Riccardo Muti Conductor Berlioz Waverley Overture, Op. 1

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1 PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED WENY-FOURH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO hursday, September 25, 2014, at 8:30 Friday, September 26, 2014, at 8:00 Riccardo Muti Conductor Berlioz Waverley Overture, Op. 1 First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Debussy La mer From Dawn to Noon on the Sea Play of the Waves Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea INERMISSION chaikovsky Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36 Andante sostenuto Andantino in modo di canzona Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato Finale: Allegro con fuoco his concert series is made possible by the Juli Grainger Endowment. his program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

2 COMMENS by Phillip Huscher Hector Berlioz Born December 11, 1803, La Côte-Saint-André, France. Died March 8, 1869, Paris, France. Waverley Overture, Op. 1 In February of 1827, after Berlioz had already begun writing his Waverley Overture, Sir Walter Scott was publically identified as the author of the highly popular Waverley novels more than two dozen books, including Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, Rob-Roy, he alisman, and he Bride of Lammermoor (which Donizetti would use as the basis of his opera Lucia di Lammermoor in another eight years). he publication of the first of these novels, Waverley, in 1814, was an immediate success the first edition of 1,000 copies sold out in two days and the series continued to captivate the public throughout the nineteenth century. Few astute readers were fooled by Scott s original decision to publish them anonymously. (Jane Austen caught on at once. In 1814, she wrote: Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people s mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it but fear I must. ) Berlioz, who only discovered the novels in 1825, made a stab at a Waverley opera long before Donizetti, beginning Richard en Palestine, inspired by he alisman, in 1826 and then abandoning it the next year. In his Memoirs, Berlioz says he began the Waverley Overture soon after Les francs-juges, the overture he composed (the only remaining part of an unfinished opera) sometime in Waverley was finished by February of 1828, when arrangements for its performance were discussed, and it was premiered at Berlioz s first concert at the Paris Conservatory on May 26. (Although it was an all-berlioz program, the composer did not conduct.) Berlioz was just twenty-four. He had not yet written any of the scores we regularly associate with him today, although he had recently met and fallen in love with Harriet Smithson, the actress who would inspire his first great blockbuster, the Symphonie fantastique of Both the manuscript and the printed score the overture was published in 1839 are prefaced by a citation from Scott: Dream of love and Lady s charms Give place to honour and to arms. he music is in two parts, compatible with the spirit of the two lines of the inscription: a slow introduction with a tender theme followed by a fiery allegro. he opening is particularly individual, with its oboe melody slipping in quietly and then continuing decrescendo. here are many highly imaginative touches in the instrumentation; Berlioz s exceptional command of writing for the orchestra was there from the start, even as it grew more masterly in the COMPOSED 1826 February 1828 FIRS PERFORMANCE May 26, 1828; Paris, France FIRS CSO PERFORMANCES hese are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra s first performances. INSRUMENAION two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, four bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, strings APPROXIMAE PERFORMANCE IME 10 minutes 2

3 works to come. he allegro is thrilling in a wild, unbuttoned way, and today it recalls episodes from several of the more familiar Berlioz scores. In later years, after Berlioz was on his way to becoming the Berlioz of legend and lore, he dismissed the Waverley Overture as an indiscretion of his youth. Apparently he conducted it just once, in Hanover in May of In fact, as Berlioz produced one sensational score after another in the 1830s and 1840s the Symphonie fantastique was soon followed by Harold in Italy, the Requiem, and Romeo and Juliet the Waverley Overture all but disappeared from concert programs. In 1848, Berlioz claimed that it had been at least fifteen years since he had last heard it and asked that it be removed from a projected concert program he was scheduled to conduct in England, since it could be damaging for me, especially at a time when I am barely beginning to make myself known in London. he Waverley Overture is the last major work Berlioz wrote before he discovered the music of Beethoven, the single greatest artistic influence on his career. His subsequent works show how dramatically Berlioz was shaken by that experience, and how much his singular language benefited from the sophistication and technical skill he found in Beethoven s writing. But it is through the earliest works of any artist that we are able to glimpse their raw talent and sometimes find an astonishing kind of untutored creativity. he Waverley Overture is, in fact, our finest example of the pure genius of the young Berlioz, a figure as promising and original as any in the history of music. Claude Debussy Born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. Died March 25, 1918, Paris, France. La mer (hree Symphonic Sketches) Although Debussy s parents once planned for him to become a sailor, La mer, subtitled hree Symphonic Sketches, proved to be his greatest seafaring adventure. Debussy s childhood summers at Cannes left him with vivid memories of the sea, worth more than reality, as he put it at the time he was composing La mer some thirty years later. As an adult, Debussy seldom got his feet wet, preferring the seascapes available in painting and literature; La mer was written in the mountains, where his old friend the sea, always innumerable and beautiful, was no closer than a memory. Like the great British painter J.M.W. urner, who stared at the sea for hours and then went inside to paint, Debussy worked from memory, occasionally turning for inspiration to a few other sources. Debussy first mentioned his new work in a letter dated September 12, 1903; the title he proposed for the first of the three symphonic sketches, Calm Sea around the Sanguinary Islands, was borrowed from a short story by Camille Mauclair published during the 1890s. When Debussy s own score was printed, he insisted that the cover include a detail from he Hollow of the Wave off Kanagawa, the most celebrated print by the Japanese artist Hokusai, then enormously popular in France. We also know that Debussy greatly admired urner s work. His richly atmospheric seascapes recorded the daily weather, the time of day, and even the most fleeting effects of wind and light in ways utterly new to painting, and they spoke directly to Debussy. (In 1902, when Debussy went to London, where he saw a number of urner s paintings, he enjoyed the trip but hated actually crossing the channel.) he name Debussy finally gave to the first section of La mer, From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, might easily be that of a urner painting made sixty years earlier, for the two shared not only a love of subject but also of long, specific, evocative titles. here s something in Debussy s first symphonic sketch very like a urner painting of the sun rising over the sea. hey both reveal, in their vastly different media, 3

4 those magical moments when sunlight begins to glow in near darkness, when familiar objects emerge from the shadows. his was urner s favorite image he even owned several houses from which he could watch, with undying fascination, the sun pierce the line separating sea and sky. Debussy s achievement, though decades later than urner s, is no less radical, for it uses familiar language in truly fresh ways. From Dawn to Noon on the Sea can t be heard as traditional program music, for it doesn t tell a tale along a standard time line (although Debussy s friend Eric Satie reported that he particularly liked the bit at a quarter to eleven ). Nor can it be read as a piece of symphonic discourse, for it is organized without regard for conventional theme and development. Debussy s audiences, like urner s before him, were baffled by work that takes as its subject matter color, texture, and nuance. Debussy s second sketch too is all suggestion and shimmering surface, fascinated with sound for its own sake. Melodic line, rhythmic regularity, and the use of standard harmonic progressions are all shattered, gently but decisively, by the fluid play of the waves. he final Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea (another title so like urner s) captures the violence of two elements, air and water, as they collide. At the end, the sun breaks through the clouds. La mer repeatedly resists traditional analysis. We must agree, Debussy writes, that the beauty of a work of art will always remain a mystery, in other words, we can never be absolutely sure how it s made. La mer was controversial even during rehearsals, when, as Debussy told Stravinsky, the violinists tied handkerchiefs to the tips of their bows in protest. he response at the premiere was mixed, though largely unfriendly. It is hard now he front cover of the first edition of La mer, for which Debussy chose Hokusai s print he Hollow of the Wave off Kanagawa to separate the reaction to this novel and challenging music from the current Parisian view of the composer himself, for during the two years he worked on La mer, Debussy moved in with Emma Bardac, the wife of a local banker, leaving behind his wife Lily, who attempted suicide. wo weeks after the premiere of La mer, Bardac gave birth to Debussy s child, Claude-Emma, later known as Chou-Chou. Debussy married Emma Bardac on January 20, he night before, he conducted an orchestra for the first time in public, in a program which included La mer. his time, it was a spectacular success, though many of his friends still wouldn t speak to him. COMPOSED 1903 March 1905 FIRS PERFORMANCE October 15, 1905; Paris, France FIRS CSO PERFORMANCES January 29 & 30, 1909, Orchestra Hall. Frederick Stock conducting July 8, 1937, Ravinia Festival. Ernest Ansermet conducting MOS RECEN CSO PERFORMANCES August 7, 2012, Ravinia Festival. James Conlon conducting October 17, 19 & 22, 2013, Orchestra Hall. Susanna Mälkki conducting INSRUMENAION two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and english horn, two clarinets, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets and two cornets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, tam-tam, triangle, glockenspiel, bass drum, two harps, strings APPROXIMAE PERFORMANCE IME 26 minutes CSO RECORDINGS Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA Sir Georg Solti conducting. London Erich Leinsdorf conducting. (From the Archives, vol. 5: Guests in the House) Sir Georg Solti conducting. London Daniel Barenboim conducting. eldec Daniel Barenboim conducting. EuroArts (video) 4

5 Pyotr chaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Viatka, Russia. Died November 18, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36 chaikovsky was at work on his Fourth Symphony when he received a letter from Antonina Milyukova claiming to be a former student of his and declaring that she was madly in love with him. chaikovsky had just read Pushkin s Eugene Onegin, hoping to find an opera subject, and he saw fateful parallels between Antonina and Pushkin s heroine, atiana. Perhaps chaikovsky confused art and life; in any event, the consequences were dire. It is hard to say which letter provoked the stronger response from chaikovsky the despairing letter atiana writes to the cold-hearted Onegin, or the one he himself received from Antonina, threatening suicide. he first inspired one of the great scenes in opera; the latter precipitated a painful and disastrous marriage. We have since learned enough about chaikovsky, and about the agony of repressed homosexuality, to understand why he would choose to marry a woman he didn t even know as a kind of cover. (Less than a year earlier, chaikovsky had begun an extraordinary relationship, conducted exclusively by correspondence, with Nadezhda von Meck, and he delighted in the combination of intellectual intimacy and physical distance.) On June 1, 1877, chaikovsky stopped work on the first three movements of this symphony and visited Antonina Milyukova for the first time. A day or two later he proposed. He didn t tell Nadezhda von Meck of his plans until three days before the wedding. In that letter he confessed that he had lived thirty-seven years with an innate aversion to marriage.... In a day or two my marriage will take place, he wrote in closing. What will happen after that I do not know. chaikovsky quickly learned that, in addition to the obvious strain of living with someone to whom he felt profound physical aversion, he would grow to disdain Antonina, particularly after the stunning discovery that she knew not one note of music. My heart is full, he wrote to von Meck. It thirsts to pour itself out in music. It was music that kept him going. When he was able to escape, temporarily, to Kamenka, he found solace in his fourth symphony and by working intermittently on Eugene Onegin. He returned to Moscow in late September, barely in time to begin the fall term at the conservatory, and discovered, surely without surprise, that he could maintain the façade no longer. Many COMPOSED May 1877 January 19, 1878 FIRS PERFORMANCE March 4, 1878; Moscow, Russia FIRS CSO PERFORMANCES November 3 & 4, 1899, Auditorium heatre. heodore homas conducting July 17, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Willem Van Hoogstraten conducting MOS RECEN CSO PERFORMANCES July 29, 2012, Ravinia Festival. James Conlon conducting March 21, 22, 23 & 24, 2013, Orchestra Hall. ugan Sokhiev conducting June 29, 2013, Morton Arboretum. Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting INSRUMENAION two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, strings APPROXIMAE PERFORMANCE IME 44 minutes CSO RECORDINGS Rafael Kubelík conducting. Mercury Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO (Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the wentieth Century: Collector s Choice) Sir Georg Solti conducting. London Sir Georg Solti conducting. ICA Classics (video) Claudio Abbado conducting. CBS Daniel Barenboim conducting. eldec 5

6 years later, he confessed that he waded into the Moscow River, hoping to contract a fatal chill, and stood with the icy water up to his waist until he could, literally, stand no more. He then fled to Saint Petersburg, where a psychiatrist prescribed a complete change of scenery and a permanent separation from Antonina. Nicolai Rubinstein and chaikovsky s brother Anatoly rushed to Moscow to tell Antonina. She listened calmly and served them tea. chaikovsky s marriage lasted less than three months. On October 13, Anatoly took chaikovsky to Switzerland, then on to Paris and Italy. chaikovsky asked that the unfinished manuscript of the Fourth Symphony be sent from Moscow and he completed the scoring in January He finished Eugene Onegin the following month. hat March he sketched the violin concerto in just eleven days. When he returned to Russia in late April, his problems with Antonina were still unresolved she first accepted and then rejected the divorce papers, and later extracted her final revenge by moving into the apartment above his but the worst year of his life was over. he temptation to read a program into chaikovsky s Fourth Symphony is as old as the work itself. Since Nadezhda von Meck allowed chaikovsky to dedicate the symphony to her (without mentioning her name) and was contributing generously to support his career, she demanded to know what the work was about. chaikovsky s response, often quoted, is a detailed account, filled with emotional thoughts and empty phrases words written after the fact to satisfy an indispensable patron. When chaikovsky mentions fate, however, his words ring true; this was a subject that had haunted him since 1876, when he saw Carmen and was struck by the death of the two principals who, through fate, fatum, ultimately reach the peak of their suffering and their inescapable end. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck: he introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, undoubtedly the main idea. his is fate, that fatal force which prevents the impulse to happiness from attaining its goal, which jealously ensures that peace and happiness shall not be complete and unclouded, chaikovsky with his wife, Antonina Milyukova, 1877 which hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles, and unwaveringly, constantly poisons the soul. Indeed, the icy blast from the horns that opens this symphony returns repeatedly in the first movement (and once in the finale), each time wiping out everything in its path. It s like the celebrated fate motive from Beethoven s Fifth Symphony the one the composer himself compared to fate knocking at the door except that it s more of a disruption than a compositional device. Later, chaikovsky wrote to the composer Sergei aneyev, a former student: Of course my symphony is programmatic, but this program is such that it cannot be formulated in words. hat would excite ridicule and appear comic. Ought not a symphony that is, the most lyrical of all forms to be such a work? Should it not express everything for which there are no words, but which the soul wishes to express, and which requires to be expressed?... Please do not think that I aspire to paint before you a depth and grandeur of thought that cannot be easily 6

7 understood in words. I was not trying to express any new thought. In essence my symphony imitates Beethoven s Fifth; that is, I was not imitating its musical thoughts, but the fundamental idea. Do you think there is a program in the Fifth Symphony? Not only is there a program, but in this instance there cannot be any question about its efforts to express itself. My symphony rests upon a foundation that is nearly the same, and if you haven t understood me, it follows only that I am not a Beethoven, a fact which I have never doubted. aneyev was perhaps the first to question the preponderance of what he called ballet music in the symphony. In fact, the lilting main theme of the opening movement (marked in movimento di valse ) and the whole of the two inner movements the slow pas de deux with its mournful oboe solo, and the brilliant and playful pizzicato scherzo remind us that the best of chaikovsky s ballet scores are symphonic in scope and tone. chaikovsky was angered by the comment and asked aneyev if he considered as ballet music every cheerful tune that has a dance rhythm? If that s the case, he concluded, you must also be unable to reconcile yourself to the majority of Beethoven s symphonies in which you encounter such things at every turn. he finale is more complex, emotionally and musically, swinging from the dark emotions of the first movement to a more festive mood. If you cannot discover reasons for happiness in yourself, chaikovsky wrote to Mme von Meck, look at others. Get out among the people. Look what a good time they have simply surrendering themselves to joy. here is one final intrusion of the fateful horns from the symphony s opening, but this time the music quickly recovers, rousing itself to a defiantly triumphant and heroic Beethovenian ending, in intention if not in substance. Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chicago Symphony Orchestra 7