SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA THE OPUS 2015 GALA CONCERT October 10, 2015 AN-LUN HUANG Saibei Dance from Saibei Suite No. 2, Op. 21 PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44 Allegro brillante e molto vivace Andante non troppo Allegro con fuoco Yuja Wang, piano NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34 Saibei Dance from Saibei Suite No. 2, Op. 21
AN-LUN HUANG Born 1949, Guangzhou, China Chinese-Canadian composer An-lun Huang grew up during the Cultural Revolution, a devastating moment in that nation s history. His mother and his father, who had studied music with Hindemith at Yale, were jailed, and he was forced out of the university and into the countryside, where he worked in factories and alongside peasants in rice fields. An-lun Huang was eventually allowed to resume his studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and at age 27 he became the assistant conductor of the Central Opera House in Beijing. Convinced that he needed to continue his training, he emigrated to Canada in 1980, studying first at the University of Toronto and later at Trinity College London and Yale. He is currently based in Ontario, Canada. An-lun Huang has been a prolific composer: his catalog of works lists 20 symphonies, 11 operas and numerous dance, vocal and film scores. He has taken as his mission the task of fusing traditional Chinese music with the techniques of Western classical music. In a recorded interview he has said I receive everything from both sides, and his music reflects his complex heritage and training. In the early 1970s, while the Cultural Revolution still dominated Chinese life, An-lun Huang composed two of what he called Saibei Suites for orchestra. Saibei is a region in China northeast of Beijing and partially in Inner Mongolia. In recent years, Saibei has become a popular resort area, famed for its skiing and its lakes, but in his Saibei Suites An-lun Huang takes us back to a much earlier Saibei. Despite the hardships brought on by the Cultural Revolution, the composer acknowledges that being forced to work as a laborer in the fields brought him into contact with peasant life in China, something he had never experienced, and the music of those peasants had a profound effect on him as a composer. The Saibei Dance from the Saibei Suite No. 2 (which has become one of An-lun Huang s most popular works) is based on themes he composed in the spirit of the harvest dances that he had come to know in that region. Only about four minutes long, this music dances with a furious energy throughout that brief span. Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44 PETER ILYCH TCHAIKOVSKY
Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk Died November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg Tchaikovsky s First Piano Concerto brought the young composer international triumph and emotional disaster. Triumph, because it quickly became one of his most popular works and carried his name around the world. But also pain, because it produced a serious rift between Tchaikovsky and one of his closest friends, the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky had played through that concerto with Rubinstein, among the finest pianists in the world, and sought his opinion. To his surprise, Rubinstein hated the concerto and destroyed it in front of its creator, calling it utterly worthless, absolutely unplayable bad, trivial, vulgar. Stung but furious, Tchaikovsky refused to change a note, and in performances by the German pianist Hans von Bülow that concerto achieved instant fame. In gratitude, Tchaikovsky dedicated the music to von Bülow. All this left relations between Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein a little tender, and to his credit Rubinstein admitted his error and became one of the champions of the First Piano Concerto, performing it often. Tchaikovsky wanted to mend fences from his side as well, and he decided to do this by writing a new concerto, specifically tailored to Rubinstein s fabulous abilities as a pianist. In the meantime, there had been serious upheavals in Tchaikovsky s personal life. In July 1877 he had made an ill-advised (and disastrous) marriage and in its aftermath had attempted suicide. Tchaikovsky pulled himself together but essentially dropped out of sight, leaving his teaching position in Moscow and spending his time at summer estates or on trips to Western Europe. He began work on the new concerto for Rubinstein in October 1879 at his family s summer estate in Kamenka in the Ukraine. Tchaikovsky resolved not to rush the composition but to take his time, and the concerto took shape slowly. He took the manuscript with him to Paris that December, where he wrote to his patron, Madame Nadezhda von Meck: I am much pleased with it, especially the Andante. But he was not yet done, and he took the manuscript on with him to Rome for more work. Back in Russia, he completed it in March 1880. The Second Piano Concerto has never been as popular as the First, but it is an impressive work in its own way: much longer than the earlier concerto, it is intentionally difficult (and brilliant) for the soloist, and it offers appealing melodies and spectacular orchestral sounds. This is one of those works that deserves to get out from under the shadow of its famous predecessor and be heard more often. It gets off to an impressive start on the grand stride of the orchestra s
opening statement, with the pianist quickly picking this up as a huge chordal melody of his own. Tchaikovsky offers some quick interplay between soloist and orchestra before an expectant tremolo from the strings sets the stage for the second subject. This falls into two parts: solo clarinet and horn share what might be called an opening phrase, and the piano responds with the tune-like second half. Tchaikovsky then develops these over a huge span (this opening movement lasts more than 20 minutes), and along the way there are two separate cadenzas for the soloist. A powerful coda whips the movement to its close. The atmosphere changes completely at the Andante non troppo, which is for long periods simply chamber music. Piano alone announces the principal idea but is soon joined by solo violin and solo cello, making this movement essentially a concerto for piano trio. (Tchaikovsky surely had Beethoven s Triple Concerto in mind as he conceived this music!) The concluding Allegro con fuoco is a rondo-like structure based on two completely different ideas. The pianist introduces both of these, and off the music goes, alternating and varying these ideas as it proceeds. This is exciting music. Tchaikovsky gives the pianist a truly virtuoso part, and the themes are so appealing and the music so energetic that they sweep everything before them as the concerto thunders to its close. SOME NOTES: This concerto turned out to be very difficult indeed, and the Russian pianist Alexander Siloti (a student of Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky and Liszt) actually prepared a revised version of it, making it somewhat less impossible for the soloist. Pianists have in general gone back to Tchaikovsky s original, though Siloti s revision of the slow movement (largely a matter of clarifying the voicing) is usually the one performed today. Sadly, though the concerto was written for him, Rubinstein never played it he died suddenly in 1881, at age 46. And finally: it is a curious fact that the premiere of Tchaikovsky s First Piano Concerto took place in America, when von Bülow performed it in Boston in October 1875. It appears, however, that the premiere of the Second Concerto also took place in this country. The earliest known performance was on November 12, 1881, when Madeline Schiller was soloist with Theodore Thomas and the New York Philharmonic. Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34 NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Born March 16, 1844, Tikhvin
Died June 21, 1908, Lyubensk In 1886 Rimsky-Korsakov set to work on two companion-pieces, planned as fantasies for violin and orchestra on themes of two different nations. He got the first of them, a Fantasia on Two Russian Themes, done by the end of the year, and he went on to the next, a projected violin fantasy on Spanish themes. But as he worked, the music gradually changed form: Rimsky gave up the idea of a showpiece for violin and instead wrote a brilliant work for orchestra based on Spanish themes. The Capriccio espagnol, as it was called, was completed in August 1887, and the composer led the premiere in St. Petersburg on October 31 of that year. From that instant, this music has been a huge success, but Rimsky was uncomfortable with praise of his orchestration. For him, there was no distinction between the music and the orchestration, and he said: The opinion formed by both critics and the public, that the Capriccio is a magnificently orchestrated piece, is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant composition for the orchestra. The change of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs and figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc., constitute here the very essence of the composition and not its garb or orchestration. The Capriccio espagnol shows traces of Rimsky s original plan in its many passages for solo violin, but these are augmented in the completed version by a number of solos for other instruments: this music is a display piece for an orchestra of virtuoso instrumentalists. It falls into five brief sections of different character, all based on Spanish themes. The Capriccio opens with an Alborada marked Vivo e strepitoso ( lively and noisy ). An alborada (or aubade) is an old Spanish morning song, and Rimsky s is a real wake-up call, exploding to life in a great blaze of color; this section offers spirited solos for violin and clarinet. Next comes a variation-movement, based on the horn s noble opening melody; there follow five variations scored for various combinations of instruments. Rimsky then briefly revisits his opening Alborada, though now in a different key and with the violin and clarinet trading their solo parts from that first movement. The Scena e canto gitano ( Scene and Gypsy Song ) is the longest of the five movements. The Scena opens with a rolling snare drum, followed by a fanfare shared by trumpet and horn, and Rimsky offers solo passages to a variety of instruments, including violin, clarinet and oboe, before the music proceeds into the fierce beginning of Gypsy Song. That fiery
song is (appropriately) assigned to the violins, who speed directly into the concluding Fandango. This dances along, at first with dignity and then with wild abandon before Rimsky brings back a touch of the opening Alborada to conclude. Early listeners were amazed by this music. The Russian Symphony of St. Petersburg, which gave the premiere, was so enthusiastic that Rimsky dedicated it to them and wrote the names of all 67 players into the score. Tchaikovsky, then composing his Fifth Symphony, described the Capriccio as a colossal masterpiece of instrumentation and called Rimsky the greatest master of the present day. In 1889, two years after the premiere, Rimsky led Capriccio espagnol at concerts at the International Exhibition in Paris, where it dazzled Western audiences. Among the most astonished were two young Frenchmen the 27-year-old Debussy and the 14-year-old Ravel who both suddenly realized just how brilliant an orchestra might sound. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger