Beethoven's Eroica

BEETHOVEN’S EROICA 10–12 MAY 2018 CONCERT PROGRAM Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis conductor Moye Chen piano Vine Concerto for Orchestra – Composer in Residence Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 INTERVAL Beethoven Symphony No.3 Eroica Running time: 2 hours, including a 20-minute interval In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. The MSO acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from mso.com.au other communities who may be in attendance. (03) 9929 9600 2 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY SIR ANDREW DAVIS ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR Established in 1906, the Melbourne Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew arts leader and Australia’s longest- Davis is also Music Director and running professional orchestra. Chief Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has of Chicago. He is Conductor Laureate been at the helm of MSO since 2013. of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra Engaging more than 4 million people and the Toronto Symphony, where he each year, the MSO reaches a variety has also been named interim Artistic of audiences through live performances, Director until 2020. recordings, TV and radio broadcasts In a career spanning more than 40 and live streaming. years he has conducted virtually all The MSO also works with Associate the world’s major orchestras and opera Conductor Benjamin Northey and companies, and at the major festivals. Cybec Assistant Conductor Tianyi Lu, Recent highlights have included as well as with such eminent recent Die Walküre in a new production guest conductors as Tan Dun, John at Chicago Lyric. Adams, Jakub Hrůša and Jukka-Pekka Sir Andrew’s many CDs include Saraste. It also collaborates with non- Messiah nominated for a 2018 classical musicians such as Elton John, Grammy, Bliss’ The Beatitudes, Nick Cave and Flight Facilities. and a recording with the Bergen Philharmonic of Vaughan Williams’ Job/Symphony No.9 nominated for a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award. With the MSO he has just released a third recording in the ongoing Richard Strauss series, featuring the Alpine Symphony and Till Eulenspiegel. 3 MOYE CHEN CARL VINE PIANO COMPOSER Highlights of Moye Chen’s recent Carl Vine is one of Australia’s best seasons have included concerts at known and most often performed Carnegie Hall, Benaroya Hall (Seattle), composers, with a catalogue now and the Great Hall of the Moscow including seven symphonies, eleven Conservatoire. He has appeared with concertos, music for film, television, ensembles such as the Mariinsky and dance and theatre, electronic music Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras. and numerous chamber works. Although primarily a composer Moye Chen has won prizes at of modern ‘classical’ music he has festivals including the 2016 Sydney undertaken tasks as diverse as arranging International Piano Festival and gold the Australian National Anthem and medal at the 2014 Cincinnati World writing music for the Closing Ceremony Piano Competition. He recently signed of the Olympic Games (Atlanta, 1996). a recording contract with Universal Music Australia/Decca which sees Born in Perth, Carl studied piano the release of a recording of music with Stephen Dornan and composition by Grainger and Rachmaninov. with John Exton at the University of Western Australia. Moving to Sydney Moye Chen studied at Shanghai in 1975, he worked as a freelance Conservatory of Music and Oberlin. pianist and composer with a wide He is currently studying at the University range of ensembles, theatre and dance of Illinois. companies over the following decades. The MSO is thrilled to be touring China Since 2000 Carl has been the Artistic with Moye Chen and Sir Andrew Davis Director of Musica Viva Australia, the next week. largest chamber music entrepreneur in the world. His recent compositions include Five Hallucinations commissioned by the Chicago and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, Wonders for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Our Sons for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Concerto for Orchestra for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. 4 PROGRAM NOTES CARL VINE (born 1954) Concerto for Orchestra Concertos for orchestra are a uniquely In place of these traditional formulae, 20th-century phenomenon, evolving I have used a process developed in my from the Baroque model of the concerto piano trio (The Village, 2014); a broad grosso and the ensuing sinfonia family of musical ‘elements’ evolve concertante. They generally feature organically through a chain of episodes multiple solo instruments and alternating to create a complex web of melodies focus on contrasting instrumental and harmonies that are related but families. More than 70 have been not identical. This network of ideas is composed since Hindemith’s landmark tied together by strong lateral bonds work of 1925, including eight each by but remains fluid and flexible, creating composers Alan Hovhaness and Robin a series of fleeting glimpses – what Holloway. None have been as successful Prokofiev called ‘visions fugitives’ – as Bartók’s remarkable work of 1943. or abstract patterns glimpsed in the half-light or imagined behind clouds. I have used this opportunity to feature every instrument in the orchestra in Concerto for Orchestra is dedicated one way or another. Although classical to Geoff Stearn. concertos follow the symphonic fashion of incorporating sonata form, I have Carl Vine © 2014 deliberately chosen to mutate the form This is the first performance of Carl Vine’s Concerto for Orchestra by the Melbourne beyond recognition, eliminating the Symphony Orchestra. precepts of primary and secondary themes, and the very notion of exposition-development-recapitulation. 5 FRANZ LISZT break. The main theme dominates (1811-1886) both the first and the last movements and all other important themes recur Piano Concerto No.1 in E flat several times during the course of Allegro maestoso – the work. Variations of these themes Quasi adagio – occur through metamorphosis and transformation rather than through Allegro vivace – Allegro animato – formal development. Allegro marziale animato The forceful principal theme is stated Moye Chen piano immediately in the strings over wind chords. It is said that Liszt sang the Liszt was a larger-than-life character, words ‘Das versteht ihr alle nicht’ (‘None both biographically and musically. A of you understands this’) to this melody. gifted child prodigy, he was publicly After four bars the piano enters and we kissed on the brow by Beethoven, and hear a cadenza and some elaboration later gained a formidable reputation of the opening theme. The movement as a womaniser, toured extensively as ends with intricate arpeggios and runs the greatest pianist of his era, lived in the piano while the orchestra restates with a princess and even took a form of the main theme. A subject on muted Holy Orders. Yet behind this colourful cellos and double basses amplified by and romantic image lay an immensely the solo piano heralds the beginning gifted musician, deeply committed to of the Adagio. The dreamlike melody the future of music and the creative for the piano gives way to a magical endeavours of his contemporaries. moment where the flute and then Liszt’s two piano concertos rank clarinet enter while the pianist’s trills among his most important works and, die away to nothing. while quite different in character, have In the Scherzo there is an unusually a similar history. Early sketches for prominent part for that most humble both works date from 1838-1840, but of orchestral instruments – the triangle! Liszt’s constant touring prevented the It is employed at the beginning as a completion of the first until 1849, the sparkling companion to the descending year after his appointment as court cascades of the piano. Eduard Hanslick conductor in Weimar. But even then bitterly attacked the prominence there was a delay and the Concerto given to the triangle in this movement, No.1 was not to be premiered in Weimar but Liszt retorted that it offered ‘the until 17 February 1855, with Liszt himself effect of contrast’. Such extraordinary as soloist and Berlioz conducting. aesthetic debates hindered the general Dedicated to Henri Litolff, the concerto acceptance of the concerto early in its is a work of extraordinary unity in life (it was not performed again until four movements played without a 1869), although they could not distract 6 popular attention from it forever. A third LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN important theme is introduced in this (1770-1827) scherzo and the end of the movement is signalled by a cadenza in which the Symphony No.3 in E flat, Op.55 Eroica opening theme of the movement is Allegro con brio again suggested. Marcia funebre (Adagio assai) A development section then leads to Scherzo (Allegro vivace) –Trio – Scherzo the final movement in which we find all Finale (Allegro molto) the themes of the concerto transformed and unified: first the delicate Adagio As is the case with the First and melody is treated in a march-like Second, Beethoven’s composing fashion, then the theme of the scherzo score for the Third Symphony has ushers in a brilliant stretto (overlapping disappeared. However, circumstantial entries in close succession), and finally evidence suggests he finished it during the main theme returns in triumph. the Vienna winter of 1803–04, at The strength – and the paradox – of around the same time he was working this concerto lie in its tight structure on his massive Waldstein Piano Sonata, that nevertheless appears to be almost Op.53, whose opening Allegro shares ‘improvisatory’. As the legendary pianist with the Third’s the added direction Alfred Cortot remarked, ‘The listener… ‘con brio’ (‘with vigour’). In size and must not be given the impression that scale, the Third epitomised the major he is subjected to a kind of nonsensical advances he had made since even his chitchat.

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