Johann Strauss Jr. (1825–1899)
Overture to Fledermaus (1874)
Scored for: two flutes including piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four French horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings
Performance time: 9 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance: August 24, 1935; Ebba Sundstrom, conductor

Where Johann Strauss Sr. elevated the Viennese waltz from its humble origins as a rural Austrian dance to a fashionable musical entertainment in the early 19th century, his son cemented it as the height of sophistication and elegance. Nicknamed “The Waltz King,” Johann Strauss Jr. also wrote a number of operettas, though none so successful as Die Fledermaus (The Bat), which premiered at Theater an der Wien in 1874.

In a nutshell, Gabriel von Eisenstein, a wealthy Viennese aristocrat, is sentenced to eight days in prison after humiliating a notary named Dr. Falke, having abandoned him in a public park dressed as a bat after a night of drunken revelry. He manages to delay his stint in jail so he can attend a masked ball thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky, which ends up being a ploy for Falke to get his revenge. Shenanigans ensue, complete with mistaken identities and disguises, all to the score of Strauss’s sparkling melodies and rhythmic vitality. The Overture to Die Fledermaus contains the opera’s central waltz, plus other memorable themes from the show, which bubble like the finest champagne.

Anna Clyne (b. 1980)
Dance (2019)
Scored for: two flutes including piccolo, two oboes including English Horn, two clarinets including bass clarinet, two bassoons including contrabassoon, two French horns, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings, and solo cello
Performance time: 25 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance

Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.
– Rumi

These words by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi inspired Anna Clyne’s concerto for cello and orchestra, Dance (2019). Each of the concerto’s five movements takes its title from a line of the poem, which encourages dancing both in times of pain and in times of joy. “I knew that I wanted to write a multi-movement work in which each movement had its own personality, its own character,” Clyne writes in the liner notes of the premiere recording featuring tonight’s soloist, cellist Inbal Segev. She continues, “I’ve known this Rumi poem for a while and always thought it would be a good source of inspiration—it’s short, has repetition, a clear form of five lines and a strong physicality (for example, ‘broken open,’ ‘in your blood’). It also has a sense of urgency that I found compelling for this piece.”

In 2016, conductor Marin Alsop introduced Segev and Clyne, and the three struck up a creative partnership. As an amateur cellist herself, Clyne was excited by the prospect of composing a cello concerto for Segev. Dedicated to Clyne’s father, Dance combines the cultures of Clyne’s English–Irish family and Polish–Jewish ancestry as well as Segev’s background as an Israeli–American. In addition to these cultural influences, the work is firmly rooted in musical traditions of the past. “Anna’s music has an old-soul sensibility but is fresh and modern at the same time,” Segev explains. “This juxtaposition of old and new has always appealed to me; it suits my playing, as well as the tone of my 1673 Ruggieri cello.”

In the first movement, “when you’re broken open,” the cello intones a slow melody over a placid bed of orchestral sound, with bowed vibraphone adding a glassy, ethereal quality. The second movement, “if you’ve torn the bandage off,” is more angular, though a lyrical folk-like melody accompanied by sweeping arpeggios offers some reprieve from the ferocity. Hearkening back to the Baroque, “in the middle of the fighting” takes the form of a lament over a repeated descending bassline. The fourth movement, “in your blood,” also recalls musical forms of the past with a canon that becomes increasingly dense as more layers are added. Finally, “when you’re perfectly free” begins in anguish, complete with col legno snaps, before another expansive melody emerges.

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme), op. 36 (1898)
Scored for: two flutes including piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons including contrabassoon, four French horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings
Performance time: 31 minutes
First Grant Park Orchestra performance: August 7, 1940; Hans Lange, conductor

Much ink has been spilled deciphering the supposed “Enigma” of Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, or Enigma Variations. The word “Enigma” was only penciled into the score shortly before the premiere by Elgar’s publisher, August Johannes Jaeger. Nevertheless, the name stuck, and the mystery helped drum up publicity. Before the first performance on June 19, 1899, Elgar added to the intrigue, saying, “The ‘Enigma’ I will not explain—its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played . . . so, the principal Theme never appears.”

Some have taken this to mean that a famous piece of music could be layered on top as a counterpoint to the work’s theme. Scholars and armchair detectives alike have proposed numerous solutions, but we will likely never know the answer (if there even is one). Although Elgar was fond of puzzles and ciphers, he could have meant a more abstract silent theme—that of friendship. Each of the variations presents a musical sketch of one of his friends. “It may be understood that these personages comment or reflect on the original theme and each one attempts a solution of the Enigma, for so the theme is called,” Elgar clarified in a program note in 1911. Elgar further stated that the Enigma theme represented the “loneliness of the artist.” Therefore, in each variation, his friends provide their own solution to his loneliness through their companionship and support—something Elgar was in dire need of at the time as a struggling composer prone to depression. In a way, these musical portraits of his friends did solve his problem, as the Enigma Variations finally catapulted Elgar’s career at the age of 42.

Enigma Variations begins with a statement of the main theme, which came to Elgar while noodling on the piano with a cigar in his mouth after a long day of teaching. He then began to imagine how his different friends might play the melody, labeling each variation with a nickname or the initials of the dedicatee. The first variation, “CAE,” is a romantic expansion of the theme dedicated to his wife, Caroline Alice Elgar. Next, “HDS-P” refers to Hew David Stewart-Powell, an adept amateur pianist. “RBT” depicts Richard Bater Townsend, who took to riding around Oxford on a tricycle, ringing the bell constantly as he went. “WMB” then represents the brusque country squire William Meath Baker, while the chuckling woodwinds in “RPA” capture the nervous laugh of Richard Penrose Arnold. The opening viola passage in “Ysobel” pokes fun at Elgar’s viola student Isabel Fitton, who struggled with string crossing, though the composer’s affection for her is evident in the movement’s overall tenderness. “Troyte” invokes another student of Elgar’s, an architect named Arthur Troyte Griffin, who was apparently a clumsy piano player. Next, “WN” suggests not just Winifred Norbury’s characteristic laugh but also her beautiful 18th-century house.

Here we come to the most famous variation, “Nimrod,” dedicated to Elgar’s publisher, Jaeger. (The nickname comes from the Biblical hunter Nimrod, as “Jaeger” means “hunter” in German.) Jaeger was perhaps the most supportive figure in Elgar’s life after Alice. Jaeger had been on the receiving end of Elgar’s mood swings and letters declaring he was done with music, yet he remained convinced of Elgar’s talent. “Dorabella” is another tender variation for a supportive friend, Dora Penny. While “GRS” stands for organist George Robertson Sinclair, the variation actually captures an incident where Sinclair’s bulldog, Dan, fell into the River Wye (successfully escaping the waters and barking in triumph). Next, the heartfelt cello melody of “BGN” is an homage to amateur cellist Basil G. Nevinson. “***” is the most mysterious of the variations. Elgar claimed it was dedicated to Lady Mary Lygon, who was embarking on a sea voyage at the time (hence the references to Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage). However, some believe it is a nod to Elgar’s first love, Helen Jessie Weaver, who emigrated to New Zealand after breaking off their engagement in 1885. Finally, the artist himself emerges triumphant in “EDU” (Alice’s nickname for Edward), supported by the love of his friends.

—Katherine Buzard