FREEDOM – OCTOBER 1, 2022 – 7:30 PM
Anne S. Richardson Auditorium at Ridgefield High School
LEONORE OVERTURE NO. 3 – Ludwig van Beethoven
Born: Beethoven’s baptismal certificate is dated December 17, 1770. Bonn, then a sovereign electorate.
Died: March 26, 1827. Vienna
World Premiere: March 29, 1806. Theater an der Wien
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings
Duration: About 14 mins
Program Notes: This is the story of Fidelio: A man called Florestan has been spirited away to prison by a right-wing politician named Don Pizarro. Florestan’s whereabouts are not known, and his wife, Leonore, sets out to find him. To make her quest possible, she assumes male disguise and takes the name of Fidelio. She finds her husband and gets a job as assistant to the jailer. Meanwhile, Pizarro gets word of an impending inspection of the prison by a minister from the capital. The presence of the unjustly held Florestan is compromising to Pizarro, who therefore decides to kill him. At the moment of crisis, Leonore reveals her identity and a trumpeter on the prison tower signals the sighting of the minister’s carriage. Leonore No. 3 tells this story. It traces the path from darkly troubled beginnings to an anticipation of the aria in which Florestan—chained, starved, deprived of light—recalls the happy springtime of his life; from there to music of fiery energy and action, interrupted by the trumpet signal (heard, as in the opera, from offstage); and finally to a symphony of victory. Leonore No. 3 is the distillation of the Fidelio idea. It is too strong a piece and too big, even too dramatic, to be an effective introduction for a stage action, something that Beethoven realized almost at once. It does, however, stand as one of the great emblems of the heroic Beethoven, a potent and controlled musical embodiment of a noble humanistic passion.
—Michael Steinberg (The San Francisco Symphony’s Program Annotator from 1979 to 1999)
VIOLIN CONCERTO IN E MINOR, OP. 64 – Felix Mendelssohn
Born: February 3, 1809. Hamburg, then under Napoleonic rule
Died: November 4, 1847. Leipzig, Saxony
Composed: Carrying out a plan that went back to 1838, Mendelssohn completed the Violin Concerto on September 16, 1844
World Premiere: March 13, 1845. Ferdinand David was soloist, with the Danish composer Niels Gade conducting, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Instrumentation: 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, with timpani and strings
Duration: About 27 mins
Program Notes: Ferdinand David was more than the first violinist to play the Mendelssohn Concerto; the work was intended for him from the beginning. David and Mendelssohn had been friends since 1825. When Mendelssohn founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843, one of the first faculty appointments he made was David. David was held in the highest regard as soloist, as a model concertmaster, as quartet leader, and teacher. In the history of Mendelssohn’s Concerto, David played a role parallel to that taken a generation later by Joseph Joachim with the Brahms. Mendelssohn’s Concerto is in fact the first in the distinguished series of violin concertos written by pianist-composers with the assistance of eminent violinists.
In his G minor and D minor piano concertos, Mendelssohn gives us just enough of an orchestral exordium to propel the soloist into action. In the Violin Concerto, he reduces the orchestra’s initial participation still further. There is only a backdrop for not as much as two seconds of E minor, given an appassionato character by the quietly pulsating drums and plucked basses. Across this, the violin sings a famous melody. The first extended passage for the orchestra is dramatically introduced by the boldly upward-thrusting octaves of the violin; it also gives way quickly to the next solo, a new melody, full of verve, and barely begun by the orchestra before the soloist makes it his own. As in most concertos between Beethoven and Brahms, the orchestra here is not so much partner or rival in dialectic discussion as provider of accompaniment, punctuation, scaffolding, and a bit of cheerleading. Nonetheless, we should not make the mistake of thinking that Mendelssohn’s attention to his orchestra is perfunctory. The workmanship, the sonorous fantasy, the delight in detail are all but Mozartian. The violin dazzles us with brilliant passage work, and that is what Mendelssohn really means us to pay attention to, but at almost any moment in which you choose to listen to what is going on “behind,” you will be rewarded by real activity, not just mechanical strumming. It is as though solo and tutti both managed to be foreground and background at the same time.
The theme that brings the first big change of character is deliciously scored. The violin has made a graceful landing on its lowest G after a descent of more than three octaves, and it is over that quiet, sustained, and solitary sound of the G that the clarinet (with another clarinet and a pair of flutes) introduces the new tune. The presentation is immediately reversed, with the violin playing the melody and the four winds accompanying. Either way, the combination of wind quartet with a single stringed instrument is wonderfully fresh.
The first movement cadenza is famous. In Classical practice, the cadenza occurs at the joint of recapitulation and coda. Mendelssohn uses it instead at the other crucial harmonic juncture, the recapitulation, the return to the home key after the peregrinations of the development. He prepares this homecoming subtly, allowing himself some delicate anticipations of what it will be like to be in E minor again, managing this maneuver as a gradual subsidence of wonderful breadth and serenity. On the doorstep of home, the orchestra stops and defers to the soloist.
A couple of years earlier, in his Scottish Symphony, Mendelssohn experimented with the idea of going from movement to movement without a break. Here he takes the plan a step further, not merely eliminating the pauses but actually constructing links. The Andante emerges mysteriously from the close of the first movement. This could be one of Mendelssohn’s songs (with or without words). It is a lovely and sweet melody of surprising extension, beautifully harmonized and scored. Listen to the effect, for example, of the woodwinds in the few measures in which they participate. The middle section brings an upsurge of passion and a return to the minor mode. Then the first melody returns, still more beautifully set than before, with the accompanying instruments unable to forget the emotional tremors of the movement’s central section.
Between the Andante and the finale Mendelssohn places another kind of bridge, a tiny and wistful intermezzo. Strings only accompany the violin, which sets off nicely the touch of fanfare that starts the finale. It is sparkling and busy music whose gait allows room for swinging, broad tunes, as well as for the dazzling sixteenth notes of the solo part. Here, too, Mendelssohn delights in the witty play of foreground and background, and so he steers the concerto to its close in a feast of high spirits and with a wonderful sense of “go.”
—Michael Steinberg (The San Francisco Symphony’s Program Annotator from 1979 to 1999)
Karen Gomyo, Violin
Born in Tokyo and beginning her musical career in Montréal and New York, violinist Karen Gomyo has recently made Berlin her home. A musician of the highest calibre, the Chicago Tribune praised her as “…a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity”.
Karen’s 2019/20 season featured European debuts with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Cristian Macelaru, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with Jonathan Nott, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern with Pietari Inkenen, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Gergely Madaras and Dresdner Philharmoniker with Roderick Cox, as well as returns to Bamberg Symphoniker and Polish National Radio Symphony, among others. Other recent European appearances include Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Radio France, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Danish National Symphony, and in March 2019 Karen opened the Dubai Proms with the BBC Symphony and Ben Gernon. Further ahead Karen makes her debut at the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Semyon Bychkov.
Already well established in North America Karen has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestras, and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, San Francisco, Dallas, Cincinnati, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, St. Louis, and Washington D.C. Further afield her popularity in Australasia continued over the last few seasons as she toured with New Zealand Symphony and also appeared with West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth, Tasmanian Symphony and in recital at the Sydney Opera House. This season sees Karen return to the Melbourne and Sydney symphony orchestras. In Asia she makes her debuts with the Singapore Symphony and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.
Strongly committed to contemporary works, Karen gave the North American premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s Concerto No. 2 Mar’eh in 2015 with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington under the baton of the composer. In May 2018 she performed the world premiere of Samuel Adams’ new Chamber Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen to great critical acclaim. The work was written specifically for Karen and commissioned by the CSO’s ‘Music Now’ series for their 20th anniversary.
A passionate chamber musician, Karen has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with guitarist Ismo Eskelinen which culminates in the release of a recording of works by Paganini and his baroque predecessors scheduled for November 2019 on BIS Records. Karen has also collaborated with Kathryn Stott, Leif Ove Andsnes, James Ehnes, Antoine Tamestit, Emmanuel Pahud, Lawrence Power, Christian Poltéra, Alisa Weilerstein, Tine Thing Helseth, Lars Anders Tomter, Eric le Sage, Daishin Kashimoto, Paul Meyer, and the late Heinrich Schiff. She gave a three-week tour of Australia with Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and has also joined Jeremy Denk at his Milton Court/Barbican residency in London. She also appears regularly at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Future chamber plans include a new piano trio with pianist Olli Mustonen and cellist Julian Steckel. Karen participated as violinist, host, and narrator in a documentary film produced by NHK Japan about Antonio Stradivarius called The Mysteries of the Supreme Violin, which was broadcast worldwide on NHK WORLD. She is also a champion of the Nuevo Tango music of Astor Piazzolla, with plans in development for a diverse programme with the San Francisco Symphony. Karen regularly collaborates with Piazzolla’s longtime pianist and tango legend Pablo Ziegler, as well as, more recently, with bandoneon players Hector de Curto and JP Jofre. Karen plays on the “Aurora” Stradivarius violin of 1703 that was bought for her exclusive use by a private sponsor.
FIREBIRD SUITE – Igor Stravinsky
Born: June 17, 1882. Oranienbaum, Russia
Died: April 6, 1971. New York City
Composed: Between November 1909 and May 1910
World Premiere: June 25, 1910, by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at the Opéra in Paris. The scenario was the work of Léon Bakst, Michel Fokine, Alexandre Benois, Diaghilev, and Stravinsky; the choreography was by Fokine, who also danced the role of Ivan Tsarevich. The other principal dancers were Tamara Karsavina (Firebird), Vera Fokina (Thirteenth Princess), and Alexis Bulgakov (King Kashchei). Bakst designed the costumes for the Firebird and the Thirteenth Princess, the others being the work of Alexander Golovine; Gabriel Pierné conducted.
Instrumentation: 2 piccolos (2nd doubling 3rd flute) and 2 flutes; 3 oboes and English horn; 3 clarinets (3rd doubling high clarinet in D) and bass clarinet; 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon) and contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; triangle; tambourine; cymbals; bass drum; tam-tam; bells; xylophone; celesta; piano; three harps; and strings, together with a stage band consisting of 3 trumpets, 2 tenor tubas in B-flat, and 2 bass tubas in F
Duration: About 46 mins
Program Notes: The Firebird would be the first of Stravinsky’s truly original Diaghilev scores, but the opportunity came to him rather by accident. From eminent musicologist Richard Taruskin we learn that Diaghilev’s original choice of composer for The Firebird had been Nikolai Tcherepnin, who withdrew from the project for reasons not entirely clear (though not before completing the music sketches of The Enchanted Kingdom). Anatoli Liadov, a man with a charming gift and a rather casual attitude about deadlines, was next in line. Liadov, for whatever reason, declined the Firebird project, as did the composer Diaghilev turned to next, Alexander Glazunov. Diaghilev may even have courted another composer, Nikolai Sokolov, before contacting Stravinsky. “After four refusals,” Taruskin writes, “Diaghilev would indeed have been frantic. He would have been ready for any plausible candidate who would accept the commission.” Stravinsky was eager to try his hand at a ballet score for Diaghilev—indeed, as Taruskin says, he began writing the Firebird music more than a month before Diaghilev turned to him.
The Ballets Russes made a specialty of dancing pieces that were inspired by Russian folklore—primeval Russian history being a cultural obsession of the moment—and The Firebird was perfectly suited to the company’s designs. The tale involves the dashing Prince Ivan Tsarevich, who finds himself one night wandering through the garden of King Kashchei, an evil monarch whose power resides in a magic egg, which he guards in an elegant box. In Kashchei’s garden, the Prince captures a Firebird, which pleads for its life; the Prince agrees to spare it if it gives him one of its magic tail-feathers, which it consents to do. Thus armed, the Prince continues through his evening and happens upon thirteen enchanted princesses. The most beautiful of them catches his eye, and (acting under Kashchei’s spell) lures him to a spot where Kashchei’s demonic guards can ensnare him. But before he can be put under a spell himself, the Prince uses the magic tail-feather to summon the Firebird, which reveals to him the secret of Kashchei’s magic egg. The Prince locates and smashes the egg, breaking the web of evil enchantment, and goes off to marry the newly liberated Princess, with whom, of course, he will live happily ever after.
A French critic reported his experience of hearing Stravinsky play through his work-in-progress that winter in Saint Petersburg: “The composer, young, slim, and uncommunicative, with vague meditative eyes, and lips set firm in an energetic looking face, was at the piano. But the moment he began to play, the modest and dimly lit dwelling glowed with a dazzling radiance. By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencilings, revealed a masterpiece.”
Stravinsky’s score is one of music’s great showpieces of orchestration, a remarkable tour-de-force for a twenty-eight-year-old composer, even one who had issued from the studio of Rimsky-Korsakov, himself acknowledged as a wizard of instrumentation. Although Stravinsky would “slim down” his orchestra for the concert suites he would later assemble from his Firebird score, the orchestration for the original ballet production was truly opulent. Within a couple of years Stravinsky would call for an even larger orchestra in The Rite of Spring, and on occasion he was known to program excerpts from the original Firebird score along with The Rite of Spring, taking advantage of the impressive symphonic resources that would need to be brought together for the latter in any case.
The orchestral effects in The Firebird are often astonishing and everywhere beautiful. The Stravinsky biographer Stephen Walsh has observed: “Much of Stravinsky’s Rimsky-Korsakov training had been in the field of orchestration. All the same, it is hard to explain the sheer precision of sonority in most of The Firebird except in terms of an instinctive grasp of the properties of instrumental sound, an almost infallible inner ear.”
— James M. Keller and Michael Steinberg