Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto

42nd Annual Season 2014 – 2015 presents TCHAIKOVSKY’S FIRST PIANO CONCERTO featuring Angelo Rondello, piano Saturday, November 8, 2014, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, November 9, 2014, 3:00 p.m. Bainbridge Performing Arts 200 Madison Avenue North, Bainbridge Island The Bainbridge Orchestra was founded in 1972 by the late David Pence, when the Island’s population was less than 13,000. Today, the Symphony serves a musically rich role in our community, uniting artists spanning generations and myriad talents who share their love of music and learn from each other. Thank YOU for joining us to listen and celebrate the orchestra’s vitality and contribution to the arts on Bainbridge Island this season! THE PROGRAM Festive Overture, op. 96 .................................................................................. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Symphony No. 1 in G minor .............................................................................. Vassili Kalinnikov Allegro moderato (1866-1901) Andante commadamente Scherzo Allegro moderato - Allegro risoluto …intermission… Piano Concerto No. 1, op. 23 in B-flat minor .......................................... Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso (1840-1893) Andantino simplice Allegro con fuoco Angelo Rondello, piano Please join us in thanking the BSO's Youth in Music Initiative Sponsor Wicklund Dental as well as BPA Season Sponsors Bainbridge Bakers, Bainbridge Island Ace Hardware, Bainbridge Island Magazine, Kitsap Bank, Northwest Films, and Town & Country Market. BPA and BSO are supported, in part, by the Bainbridge Community Foundation and One Call for All. Finally, we’re pleased to support Helpline House as our Special Community Partner – making the performing arts accessible to everyone! Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra is enduringly grateful to those who have dedicated their time, energy, funds, and audience support to this volunteer organization. Page | 2 BAINBRIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Wesley Schulz, Music Director & Conductor November 2014 Personnel FIRST VIOLIN FLUTE PERCUSSION Pat Strange, Concertmaster Lisa Hirayama, principal Art Whitson, principal Justine Jeanotte Jared LeClerc Jack Lake Meta Newlin Monica Smythe, piccolo Greg Smythe Hannah Lee Malcolm West Pete Wiggins OBOE Alan Francescutti Amy Duerr-Day, principal HARP Peggy Brady Alicia Moriarty Jennifer Burlingame, principal Jon Graber Bhavani Kotha GENERAL MANAGER SECOND VIOLIN CLARINET Clara Hanson George Sale, principal Patricia Beasley, principal Kathie Peron Nancy Peterson STAGE MANAGERS DeeAnn Sisley Kai Hirayama Jon Brenner Dan Brown Clara Hanson BASSOON LIBRARIANS Jue Pu Boone Hapke, guest principal Kathie Peron-Matthews Ingrid Ryan Paul Stirling DeeAnn Sisley VIOLA FRENCH HORN Tom Monk, guest principal Bobby Collins, principal Len Hembd Richard Davis Kathy Connelly Robert Olsen Julie Katana Kestrel Wright Virginia Richter SPECIAL THANKS TRUMPET CELLO Austin Carver, guest principal Bainbridge Symphony Barbara Deppe, principal Nick Neidzwski Orchestra extends Christine Edwards Jeff Jensen heartfelt gratitude to the Arlayne Easeman Bainbridge Island Leeanna Glasby TROMBONE Youth Orchestra for Peggy Thurston Bud Parker, guest principal the use of 55 new Pam Harlan Wade Demmert musician chairs Stephanie Schmidt Richard Heine, bass trombone acquired through their Rob Carson receipt of a generous David Durfee TUBA grant from the Rotary Pricilla Jones Jas Linford, principal Club of Bainbridge Island. BASS TIMPANI Janet Marie, principal Susan Tolley, principal Gianna Gorski Jon Brenner Page | 3 PROGRAM NOTES by DeeAnn Sisley his head, and then played it through complete on the piano…He never demanded or appeared to need silence in order to compose.” Festive Overture, Op. 96 By Dmitri Shostakovich The Festive Overture was composed in the autumn of 1954, the year following Stalin’s death, when artistic Born: September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia restrictions were relaxing. Vasily Nebol’sin, an official at Died: August 9, 1975, in Moscow the Bolshoi Theater, visited Stostakovich at this Moscow apartment. A concert was scheduled for three days later to Work composed and premiered: composed the first celebrate the 37th anniversary of the 1917 October week of November 1954; premiered November 6, 1954, Revolution in which the Bolsheviks seized control of at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre Russia’s government. Nebol’sin was in trouble, as he did Orchestra, Alexander Melik-Pashayev, Conductor not have an appropriate piece to open the concert. Dmitri Shostakovich was born September 25, 1906, in St. Shostakovich, who had recently been hired as an artistic Petersburg, Russia. His father was a civil servant and consultant to the theatre, agreed to compose an opening. amateur singer. His mother was a piano student at the St. He invited his visiting friend Lev Lebedinsky to stay. Petersburg Conservatory before her marriage. Music Lebedinsky recounted: making was prominent in his childhood home; musician “The speed with which he wrote was truly friends would visit often and play chamber music for astounding. Moreover, when he wrote light music he hours. Even though he greatly enjoyed listening, young was able to talk, make jokes and compose Dmitri resisted musical instruction until the age of 8 when simultaneously, like the legendary Mozart. He his mother persuaded him to let her give him piano laughed and chuckled, and in the meanwhile work lessons. He later explained his hesitation by saying that he was underway and the music was being written down. feared notation and had observed that his older sister’s About an hour or so later Nebol’sin started piano lessons reduced her to tears. At his first lesson, his telephoning: ‘Have you got anything ready for the musical talent was obvious. His mother found that he had copyist? Should we send a courier?’ perfect pitch and an exceptional memory. Dmitri began to compose music at about the same time, and by the age of A short pause and then Dmitri answered, ‘Send him.’ nine he was composing steadily. At the age of 13, he What happened next was like the scene with the entered the Petrograd Conservatory as a student of both hundred thousand couriers out of Gogol’s piano and composition. Government Inspector. Dmitri sat there scribbling Dmitri Shostakovich is one of the Soviet Union’s greatest away and the couriers came in turn to take away the composers. Yet he was a nervous man who lived in pages while the ink was still wet—first one, then a constant fear for his life. His career was subject to the second, a third and so on. Nebol’sin was waiting at desires and whims of the Communist government. The the Bolshoi Theatre and kept the copyists supplied. authorities expected Soviet music to have lyricism, a Two days later the dress rehearsal took place. I heroic tone and popular appeal based on the language of th hurried down to the Theatre and I heard this brilliant the 19 century Russian classics. During the Stalin era, effervescent work, with its vivacious energy spilling Shostakovich tried to push the artistic boundaries and was over like uncorked champagne.” always playing games with the culture police. In Testimony—The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, The Festive Overture begins with a brilliant trumpet published after his death, he relates: “It didn’t matter how fanfare that adds the lower winds, brass and then the full the audience reacted to your work or if the critics liked it. orchestra. The main section contrasts a theme of quickly All that had no meaning in the final analysis. There was running scale passages that starts in the clarinets and a only one question of life or death: how did the leader like broader theme featuring the horn and cellos. Next is a your opus? I stress: life or death, because we are talking quiet section introduced by a Shostakovich signature about life or death here, literally, not figuratively.” Many snare drum. The triumphal fanfare returns toward the end colleagues, friends and relatives had disappeared. and, with the full orchestra, the overture ends jubilantly. Shostakovich feared that the same would happen to him. The Festive Overture was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics. Shostakovich impressed his colleagues and friends with his talent. He was able to conceptualize a piece of music and compose it quickly without detailed sketches or corrections. His sister later recalled, “I always found it amazing that he never needed to try things out on the piano. He just sat down, wrote out everything he heard in Page | 4 Symphony No. 1 in G minor beautiful English Horn solo. After the charming Scherzo and Trio of the third movement, the work proceeds to the Vasily Kalinnikov Finale where the composer re-introduces and further Born: January 13, 1866, in Viona, Oryol District, Russia explores earlier themes. The climax of the work features Died: January 11, 1901, in Yalta the trombones’ fervent version of the English Horn tune heard in the second movement, bringing the work to a Work composed and premiered: composed in 1894-95; joyful end. premiered on February 20, 1897, in Kiev; Alexander Vinogradsky conducted the orchestra of the Russian Music Society Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Vasily Kalinnikov was born into a family of modest Op. 23 means. He was the son of a police official who played the Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky guitar and sang in a local choir. His father encouraged his Born: May 7, 1840, in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia interest in music and arranged violin lessons when he was Died: November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg young. At the age of 13, Vasily went to study at a seminary as his family intended him for the church. The Work composed: November and December 1874; following year he became director of the seminary choir. orchestration completed on February 21, 1875, revised in In 1884 he went to Moscow to enroll at the conservatory, 1876 and 1889 but he had to withdraw after a few months because he World premiere: October 25, 1875, at the Music Hall in could not pay the fees.

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