The Italian word “capriccio” means “caprice” or “whim,” which neatly captures the playful mood of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol. Completed in 1887, it began as a fantasy for violin and orchestra before evolving into a full-fledged orchestral showpiece. Capriccio espagnol boasts a bold Roma-flavored solo violin, and some of its themes were derived from traditional Spanish folk songs and dances. Although the title evokes Italy and Spain (espagnol means Spanish), the score was written entirely in Russia. It reflects the composer’s research and syncretic imagination more than his travels as an officer in the Imperial Navy.

Praised by Tchaikovsky as “a colossal masterpiece of instrumentation,” Capriccio espagnol demonstrates Rimsky-Korsakov’s confident grasp of orchestral effect. Unlike most of his peers, he didn’t compose at the piano; the entire orchestra was his instrument. At the first rehearsal, the musicians concluded each section with a round of applause.

A Closer Listen

Capriccio espagnol comprises five brief linked parts. True to its origins in dance, the suite is rhythmically complex, with a correspondingly elaborate percussion section. The first movement, the Alborado, or “morning serenade,” derives from a traditional Asturian dance and features two sprightly clarinet solos. It is followed by the stately Variazioni movement, which begins with a gravely beautiful horn melody and ends with an intensely chromatic flute cadenza. Another headlong Alborado follows, in which martial drums and horns are interrupted by a boisterous violin solo. The ensuing Scena e canto gitano (Scene and Gypsy Song) spins out five showy cadenzas for horns, solo violin, flute, clarinet and harp and then morphs into a passionate triple time dance. The closing fandango, a fast and furious welter of cymbals and castanets, resurrects the Alborado theme, sets it on fire and stomps triumphantly on the embers. In a scant 15 minutes, the Capriccio has blazed through five movements, at least a couple of continents and the technical capacities of the large modern orchestra.

Born in Montreal, Moussa began playing piano and assorted woodwinds as a child. He started composing at age 12 and took up conducting a couple of years later. After earning his undergraduate degree at Université de Montréal, under José Evangelista, he completed his postgraduate training at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, under Matthias Pintscher and Pascal Dusapin, then went on to take masterclasses with the legendary Pierre Boulez, who commissioned “Crimson” from Moussa in 2015.

In recognition of his prolific career as a composer and conductor, Moussa has been honored with many awards, including the Hindemith Prize in 2017. He was named Quebec’s composer of the year in 2015 and appointed laureate of the Fondation Banque Populaire in 2020. He is based in Berlin, his residence of several years.

In May 2014 Moussa completed A Globe Itself Infolding, an 11-minute work for orchestra and organ. The title of this dense symphonic poem was inspired by William Blake and the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). It was written to commemorate the inauguration of the Grand Orgue Pierre Béique, a state-of-the-art, electronically enhanced 83-stop pipe organ at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s concert hall. Suffused with color and passion, the work explores the infinite tonal possibilities of the modern orchestra combined with the king of instruments. Sometimes the kaleidoscopic timbres merge in mysterious combinations, becoming unrecognizable; sometimes individual sounds assert themselves with startling particularity.

A Closer Listen

The association of the trombone with the sacred is long-standing in Western classical music: Beethoven famously referred to it as the “voice of God,” and Mendelssohn, observed that it was “too sacred for frequent use.” The Biblical story of Yericho (a transliteration from Hebrew), or Jericho in English, is a solemn testament to the unique power of the symbolic performance of a ritual. In the Book of Joshua, the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites marched around it for seven days—once a day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day. On the last day, with seven priests blowing the shofar— שׁוֹ ָפר in Hebrew, or rams’ horn in English—and throngs of Israelites encircling the city each time, the walls fell under force of this ritualistic practice. Reflections of the symbolic power of these seven horns can be found in the instrumentation for “Yericho”, wherein they are embodied collectively by solo trombone, a pair of trumpets and four French horns. Likewise, the concerto unfolds across seven movements, with these “seven horns” encircled by two percussionists, an organ, timpani and a string section.

The concerto was jointly commissioned by the Orchestre national de Lyon, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic. It is dedicated to Jörgen van Rijen.

Without the efforts of some crucial creative partners, Stravinsky’s iconic ballet Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) would not exist in its current form — or perhaps at all. Among the Russian composer’s most essential collaborators were three of his fellow countrymen: the painter and archaeologist, Nicholas Roerich, who helped develop the two-part scenario and to whom the score is dedicated; the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned it for the company he founded, Les Ballets Russes; and Vaslav Nijinsky, the insurgent young choreographer whose savage kinetic language may have actually provoked the riot typically attributed to Stravinsky’s music.

Stravinsky was in his late 20s and still relatively unknown when he began working with Diaghilev. The proud young composer almost passed on the life-changing opportunity after Diaghilev was late to their first meeting. Just as Stravinsky was about to slip out the street exit, the impresario hurried to stop him. “I’ve often wondered if I’d opened that door,” Stravinsky told his biographer, “whether I would have written The Rite of Spring.”

Pagan Sacrifice

Sometime in 1910, while polishing the score of his first Diaghilev commission, The Firebird, Stravinsky was distracted by “a fleeting vision, which came to me as a complete surprise.” According to his own account, he imagined “a solemn pagan rite [wherein] sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring.”

Instead of pursuing this idea immediately, he finished The Firebird and began his next Diaghilev ballet, the folk-inflected, pathos-drenched Petrushka. It wasn’t until July 1911 that he resumed work on what eventually became The Rite of Spring (with the subtitle “Pictures from Pagan Russia”). He and Roerich hashed out the story and discussed potential dance movements. That September, back at his family’s estate in Ustilug, Stravinsky was eager to plunge into the score. “I’ve already started composing,” he wrote. “I’ve sketched the prelude, and I’ve gone on and also sketched the ‘Divination with Twigs’; I’m terribly excited! The music is coming out fresh.”

He continued to work on it the following winter, in Switzerland, finishing the first act in late February. In a letter to a friend he exclaimed, “it’s as if 20 years, not two, have passed since the composition of Firebird!” That March he traveled to Monte Carlo and played the first part of the score for Diaghilev and Nijinsky as a piano reduction. They’re “wild about it,” he boasted to his mother.

Pierre Monteux, who would later conduct the infamous premiere, wasn’t so favorably impressed. “I was convinced he was raving mad,” the Frenchman confessed. “The very walls resounded as Stravinsky pounded away, occasionally stamping his feet and jumping up and down…. My only comment at the end was that such music would surely cause a scandal.”

Riot Act

After completing the orchestration in spring 1913, Stravinsky traveled to Paris to oversee the rehearsals. The dancers and musicians found the piece so daunting that an unprecedented number of practice sessions were scheduled. Exotic tonalities and erratic rhythms notwithstanding, the dress rehearsal went well.

The actual premiere was a different story. The opening bassoon solo — written entirely above middle C — upset a very vocal contingent of the audience. As if on cue, the patrons were shouting, blowing whistles and shoving one another. Because the dancers couldn’t hear the orchestra over the fracas, they fell out of sync. Diaghilev screamed from the wings and Stravinsky panicked, but Monteux soldiered on. He was, in Stravinsky’s approving assessment, as “impervious and nerveless as a crocodile.” “It is still almost incredible to me,” the composer later remarked, “that he actually brought the orchestra through to the end.”