Colburn Orchestra. Edo de Waart, Guest Conductor. Aubree Oliverson, Violin. October 21, 2017 Ambassador Auditorium, 7:30 pm

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1 Colburn Orchestra Yehuda Gilad, Music Director Edo de Waart, Guest Conductor Aubree Oliverson, Violin October 21, 2017 Ambassador Auditorium, 7:30 pm Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) wolfgang amadeus mozart ( ) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, antonín dvořák Op. 53 (1879; rev and 1882) ( ) Allegro ma non troppo Adagio ma non troppo Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo Aubree Oliverson, Violin Intermission Harmonielehre (1985) I. First Movement II: The Anfortas Wound III: Meister Eckhardt and Quackie john adams (b. 1947)

2 About the Music wolfgang amadeus mozart ( ) Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) Mozart s three great Italian comic operas to librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte are quite different from one another, but they all share the composer s extraordinary dramatic insight into human emotion and human weakness. It is an understanding that allows him to create fully rounded human beings of characters that in other hands might only be cardboard stereotypes, and to reveal their hurts and their humanity even in scenes that make us laugh at their foibles or sympathize with their sorrows. He began the first of his da Ponte operas, The Marriage of Figaro, around October 1785 and completed it on April 29, The first performance took place in the Burgtheater in Vienna on May 1, The Marriage of Figaro daringly drew its libretto from a French comedy that had been banned from Vienna for political reasons. Beaumarchais s Le Mariage de Figaro, produced in Paris in 1784, had shown a wise cracking servant who managed to foil his master s nefarious design on the servant s bride to be. In outline, it was not greatly different from any number of stylish comedies of the day, but Beaumarchais s characters were far more politically outspoken and the implications of the drama discomfited aristocrats and crowned heads especially since only the year before England had lost a war to rebellious colonists on the other side of the ocean, ushering in a generation in which kings sat uneasily on their thrones. Mozart took Lorenzo da Ponte s adaptation of Beaumarchais s comedy and converted it into one of the great human stories of the musical theater. The characters live in their music as few characters in any opera. They experience a crazy day (to translate the subtitle given the opera in Vienna) in which true love triumphs over lechery, but not without ambiguity or ambivalence, and not before we have laughed at delightful scenes of comic invention and sympathized with near heartbreak. The overture, which was written just two days before the premiere, does not quote any material from the opera at all, but its brilliance and non stop hustle set the emotional tempo for the crazy day to follow. Steven Ledbetter

3 About the Music antonín dvořák ( ) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 53 (1879; rev and 1882) by Lucy Wang, violinist in the Bachelor of Music program of the Colburn Conservatory of Music. Antonín Dvořák s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 53 was written for the famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who had premiered Johannes Brahms s Violin Concerto on New Year s Day in Around that time, Joachim suggested that Dvořák also write a concerto, which the composer embarked upon in early 1879, sending the finished score to Joachim later that year. The two met in April 1880 and their meeting resulted in a completely revised score. In a note to his publisher in May, Dvořák explained the progress of the concerto: According to Mr. Joachim s wish I revised the whole Concerto and did not leave a single bar untouched. He will certainly be pleased by that. The whole work will now receive a new face. I kept the themes and added a few new ones, but the whole conception of the work is different. Harmony, orchestration, rhythm all the development is new. I shall finish it as soon as possible and send it to Mr. Joachim immediately. As promised, Dvořák promptly sent the essentially new concerto to Joachim, but this time the violinist took two years to respond. In August 1882, Joachim wrote to the composer: Recently I made use of some spare time I had to revise the violin part of your Concerto While making this revision I was pleased by the many true beauties of your work, which will be a pleasure for me to perform. Saying this with the utmost sincerity, I may without the danger of being misunderstood confess that I still do not think the Violin Concerto in its present shape to be ripe for the public, especially because of its orchestral accompaniment, which is still rather heavy. I should prefer you to find this out by yourself by playing the work with me. Though Dvořák incorporated most of Joachim s edits into the final version, the collaboration did not truly come to fruition, as Joachim never performed the work in public. The concerto was premiered in 1883 by František Ondříček in Prague, with the composer conducting.

4 The finished concerto is very much reminiscent of Dvořák s Czech roots, particularly in its finale. The music reflects a folk-like flavor in its melodies and rhythms; the charming, often nostalgic feeling dominates the music and immediately captivates the listener. Dvořák set the three-movement concerto in a format similar to the Violin Concerto of Max Bruch the first two movements played without pause, followed by a robust third movement. Written in 1866, Bruch s Violin Concerto in G Minor was also composed for Joachim. The Allegro first movement opens with a brief, declarative introduction from the orchestra, after which the solo violin enters with a solemn main theme, quickly transitioning into a cadential passage that demands razor-sharp virtuosity. After an orchestral break, the solo violin returns with a modified version of the theme, the development of which forms the structural backbone of the movement. From that moment on, the soloist virtually never stops playing until the end of the Allegro, a feat requiring great stamina. The entrance of the second theme is signaled by four consecutive Gs from the solo violin, which melts into a tender, caressing melody. This serves as a brief respite from the activity of rest of the movement, which is spirited and full of technically demanding writing for the violin. The end of the movement sees the return of the opening cadential passage, this time in a duet with horn; the duet leads into the beautiful Quasi moderato section, creating a seamless transition into the second movement. The lyrical Adagio emerges with a noble, arching melody which conjures up tender thoughts and the warmth of a lullaby within its opening bars, as Dvořák crafts an exquisite vehicle for the performer to tell a story through the remarkably expressive yet unaffected simplicity of the melody. The Adagio features many quick ornamented runs and arpeggiated figures for the violin while the music ebbs and flows within an outpouring of warmth and incredible intimacy. Dvořák pairs two traditional Czech dances, the furiant and the dumka, for the joyous finale. This is a pairing he has used in other compositions, notably Dumka and Furiant, Op. 12, for piano, and the Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81. The furiant is a quick, playful dance in ¾ time with pairs of accents, the attractive and catchy tune creating a sense of contagious enthusiasm. This is in stark contrast with the dumka which follows, a melancholy dance in duple time. Dvořák soon picks up the momentum as the furiant triumphantly returns after a passage featuring many consecutive double-stops in the solo violin part. The concerto concludes with a jubilant coda full of vibrant flair and dazzling virtuosity.

5 john adams (b. 1947) Harmonielehre (1985) by Gregory LaRosa, percussionist in the Master of Music program of the Colburn Conservatory of Music. When asked about his inspiration for Harmonielehre, composer John Adams described the incredibly vivid dream which ignited it all: I was driving across the Bay Bridge, and looking out saw a huge tanker in the bay. It was an image of immense power and gravity and mass. And while I was observing the tanker, it suddenly took off like a rocket ship with an enormous force of levitation. As it rose out of the water, I could see a beautiful brownish-orange oxide on the bottom part of its Photo: Vern Evans hull. When I woke up the next morning the piece was off like an explosion. Overnight, Adams s month-long battle with writer s block vanished, and Harmonielehre was soon delivered to San Francisco Symphony conductor Edo de Waart. John Adams spent the decade leading up to Harmonielehre s 1985 premiere in search of an authentic voice. In 1972, he joined the San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty as the director of the school s new music ensemble. In 1978, Adams s career expanded beyond the educational institution when he became the new music advisor to the San Francisco Symphony, and from served as the orchestra s composer-in-residence. During this time, Adams s stylistic development took to the air. With de Waart at the helm, Harmonielehre s premiere on March 21, 1985 unveiled a voice that is perhaps as iconic in American classical music as Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, and landed Adams on the international stage. Translating as the doctrine of harmony, the prosaic term Harmonielehre has been used to title music theory treatises for centuries, including the 20th-century Harmonielehre of Arnold Schoenberg. Although outwardly critical of Schoenberg and his legacy, Adams resolved to create his own version as a nod to the past and a musical presentation of late-20th-century harmony. Unlike his predecessors treatises, Adams s Harmonielehre is not an attempt to

6 codify harmony, but rather serves as playground for exploring harmony s musical, natural, and emotional implications. Motivated by a desire to move past the mid-twentieth-century trend of cerebral art, Adams approached Harmonielehre from a more outwardly emotional and expressive place. Drawing inspiration from popular music, the piece leads contemporary music back to its more colloquial roots. The work finds its home in channeling the spontaneity and energy of pop music, with the raw passion and idealism of Romantic composers like Sibelius and Mahler. Using the pliable medium of minimalism as the canvas, Harmonielehre is a three-movement amalgamation of the Romantic musical spirit cast in a new language. Harmonielehre s explosive opening is marked by piercing pillars of sound. The relentless minimalism of the strings runs like a motor even after the strident opening fades, leaving the woodwinds, harps, piano, and muted trumpets to peck at the purring texture. Even at its lyrical romantic core, the movement still retains its shining murmur. As the persistent minimalist drone slowly evaporates, floating solos emerge from the winds and strings. Yearning melodies are exposed as they are passed throughout the orchestra, transforming the music s emotional temperament. The influence of late Romanticism becomes clear as the movement reaches new emotional heights, until finally, at its melodic apex, the minimalist murmur returns. The movement comes to a stormy close as the fanfare renters, this time more menacing than before. Part II, The Anfortas Wound, plunges into the physical and metaphysical emotions of sickness. Adams draws inspiration from Carl Jung s study of the fabled Anfortas, a king who suffers from permanently malignant wounds. The movement s frail tone is set by a muted cello section, the tune slowly spiraling around the confines of a slow and plodding pulsation. Over this hovers a nostalgic and lamenting trumpet solo, a solemn depiction of living misery. After enraging to two exasperated peaks, the music ultimately crumbles in pure exhaustion and abandonment. The final movement, Meister Eckhardt and Quackie, rises from the ashes of Part II s torment, with a gentle lullaby whose swaying buoyancy immediately restores a sense of optimism. Part III depicts the collision of the two unlikely title characters, Meister Eckhardt, a 13th-century

7 theologian who impugned the air of mystery embedded in Medieval Catholic Church, playfully juxtaposed with Quackie, the nickname Adams used for his infant daughter. Directly from the movement s innocent and heavenly opening, these seemingly disjunct images slide into place as Adams contrasts sweeping Romantic violin lines with the grounding contrabass and tuba. After a short while, the consistent murmur from the first movement returns, energizing the music with short repeating string figures. The work s closing portrays the two characters orbit in oscillating harmonies, pulsing in the piano and percussion s powerful surges. Much like the work s opening, the final moments of Harmonielehre were also inspired by a dream. In the composer s own words, Quackie, who is still too young to walk, rides upon Meister Eckhardt s shoulder as they glide among the heavenly bodies. Quackie whispers the secret of grace into Meister Eckhardt s ear. Arising from this whisper, swelling waves lead Harmonielehre to its triumphant conclusion.