Toronto Symphony Orchestra Wednesday, November 27, 2019 At
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Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director Wednesday, November 27, 2019 at 8:00pm Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:00pm Saturday, November 30, 2019 at 8:00pm Sunday, December 1, 2019 at 3:00pm All Tchaikovsky Simon Rivard, conductor Daniel Lozakovich, violin Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 13 “Winter Dreams” I. Allegro tranquillo II. Adagio cantabile ma non tanto III. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso IV. Finale: Andante lugubre – Allegro moderato – Allegro maestoso Intermission Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 I. Allegro moderato II. Canzonetta: Andante III. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture The November 30 performance is generously supported by the Impresarios Club, the TSO’s young- professionals donor circle. As a courtesy to musicians, guest artists, and fellow concertgoers, please put your phone away and on silent during the performance. NOVEMBER 27, 28, 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 9 ABOUT THE WORKS Youthful it might have been, but Symphony No. 1 already bears many hallmarks of the mature Tchaikovsky. It is, moreover, a work of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky some historical importance: one of the first symphonies by a Russian composer. This is Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, perhaps reflected in the programmatic titles Op. 13 “Winter Dreams” Tchaikovsky gave to the work as a whole, and to its first two movements—“Daydreams of a Born: Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840 Winter Journey” and “Land of Gloom, Land of Died: St. Petersburg, Russia, Nov 6, 1893 Mists”. In the extraordinary opening of the first Composed: 1866 43 movement, which begins with a gentle melody min (flute and bassoon) over quiet violin tremolos, we can perhaps hear a still, frozen beauty; and the Adagio, framed by sober, hymn-like music The Symphony No. 1 cost Tchaikovsky more for strings alone, is deeply Russian in character. labour and anguish than any other work, Listen especially to the main theme, introduced according to his brother Modest. Even by an oboe with ornate counterpoint from a before he graduated from the St. Petersburg flute. The movement is steeped in melodies, and Conservatory, in December 1865, he had been features many expressive harmonic ambiguities, invited by Nikolai Rubinstein to join the faculty shifting often between keys and modes. of the newly formed Moscow Conservatory. He began teaching there in January 1866 For his Scherzo, Tchaikovsky borrowed almost and, that spring, began work on this first intact a movement from a piano sonata in symphony. Enmeshed in a struggle between C-sharp Minor that he had composed in 1865 the conflicting demands of his creative but never published. The trio in E-flat Major impulses, his teaching schedule, and his social that completes the movement was, however, life—to say nothing of the pressure he felt in newly composed. Elegant and lushly scored, grappling, for the first time, with a large-scale it is the first of Tchaikovsky’s great orchestral musical form—by late July, he was on the waltzes, offering a striking contrast to the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the doctor spiky, fragmented, and syncopated opening. who treated him at that time found him “one Both outer movements are ambitious—one step away from madness.” senses a young composer intent on showing Progress on the symphony was off his wares—but they reveal that Tchaikovsky understandably sluggish. He finished had already mastered Classical forms. Tightly sketching it in May, began orchestrating it organized, they offer impressive displays of in June, worked on it through the summer counterpoint. The last movement evolves even in the countryside near St. Petersburg, and more organically than the first, opening with continued to revise the score through the a slow, heavy introduction based on a Russian fall and winter. Previews of parts of the folk song, which serves as the source from which work-in-progress, conducted by Rubinstein, both main themes of the subsequent Allegro were coolly received, but the première of the are derived. The music of the movement’s complete symphony in Moscow, again under introduction, at the original slow tempo, returns Rubinstein’s baton, on February 3, 1868, was near the end, to usher in a fast coda that is, a brilliant success—his first public triumph. perhaps, overlong and overexcited, but is In 1883, in a letter to a friend, Tchaikovsky forgivable in a zealous fledgling composer— wrote of this symphony, “Despite all its a sin of sweet youth, as the composer called it. glaring deficiencies I have a soft spot for it, Program note by Kevin Bazzana for it is a sin of my sweet youth.” 10 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky The orchestra is small by late 19th-century Violin Concerto in D Major, standards—larger by only two horns than that of Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony, composed Op. 35 exactly a century before. But Tchaikovsky uses these modest forces with great discrimination: Composed: 1878 34 min more than a third of the first movement has passed before we hear an extended statement from the full orchestra, and it doesn’t last In July 1877, Tchaikovsky, who was long; much of the movement sounds like homosexual, entered into a disastrous chamber music. heterosexual marriage, the strain of which There are two striking departures in the drove him to nervous collapse and attempted work from an otherwise quite conventional suicide. To recover, he fled to Western Europe. classical sonata form. The first is the short In the spring of 1878, he was joined at orchestral introduction, which begins with Clarens, Switzerland, by a Russian friend, the an attractive eight-bar melody, mostly in the violinist Josef Kotek. The two began playing strings, that could have served perfectly well violin repertoire together, and Tchaikovsky, as one of the main themes. But it is never stimulated in particular by their rendition of heard again—serving only to set the basically Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, was inspired to lyrical, pastoral tone of the movement, write a violin concerto. He completed it in just while dramatically delaying the entrance 11 days—the first movement “sprang suddenly of the soloist. The second departure is the into my head,” he recalled—and orchestrated placement of the solo cadenza just before, it within two weeks, including writing an rather than after, the recapitulation, where entirely new replacement for his original it serves partly as development, partly to slow movement, which became the separate intensify the return to the main key and the Méditation for violin and piano, Op. 42, No. 1. first main theme. But at the première, in Vienna, on December The lyricism of the first movement is given 4, 1881, the concerto was not well received. fuller voice in the second, the Canzonetta The conservative critic Eduard Hanslick (Little Song); note the chorale-like opening wrote a damning review, dismissing it as long, theme, the sombre, folk-like main theme, tasteless, undiscriminating, pretentious, and the brief, sweet diversion in the middle. crude, brutal, coarse, and vulgar (he actually In the bustling, dazzlingly unpredictable used the word “stinky”). Tchaikovsky, deeply rondo Finale, there is a prominent lyrical hurt, could recite this review by heart for the element too, even in the soulful and brooding rest of his life. episodes. All of the melodic ideas in the Finale, It is difficult to fathom how this of all pieces as the composer acknowledged, have a strong could invite such invective, for the music is Russian flavour sometimes emphasized by inspired and polished, and its gentleness, rustic effects in the scoring—drone basses in charm, and melodic beauty are remarkable. the cellos, for instance, and throaty melodies The virtuosity seems almost reluctant, in the solo violin part that conjure up the as in the Clarinet Concerto by Mozart (a sounds of a peasant fiddle. composer Tchaikovsky revered). In the first Program note by Kevin Bazzana movement, every principal theme is of a lyrical and intimate nature; only in the process of extending and intensifying these themes does Tchaikovsky permit a more extroverted style. NOVEMBER 27, 28, 30 & DECEMBER 1, 2019 11 ABOUT THE WORKS violas and four cellos. The work’s iconic main theme, based on a Russian Empire cavalry bugle call, then sounds the alarm, followed Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky by the approach of the French army, signified by La Marseillaise (which, ironically, had by 1812 Overture then been outlawed by Napoleon, but was Composed: 1880 reinstated as the French national anthem 16 in 1879—the year before the commission of min the overture). At this point, the battle lines are drawn: the Marseillaise contests with Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky’s long-time themes drawn from Russian folk music, as friend, colleague, and mentor, suggested this the French get closer and closer to Moscow. project to Tchaikovsky in 1880, as a grand The work’s turning point comes when the first ceremonial piece: the Cathedral of Christ five of the work’s 16 cannon shots are heard, the Saviour, commissioned in 1812 by Tsar representing the Battle of Borodino, which, Alexander I to commemorate the defence of despite a French tactical victory, proved to Russia against Napoleon’s invading Grande be pivotal. A long, descending run follows as Armée, was nearing completion in Moscow; the French army retreats from Moscow. The the 25th anniversary of the coronation of opening hymn returns, followed by the main Alexander II would be at hand in 1881; and the bugle theme again, ushering in the overture’s 1882 All-Russia Arts and Industry Exhibition climactic close, with its volleys of cannon fire, at Moscow was in the planning stage.