CONCERT PROGRAM DVOŘÁK & BEETHOVEN

Transcription

1 CONCERT PROGRAM DVOŘÁK & BEETHOVEN Wednesday, February 21, :00pm Thursday, February 22, :00pm Gustavo Gimeno conductor Johannes Moser cello In gratitude for their generous philanthropy, Blake and Belinda Goldring are recognized as Patrons of Johannes Moser s appearance with the TSO. Antonín Dvořák Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104 I. Allegro II. Adagio ma non troppo III. Finale: Allegro moderato Intermission György Ligeti Concert Românesc (Romanian Concerto) I. Andantino II. Allegro vivace III. Adagio ma non troppo IV. Molto vivace Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 I. Adagio Allegro vivace II. Adagio III. Allegro vivace IV. Allegro ma non troppo 36

2 THE DETAILS Antonín Dvořák Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op Born: Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Bohemia, Sep 8, 1841 Died: Prague, Bohemia, May 1, 1904 Composed: As a solo instrument [the cello] isn t much good. Its middle register is fine that s true but the upper voice squeaks and the lower growls. The finest solo instrument, after all, is and will remain the violin. I have also written a cello concerto, but am sorry to this day I did so, and I never intend to write another. So said Dvořák late in life surprising sentiments, for his cello concerto ranks among his greatest and most popular works. He began writing it late in 1894 worn down, he said, by the pestering of his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan, and recently inspired by Victor Herbert s cello concerto. Dvořák had hoped his friend Hanuš Wihan would play the solo part for the 1896 première of his Cello Concerto, but Wihan was unavailable, so English cellist Leo Stern ( ) stepped in. A notable performer in his own right (he was also selected by Queen Victoria to be Prince Henry of Battenberg s cello tutor), Stern travelled to Prague to study the work with Dvořák. His interpretation must have greatly satisfied the composer, for Stern went on to perform the concerto in Prague, Leipzig, and Berlin, at Dvořák s request. He also performed it on tour in North America in 1897 and Leo Stern, by Sophie Stern, 1895 He completed the work in February 1895, in New York, but in June, back in Bohemia, he made revisions, including a deeply poetic new ending that he likened to a sigh. (It was motivated by the recent death of his beloved sister-in-law, to whom he also paid tribute in the impassioned middle section of the Adagio.) Dvořák conducted the première, performed by the London Philharmonic Society with cellist Leo Stern, in London, on March 19, Although the soloist is backed by a large orchestra, Dvořák sidesteps problems of balance with great imagination; he explores an impressive range of textures and tone colours, yet the scoring often has the subtlety and transparency of chamber music. The work has the drama, rhetoric, and interplay of forces of a true concerto, even if, by contemporary standards, there is little dazzle (and no cadenza) in the solo part: Dvořák treats the cello more as a singer than as a virtuoso, only most obviously in the gorgeous outpouring of song in the Adagio. Picturesque and emotionally direct, the concerto alludes throughout to folk music, whether the mood is pastoral or driven. Still, this is a work of symphonic ambition, in which Dvořák handles Classical forms with confidence, ingenuity, and flexibility. Each movement is rich in themes yet evolves organically, as Dvořák indulges his gift for thematic variation and development: like Brahms, his hero and champion, he was scarcely capable of repeating an idea without showing it in some surprising and profound new light. Program note by Kevin Bazzana 37

3 THE DETAILS György Ligeti Concert Românesc (Romanian Concerto) 12 Born: Diciosânmartin, now Tîrnăveni, Transylvania, May 28, 1923 Died: Vienna, Austria, Jun 12, 2006 Composed: 1952 György Ligeti escaped from the restrictive atmosphere of post-revolutionary Hungary and found creative freedom in the west. He composed a host of fascinating, sometimes bizarre works influenced by everything from the latest avant-garde techniques, to traditional ideas of form and melody, to non-european musical cultures. At times, his final-period music showed traces of glimmer and poetry almost like the style of French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Until film director Stanley Kubrick included three Ligeti compositions (Atmosphères, Requiem, Lux aeterna) on the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the composer s name was known only in new-music circles. Kubrick used Ligeti s music without complete copyright clearance. Ligeti sued him successfully, but settled for Kubrick paying him for using other compositions in two later films: The Shining (1980) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). ROMANIAN FOLK REFERENCES In his Romanian Concerto, Ligeti makes several clear references to Romanian folk music and culture. For example, the opening melody of the first movement is of the Mioriţa ballad, also a colinda (or carol), one of the most representative in Romanian folk literature and music. In the third movement, the pastoral soundworld of the bucium, the Romanian alphorn, is evoked by the four horns of the orchestra. Anyone made apprehensive by seeing Ligeti s name on this program and fearing exposure to one of his more radical works need have no fear. This piece dates from early in his career, and it closely resembles the appealing, folk-flavoured music of such traditionalist fellow Hungarians as Zoltán Kodály. In 1949, when I was 26, Ligeti wrote, I learned how to transcribe the folk songs from wax cylinders at the Folklore Institute in Bucharest (Romania). Many of these melodies stuck in my memory and led in 1951 to the composition of my Romanian Concerto. However, not everything in it is genuinely Romanian as I also invented elements in the spirit of the village bands. Government officials then deemed it too modern, so it was not performed. The score was lost until the 1960s, when it was reconstructed from the orchestral parts and performed for the first time, in Evanston, Illinois. Ligeti s publisher purchased the music and the composer polished it up to his satisfaction. He retained his affection for it. It was my last compromise, he said, but quite surprising good and bad at the same time! It opens with a slow, expressive, and beautiful slow movement. A vivacious and humorous movement follows. Ligeti segues directly into another slow movement, which he bejewelled with quiet, lovely solos for wind instruments. After a restrained introduction, the finale bursts into an exuberant folk dance. Program note by Don Anderson 38

4 Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op Baptized: Bonn, now in Germany, Dec 17, 1770 Died: Vienna, Austria, Mar 26, 1827 Composed: 1806 Beethoven s output in 1806 was astonishing: he completed (among other things) the Fourth Symphony, the Piano Concerto No. 4, the Violin Concerto, and the three string quartets of Op. 59 innovative masterpieces all. The symphony, which had its première in March 1807, at the palace of one of Beethoven s aristocratic patrons, might seem, at first, like a retreat into the safe, familiar terrain of the late-18th-century symphony, but in fact, Beethoven s middle-period musical priorities are much in evidence here. This is Haydn seen through the prism of the Eroica Symphony. Each movement, while superficially adhering to Classical conventions of form and expression, is disrupted, disturbed, and deepened in unexpected, sometimes shocking ways. Beethoven dedicated his Fourth Symphony to the Silesian nobleman Count Franz von Oppersdorf ( ). The Count (whose portrait is shown at the left) first met the composer in the summer of 1806, while Beethoven was spending time in Silesia at the country home of his patron, Prince Lichnowsky, near whom the Count also lived. Oppersdorf, who maintained a private orchestra on his estate, had heard Beethoven s Second Symphony and admired it so much he offered the composer a substantial sum to write a new symphony, which became the Fourth. He later commissioned Beethoven s Fifth Symphony in C or. The listener is jolted right at the start, by a suspenseful, slow introduction full of strange harmonies, stark chords, and slowly tiptoeing strings and woodwinds. Nothing about this introduction is conventional, and apparently it is all a joke: after a few utes, Beethoven suddenly shoves the music (that is the best way to put it) into the main key, B-flat major, and with the full orchestra ablaze dispels the gloom by launching into a boisterous Allegro vivace. The transition is brief but remarkable; the Allegro vivace is hurled out of the Adagio, like a huge top pumped up and sent spinning. And Beethoven maintains the thrilling rhythmic momentum thus created through the whole first movement. The second movement, unusually slow, is not merely lyrical and tranquil; Beethoven taps some very dark emotions listen for various outbursts of militaristic clangour, and a fiercely dissonant, operatic episode in the middle of the movement. The label Menuetto at the head of the third movement bows to 18thcentury convention, but is misleading: this is a true Beethovenian scherzo. However, it is in five parts, with the scherzo-trio pair repeated an extra time, transforg the usual ABA form into a longer ABABA. The finale is not so much playful as manic. The high spirits are disrupted by noisy, dissonant explosions, and the long coda surges and subsides, drives and droops, as though reluctant to come to an end; when it does, finally, all ambiguities are swept away by a short, hearty guffaw. Program note by Kevin Bazzana 39

5 THE ARTISTS Gustavo Gimeno conductor These performances mark Gustavo Gimeno s TSO début. Gustavo Gimeno has been Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (OPL) since He conducts the OPL in various concert formats and plans to expand the orchestra s touring activities as well as its discography. In great demand worldwide as a guest conductor, in 2017/18, Gustavo Gimeno has been invited back to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Orchestre National de France, Wiener Symphoniker, and Philharmonia Zurich, and makes his débuts with the Mariinsky Orchestra, Houston Symphony, WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2017, the label Pentatone, the OPL, and Gustavo Gimeno announced a multiple-release collaboration. Recordings of the first symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich and Anton Bruckner, and, most recently, Maurice Ravel s complete Daphnis et Chloé have been released thus far. Born in Valencia, Gustavo Gimeno began his international conducting career in 2012, when he was a member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, as assistant to Mariss Jansons. Johannes Moser cello Johannes Moser made his TSO début in May Hailed by Gramophone magazine as one of the finest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists, German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser has performed with the world s leading orchestras. He recently won his third Echo Klassik award as Instrumentalist of the Year 2017 for his Russian Recital disc on the label Pentatone, for whom he records exclusively. His latest recordings include the concertos by Dvořák, Lalo, Elgar, and Tchaikovsky, which have gained him the prestigious Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Diapason d Or. He returned to the recording studio in late 2017 to record Lutosławski and Dutilleux concertos. Born into a musical family in 1979, Johannes began studying the cello at the age of eight and became a student of Professor David Geringas in He was the topprize winner at the 2002 Tchaikovsky Competition, in addition to being awarded the Special Prize for his interpretation of the Rococo Variations. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Brahms Prize. 40