CONCERT PROGRAMME 2017/18 SEASON

Transcription

1 CONCERT PROGRAMME 2017/18 SEASON

2 The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) gave its inaugural performance at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) on 17th August The MPO today comprises musicians from 24 countries, including 6 from Malaysia, a remarkable example of harmony among different cultures and nationalities. A host of internationally-acclaimed musicians has worked with the MPO, including Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell, Harry Connick Jr., José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli and Branford Marsalis, many of whom have praised the MPO for its fine musical qualities and vitality. With each new season, the MPO continues to present a varied programme of orchestral music drawn from over three centuries, as well as the crowd-pleasing concert series. Its versatility transcends genres, from classical masterpieces to film music, pop, jazz, contemporary and commissioned works. The MPO regularly performs at major cities of Malaysia. Internationally, it has showcased its virtuosity to audiences in Singapore (1999, 2001 and 2005), Korea (2001), Australia (2004), China (2006), Taiwan (2007), Japan (2001, 2009 and 2017) and Vietnam (2013). Its Education and Outreach Programme, ENCOUNTER, reaches beyond the concert platform to develop musical awareness, appreciation and skills through dedicated activities that include instrumental lessons, workshops and school concerts. ENCOUNTER also presents memorable events in such diverse venues as orphanages, hospitals, rehabilitation centres and community centres. MAHLER BARBER WAGNER Sat 19 May 2018 at 8.30 pm Sun 20 May 2018 at 3.00 pm Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Roberto Abbado, conductor Lauren Snouffer, soprano PROGRAMME Symphony No. 4 in G major 54 mins INTERVAL 20 mins Knoxville: Summer of mins Overture to Tannhäuser 14 mins The MPO s commitment to furthering musical interest in the nation led to the creation of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO). It gave its inaugural concert at DFP on 25 August 2007, followed by a tour in Peninsular Malaysia. It has performed in Sabah and Sarawak (2008), Singapore (2009) and Brisbane, Australia (2012). As it celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2018, the MPO remains steadfast in its mission to share the depth, power and beauty of great music. The MPO s main benefactor is PETRONAS and its patron is Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji Mohd Ali. All details are correct at time of printing. Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS reserves the right to vary without notice the artists and/or repertoire as necessary. Copyright 2018 by Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (Co. No X). All rights reserved. No part of this programme may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners.

3 ROBERTO ABBADO conductor Roberto Abbado, awarded the prestigious Premio Abbiati by the Italian Music Critics Association, is Musical Director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia and, from 2018, of Parma s Festival Verdi. He studied conducting under Franco Ferrara at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Musical Director of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester from 1991 to 1998, Abbado has worked with many ensembles including the Concertgebouworkest, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester, NDR Sinfonieorchester, Orchestra di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, MDR Leipzig, the Symphonic Orchestras of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and Minnesota as well as the New World Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid. Abbado has conducted numerous world premieres and new opera productions including Fedora and Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera House; I Vespri Siciliani at the Wiener Staatsoper; La Gioconda, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Donna del Lago, and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi s Teneke at La Scala; L Amour des Trois Orange, Aida and La Traviata at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, Henze s Phaedra (at its Italian premiere) and Anna Bolena at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Simon Boccanegra and La Clemenza di Tito at the Teatro Regio of Turin; La Donna del Lago at the Opéra Garnier; Ermione, Zelmira and Mosè in Egitto at the Rossini Opera Festival; Der Vampyr at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. In recent seasons, he has conducted Rigoletto at the MET; A Midsummer Night s Dream, I Vespri Siciliani and Tancredi in Valencia; Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea Chénier and I Masnadieri in Rome; Norma in Madrid; La Traviata at the Shanghai Opera House; Le Siège De Corinthe at Rossini Opera Festival; Lucia Di Lammermoor at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, and Don Pasquale in Bilbao. LAUREN SNOUFFER soprano Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world class performances spanning the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Johann Adolph Hasse through to György Ligeti and George Benjamin, American Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage. Opera performances of the current season fortify the soprano s position as one of the eminent interpreters of contemporary music. Snouffer assays the title role of Berg s Lulu in a new production at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago conducted by Juan Pablo Izquierdo and directed by Mariame Clément and she reprises her acclaimed portrayal of Agnès in George Benjamin s Written on Skin for Opera Philadelphia s new production. Furthermore, she creates principal soprano roles in the world premiere of Houston Grand Opera s The House Without A Christmas Tree written by Ricky Ian Gordon in a new production by James Robinson, and in Andrew Norman s A Trip to the Moon presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and directed by Yuval Sharon. Equally celebrated in roles of the traditional opera canon, Snouffer returns to the stage of the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a new production of Orphée et Eurydice directed and choreographed by John Neumeier under the baton of Harry Bicket and Mozart heroines include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Stefano Montanari conducting the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with Krzysztof Urbański and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Additional concert performances include Mozart s Requiem with The Cleveland Orchestra. An impactful discography includes Hasse s Siroe and Handel s Ottone with George Petrou for Decca, Gottschalk s Requiem for the Living with Vladimir Lande on Novona Records, Grantham s La cancíon desesperada conducted by Craig Hella Johnson on Harmonia Mundi, and Feldman s The Rothko Chapel with Steven Schick for ECM. Among his most popular recordings are I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Tancredi, Don Pasquale, Turandot, Verismo Arias, L Amour and Arias for Rubini with Juan Diego Flórez (Decca); Bel Canto, Revive (both with Elina Garanča for Deutsche Grammophon), the DVDs of Fedora, Ermione, Zelmira, Mosè in Egitto and of the traditional New Year s Concert at La Fenice in Venice.

4 PROGRAMME NOTES Visions of heaven, heaven on earth, and earthly delights all come together in this imaginatively themed programme. Mahler s Fourth is generally regarded as his most approachable symphony, one imbued with gentle radiance and childlike charm culminating in a child s view of heaven in its finale. Samuel Barber s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 also exudes the spirit of a child s world, this time in the sunset glow of evening in a small American city. In Wagner s opera Tannhäuser, the delights are of a more sensual nature. GUSTAV MAHLER ( ) Symphony No. 4 in G major ( ) I. Bedächtig. Nicht eilen - Recht gemächlich [Deliberate. Not hurried - Quite genial] II. In gemächlicher Bewegung [With leisurely motion] III. Ruhevoll (poco adagio) [Serene] IV. Sehr behaglich [Very leisurely] The Background The Fourth is a special symphony in the Mahler canon for its general air of childlike charm and gentle radiance, the absence of spiritual turmoil, its transparent textures, modest orchestral forces (trombones and tuba are absent; horns are just four in number, percussion is used discreetly), relative brevity (under an hour), and use of a song as the concluding movement. The Symphony s first three movements were written in the summers of 1899 and A song Mahler had written in 1892 for soprano and piano was orchestrated and became the symphony s finale, the subject of which (a child s view of heaven) is the goal to which the previous movements all aspire. Mahler himself led the Kaim Orchestra of Munich in the first performance of the Fourth Symphony on 25 November The Music wikimedia.org Only a split second is needed to identify the composition that opens with flutes playing even, repeated notes a fifth apart accompanied by jangling sleigh bells; nothing else sounds remotely like it. The good-natured, gemütlich first theme slides in with sunny radiance in the fourth bar. The first theme alone contains three separate elements (the smiling violin tune, a rising bass line, a few chuckles from the horn). A brief, jaunty, martial tune in the clarinets leads immediately into the yearning melody sung by cellos. The second movement (Scherzo) portrays a dance of death of Freund Hein, a popular character in German fairytales. His instrument is a country fiddle tuned a tone higher than normal in order to produce an unearthly, harsh sound. The music is sinister, to be sure, but at the same time it also retains a sense of humour. The otherworldly serenity and ineffable beauty of the third movement bring us to the threshold of the heavenly life that awaits us in the finale. The fourth movement is relatively short but it perfectly and exquisitely fulfills its mission of depicting a child s view of heaven as a place of serene delight, simple joys and quiet mystery. Interspersed between the verses are brief reminders of earthly life (the symphony s opening flutes and bells motif is now transformed into a harshly aggressive figure) but each time the text returns us to comforting celestial visions. The final moments bring us to the realization that this music does not really end but rather fades into the quietude of heavenly peace. SAMUEL BARBER ( ) Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (1947) The Background In 1947, Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony, asked American composer Samuel Barber for a symphonic vocal work, to which Barber responded with Knoxville: Summer of Shortly thereafter, Eleanor Steber, the famous American soprano, commissioned Barber to write a work that she could use to help promote her career. As Barbara Heyman informs us in her monograph on Barber, this was concertwith.me a historical precedent, for up to that time, no American singer had ever commissioned an orchestral work for voice, and the idea of promoting a singer s career through performance of American music was unusual during the 1940s. Barber fulfilled both Koussevitzky s and Steber s requests with this one work. In Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Barber set a lyrical prose passage by James Agee, American novelist, poet and film scriptwriter (including The African Queen). The nostalgic text depicts a quiet summer evening in the yard of a family in Knoxville, Tennessee (Agee s home town) early in the century, as perceived through the eyes of a child. This passage would later be affixed as a prologue to Agee s posthumously published autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family. The Music Barber called Knoxville: Summer of 1915 a lyric rhapsody. It is written in a free, declamatory style and infused with exquisite lyricism throughout. There are instances of word painting (the various noises of the trolley car) and the alliterative text finds its counterpart in the music. Though continuous, the work divides into several sections. The gentle rocking of the opening conjures up a nostalgic, dreamlike world. Suddenly the peace of the evening is disturbed by the clang of an approaching streetcar (Allegro agitato). Eventually the words Now is the

5 night one blue dew return us to the quiet intimacy of childlike enchantment. The lingering glow of twilight and emerging stars begin to work their magic, inspiring blessings on family members and contemplation of the meaning of existence. The child is put to bed, its last thoughts before slumber accompanied by the caressing music that opened the work. RICHARD WAGNER ( ) Overture to Tannhäuser (1845) The Background Tannhäuser, premiered in Dresden in 1845, was the second of the operas we regard today as the ten mature stage works of Richard Wagner, which began with Der fliegende Holländer in 1842 and ended four decades later with Parsifal in For his story of a knight caught up in the dichotomy of goodness and sin, Christian spirituality and pagan sensuality, sacred and profane love, Wagner turned, as usual, to medieval sources. In fact, Tannhäuser may be the most medieval of all Wagner s operas, based as it is on fictional accounts of a Franconian knight born in or about the year wikimedia.org The Music The Overture draws its musical substance entirely from the opera it precedes, thus serving as a self-contained synthesis of the drama. It opens with the opera s bestknown melody, that of the Pilgrims Chorus. A second theme associated with the pilgrims, penitence, is taken up in the sombre colours of violas and cellos. With almost cinematic effect, Wagner creates aurally the impression of a band of pilgrims slowly coming into view, then receding again into the distance. A sudden dissolve, and a new scene is before us: the Venusberg, an imaginary mountain in which lives Venus, goddess of love, surrounded by her world of splendour and revelry, and a life of total hedonism. Here also is Tannhäuser, who sings his paean of praise to Venus (robust violins, supported by the full orchestra). When she responds, the musical texture is trimmed down to a diaphanous, transparent delicacy, with the solo clarinet representing the goddess' seductive call. The Overture ends, as does the entire opera, with a grandiose statement of the Pilgrims Chorus.

6 DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA RESIDENT CONDUCTOR Naohisa Furusawa FIRST VIOLIN Co-Concertmaster Peter Daniš Ming Goh Zhenzhen Liang Runa Baagöe Maho Daniš Miroslav Daniš Evgeny Kaplan Martijn Noomen Sherwin Thia Marcel Andriesii Tan Ka Ming Petia Atanasova *Marco Roosink *Mariya Medvedeva *Aura-Lorena Manescu *Andreas Feldmann *Branislava Tatic SECOND VIOLIN Timothy Peters *Barbora Kolářová Assistant Luisa Hyams Catalina Alvarez Chia-Nan Hung Anastasia Kiseleva Stefan Kocsis Ling Yunzhi Ionuț Mazareanu Yanbo Zhao Ai Jin Robert Kopelman *Egle Urbonaviciute *Marius Bîclea *Yu Tao-Ming VIOLA Gábor Mokány Ong Lin Kern Sun Yuan Thian Ai Wen Fan Ran Emil Csonka *Judit Nemesi *Hsiao Chia-Chien *Jebat Arjuna Kee *Javier Lopez Calvo *Yeo Jan Wea *Christoven Gerard Tan CELLO Csaba Körös Assistant Steven Retallick Mátyás Major Gerald Davis Julie Dessureault Laurențiu Gherman Elizabeth Tan Suyin Sejla Simon *Zoltan Onczay *Sandor Stampf DOUBLE BASS Wolfgang Steike Raffael Bietenhader Jun-Hee Chae Naohisa Furusawa John Kennedy Andreas Dehner *Heinz-Peter Graf *Bence Botár FLUTE *Joshua Batty Yukako Yamamoto Rachel Jenkyns Note: Sectional string players are rotated within their sections. *Extra musician. PICCOLO Sonia Croucher OBOE Simon Emes *Bernice Lee Wen Ting Niels Dittmann CLARINET Gonzalo Esteban David Dias da Silva Matthew Larsen BASS CLARINET Chris Bosco BASSOON Alexandar Lenkov *Liu Chang Denis Plangger CONTRABASSOON Vladimir Stoyanov HORN s Grzegorz Curyla *Albert Galka James Schumacher s Laurence Davies Barkin Sönmezer Assistant Sim Chee Ghee TRUMPET *Matthew Baker William Theis Jeffrey Missal Assistant *Matthew Dempsey TROMBONE Fernando Borja Marques Young BASS TROMBONE *Gabriel Roberson TUBA *Hidehiro Fujita TIMPANI Matthew Thomas PERCUSSION Matthew Prendergast s Joshua Vonderheide *Kyle Ritenauer *Tan Su Yin HARP Tan Keng Hong CORPORATE SUITE PREMIUM MEMBERS CORPORATE SUITE CLUB MEMBERS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Nor Raina Yeong Abdullah BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Wan Yuzaini Wan Yahya At Ziafrizani Chek Pa Nurartikah Ilyas Kartini Ratna Sari Ahmat Adam Aishah Sarah Ismail Affendee MARKETING Yazmin Lim Abdullah Hisham Abdul Jalil Munshi Ariff Abu Hassan Farah Diyana Ismail Noor Sarul Intan Salim Muhammad Shahrir Aizat Ahmad Kusolehin Adha Kamaruddin CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Yayuk Yulianawati Rila Jalwati Mohd Noor MUSIC TALENT DEVELOPMENT & MANAGEMENT Soraya Mansor PLANNING, FINANCE & IT Mohd Hakimi Mohd Rosli Norhisham Abd Rahman Siti Nur Ilyani Ahmad Fadzillah Nurfharah Farhana Hashimi PROCUREMENT & CONTRACT Logiswary Raman Norhaszilawati Zainudin HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION Sharhida Saad Muknoazlida Mukhadzim Nor Afidah Nordin Nik Nurul Nadia Nik Abdullah TECHNICAL OPERATIONS Firoz Khan Mohd Zamir Mohd Isa Shahrul Rizal Mohd Ali Dayan Erwan Maharal Zolkarnain Sarman MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Nor Raina Yeong Abdullah GENERAL MANAGER Khor Chin Yang Soraya Mansor GENERAL MANAGER'S OFFICE Timmy Ong ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION/ ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT/ MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA Ahmad Muriz Che Rose Sharon Francis Lihan Fadilah Kamal Francis Shireen Jasin Mokhtar Katherine Tan Jia Yiing MUSIC LIBRARY Ong Li-Huey Wong Seong Seong Muhamad Zaid Azzim Mohd Diah EDUCATION & OUTREACH Shafrin Sabri Shireen Jasin Mokhtar DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS X MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA H

7 Box Office: Ground Floor, Tower 2, PETRONAS Twin Towers Kuala Lumpur City Centre Kuala Lumpur Telephone: Online Tickets & Info: mpo.com.my malaysianphilharmonicorchestra DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS X MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA H