Toronto Symphony SUPPORT THE MUSIC YOU LOVE! Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director

MATCHING-GIFT CHALLENGE Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 8:00pm Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 8:00pm To welcome Gustavo Gimeno to our city, a generous patron has stepped Saturday, June 8, 2019 at 8:00pm forward to ask our entire community to join them in celebrating his arrival. Karl-Heinz Steffens, conductor , Donate by June 30 to have your Jan Lisiecki gift matched dollar for dollar.* Overture to Manfred, Op. 115

Felix Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 I. Molto allegro con fuoco II. Andante III. Presto – Molto allegro e vivace

Intermission

Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato INCOMING TSO MUSIC DIRECTOR GUSTAVO GIMENO Jan Lisiecki’s appearance is generously supported by Blake and Belinda Goldring. The performance on June 8 is dedicated to the memory of James Drewry Stewart. *Up to $50,000 in new and increased support As a courtesy to musicians, guest artists, and fellow concertgoers, please put your phone away and on silent during the performance. Double your impact! | TSO.CA/Match | 416.598.5311

JUNE 5, 6 & 8, 2019 9 ABOUT THE WORKS

Robert Schumann Overture to Manfred, Op. 115 Born: Zwickau, , June 8, 1810 12 Died: Bonn, Germany, July 29, 1856 min Composed: 1848

In a December 1851 letter to Franz Liszt, complete stage work was performed for the Robert Schumann called Manfred—a first time on June 13, 1852, directed by Liszt at “dramatic poem with music in three parts”— the Hoftheater in Weimar. one of his “most powerful children.” Based Manfred’s melancholy temperament deeply on Lord Byron’s poem, published in 1817, resonated with Schumann. It is the dominant the melodrama is about Count Manfred, a emotional character of the Overture, solitary intellectual tormented by guilt over which follows the standard structure of a the loss of his beloved, Astarte, seeking slow introduction, followed by a fast and consolation from the supernatural world. brilliant sonata form. From the provocative According to music scholar Laura Tunbridge, opening gesture—three syncopated chords the Overture to Manfred was praised by many on a crescendo—the listener is confronted of Schumann’s contemporaries as among his with the conflicted soul of the protagonist. finest achievements in compositional craft After a pause, a descending chromatic line and dramatic sweep; and it is the part most introduced by the oboe and second violins frequently performed today. evokes Manfred’s anguish. Gradually, the The composer was acquainted with Byron music becomes more defiant, and accelerates from a young age—his father had published an into the agitated main theme. Later, the edition of the English poet’s works in German chromatic line from the introduction returns, translation in 1826. Schumann subsequently in an embellished, meandering version that is set several texts to songs, but Manfred was a the second theme, played by the first violins, much more significant project. He confided which are then joined by the flute. Schumann’s to Liszt, “Never have I devoted myself to a wife, Clara, referred to this melody as “Astarte’s composition with such love and energy.” He theme,” and as Tunbridge has pointed out, it first read the poem in March 1829, recording in is the only music from the Overture that recurs his diary: “Agitated state of mind—read Byron’s in the music of the melodrama—not as a love Manfred in bed—terrible night.” In July 1848, theme but as a remorseful reminiscence, he read it again, spurring him to draft a libretto, for Astarte “is the source of Manfred’s guilt based on Karl Adolf Suckow’s translation, and is lost to him.” It recurs several more for a staged drama with music. Composition times throughout, including a final elegiac of the Overture began in mid-October and presentation that brings the Overture to a was finished by the end of the month; the tragic close. incidental music was completed in November. Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley On March 14, 1852, the composer conducted the première of the Overture as a stand-alone work at a Leipzig Gewandhaus ; the

10 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 Born: , Germany, February 3, 1809 20 min Died: Leipzig, Germany, November 4, 1847 Composed: 1830–1831

In the five concertos he wrote as a teenager, The first movement is terse and truncated by Mendelssohn clung to late-18th- and early- Classical standards. Gone is the traditional 19th-century formal conventions. But in the orchestral introduction; orchestra and soloist mature concertos bearing opus numbers— collaborate from the start in presenting two for piano, one for violin—he broke and developing ideas. (The quasi-cadenza fundamentally with Classical precedents and with which the soloist enters immediately drew on more innovative models (notably sweeps away any notion that the work Weber’s Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, will unfold along Classical lines.) There is of 1821) to develop a radically original and no development section to speak of, the influential new breed of concerto. recapitulation is drastically compressed and intensified, and the movement finally peters This originality emerged fully formed in his out as though exhausted. Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, which he composed in in the midst of a two- Nowhere in this dashing, imaginative, year European tour. Most of the composition profoundly Romantic work, either in substance was completed quickly, in September and or in structure, does Mendelssohn put a foot October of 1830—hence, perhaps, some of wrong—this from a composer who claimed to the freedom and spontaneity with which the find writing concertos difficult, because of the music unfolds. The concerto was dedicated to need to reconcile musical integrity with the a young Munich-based pianist, Delphine von showmanship demanded by the genre. In the Schauroth, with whom Mendelssohn may have solo part here, with its glittering passagework been romantically involved. He was certainly and potent octaves, he updates the virtuoso inspired by her: he even confides in a letter pyrotechnics of Weber and the early-Romantic to his sister that “Delphine has composed a concerto, though lyricism, too, is prominent. passage for this work that makes a startling There are some pockets of Schubertian effect,” although which passage that might reverie in distant keys—including the whole of have been remains a matter for speculation. the song-like slow movement (in E Major), in which the pianist seems often to be dreamily The three movements conform to an 18th- improvising, as well he might have been during century fast-slow-fast scheme, but now the the time it was composed. three are linked by transitions, and there are cyclical elements: themes in the second and Program note by Kevin Bazzana third movements are variants of themes in the first, and a lyrical melody from the first movement is wistfully recalled near the end of an otherwise effervescent rondo finale.

JUNE 5, 6 & 8, 2019 11 ABOUT THE WORKS

Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 Born: Hamburg, Germany, May 7, 1833 40 Died: Vienna, Austria, April 3, 1897 min Composed: 1884–1885

Brahms completed his Fourth Symphony in the movement is a bright, swift, noisy march summer of 1885, after a long gestation bred with an often militaristic sound (note the of insecurity. Though just 51 when he began piccolo, contrabassoon, and triangle) and it, he worried that his creative powers were a Dionysian energy that is rare in Brahms, declining, and feared he could not surpass his though the secondary themes are quiet, gracious, popular and acclaimed Third Symphony. He dancelike—and (surely intentionally) a little banal. approached the performance and publication The finale is set in one of the strictest and most of the Fourth with dread, but the première, archaic musical forms: the chaconne—a set which he conducted in Meiningen, on October of variations based not on a melody but on a 25 1885, was a triumph, as were subsequent ground-bass. Brahms borrowed his ground- performances. bass from Bach’s Cantata 150, a work to which Though reputedly an “academic” composer, Brahms had been attracted for many years. Brahms was a progressive musical thinker, The movement is an exhaustive catalogue of and his ability to unify a composition through variation techniques, testimony to Brahms’s the perpetual metamorphosis of germinal extraordinary craftsmanship and imagination, motifs anticipated much modern music of a and the 30 variations fall into three large formalist orientation. The music of the Fourth groups, with variations 12 to 16 forming a “slow is highly concentrated and densely developed movement” in the middle. “This movement (often in counterpoint); even some of Brahms’s is seared by shattering tragedy,” wrote the supporters found it too abstract, too cerebral. conductor Felix Weingartner, who called the Yet, it is searching and dramatic too, at once closing pages “a veritable orgy of destruction.” lofty and deeply personal, more austere than Unlike most minor-key symphonies, the Fourth sensuous (the thick, heavy scoring seems does not close in the major: Brahms rejects the exactly right). From its elegiac opening theme, beloved Romantic archetype of turmoil leading the first movement is mostly somber and to triumph and, at the end, only intensifies the melancholy, occasionally darkly mysterious, tone of tragedy with which he had begun. though Brahms tames the music’s passion Program note by Kevin Bazzana by casting it in a rigorous, clearly articulated Classical sonata form. The slow movement is a leisurely and moving pastorale with an antique flavour, though rent from time to time with clangorous eruptions from the orchestra. The principal melodies are all deeply expressive and scored in rich, autumnal colours. The third

12 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA THE ARTISTS

Karl-Heinz Steffens conductor These performances mark Karl-Heinz Steffens’s TSO début.

Newly appointed Music Director Designate of Prague State Opera, Karl-Heinz Steffens is recognised as a conductor of distinction in both the operatic and symphonic worlds. He assumes the post in August 2019, before the re-opening of the Opera House in January 2020 following its reconstruction. In great demand as a guest conductor, recent seasons have seen him work with ensembles such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Lyon National, , Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum, and Zurich Tonhalle , and frequently with the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Leipzig, and Stuttgart. This season he returns to the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra; Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino; and continues his appearances in Scandinavia with the Helsinki Philharmonic and a Brahms symphony cycle with Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. In the UK, Steffens returns to the Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony, and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestras, and makes his début with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, opening the Lammermuir festival with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. Last season, he concluded his cycle of Brahms works with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducting the Requiem and appearing as soloist in the composer’s Clarinet Quintet. During his time as Music Director of the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the orchestra was honoured with many accolades: they received the ECHO award for Best Orchestra in 2015 for their recording of works by B.A. Zimmermann; and in 2016/17 were nominated prize- winners of the Best Concert Program of the Season by the Deutsche Musikverlegerverband, the German Music Publishers’ Association. Most recently their recording of works by George Antheil, an addition to the “Modern Times” series, was designated Concert Recording of the Year by the new Opus Klassik awards. Steffens gave the Norwegian première of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Norwegian National Opera, where he has also conducted productions of Così fan tutte, Fidelio, and Calixto Bieito’s Tosca. He has appeared several times at the Teatro alla Scala leading performances of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Götterdämmerung, and recently made his Zürich Opera début with Così fan tutte. He is regularly invited to the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where this season he conducts performances of Fidelio. Prior to his conducting career, Steffens was a highly respected solo clarinetist who also held several orchestral positions, culminating in the successive posts of Principal Clarinet with the Bavarian Radio and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras.

JUNE 5, 6 & 8, 2019 13 THE ARTISTS

Jan Lisiecki piano Jan Lisiecki made his TSO début in January 2012.

At 23, pianist Jan Lisiecki is already recognized as one of the greatest pianists of our time. Acclaimed for his extraordinary interpretive maturity, distinctive sound and poetic sensibility, he is “a pianist who makes every note count” (The New York Times). Lisiecki’s insightful interpretations, refined technique, and natural affinity for art give him a musical voice that belies his age. Jan Lisiecki is an exclusive recording artist with . In 2017, Jan received the —Germany’s most significant classical —as well as a —the most prestigious recognition in the Canadian music industry—honouring his fourth recording for Deutsche Grammophon, featuring Chopin’s rarely performed works for piano and orchestra with NDR Orchester and Krzysztof Urbański. His latest for the label, released in February 2019, features both Mendelssohn concertos with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, as well as selected solo works. Lisiecki performs with the world’s most prestigious orchestras on major stages and has worked closely with prominent conductors including Sir , Yannick Nézet-Séguin, , and . Recent highlights include recital tours of and Asia and subscription débuts with the Boston Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, and Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, among others. Jan Lisiecki celebrated great success with his highly acclaimed recital program “Night Music”, which he continues to perform in the 2018/19 season. In Spring 2019 he returned to for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with The , and toured with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra through Europe, as well as with the Czech Philharmonic in Germany. Other collaborations include NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and in Salzburg with Mozarteum Orchestra. His recent cycle of Beethoven concertos at with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields was received enthusiastically by both the audience and media. In 2013 he became the youngest ever recipient of Gramophone’s Young Artist award, and also received the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. In 2012, Jan Lisiecki was named UNICEF Ambassador to .

14 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA