration from the architectural movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that gave us the boulevard and parks system in Kansas City. The movement had an impact on many other US cities as well, including Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. to name a few. One of the principal philosophies underlying the movement and one that inspired me to write this composition, was the belief in the “shaping influence of beauty” on society. Advocates believed that beautification of our physical surroundings would promote a sense of community and increase the quality of life in cities around the country. In many ways, I feel music has a similar power to influence and shape a community. This composition was commissioned as a celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Youth Symphony of Kansas City and I cannot help but ponder the wonderful shaping influence of this organization over sixty years of music making in our community. Commissioned by the Symphony Orchestra and conductor Steven D. Davis of the Youth Symphony of Kansas City, in celebration of its 60th Anniversary Season. — Ingrid Stölfel
“O ma lyre immortale” from Sapho – Born in Paris in 1818 to an artist father and pianist mother, Charles Gounod showed early talent at the keyboard, and entered the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Fromental Halévy, composer of the grand opera La Juive. Gounod won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1839, and spent much of his year abroad immersed in study of 16th-century sacred music, with a focus on the works of Palestrina. At this point in his life, he came very close to becoming a priest. Gounod himself wrote that a last-minute epiphany made him realize that his true calling was music. Upon Gounod’s return to Paris after his year of study in Rome, he steadily continued both writing music and teaching composition (his students included the young Georges Bizet).
Gounod’s first opera, Sapho, with libretto by Émile Augier, premiered in 1851. The story of the opera is based on the legends of the Greek poet Sapho, her love for Phaon and her suicide. Although the opera was not a great success, the final soliloquy of Sapho, “O ma lyre immortelle,” has endured and become very popular. The aria is an emotional reflection where Sapho laments her unfortunate love and fate. Gounod’s composition is characterized by deep emotional intensity, supported by rich orchestration and poignant melodic lines. The aria is a prime example of Gounod’s ability to blend lyrical beauty with dramatic expression.
Pictures at an Exhibition – In 1873, the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann died at the age of 39. After Hartmann’s death, the St. Petersburg Society of Architects presented an exhibition of Hartmann’s works. Among the attendees was Hartmann’s dear friend, the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky.
Mussorgsky was as profoundly impressed with the quality of Hartmann’s works as he was saddened by the sudden loss of a dear friend. Mussorgsky decided to offer a tribute to Hartmann in the form of a musical representation of several of the pieces of art featured at the St. Petersburg exhibit. In 1874, Modest Mussorgsky completed his work for solo piano, Pictures at an Exhibition, published after the composer’s death in 1881.
Conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of the Mussorgsky piano composition for the annual Concerts Koussevitzky in Paris where it premiered to great acclaim on May 3, 1923. Since that time, the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition has been celebrated as a quintessential showpiece for orchestras and conductors alike. It is one of the most performed and recorded works in the concert repertoire.
Promenade. The Promenade serves as a connecting motif between musical portrayals of the various pictures. Russian music critic Vladimir Stassov described the Promenade as depicting the composer “moving now to the left, now to the right, now wandering about aimlessly, now eagerly making for one of the pictures…”
I. The Gnome. Many of Hartmann’s works disappeared during the period between the 1874 St. Petersburg exhibition and Ravel’s 1923 orchestration of Mussorgsky’s composition. And so, there is disagreement as to the exact nature of the picture that inspired this music. In the original piano edition, Stassov describes Hartmann’s work: “A dwarf walks about awkwardly on crooked little legs.” However, Alfred Frankenstein, longtime Music and Art Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, engaged in a detailed search and study of the original Hartmann pictures. Frankenstein stated: “(t)he picture was a design for a nutcracker in the form of a gnome with huge jaws.”
Promenade. A more introspective statement of the Promenade theme serves as a bridge to the following picture.
II. The Old Castle. The painting depicts an old Italian castle, before which a lute-bearing troubadour stands.
Promenade. A brief, weighty restatement of the Promenade leads to:
III. At the Tuileries Gardens. Mussorgsky’s own subtitle for this section is “Children Quarreling After Play.” The painting depicts the Parisian Tuileries gardens, where children play under the watchful eye of their nurses.
IV. Bydlo. “Bydlo” is the Polish word for “cattle.” Hartmann’s watercolor depicts an ox-drawn cart with massive wooden wheels.
Promenade. A short reprise of the Promenade serves as a bridge to:
V. Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells. The sketch that inspired this delightful miniature scherzo was made by Hartmann for the ballet, Trilby. It features costumed children impersonating chicks newly emerging from their shells.
VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle. The title of this section is the creation of Stassov—Mussorgsky’s original reads: “Two Polish Jews; one rich, the other poor.” This episode appears to be based upon a Hartmann drawing of the Sandomir ghetto.
Here, Ravel omits Mussorgsky’s repetition of the Promenade and proceeds to:
VII. The Market Place in Limoges. Hartmann’s watercolor portrays the façade of the Limoges Cathedral. Mussorgsky focused on a small portion of the watercolor that shows market women engaged in lively conversation. The quicksilver musical portrayal of their gossip is interrupted by:
VIII. The Catacombs, Sepulchrum Romanum. The painting depicts Hartmann and a friend standing in a Paris catacomb, observing a pile of skulls illuminated by a guide’s lantern. Brass pronouncements alternating loud and soft dynamics lead directly to:
Cum mortuis in lingua mortua. Mussorgsky’s own footnote to this section’s title reads: “A Latin text: ‘With the Dead in a Dead Language.’ Well may it be in Latin! The creative spirit of the departed Hartmann leads me to the skulls, calls out to them, and the skulls begin to glow dimly from within.”
A moment of silence is shattered by:
IX. The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba-Yaga). Baba-Yaga is a mythical Russian witch who lured victims into her hut. There, Baba-Yaga ground her prey’s bones with a giant mortar that she also used to transport herself through the air. Hartmann’s drawing is a representation of a huge clock in the shape of the witch’s hut that, according to legend, stood on four chicken feet, thereby allowing the quick capture of each new victim. Mussorgsky’s musical portrayal of the witch’s grotesque hut and her flight leads without pause to:
X. The Great Gate of Kiev. The final picture represented Hartmann’s entry in a competition to erect a gateway in Kiev. The gateway was intended to serve as a memorial to Tsar Alexander II’s escape from assassination. Hartmann envisioned a massive and ornate structure, featuring a cupola in the form of a Slavonic war helmet. Mussorgsky’s music, enhanced by Ravel’s orchestration, evokes the epic grandeur of Hartmann’s design, as well as images of ceremonial processions through the extraordinary gate. — Ken Meltzer