Delta classical Series Concerts thursday and Friday, April 23 and 24, 2009, at 8 p.m.

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1 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra A founding member of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center Robert Spano, Music Director Donald Runnicles, Principal Guest Conductor Delta classical Series Concerts thursday and Friday, April 23 and 24, 2009, at 8 p.m. donald runnicles, Conductor Gustav Mahler ( ) Symphony No. 6 in A minor (1904) I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo ii. Scherzo. Wuchtig iii. Andante moderato iv. Finale. Allegro moderato this concert is performed without intermission Inside the Music preview of the concert, Thursday at 7 p.m., presented by Ken Meltzer, ASO Insider and Program Annotator. The use of cameras or recording devices during the concert is strictly prohibited. Atlanta s Performing Arts Publication 27

2 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra sponsors is proud to sponsor the Delta Classical Series of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Delta s commitment to the communities we serve began the day our first flight took off. After almost 80 years, Delta s community spirit worldwide continues to be a cornerstone of our organization. As a force for global good, our mission is to continuously create value through an inclusive culture by leveraging partnerships and serving communities where we live and work. It includes not only valuing individual differences of race, religion, gender, nationality and lifestyle, but also managing and valuing the diversity of work teams, intracompany teams and business partnerships. Delta is an active, giving corporate citizen in the communities it serves. Delta s community engagement efforts are driven by our desire to build long-term partnerships in a way that enables nonprofits to utilize many aspects of Delta's currency our employees time and talent, our free and discounted air travel, as well as our surplus donations. Together, we believe we can take our worldwide communities to new heights! Major funding for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is provided by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners under the guidance of the Fulton County Arts Council. Solo pianos used by the ASO are gifts of the Atlanta Steinway Society and in memory of David Goldwasser. The Hamburg Steinway piano is a gift received by the ASO in honor of Rosi Fiedotin. The Yamaha custom six-quarter tuba is a gift received by the ASO in honor of Principal Tuba player Michael Moore from The Antinori Foundation. This performance is being recorded for broadcast at a later time. ASO concert broadcasts are heard each week on Atlanta s WABE FM-90.1 and Georgia Public Broaccasting s statewide network. The ASO records for Telarc. Other ASO recordings are available on the Argo, Deutsche Grammophon, New World, Nonesuch, Philips and Sony Classical labels. Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta is the preferred hotel of the ASO. Trucks provided by Ryder Truck Rental Inc. Media sponsors: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB 750 AM. 28 Encore Atlanta

3 Notes on the Program By Ken Meltzer Symphony No. 6 in A minor (1904) Gustav Mahler was born in Kali ste, Bohemia, on July 7, 1860, and died in Vienna, Austria, on May 18, The first performance of the Symphony No. 6 took place in Essen, Germany, on May 27, 1906, with the composer conducting. The Symphony No. 6 is scored for three piccolos, four flutes, four oboes, three English horns, E-flat clarinet, four clarinets, bass clarinet, four bassoons, contrabassoon, eight horns, six trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, two harps, celeste, bass drum, chimes, cowbell, cymbals, orchestra bells, snare drum, tambourine, hammer, triangle, xylophone and strings. Approximate performance time is eighty-three minutes. First ASO Classical Subscription Performances: March 27, 28 and 29, 1975, Rafael Druian, Conductor. Most Recent ASO Classical Subscription Performances: January 30 and 31, and February 1, 1997, Yoel Levi, Conductor. ASO Recording: Yoel Levi, Conductor (Telarc CD-80444) Don t tempt Providence! Gustav Mahler composed his Symphony No. 6 during the summers of 1903 and This was a particularly happy period in the composer s life. In November of 1901, Mahler and Alma Schindler met for the first time. Mahler immediately fell in love with the beautiful young woman, and following a brief courtship the two were engaged. Gustav and Alma Mahler wed on March 9, 1902 he was forty-one and she, twenty-two. On November 3 of that year, the couple s first daughter, Maria, was born. As Alma recalled, Gustav loved this child beyond measure from the first day. The birth of their second daughter, Anna, took place on June 15, Again, according to Alma: From the first moment the child was a great joy to us and was nicknamed Guckerl, from her wide-open, blue eyes. For a good portion of his adult life, Mahler s duties as a conductor restricted his composing to the summer months. In 1901, Mahler constructed a villa at Maiernigg, located on the banks of the Wörthersee in southern Austria. It was there, during summer breaks, that Gustav Mahler composed many of his greatest works, including the Symphony No. 6. In the summer of 1904, Mahler in addition to completing his Symphony No. 6 also finished the Kindertotenlieder ( Songs on the Death of Children ). In this song cycle for solo voice and Atlanta s Performing Arts Publication 29

4 orchestra, Mahler set to music five poems by Friedrich Rückert. Each poem depicts the grieving of a parent over a lost child. It is quite understandable that Alma Mahler, then the mother of two infant daughters, was greatly troubled by her husband s latest composition: I found this incomprehensible. I can understand setting such frightful words to music, if one had no children, or had lost those one had. Moreover, Friedrich Rückert did not write these harrowing elegies solely out of his imagination: they were dictated by the cruelest loss of his whole life (annotator s note: two of Rückert s children had died of scarlet fever). What I cannot understand is bewailing the deaths of children, who were in the best of health and spirits, hardly one hour after having kissed and fondled them. I exclaimed at the time: For heaven s sake, don t tempt Providence! Alma Mahler s worst fears came to fruition. On July 5, 1907, some three years after the completion of Kindertotenlieder, the Mahlers eldest daughter, Maria, died of scarlet fever. Maria, known affectionately as Putzi, was four months shy of her fifth birthday. Alma described her husband s reaction: Mahler, weeping and sobbing, went again and again to the door of my bedroom, where she was; then fled away to be out of earshot of any sound. It was more than he could bear. He anticipated his own life in music Given this surreal turn of events, it is natural to consider whether the Songs on the Death of Children expressed Mahler s premonition of the impending catastrophe. It is a theory that certainly found a devoted advocate in the person of Alma Mahler. She viewed both the Kindertotenlieder and the Symphony No. 6 one of Mahler s bleakest compositions as prescient works. After Gustav Mahler completed the A-minor Symphony in the summer of 1904, he played it for his wife: Once more we walked arm-in-arm up to his hut in the wood, where nothing could disturb us. These occasions were always very solemn ones Not one of his works came so directly from his inmost heart as this. We both wept that day. The music and what it foretold touched us so deeply. The Sixth is the most completely personal of his works, and a prophetic one also. In the Kindertotenlieder, as also in the Sixth, he anticipated his own life in music. According to Alma, in the Symphony s finale, Mahler described himself and his downfall or, as he later said, that of his hero: It is the hero, on whom fall three blows of fate, the last of which fells him as a tree is felled. Those were his words. Alma noted that, indeed (o)n him too fell three blows of fate, the last felled him. Here, Alma Mahler refers to three calamitous events that occurred in In addition to Maria s death that year, Mahler relinquished his duties as 30 Encore Atlanta

5 Kapellmeister in Vienna, a position he held since In 1907, a physician also diagnosed the severe heart condition that would lead to Mahler s untimely death just four years later. They are the cruelties I ve suffered The premiere of Mahler s A-minor Symphony took place in Essen, Germany, on May 27, 1906, as part of the festival of the United German Music Society. Mahler, one of the greatest conductors of his era, led the performance. Alma recalled: None of his works moved him so deeply at its first hearing as this. We came to the last rehearsals, to the dress-rehearsal to the last movement with its three great blows of fate. When it was over, Mahler walked up and down in the artists room, sobbing, wringing his hands, unable to control himself On the day of the concert Mahler was so afraid that his agitation might get the better of him that out of shame and anxiety he did not conduct the symphony well. He hesitated to bring out the dark omen behind this terrible last movement. Today, Gustav Mahler s Symphonies are staples of the orchestral repertoire. In Mahler s time, however, they were considered problematic, to say the least. Their extraordinary length, huge performing forces, and frequent, wide-ranging juxtaposition of emotions met with considerable resistance. Mahler did have his supporters in those early years. But even those who were advocates of Mahler s works must have been unsettled by the mode of expression found in the Symphony No. 6. Each of the first five Mahler Symphonies ends in optimistic fashion. The Sixth, however, is an epic, inexorable journey from its grim, opening march, to the final cry of despair. After a rehearsal, one of Mahler s friends asked the composer, But how can someone who is so good express so much cruelty and harshness in his work? Mahler responded, They are the cruelties I ve suffered and the pains I ve felt! Musical Analysis I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo The repeated tread of the lower strings initiates the forceful march episode that serves as the first thematic group of the opening movement. Pounding timpani, a roll of the snare drum, and a brief trumpet outburst lead to a far more placid sequence a chorale, played by the winds, to the accompaniment of pizzicato strings. This is immediately followed by a radiant, major-key violin theme. This theme, in various guises, predominates the remainder of the exposition portion of this sonata-form movement (Gustav Mahler told Alma that the first movement s soaring violin theme represented her: Whether I ve succeeded, I don t know; but you ll have to put up with it. ). The development begins with a recollection of the opening march. This leads to a magical episode of repose, featuring shimmering strings, celeste and cowbells, evoking a sound of Atlanta s Performing Arts Publication 31

6 nature, echoing from a great distance. Tranquility soon disappears, as the recapitulation section opens with tremendous force. The principal themes return in varied form. The coda offers echoes of the opening movement with, again, the Alma theme leading the dynamic close. II. Scherzo. Wuchtig (Heavy) For the 1906 premiere, Mahler reversed the order of the Symphony s two internal movements. He did this at the request of some friends, who believed that the beginning of the second-movement Scherzo was too similar in character to the start of the entire Symphony. Ultimately, Mahler reverted to his original sequence, in which the Andante serves as the third movement. Alma Mahler contended that in the Scherzo, her husband represented the arhythmic games of the two little children, tottering in zigzags over the sand. One assumes that Alma Mahler was not referring to the sardonic opening portion of the Scherzo, with its piercing sonorities and harsh, insistent rhythms, derived from the Symphony s opening march. Rather, the children s games seem to be depicted in the far more genial Trio sections that twice alternate with the Scherzo. In the final measures (again, according to Alma), the childish voices became more and more tragic, and at the end died out in a whimper. III. Andante moderato The Andante opens with a nostalgic, flowing melody, introduced by the first violins. It is the first in a series of lovely themes that form the basis for this slow movement. The themes are repeated and varied throughout the Andante. The return of the celeste and cowbells recalls the nature sequence from the opening movement. After a stirring climax, the Andante fades to a peaceful silence. IV. Finale. Allegro moderato The Finale, one of Mahler s longest symphonic movements, is also one of his most profound and heartbreaking. A fortissimo, pizzicato note in the lower strings and an upward glissando by the celeste and harp serve as prelude to an anguished statement by the first violins. This is followed by the return of the pounding timpani sequence from the opening movement a motif that will play a crucial role in the Finale. Other motifs from previous movements return, setting the stage for the principal Allegro moderato, inaugurated by a dotted figure in the cellos and bassoons. For all of its epic length, the Finale is cast in traditional Sonata form, featuring the exposition, development, and recapitulation of the central thematic material. The development section assumes the role of an extraordinary battleground. Twice, the conflict is punctuated by massive hammer blows, which Mahler directs should sound like the blow of an axe. In the coda, defeat is symbolized by a restatement of the timpani motif (here, Mahler originally included the third hammer-blow, which he ultimately excised from the score). Utter desolation pervades the closing measures. A final, anguished cry from the orchestra and the brutal timpani motif yield to a pizzicato chord. 32 Encore Atlanta

7 donald runnicles, Conductor Donald Runnicles, Music Director and Principal Conductor of the San Francisco Opera since 1992, is also Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival and Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, with which he has made a series of acclaimed recordings for Telarc. In 2009, he will become General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Orchestra. Donald Runnicles Symphonic work and chamber music are as close to the maestro s heart as opera. He conducts three weeks with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra this season, and also returns to Rome s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin s Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester, and the London Symphony Orchestra. He also conducts a pair of concerts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in the season before becoming Chief Conductor. Mr. Runnicles began his musical career as a rehearsal pianist in Germany, and made his conducting debut 30 years ago in Mannheim, where he was the City s General Music Director. In December, he returns there to celebrate the anniversary, conducting a pair of concerts and a performance of Strauss s Elektra. Mr. Runnicles has ongoing musical relationships with some of the finest orchestras and opera companies in the U.S. and Europe. Among those in the U.S. are the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, and the New World Symphony. He is a frequent guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, North German Radio Orchestra Hamburg (NDR) and Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Munich. He appears annually in Great Britain at both the BBC London Proms and the Edinburgh Festival, and each year conducts the Vienna State Opera. He has also led productions in the opera houses of Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Milan, Munich, Paris and Zurich. Among Donald Runnicles s awards are the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and an honorary degree from Edinburgh University. Atlanta s Performing Arts Publication 33