Program

ONE HuNDrED TwENTy-FirST SEASON Chicago Symphony orchestra riccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, February 9, 2012, at 8:00 Friday, February 10, 2012, at 1:30 Saturday, February 11, 2012, at 8:00 riccardo muti Conductor Schubert Entr’acte No. 3 from Rosamunde, D. 797 Clyne Night Ferry World premiere Commissioned for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by the Louise Durham Mead Fund for New Music

IntermISSIon Schubert Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 (Great) Andante—Allegro, ma non troppo Andante con moto Scherzo: Allegro vivace Allegro vivace

The CSO gratefully acknowledges Randy and Melvin Berlin for their generous support of these concerts. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommentS by PHilliP HuSCHEr

Franz Schubert Born January 31, 1797, Himmelpfortgrund, northwest of Vienna, Austria. Died November 19, 1828, Vienna, Austria.

entr’acte no. 3 from Rosamunde, D. 797

lthough Schubert never lost of mistaken identity, kidnapping, Ahis desire to compose operas, pirates, poisoned letters, disguises, the incidental music he provided and shipwrecks, crowned by the for Rosamunde was his last attempt figure of Rosamunde, an eighteen- to find success writing music for year-old princess, who, although the stage. The experience was not long assumed dead, is united with a happy one—Rosamunde received the prince to whom she has been terrible reviews and closed after betrothed since infancy. Somehow, two performances—and may have Schubert was inspired to write soured Schubert permanently on a glorious music. career in the theater. But Schubert’s The project began innocently music made a favorable impression, enough when Josef Kupelweiser, even at the premiere, and it still the librettist for Schubert’s final remains in the repertoire, while the opera Fierrabras, persuaded the play it accompanied was panned, composer to collaborate with quickly forgotten, and has since Wilhelmina von Chézy, a young been lost. poet from Berlin, on a play with The synopsis for Rosamunde, incidental music. (The Viennese Princess of Cyprus that appeared at press reported at one point, the time in the Viennese papers is without evidence, that they were scarcely promising—a ludicrous tale working on an opera.) Between

ComPoSeD moSt reCent aPProxImate 1823, as part of incidental CSo PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme music for Rosamunde November 1, 1997, 8 minutes Orchestra Hall. Michael FIrSt PerFormanCe Gielen conducting CSo reCorDIng December 20, 1823, 1984. James levine conduct- Vienna, Austria InStrumentatIon ing. Deutsche Grammophon two flutes, two oboes, two FIrSt CSo clarinets, two bassoons, two PerFormanCe horns, timpani, strings January 27, 1899, Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting

2 several periods of illness—he was he had written for the opera Alfonso hospitalized more than once—and and Estrella, later replacing it the rush to complete his song cycle with yet another old piece, which Die schöne Müllerin in the fall of is now universally known as the 1823, Schubert did not get around overture to Rosamunde. This entire to writing music for the play until set of incidental music turns out shortly before it was to open, on to be a textbook on the advantages December 20. (Apparently he did of recycling. not begin work until sometime The well-known entr’acte in in December, since a letter dated B-flat major that opens this concert November 30 mentions two of is related to two other works in the his recent operas by name, but large Schubert catalog. The lovely not Rosamunde.) lyrical main melody appears in the As always, and this time by A minor string quartet, which was necessity, Schubert worked very probably drafted before Rosamunde. quickly (Wilhelmina’s memoirs say (It also shows up, slightly redeco- he wrote the score in five days). He rated, in one of the piano impromp- composed the choruses and the one tus written later.) And the episode solo aria first so that they could be in B-flat minor—the second of rehearsed, saving the dances and two interludes—is based on a song, entr’actes that include some of his “Der Leidende” (The sufferer), that best-loved music for last. (The bal- Schubert wrote in 1816. But the let dancers did not get to hear their true miracle of this entr’acte is how music until forty-eight hours before music of an almost childlike sim- the opening.) And when he ran out plicity reveals so much about the of time, he borrowed an overture complexities of the human heart.

3 anna Clyne Born March 9, 1980, London, England.

Night Ferry

n the wall of her studio in the compositional chart for Agon; copies OFine Arts Building—the his- of several portraits of Schubert toric 1885 haven for artists located pinned to the wall; a Tibetan sing- just two blocks south of Orchestra ing bowl she picked up at a street Hall—Anna Clyne has taped fair (she put three in the percussion seven painted panels that read like for Night Ferry); a note she jot- an EKG of her new orchestral ted down on May 15, 2011, when work, Night Ferry. Clyne is used Riccardo Muti spoke at the CSO’s to composing her pieces “in order,” Youth in Music festival, quoting that is, starting at the beginning Mohammed Ali: “Music is the and writing through to the end, but heartbeat of the universe.” with Night Ferry, she worked in an As she was writing her new piece entirely new way—“painting” a sec- for the Chicago Symphony, Clyne tion of the piece and then writing was keenly aware that Muti would the corresponding music, shifting be conducting the first perfor- back and forth from one medium mances. She knows how much care to the other as she moved from the and detailed study he lavishes on opening to the final measures. the preparation of any score, new or Clyne’s studio itself is a self- old, and she particularly responds portrait of the artist at work. It is to the “way he brings the quality of strewn with things she loves—an the human voice to instrumental antique folding chair (a flea-market music.” (A note on her studio wall find); fresh flowers (she worked was a daily reminder “to sing.”) as a florist in New York City); a She found herself writing musi- recently purchased copy of Savage cal gestures she knew he would Beauty, the book of Alexander bring to life. (When they spoke by McQueen designs—as well as telephone several times over the musical mementos: Stravinsky’s Christmas holiday, after she had

ComPoSeD InStrumentatIon tuba, timpani, percussion 2011 two flutes and piccolo, two (glockenspiel, vibraphone, oboes and english horn, one marimba, bass drum, snare These are the world clarinet, bass clarinet and drums, suspended sizzle premiere performances. E-flat clarinet, two bassoons cymbals, Tibetan singing aPProxImate and contrabassoon, four bowls, tam-tam, crotales), PerFormanCe tIme horns, three trumpets, harp, piano, strings 20 minutes three trombones and

4 sent him the finished score, they canvas as well. For a composer who sang phrases back and forth to has long thrived on collaborat- each other.) ing with others—choreographers, When Muti first suggested that filmmakers, visual artists—Clyne she write something that would suddenly found that she was, as she complement Schubert’s music, since put it, collaborating with herself— her piece would be premiered in the painting and composing in a back- middle of a Schubertian program, and-forth interior dialogue. Clyne began to read about the Although Clyne is a highly great Viennese composer. In the visual person, she would be the process, she was intrigued to learn first to tell you she is not a painter. Section I [0–3 mins] mm. 1–95 Section II [3–6 mins] mm. 96–192

Night Ferry’s first two canvas panels that, like many creative figures, But the process of making visual he suffered from a form of bipolar representations of her music disease. From there, she began to became the heart of the composi- envision a piece about darkness tion method for this piece. One of and light. Uncharacteristically, she the first things Clyne put on the began with a title, Night Ferry, wall was her own thumbprint—a drawn from Seamus Heaney. Clyne personal starting point that was intentionally put Schubert’s own quickly joined by everything from music far from her mind, because, cutouts of Schubert’s eyes to a when she starts a new work, she quotation from Berlioz, another likes to begin with a blank slate. In composer who suffered from severe this case, she began with a blank depression: “Shakespeare himself

5 see patterns in my work, and I can write loads of publishable material in one night”—could easily refer to Schubert and his famously manic bursts of productivity. Night Ferry is Clyne’s largest orchestral work to date. (The first two painted panels, repre- senting the opening six minutes of the pieces, are reproduced on page 5. Clyne in her studio, working on the canvas panels that At the far left is the big, represent Night Ferry. black, turbulent wave that was the starting image for never described this torture; but the piece, both visually and musi- he counts it, in Hamlet, among the cally.) This is the first of her works terrible of all the evils of existence.” to be performed by the Chicago We have learned a great deal Symphony since she became one of about depression since the time of our Mead Composers-in-Residence Schubert and Berlioz. Cyclothymia, last season. the form of depression Schubert Clyne was born in London and is thought to have suffered from, raised in the U.K.—she wrote and wasn’t identified until 1877, and it performed her first fully notated has only received serious attention piece for flute and piano at the age much more recently. We know of eleven—and she also has lived that it often leads to great artistic and worked in Edinburgh, Ontario, outbursts. What the American and New York City. She holds writer Andrew Solomon said about degrees from Edinburgh University his own creative highs, in his and the Manhattan School of National Book Award–winning Music. Clyne is now a full-time The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Chicagoan. Her comments on Night Depression—“I have clarity and can Ferry begin on the following page.

6 anna Clyne on Night Ferry More specifically, Schubert suf- fered from cyclothymia, a form of I come to ferry you hence manic-depression that is character- across the tide ized by severe mood swings, rang- To endless night, fierce fires ing from agonizing depression to and shramming cold. hypomania, a mild form of mania characterized by an elevated mood —Dante and often associated with lucid thoughts and heightened creativity. To those who by the dint of This illness sometimes manifests glass and vapour, in rapid shifts between the two Discover stars, and sail in the states and also in periods of mixed wind’s eye states, whereby symptoms of both extremes are present. This illness —Byron shadowed Schubert throughout his adulthood, and it impacted Night Ferry is music of voyages, and inspired his art dramatically. from stormy darkness to enchanted His friends report that in its most worlds. It is music of the conjurer troublesome form, he suffered and setter of tides, the guide periods of “dark despair and violent through the “ungovernable and anger.” Schubert asserted that dangerous.” Exploring a winding whenever he wrote songs of love, he path between explosive turbulent wrote songs of pain, and whenever chaoticism and chamber lyricism, he wrote songs of pain, he wrote this piece weaves many threads of songs of love. Extremes were an ideas and imagery. These stem from organic part of his makeup. Riccardo Muti’s suggestion that I In its essence, Night Ferry is a look to Schubert for inspiration, as sonic portrait of voyages; voyages Night Ferry will be premiered with within nature and of physical, the Entr’acte no. 3 from Rosamunde mental, and emotional states. and his Symphony no. 9 (Great). I decided to try a new process in The title, Night Ferry, came from creating this work—simultaneously a passage in Seamus Heaney’s painting the music whilst writing “Elegy” for Robert Lowell, an it. On my wall, I taped seven large American poet who, like Schubert, canvases, side by side, horizontally, suffered from manic-depression: each divided into three subsections. This became my visual timeline You were our Night Ferry for the duration of the music. In thudding in a big sea, correlation to composing the music, the whole craft ringing I painted from left to right, moving with an armourer’s music forward through time. I painted a the course set wilfully across section, then composed a section, the ungovernable and dangerous and vice versa, intertwining the two in the creative process.

7 The process of unraveling the We have fallen into the place music visually helped to spark ideas where everything is music . . . for musical motifs, development, orchestration, and, in particular, This singing art is sea foam. structure. Similarly, the music The graceful movements come would also give direction to color, from a pearl texture, and form. Upon the somewhere on the ocean floor. canvas, I layered paint; charcoal; pencil; pen; ribbon; gauze; snippets Poems reach up like spindrift of text from Coleridge’s The Rime and the edge of the Ancient Mariner; fragments of of driftwood along the beach, Gustav Doré’s illustrations for this wanting! wonderfully evocative poem; and a selection of quotes from artists They derive afflicted with, and blessed by, this from a slow and powerful root fascinating illness. that we can’t see The first text written on the can- vas, to the far left side, in the bot- In addition to the above, I tom left corner reads “from a slow also found inspiration from the and powerful root . . . somewhere extraordinary power of the Chicago on the sea floor.” These are a couple Symphony Orchestra under of lines, quoted out of order, from Maestro Muti’s baton, and also Rumi’s poem “Where Everything the unique voices of the individual Is Music.” Copied below is a pas- musicians within the orchestra. sage from this beautiful poem, in Writing for an orchestra is usually translation by Coleman Barks. His an anonymous endeavor, but I am words unite the profound depth, in the fortunate position of know- power, and parallels of nature and ing the musicians and their musical the human existence as conveyed voices through this residency. I in Heaney’s image of Lowell as a found myself not writing solely for “Night Ferry.” the instruments, but for the specific musicians of the CSO. Thank you to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for this wonderful opportunity.

8 Franz Schubert

Symphony no. 9 in C major, D. 944 (Great)

hen Franz Schubert died at quite understood their value. In Wthe age of thirty-one, the late 1829, Ferdinand sold countless legal inventory of his property songs, piano works, and chamber listed three cloth dress coats, three music to Diabelli & Co.—who took frock coats, ten pairs of trousers, its time publishing them—leaving nine waistcoats, one hat, five pairs the symphonies, operas, and masses of shoes, two pairs of boots, four to sit untouched on his shelves at shirts, nine neckerchiefs and pocket home. Finally, in 1835, he enlisted handkerchiefs, thirteen pairs of the help of Robert Schumann, socks, one sheet, two blankets, one then editor of the prestigious Neue mattress, one featherbed cover, Zeitschrift für Musik. The paper ran and one counterpane [bedspread]. a list of “Franz Schubert’s larger “Apart from some old music posthumous works” available for besides,” the report concluded, “no sale. There was little response. belongings of the deceased are to On New Year’s Day 1837, Robert be found.” Schumann found himself in Vienna Some old music, as it turned out, and thought to go to the Währing referred to a few used music books Cemetery to visit the graves of and not to his manuscripts. Those Beethoven and Schubert, whose were with his dear friend Franz stones were separated by only von Schober, who later entrusted two others. On his way home, he them to Schubert’s brother remembered that Ferdinand still Ferdinand. No one, it appears, lived in Vienna and decided to pay

ComPoSeD moSt reCent aPProxImate 1825–26 CSo PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme April 25, 2009, 50 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe Orchestra Hall. bernard March 21, 1839, Haitink conducting CSo reCorDIngS leipzig, Germany. Felix 1940. Frederick Stock Mendelssohn conducting InStrumentatIon conducting. Columbia two flutes, two oboes, two 1977. Carlo Maria FIrSt CSo clarinets, two bassoons, two Giulini conducting. PerFormanCe horns, two trumpets, three Deutsche Grammophon December 18, trombones, timpani, strings 1891, Auditorium 1983. James levine conduct- Theatre. Theodore ing. Deutsche Grammophon Thomas conducting

9 him a visit. Here is Schumann’s in a Viennese suburb, he must have own famous account: been simply dumbstruck. He knew a work of genius He [Ferdinand] knew of me when he saw one, however, and because of that veneration he quickly sent it off to the direc- for his brother which I have tor of the Gewandhaus concerts so often publicly expressed; in Leipzig, where Mendelssohn told me and showed me many conducted the first performance things. . . . Finally, he allowed on March 21, 1839. There, in me to see those treasured com- Schumann’s words, it “was heard, positions of Schubert’s which understood, heard again, and joy- he still possesses. The sight of ously admired by almost everyone.” this hoard of riches thrilled The facts argue that it was hardly me with joy; where to begin, “joyously admired,” and that where to end! Among other perhaps it was understood only things, he drew my atten- by Schumann and Mendelssohn. tion to the scores of several In his boundless enthusiasm, symphonies, many of which Schumann fails to mention that it have never as yet been heard, was extensively cut for the per- but were shelved as too heavy formance, but he is surely right in and turgid. wondering how long it “might have lain buried in dust and darkness” if There, among the piles, lay a it weren’t for his efforts. heavy volume of 130 pages, dated Still, it was slow to conquer. March 1828 at the top of the first When just the first two movements sheet. The manuscript, including were programmed in Vienna later the date and a number of cor- that year, an aria from Lucia di rections, is entirely in Schubert’s Lammermoor was wedged between hand, which often appears to have them to soften the blow of so been flying as fast as his pen could much serious music. Performances go. The work, a symphony in C, planned for Paris and London in Schubert’s last and greatest, had the early 1840s were canceled after never been performed. irate orchestra members refused Robert Schumann was a to submit to its difficulties. The thoughtful, perceptive man, and an symphony reached London in 1856, unusually astute judge of music— but in odd installments: the first he was among the very first to three movements were played one appreciate Schubert’s instrumental week and movements two through writing—but it’s difficult to know four the next. if even he, at first, understood the Eventually, though, Schumann’s significance of his discovery. His verdict reigned, and he was well-known written account comes recognized not only for his fortu- years later, after the symphony’s itous discovery, but for his sharp- first performances, but on that first sighted assessment. Schumann day of 1837, in Ferdinand’s study spoke, famously, of the symphony’s

10 “heavenly length,” the very quality generations added a subtitle, Great many contemporary listeners found (to distinguish it from the shorter trying, trusting only Beethoven to sixth symphony, also in C major), stretch their patience. Schumann and Deutsch a number, 944. had an answer for that, too, insist- ing that Schubert “never proposed s for the music, many earlier to continue Beethoven’s Ninth Awriters, including Schumann Symphony, but, an indefatigable and Donald Tovey, have written artist, he continually drew from eloquently and at considerable—if his own creative resources . . . .” not heavenly—length of this Like Beethoven, but in his own symphony’s greatness. Today the quite individual way, Schubert was music more easily speaks for itself. forging ahead into music’s dark Schubert’s broad canvas is no longer unknown. Schumann demands thought oversized, and his peer- our sympathies: less, ineffable way with a melody can carry the new listener through All must recognize that it many difficulties. (Schumann reveals to us something more is particularly reassuring in this than beautiful song, mere joy regard: “the composer has mastered and sorrow, such as music his tale, and . . . in time, its connec- has always expressed in a tions will all become clear.”) hundred ways; it leads us into The first movement begins regions which—to our best with an Andante of such weight recollection—we had never and nobility that it’s inadequately before explored. described as an introduction. That bold—yet quiet—opening horn call The passage of time has has a marked influence on many helped audiences embrace both of the allegro themes to come, and Schumann’s enthusiasm and the then returns, at the movement’s extensiveness of Schubert’s concept. end, loudly proclaiming its success. Time and research also have put The entire Allegro reveals a sweep- the work in its proper slot among ing rhythmic vitality unparalleled Schubert’s 998 compositions—the in Schubert’s work. final count of Otto Erich Deutsch, The slow movement sings of whose indispensable catalog (1950) tragedy, which later raised its voice assigns a D number to each work. in Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle And we now know something that and surfaces again and again in even Deutsch didn’t realize: this the music of his last years. Seldom is the supposedly lost symphony has Schubert’s fondness for shift- of 1825 (which Deutsch assigns ing from the major to the minor number 849), sketched at Gmunden mode carried such weight; here on a summer outing. Later, when each hopeful thought is ultimately Schubert wrote out the full score contradicted, gently but decisively. in fair copy, he dated the manu- There’s a sublime moment when the script March 1828. To that, later horn, as if from the distance, quietly

11 calls everything into question with that appears to charge onward the repeated tolling of a single with only an occasional push from note. And then later, Schubert, like the composer. But Schubert, like Gretchen in one of his most famous Mozart, is a master of deceptive songs, builds inexorably to a climax simplicity, luring unsuspecting per- so wrenching that everything stops formers into countless pitfalls and before sputtering back to life. allowing generations of listeners to The scherzo and its lovely trio cherish the image of the brilliant midsection, with their wealth composer—all inspiration and of dance tunes, remind us that no sweat. Schubert would gladly improvise dance music for others, while he, with his poor eyesight and unfor- tunate height (barely five feet) sat safely at the piano all night. Schubert launches his finale with Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2012 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2012 Chicago the kind of energetic, fearless music tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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