Autumn Cyber Symphony Series no 2

Conductor Bernhard Gueller Soloist Nina Schumann () Concertmaster Suzanne Martens

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17

Recorded at the Cape Town City Hall on April 29, 2021 Streaming May 27- May 31, 2021

This concert is generously supported by

1. BERNHARD GUELLER Conductor

Principal guest conductor of the Cape Town Philharmonic and Music Director Laureate of in , Bernhard Gueller continues to be acclaimed for his interpretations and phrasing, and the excitement he brings to the podium. “He is a favoured conductor, both of players and audiences, undoubtedly because of his carefully prepared but always musically rewarding performances” (WeekendSpecial.co.za). He is acclaimed by musicians, critics and audiences for his musical purity, and continually garners praise for the fresh approach he applies under his “amazingly suggestive baton”.

Having stepped down in 2018 after 16 years as music director of Symphony Nova Scotia, Gueller stepped into a new role as Music Director Laureate and in the last two years, prior to the advent of Covid-19 returned to both SNS and British Columbia’s Victoria Symphony where he was also principal guest conductor. He also made his debut with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey in 2019 and returned to Halifax to conduct the Scotia Festival of Music again. He has conducted many other in Canada including the Edmonton and Philharmonic orchestras and is a frequent guest conductor with the KZN Philharmonic and the Johannesburg Philharmonic.

Gueller has had many high-level collaborations with internationally acclaimed soloists, including Canadian violinist James Ehnes and pianists Jan Lisiecki, Janina Fialkowska, Anton Kuerti, Jon Kimura Parker and Marc Andre-Hamelin, along with pianist Lars Vogt, violinist Joshua Bell, and Metropolitan Opera singers Pretty Yende, Elza van den Heever and the late Johan Botha, as well as soprano Pumeza Matshikiza.

Beginning his career as a cellist, Gueller won the United German Radios Conducting Competition in 1979 and for nearly 20 years ran tandem careers, deputing for the legendary conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who regarded Gueller as his best “pupil”. Gueller also attracted the attention of the renowned arts administrator Ernest Fleischman who "was deeply impressed by his extraordinary musicianship, his marvellous ability to communicate with the musicians, and his charismatic impact on the audience".

He has also been music director in Nuremberg and principal guest conductor of the Johannesburg Philharmonic. His career has taken him to many top concert halls, from America and Australia to Canada, Russia, Japan, China (Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong), Korea, South Africa and Brazil, as well as countries in such as Spain, Italy, France, Norway, Bulgaria, Italy and Sweden, and his native where he, for instance, conducted the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and the Philharmonic.

He has conducted in festivals internationally, including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in the International Festival of the Canary Islands, the Schwetzinger Festival in Germany, the Scotia Festival in Halifax, and the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival and National Arts Festival in South Africa.

Gueller has made many recordings for national and international broadcast and several acclaimed CDs including two with the CPO - with South African mezzo soprano Hanneli Rupert and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and the concerti of Vieuxtemps and Saint-Saëns with cellist Peter Martens. Others include two with contemporary Canadian composer, Christos Hatzis, one of contemporary Canadian works by Tim Brady which won an East Coast , and a CD of orchestrated lieder by Schumann, all with Symphony Nova Scotia. His latest CD with Symphony Nova Scotia with songstress Sarah Slean was nominated for a in 2021. He has also recorded CDs with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, German Brass and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Gueller was awarded a doctorate by Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for his service to music.

NINA SCHUMANN Soloist Nina Schumann was born into a musical family, receiving her early music tuition from Rona Rupert and Lamar Crowson. Her first appearance with an orchestra was at the age of 15 and her talent soon captured the attention of the public when she won the Fifth National Music Competition for high school pupils in 1988. She went on to win the Oude Meester Music Prize (1989), the Forte Competition (1990) and during 1991 both the Wooltru Scholarship and the Adcock-Ingram Music Prize. She has over 140 concerto performances with orchestras in South Africa, Germany, Portugal, Scotland, Armenia and the United States to her credit, and some 40 concertos in her repertoire. In 1993 Schumann won the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship Competition and was awarded the Jules Kramer and Harry Crossley Bursaries for Overseas Study by the University of Cape Town. She crowned these prizes by winning the sought-after SABC Music Prize as well as the Oude Meester National Chamber Music Competition. International accolades followed: she won prizes for the Best South African Pianist in the 1993 UNISA International Piano Competition, Finalist and Special Prize Winner at the Shreveport Concerto Competition (1996) and Third Prize in the Casablanca International Piano Competition (1997). After completing her MMus at the University of California, Los Angeles, Schumann enrolled for a Doctorate of Music at the University of North Texas under the tutelage of Van Cliburn- winner, Vladimir Viardo. She received several academic prizes: Dean's Medal (UCT), Best Performer (UCLA), Best Performer (UNT), Best Pianist (UNT) and Best Doctoral Student (UNT). Following her appointment as Associate Professor and Head of Piano at the University of Stellenbosch in 1999, Schumann transferred her Doctorate to UCT, where she graduated in 2005. In 2009 she was awarded the UCT Rector's Award for Excellence in recognition of her contribution to music. Solo career and academic life aside, Schumann has formed a critically acclaimed duo with her duo partner, pianist Luis Magalhães, simply titled TwoPianists. Their CD's have received rave reviews from international publications such as Diapason, International Record Review and Allmusic.com. In 2011, American Record Guide named their second CD it's Editor's Choice. Together with Magalhães, Schumann is a founder and director of TwoPianists Records, which is distributed worldwide by Naxos, thereby ensuring immediate international market access for the artists they are committed to record. For two consecutive years, TwoPianists Records won the South African Music Award for the Best Popular Classical . Schumann's first recording with mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt, Shakespeare Inspired, also received the German Critics' Choice Award. Schumann has given master classes worldwide at prestigious international institutions and music schools such as the Juilliard School of Music. During the 2013/2014 season, she made her much-anticipated and Zürich Tonhalle debuts. In May 2014 Nina Schumann became a Yamaha International Artist.

This concert was first scheduled pre-pandemic to take place for last August to mark Ms Schumann’s 50th birthday.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873 - 1943) Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18

Moderato * Adagio sostenuto * Allegro scherzando

After the disastrous première of his First Symphony, Rachmaninov plunged into a severe depression. Friends and family suggested all sorts of remedies, none of which had any effect until he went to see Dr Nikolai Dahl, a much respected medical hypnotist. Dahl was also an amateur musician who had founded his own string quartet, so he understood the mind of a musician. The sessions worked extremely well and Rachmaninov began to look and feel better. Stravinsky remarked famously that the change in Rachmaninov was as one from watercolours to oils.

Rachmaninov began work on his Second Piano Concerto with some confidence. He composed the second and third movements first and then came to the first movement. By now, the inspiration was flowing and, apart from some pre-première nerves, Rachmaninov played the solo in the concerto’s first airing in November 1901, with Alexander Siloti conducting. The concert was a stunning success and the work has remained one of the most loved concertos in the repertoire

The famous opening of the concerto, with the piano playing a series of chords that build in sonority, soon places the soloist in an accompanying role as the orchestra intones the melancholy first subject. When the second subject comes along, the music moves into the major and the soloist is given the honour of introducing the beautiful theme.

A century before, Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, also in C minor, created a magical contrast when he began his second movement in E major, quite a distant key from C minor. Rachmaninov does the same and we enter quite a different sound world. Soft strings chords introduce the movement with the piano making a gentle entry with some arpeggios. The flute introduces the main subject which is then taken over by the clarinet.

A soft march begins on the orchestra and after a series of loud chords, re-enforced by bass drum and cymbals, the main subject of the finale races away. The lush and romantic second subject is introduced by the oboe and violas and then the piano and, after some discussion of the first subject, the music increases in excitement until the lush second subject returns triumphant on the orchestra with cascading chords for the soloist. The concerto ends in a most thrilling manner with Rachmaninov’s four-note signature right at the end.

PROGRAMME NOTE: CTSO PROGRAMME BANK/RODNEY TRUDGEON

Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17 “Little Russian”

Andante sostenuto * Andantino marziale * Scherzo * Allegro vivace

In the middle of the 19th century, while Mikhael Glinka was glorifying the Russian people in his operas and in instrumental work based on Russian folk melodies, a younger generation of composers was emerging who believed that even more use should be made of the rich heritage of their folk music literature. Among these nationalist-minded composers were members of the St. Petersburg Kutschka, literally ‘bunch’, who came to be known as the ‘Russian Five’: Balikirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

A contemporary of the ‘Five’ was Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, who was sympathetic to their nationalist aims while, at the same time, being critical of their means.

The ‘Five’ in turn considered the Muskovite Tchaikovsky to be a ‘featureless eclectic’, an imitator still under the German school of composition, too Acadamy-minded. And Tchaikovsky, to a degree, concurred in their judgement; he was, to his own way of thinking, not so much a nationalist as he was a cosmopolitan composer.

But Tchaikovsky’s opinion of himself notwithstanding, history has come to regard him as a nationalist composer. And with justification, for many of Tchaikovsky’s instrumental compositions owe a deep debt to Russian folk song and dance.

In this symphony, composed when he was 32, Tchaikovsky makes considerable use of folk- tune material. Many of the tunes are from Little Russia, hence the name given to the work by Kashkin. These folk-tune origins are very much in evidence in the first movement. The second movement is adapted from a ‘nuptial march’ in Tchaikovsky’s early, unsuccessful, opera Undine. The scherzo is a rapid, lively, humorous affair, and the finale takes us back to the realm of folk-tune. Melodiousness, harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity and delightful scoring make this a wholly engaging work.

PROGRAMME NOTE: CTSO PROGRAMME BANK

CAPE TOWN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Principal Guest Conductor: Bernhard Gueller Resident Conductor: Brandon Phillips supported by RMB Starlight Classics Guest Concertmasters: Farida Bacharova; Suzanne Martens Deputy Concertmaster: Philip Martens

In alphabetical order

First Violins

Bonolo Kgaile # Elina Koytcheva ^ Joshua Louis ^ Emina Lukin * Philip Martens (deputy concertmaster) Suzanne Martens (guest concertmaster) Refiloe Olifant Jane Price ^ Annien Shaw ^ Maretha Uys

Second Violins Ruby Ayliffe ^ Shannon Cook ^ Miroslawa Domagala Samantha Durrant * Claudia Gõttert ^ Tomasz Kita # Nadine Roussopoulos ^ Matthew Stead Milena Toma

Violas Petrus Coetzee * Emile de Roubaix ^ Azra Isaacs # Renette Swart Maja van Dyk Martia van Niekerk ^

Cellos Dane Coetzee Pearl Jung ^ Nwuko Sunday Kelechi ^ Peter Martens * Edward McLean # Babette Roosenschoon ^ Nastassja Pretorius ^

Double Basses Zanelle Britz Frances Levenderis ^ Donat Pellei # Roxane Steffen *

Flutes Louisa Theart ^ Neil Robertson ^ Gabriele von Dürckheim *

Oboes Carin Bam # John Rojas ^

Clarinets Frances Brand ^ David Cyster ^

Bassoons Simon Ball ** Brandon Phillips *

Horns Natalie Lawrenson ^ Mark Osman Shannon Thebus ^ Conrad van der Westhuizen

Trumpets Paul Chandler Pierre Schuster # David Thompson *

Timpani Christoph Müller *

Percussion Eugene Trofimcyzk Stephan Galvin ^ Darren Petersen ^

Principal * / Associate Principal ** / Sub Principal # / Ad hoc ^ / On leave ■

Orchestra Attendants Rudi Makwana^ Lucien Faro ^ Rudi Makwana^

Drivers Craig Wildeman ^ Derrick Wildeman ^

CPO MANAGEMENT

Chief executive officer Louis Heyneman

General manager Ivan Christian

Business development and fundraising executive Suzanne Aucamp

Marketing and communications executive Shirley de Kock Gueller

Fundraising / office administrator Mary McGregor Frew

Youth development and education co-ordinator Marvin Weavers

Education manager: Masidlale and CP Music Academy Odile Burden

Librarian Daniel Neal

Assistant orchestra manager and Covid officer Milena Toma

CPO PATRONS Wendy Ackerman; Ton Vosloo

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Wendy Ackerman; Derek Auret (chair); Dennis Davis; Elita de Klerk; Louis Heyneman; Edmund Jeneker; Nisaar Pangarker; Christoff Pauw; Felicia Lesch; Christo van der Rheede

ADVISORY BOARD

Ruth Allen; Ben Rabinowitz; Ton Vosloo