Symphony No. 2 ‘The Age of Anxiety’ for piano and orchestra

Program notes

About the Work

Bernstein’s Second Symphony, ‘The Age of Anxiety,’ is one of his most ambitious and personal concert works: a symphony that is really a hybrid, scored for solo piano and orchestra, so that the pianist functions almost as the composer’s alter ego threading through the drama. It takes its title and structure from a long poem of the same name by W. H. Auden, published in 1947, which Bernstein adored, calling it ‘one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of English poetry.’ Auden’s poem follows four lonely strangers who meet in a New York bar during wartime and, over a long night of drinking and conversation, search (through memory, fantasy and a kind of spiritual quest) for meaning and connection in an anxious, faithless modern age. Bernstein composed his musical response in 1948–49 and revised it in 1965; the composer himself was the pianist at the 1949 premiere under Koussevitzky.

The symphony follows Auden’s six-part structure closely, divided into two halves played without a break. It is quintessential Bernstein: eclectic, dramatic and emotionally generous, fusing symphonic grandeur, jazz, a haunting central set of variations and an exuberant, controversial jazz-band episode. It is at once a virtuoso piano showpiece, a symphonic drama and a deeply felt meditation on faith and loneliness in the modern world. It makes a perfect centrepiece for this anxious, searching programme.

What to Listen For

The work is in two parts, each in three sections. Listen at the very start (The Prologue) for two lonely clarinets in a falling duet, and then for the The Seven Ages and The Seven Stages, two sets of variations in which the solo piano leads the orchestra through Auden’s characters’ reflections on life and their dreamlike quest. Listen for how the piano weaves continuously through the texture, by turns reflective, brilliant and searching.

In the second part, listen for The Dirge, a dark, anguished lament (using a brooding twelve-note theme) mourning the loss of a strong father-figure or ‘Colossus’ to lean on. Then comes the famous The Masque: a wild, exhilarating jazz scherzo for piano and percussion, full of bebop energy and brittle brilliance, a frantic party that masks despair. Finally, The Epilogue: listen for the moment the piano falls silent and then re-enters, and for the way the orchestra builds, against the odds, to a blazing, affirmative climax: Bernstein’s hard-won statement of faith and hope emerging from anxiety. It is a thrilling vehicle for a soloist like Denis Kozhukhin, and one of the great American symphonies.