LISZT PIANO CONCERTO 2

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1 Photograph of Franz Liszt by Franz Hanfstaengl, c LISZT PIANO CONCERTO 2 40

2 CONCERT PROGRAM Simon Cole Dark Forest: Sesquie for Canada s 150th (Apr 12 only; WORLD PREMIÈRE/TSO CO-COMMISSION) Marc Bélanger Wink from Drummondville to Toronto: Sesquie for Canada s 150th (Apr 13 only; TSO PREMIÈRE/TSO CO-COMMISSION) Christos Hatzis The Isle Is Full of Noises Wednesday, April 12, :00pm Thursday, April 13, :00pm Andrey Boreyko conductor Lucas Debargue piano Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major In one movement Intermission Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco allegretto IV. Allegro Please note that these performances are being recorded for online release at TSO.CA/CanadaMosaic. APR 12 PERFORMANCE PRESENTING SPONSOR Peter Oundjian Music Director Conductor Andrey Boreyko is joined by pianist Lucas Debargue for this concert of the familiar and the new. Canadian composer Christos Hatzis s The Isle Is Full of Noises is a colourful work, blending striking new sounds from the instruments with some very attractive melodies and harmonies. Liszt s virtuoso piano music is so dazzling that we sometimes forget what an incredibly skilled and imaginative composer he was. In a single movement instead of the traditional three, the Second Concerto was quite revolutionary for its time; it is based entirely on the music heard at the beginning, which returns in endlessly inventive variations. Brahms s great Third Symphony, on the other hand, is cast in a more traditional way. It is one of the most dramatic of his four symphonies, and the glorious slow movement is surely one of the most beautiful things he ever wrote. 41

THE DETAILS For program notes to Simon Cole s Dark Forest: Sesquie for Canada s 150th and Marc Bélanger s Wink from Drummondville to Toronto: Sesquie for Canada s 150th, please turn to pages 9 and

3 THE DETAILS For program notes to Simon Cole s Dark Forest: Sesquie for Canada s 150th and Marc Bélanger s Wink from Drummondville to Toronto: Sesquie for Canada s 150th, please turn to pages 9 and 10, respectively, of the Sesquies Canada Mosaic program. Christos Hatzis The Isle Is Full of Noises 13 min Born: Volos, Greece, Mar 21, 1953 Composed: 2013 The Isle Is Full of Noises was commissioned by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal for a program consisting of compositions inspired by William Shakespeare. I chose to base mine on The Tempest, particularly on two memorable excerpts, one by Prospero We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep (Act IV, Scene 1) and the following one by Caliban: Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that vie delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, That if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. (Act III, Scene 2) Both Prospero and Caliban view reality as dreamlike in this play. Their island is a magical place. Its reality is shaped and determined by human will, Prospero s, rather than natural law. Caliban, a rebellious and conceited creature, is promoting this reality to the unsuspecting newcomers hoping to usurp through them Prospero s magic and power. It is not surprising that, in Christian Europe of Shakespeare s time, Caliban s character became associated with the serpentine deceiver of the Biblical Eden allegory who, too, sought to corrupt the first humans by enticing them to the power of the forbidden fruit of consciousness and its power thereof, in spite of God s explicit instructions to the contrary. It is this Biblical connection with the isle, full of noises which got me inspired to compose this work. The work begins with primal breathing and an elemental soundscape. Musical sounds gradually emerge from the depths of the orchestral spectrum in a tonally vague language which quickly transforms into impressionistic smears. Timbre gradually morphs into melody and harmony. Finally, the main theme, representing the emergence of consciousness in the metaphorical structure of my work, is introduced by the string orchestra in an introverted but eventually more self-conscious manner, persistently pulled outward by the exuberance of the triumphant ending the latter representing the emergence of the perfected human in this earthly sphere of consciousness. Program note by the composer ABOUT THE COMPOSER A composition professor at the University of Toronto, Christos Hatzis is one of Canada s most important composers. His latest projects include SYN-PHONIA (Migration Patterns), a work about climate change, and the ballet score Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation about the Indian Residential Schools (the ballet has toured Canada with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet to rave reviews and public reception). A recent CD release of the latter has received two 2017 JUNO Award nominations. hatzis.com 42

4 Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major 22 min Born: Raiding, then in Hungary (now in Austria), Oct 22, 1811 Died: Bayreuth, Germany, Jul 31, 1886 Composed: Liszt was one of the most gifted and dynamic musical figures of the nineteenth century. His claim to the title of supreme pianist of the day was repeatedly challenged, but never surrendered. He created hundreds of works for piano, including original creations, arrangements, and paraphrases. Their brilliance and difficulty reflect his own performing style. He was exceptionally generous to his fellow musicians, offering encouragement and advocacy to like-minded progressive composers and teaching vast numbers of promising piano students. On the orchestral front, he virtually created the musical form known as the symphonic poem. It was adopted to great effect by Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius, and many others. Taking as its point of departure such concepts as literature, painting, locales, and philosophical ideas, it strives to express them in music. THEMATIC METAMORPHOSIS Both of Liszt s Piano Concertos were quite revolutionary for their time, compressing the traditional three-movement form of the concerto into works that flowed more like tone poems. The success of this continuous form was in part due to Liszt s mastery of thematic metamorphosis, which is evident in this concerto: as one obvious example, the lyrical opening melody becomes a grand march in the finale. Seeking to bind his symphonic poems together into coherent wholes, he developed a system of composition in which he based each piece on the development and transformation of a few short, simple themes. This practice exercised enormous influence, on his son-in-law Richard Wagner s operas in particular. Liszt applied this technique when composing his piano concertos. He conceived Nos. 1 and 2 over lengthy periods, reflecting his busy performing career and the continuing evolution of his composing style. The piece that would eventually become Concerto No. 2 appeared first, about 1839, as a concerto without orchestra for piano solo. He never completed this piece. In 1849, he revised it as Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra. He reworked it several times more before its publication in The first performance (in a still-developing version) had taken place four years before that, in Weimar, Germany. Liszt conducted, and his pupil Hans von Bronsart played the solo part. Liszt cast it in one, continuous movement consisting of six subsections in contrasting moods and tempos (Adagio sostenuto assai Allegro agitato assai Allegro moderato Allegro deciso Marziale un poco meno allegro Allegro animato). It is the most mature and poetic of his works for piano and orchestra. It contains its full share of virtuoso writing for every player. It also displays a welcome variety of texture in the orchestration, much of which has the intimate transparency of chamber music. Program note by Don Anderson 43

5 THE DETAILS Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op min Born: Hamburg, now in Germany, May 7, 1833 Died: Vienna, Austria, Apr 3, 1897 Composed: 1883 Brahms needed an unusually long time to develop an individual style. Much of the difficulty sprang from his awe of Beethoven, even though many of his supporters and colleagues saw him as the earlier composer s true symphonic heir. I shall never write a symphony, he told conductor Hermann Levi. You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him (Beethoven) behind us. Time and experience eventually convinced him to renounce that vow. Some twenty years passed after he began work on his first symphony before he felt it was ready to be played in public. The première in 1876 won VARIATIONS ON FORM Brahms is usually regarded as a conservative composer of symphonies, but his Third Symphony contains a few interesting innovations to traditional symphonic form (see the Visual Listening Guide in the following pages): 1) The Motto Theme that opens the 1st movement introduces a tension between the keys F major and F minor that is not resolved until the very end of the 4th movement; 2) in the 2nd movement, Theme 2 returns as the Chorale Theme in the 4th movement; 3) in the finale, Theme 1 and the Chorale Theme, as well as the Motto Theme and Theme 1 of the 1st movement return in the Coda. great success, confirming in his mind that he really did possess the necessary skills to follow in Beethoven s footsteps as a great composer of symphonic music. The Third is a more individual and characteristic symphony than its two predecessors. In its striking mixture of passion and pessimism, of restlessness and serenity, Brahms offers a compelling, highly revealing musical self-portrait. What harmonious mood pervades the whole! his close friend, Clara Schumann, wrote to him after playing through the symphony at the piano. All the movements seem to be of one piece, one beat of the heart, each one a jewel. One of its most striking features is that all four movements end quietly. Such an unusually reserved practice reveals the degree of confidence that Brahms had attained by this point in his career, and also perhaps a growing pessimism. The opening movement is rich with incident and feeling. Surges of emotion, positive and doubting alike, roll across its richly textured surface. The following two movements are peaceful interludes. Only at the climax of the second section does its overall atmosphere of almost rustic gentleness give way to a more heated style of utterance. The third movement is a dance: slow, melancholy, hauntingly beautiful. The symphony s emotional conflicts are resumed in the finale, only to dissipate, as the music winds down to a resigned, almost exhausted coda. Program note by Don Anderson 44

THE ARTISTS Andrey Boreyko conductor Andrey Boreyko made his TSO début in October 2003.

Additionally, he holds the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi.

6 THE ARTISTS Andrey Boreyko conductor Andrey Boreyko made his TSO début in October Andrey Boreyko has been Music Director of Orchestre National de Belgique since 2012, and in 2014, he began his tenure as Music Director of the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Additionally, he holds the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi. Current European highlights include appearances with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Gothenburg Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In North America, 2016/17 sees appearances at both the Aspen and Ravinia Festivals with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Notable amongst Boreyko s discography with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR are Pärt s Lamentate and Silvestrov s Symphony No.6, as well as the première recording of his original version of the Suite from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for Hänssler Classics. Boreyko also continues his extensive recording project of the complete Shostakovich symphonies and he conducted the much-anticipated world première of Górecki s Symphony No. 4 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the US première with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Lucas Debargue piano These performances mark Lucas Debargue s TSO début. Born in 1990, Lucas Debargue began piano at age 11 at Compiegne Conservatory with Christine Muenier. He was quickly fascinated by the virtuoso repertoire, but it was not until 10 years later, after he had graduated from Paris Diderot University with a Bachelor s of Art degree, that he decided to return to studying piano at the professional level. His studies with professor Rena Shereshevskaya at the Paris Cortot Music School led him to First Prize at the Ninth Gaillard International Piano Competition (France, 2014) and to Fourth Prize at the 15th International Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow, 2015) where Debargue became the only musician across all disciplines who was awarded the coveted Moscow Music Critics Prize. After the competition, he was invited to play solo and with leading orchestras in the most prestigious concert halls in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, the US, and the UK, and he has released two CDs on Sony Classical Records. In April 2016, he obtained his diploma and a special Prize Cortot at the Cortot Music School where he continues to do postgraduate work with Rena Shereshevskaya. 50

Symphony Prelude, Saturday 7 pm, Upper Circle (Third Level) Lobby with D.T. Baker

Beethoven s First Piano Concerto Saturday, November 3 8 pm Jayce Ogren, conductor Joyce Yang, piano Whitney Leigh Sloan, soprano Symphony Prelude, Saturday 7 pm, Upper Circle (Third Level) Lobby with D.T.