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Home , Jean Sibelius

Program

One Hundred Twenty-Second Season Chicago Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Friday, February 15, 2013, at 8:00 Saturday, February 16, 2013, at 8:00 Sunday, February 17, 2013, at 3:00 Tuesday, February 19, 2013, at 7:30 Sir Mark Elder Conductor Garrick Ohlsson Dvo ˇrák The Water Goblin, Op. 107 First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Rachmaninov Piano No. 3 in , Op. 30 Allegro ma non tanto — Finale Garrick Ohlsson

Intermission Sibelius Symphony No. 1 in , Op. 39 Andante, ma non troppo—Allegro energico Andante (ma non troppo lento) Scherzo: Allegro Finale (Quasi un fantasia): Andante—Allegro molto

The appearance of Garrick Ohlsson is endowed in part by the Johnson & Livingston Families Fund for Piano Performance. Saturday’s concert is sponsored by Mayer Brown LLP. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. These concerts are part of the CSO’s 2012–13 Rivers exploration, which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. 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

Antonín Dvo ˇrák Born September 8, 1841, Mühlhausen, Bohemia (now Nelahozeves, Czech Republic). Died May 1, 1904, Prague.

The Water Goblin, Op. 107

ntonín Dvořák wasn’t the first compositions. After he moved to Acomposer to reject the family Prague in 1857, he became prin- business for a life in music. Robert cipal viola in the orchestra for the Schumann, for example, was the new Provisional Theater (later the only one of four brothers to leave National Theater). For the rest of his father’s book publishing com- his life, he treasured the memory pany for another career. František of playing a concert there in 1863 Dvořák, a butcher in a village just under his idol, , north of Prague, also expected which included the to his son to continue in the trade. Tannhäuser, the prelude to Tristan František played the zither and and Isolde, and excerpts from Die even wrote a few tunes for the local Meistersinger and Die Walküre. In band, but he didn’t think of com- 1871, Dvořák left the orchestra posing as an occupation. He was to devote more time to composi- irate when his thirteen-year-old son tion, but he soon realized that he dropped out of his apprenticeship would have to teach to get by. For as a butcher and moved to nearby many years, his father doubted the Zlonice to study music. wisdom of his son’s choice of music Antonín Dvořák learned to play over the life of a butcher. the violin as a small boy, and he Then in 1873, Dvořák’s works composed marches and waltzes began to attract attention. The for the village band. In Zlonice, successful premiere of his patriotic he studied piano, organ, and viola, cantata Heirs of the White Mountain eventually becoming a decent on March 9 launched his fame in enough violist to earn a living as his homeland. Later that year, he an orchestra musician when he married Anna Cermáková, the couldn’t make any money from his sister of the Prague actress Josefina,

Composed Instrumentation Approximate January 6–February 11, 1896 two flutes and piccolo, two performance time oboes and english horn, 20 minutes First performance two clarinets and bass November 14, 1896; London, clarinet, two , four England horns, two trumpets, three and two tubas, These are the CSO’s timpani, percussion, strings first performances

2 who had, nearly a decade before, This late-in-life career move was rebuffed his advances. (Like Mozart inspired by the rediscovery of The and Haydn, he married not his first Garland, a collection of ballads by love, but her sister.) In 1874, Dvořák the nationalist poet Karel Jaromír took stock of his situation: he had Erben—poetry that Dvořák had begun to taste success; his wife was loved for years, but that spoke pregnant with their first child; and to him even more forcefully now he looked forward to the pleasures, that he was back in his homeland. comforts, and traditions of fam- In 1896, Dvořák composed four ily life. But he craved recognition based on tales and he needed money. In July, he drawn from Erben’s anthology; a entered fifteen of his newest works fifth, not based on Erben, followed in a competition for the Austrian the next year. They were his last State Music Prize, a government orchestral works. award designed to assist struggling The Water Goblin is the first of young artists. The judges included the symphonic poems that Dvořák , the biggest name wrote in the early months of in Viennese music. Dvořák won the 1896—he began all three early in first prize of four hundred gulden, January, and worked on them at and he felt a kind of encouragement the same time for several weeks. and validation that money can’t buy. (Sir Mark Elder led the CSO in Over the next few years, several the second one, The Midday Witch, of Dvořák’s works were published, in the June 2009 Dvořák Festival, first in Prague and then more and the third, The Golden Spinning widely, and his music quickly Wheel, this past December.) In late became well known throughout February 1896, after he had finished Europe and in the United States. the first two Erben pieces and was By the time he accepted Jeannette still at work on the third, Dvořák Thurber’s invitation to take up visited Brahms, who urged him to temporary residence in the United move his family to —an invi- States, beginning in 1892, he was tation that Dvořák couldn’t seriously enjoying extraordinary critical consider, since he now felt more and popular success. Dvořák’s attached than ever to his native American years cemented his land. We don’t know if Dvořák told reputation in this country, and also Brahms, the great symphonist— inspired some of his best-loved and, pointedly, the composer of music, including the American no symphonic poems—of the new and his last direction his music had taken. symphony—the ninth, known Taking a cue from Liszt’s pio- as From the New World. After he neering tone poems, Dvořák assigns returned home in April 1895, a musical theme to each central Dvořák composed two last string character in the action, allowing quartets that were his final it to be transformed by the events in abstract music, cleared his head, in the unfolding drama. This was and then unexpectedly turned his also the model for the series of new attention to the . orchestral works begun by Richard

3 Strauss in the preceding decade; the entire score, although each of the he was composing Also sprach other main characters, a mother and Zarathustra at the time Dvořák her daughter, has her own musical was working on the Erben scores. signature. As the narrative unfolds, Theodore Thomas, the first music the mother recounts a terrible dream director of the Chicago Symphony she has had and, filled with pre- Orchestra, followed the careers of monitions, warns her daughter not both Dvořák and Strauss closely and to go near the lake. Nevertheless, was eager to bring their new works or perhaps inevitably, the daughter to this country. In Chicago, he ignores the warning; as she dips her gave the U.S. premiere of Strauss’s dress into the water, the bridge she Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks on stands on collapses and she falls into November 15, 1895—only weeks the lake. The goblin delights in the before Dvořák began The Water realization that he has now found Goblin. He and the Orchestra gave the victim who will become his wife. the first performances in this coun- They soon have a child, which brings try of Dvořák’s The Golden Spinning the only joy to the young woman in Wheel in January 1897, but never got her bleak new subterranean prison. around to The Water Goblin. This She sings a lullaby for her baby. week’s performances are the first in The goblin interrupts, saying her the Orchestra’s history. singing is hideous. She tries to calm him and eventually begs to leave n all of his Erben scores, Dvořák just once in order to see her mother Ilets the shape of the poet’s narra- again. The goblin reluctantly agrees tive determine the basic form of the on the condition that she leave their music. But the influence of Erben’s child behind with him, and that language had a more profound and she return after one day, as soon as subtle impact on Dvořák’s music. the vesper bells ring. The mother Throughout each score, the rise and and daughter are reunited. In the fall of his melodic lines suggest the work’s climax, Dvořák telescopes declamation of Erben’s verses. In The and selects incidents to make for a Water Goblin in particular, certain powerful, tightly woven final scene. passages of the poem could almost The gist of the action: After the bells be sung, word for word, to Dvořák’s sound, the mother tries to persuade corresponding themes. This is her daughter to stay. The goblin similar to the “speech-melody” goes to find his wife. He knocks on that Janáček was developing in his the cottage door, saying their child operatic writing at this time. must be fed. The mother asks that he The Water Goblin tells the tragic bring the child to them. He leaves, tale of the mythical figure who sits enraged. A storm breaks out over by the lake, dreaming of the girl he the lake. The goblin returns to the intends to drown, marry, and take cottage. The mother and daughter home to his underwater world. The open the door to find the child lying main theme of Dvořák’s tone poem on the doorstep dead: “A child’s is that of the goblin himself, which head without a body, a child’s body introduces the piece and dominates without a head.”

4 Sergei Rachmaninov Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia. Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California.

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30

lthough Rachmaninov’s music later, Stravinsky called him “a six- Ais sometimes confused with and-a-half-foot-tall scowl.” the treacly of the Rachmaninov would have Hollywood soundtracks it once become famous if he had done inspired, Rachmaninov himself was nothing but concertize. But his a serious and aristocratic artist. He true aspiration was to become was one of the greatest pianists in a composer. At the Moscow history—an astonishing virtuoso in Conservatory, his teacher Nikolai the heroic tradition of Liszt—but Zverev encouraged him to stick to there was nothing flashy about his the piano instead of writing music, stage manner. Rachmaninov was but Rachmaninov tried his hand at surprisingly somber and remote composing some piano pieces and for a crowd-pleasing superstar. He an orchestral scherzo, and he even rarely smiled or courted the audi- started an opera, Esmerelda. Unable ence, and even his close-cropped to choose between composition haircut, of a kind that is ubiquitous and performance, Rachmaninov today but was highly suspect at the ultimately decided to pursue both, time (like that of a convict, as the eventually becoming a fine conduc- Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin tor as well. In 1889, the year he and said) suggested a stern presence. Zverev parted ways, he sketched (Chaliapin also scolded him for and abandoned a , his curt, peremptory bows.) Much but the one he began the following

Composed Additional CSO Instrumentation summer, 1909 performances with two flutes, two oboes, two the composer as clarinets, two bassoons, First performance soloist four horns, two trumpets, November 28, 1909, New January 14-15, 1932, three trombones and tuba, York City. The composer Orchestra Hall. Frederick timpani, side drum, cymbals, as soloist Stock conducting bass drum, strings

First CSO Most recent CSO Approximate performances performance performance time January 23 & 24, 1920, April 10, 2012, Orchestra 44 minutes Orchestra Hall. The com- Hall. Nikolai Lugansky, poser as soloist; Frederick piano; Charles CSO recording Stock conducting Dutoit conducting 1967. Alexis Weissenberg, piano; Georges Prêtre conducting. RCA.

5 year is his first major work—the occasionally lacked brilliance, but one that became his op. 1. This is that “the orchestral accompaniment the score that made his name as a was outstanding.” The composer, and it was completed in Herald, somewhat half-heartedly, a rush of passion and elation, with called the work one of the “most Rachmaninov working from five in interesting piano of the morning until eight in the eve- recent years,” but noted that “its ning and scoring the last two move- great length and extreme difficul- ments in just two and a half days. ties bar it from performances by any It would be ten years, however, but pianists of exceptional technical before Rachmaninov would finish powers”—an assessment that still his Second Piano Concerto, which holds today. (Rachmaninov played quickly became his greatest hit the concerto when he appeared and his calling card. He played it with the Chicago Symphony for the with the Chicago Symphony when second time, in January 1920.) he made his debut in Orchestra Although in 1909 Rachmaninov Hall, on December 3, 1909—the was known as one of the great first of his eight appearances with piano virtuosos, he began his the Orchestra. new concerto not with solo fireworks, but with something lthough Chicago didn’t get to of almost Mozartean clarity Ahear it, by then Rachmaninov and understatement—a discreet had written a third piano con- accompaniment to which the certo, tailor-made for his first piano adds a quiet, simple melody North American tour in late 1909. in bare octaves. It’s as plain and Rachmaninov introduced the work haunting as chant, and although in New York on November 28, Rachmaninov told musicologist with and the Joseph Yasser that the theme came New York Symphony. He played it to him “ready-made,” Yasser wasn’t there again in January, with Gustav surprised when he later discovered a Mahler conducting the New York strikingly similar Russian liturgical Philharmonic (only weeks after melody. Rachmaninov said that Mahler’s own First Symphony, in he thought of the piano theme as its American premiere, was a flop). a kind of song, and he took pains Rachmaninov was bowled over to find an accompaniment “that by Mahler’s meticulous rehearsal would not muffle this singing.” method—“the accompaniment,” (He was understandably delighted Rachmaninov recalled, “which is with the care Mahler lavished on rather complicated, had been prac- the orchestral part.) As the move- ticed to the point of perfection”— ment progresses, both melody and by his attention to detail, and by accompaniment are explored and his refusal to stop working until developed at length, as is a lyrical he was satisfied (rehearsal ran an second theme. The climax of the hour overtime). movement is the magnificent solo thought Rachmaninov’s playing cadenza, as long and as tough as

6 any in the repertoire, which takes composing, he had spread himself the place of a formal recapitulation. too thin. “I have chased three (The piano writing is so symphonic, hares,” he once said. “Can I be complex, and multifaceted that we certain that I have captured one?” barely notice that the orchestra has For many years, Rachmaninov’s temporarily dropped out.) stature as a pianist was undisputed. In the middle-movement But by the time of his death in 1943 Intermezzo—a curiously “light” title (he appeared with the Chicago for music so big and involved—the Symphony for the last time just piano’s entrance is both unmistak- six weeks before he died), he had able and disruptive, for it takes con- been written off as an old-fashioned trol with its first phrase and leads composer—hopelessly sentimental, the music in new directions (even- out of touch, and irrelevant. As tually settling in D-flat, an unex- told the young pected destination for a concerto playwright Edward Albee in 1948, in D minor). A “new” waltz theme, “It is really extraordinary, after all, introduced by the clarinet and bas- that a composer so famous should soon, over fancy piano filigree, is a have enjoyed so little the esteem of cleverly disguised version—almost his fellow composers.” The sacro- note for note—of the concerto’s sanct Grove Dictionary of Music and monastic opening melody. Musicians, in its fifth edition, pub- The finale, which begins fully lished in the 1950s, concluded its formed while the Intermezzo is still dismal appraisal of his output: “The finishing up, is the kind of virtuoso enormous popular success some tour de force Rachmaninov’s fans few of Rachmaninov’s works had in expected in 1909 and courageous his lifetime is not likely to last and pianists still love delivering today. musicians never regarded it with It’s also richly inventive, with a much favor.” But in recent years, fantastic, playful scherzando (in his star has been on the rise. Now, E-flat!) as a mid-movement diver- as Rachmaninov always hoped, it is sion. The ending, predictably, is his music and not his piano playing designed to test the limits of virtu- that keeps his name alive. Fittingly, osity and bring down the house. for a composer who once inspired a generation of movie compos- hroughout Rachmaninov’s life, ers, Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Tit was fashionable—if not in Concerto played a leading role fact honorable in progressive music in Shine, the 1996 film about the circles—to disparage his music. Australian pianist David Helfgott Rachmaninov had always worried and his heroic struggles to learn that by splitting his time between and perform “Rach 3,” the most playing the piano, conducting, and formidable of all piano concertos.

7 Jean Sibelius Born December 8, 1865, Tavastehus (Hämeenlinna), . Died September 20, 1957, Järvenpää, Finland.

Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 39

ust as a trip to Bayreuth in of his early compositions are J1894 discouraged Sibelius from chamber works—violin sonatas, writing operas, a performance of piano trios, and string quartets.) Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony He tried his hand at composing in the same year sug- an overture in 1890, while he was gested the direction his career a student in Vienna, where he was should take instead. Sibelius went greatly excited by a performance to the famous Wagner festival in of Bruckner’s Third Symphony. Bayreuth that July, carrying his (He always remembered that the scores of Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, audience booed the composer, but and Die Walküre. (It was , that Bruckner’s friends escorted however, which he attended the day him to his coach “amid much he arrived, that completely bowled cheering and general commotion.”) him over.) He later claimed that Inspired by the prospect of writing Wagner’s music had little impact bigger works for larger forces, he on him, but in that summer of jumped headlong into , a 1894, still under the influence of five-movement symphonic work Parsifal, he dashed off to Munich of Mahlerian proportions scored to see Tristan and Isolde, returned to for orchestra, soloists, and chorus, Bayreuth for the Ring, and subse- which he completed in 1892. With quently gave up his own plans to , a tone poem written the write an opera. same year, and the In 1894, Sibelius had just begun for composed the year after, to write for orchestra. (The majority Sibelius seemed destined to make

Composed First CSO Instrumentation 1898 performance two flutes and two piccolos, December 6, 1907, two oboes, two clarinets, two First performance Orchestra Hall. Frederick bassoons, four horns, three April 26, 1899, Helsinki, Stock conducting trumpets, three trombones Finland. The com- and tuba, timpani, bass poser conducting Most recent CSO drum, cymbals, triangle, performance harp, strings February 20, 2005, Orchestra Hall. Lorin Approximate Maazel conducting performance time 38 minutes

8 his mark in the concert hall. The autonomy and limited the freedoms trip to Bayreuth sealed his fate. of speech and assembly.) The music After hearing Tchaikovsky’s for the fourth tableau, “Finland newest symphony—the Awakes,” soon became known Pathétique—in 1894 and then around the world as and again in 1897, Sibelius could no made a national hero of Sibelius, longer resist writing his own purely who, ironically, grew up speak- instrumental symphony. (He called ing Swedish and didn’t master the Kullervo a symphonic poem.) In Finnish language until he was a 1898, he caught a performance of young man. Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in The First Symphony was also which so greatly fired his used for political purposes. (At the enthusiasm that he began compos- premiere, Sibelius followed it with ing before he returned to Helsinki. The Song of the Athenians, a thinly By September he was busy writ- veiled patri- ing, and he didn’t even attend the otic chorus, recitals given there by his friend, leading one the celebrated pianist-composer Helsinki critic , merely send- to review ing a note of apology in his place. a “five- Sibelius was absorbed in his work movement and preoccupied with his fate. symphony In his diary that month he com- with choral ments, “Autumn sun and bitter finale.”) thoughts . . . . How willingly I Finland’s most would have sacrificed some of the famous com- financial support I have received poser quickly Pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni if I only had some sympathy and became an understanding of my art—if some- international one loved my work.” figure, and his First Symphony As it turned out, his First helped to establish his reputation. It Symphony was very warmly was the centerpiece of the Helsinki received when Sibelius conducted Philharmonic’s European tour in the premiere the following April, the summer of 1900, and it never and it was soon overshadowed by failed to rouse the audience. the greatest popular success of From the earliest performances, his career. In December, Sibelius the symphony was regularly agreed to write incidental music compared to those by Tchaikovsky. for a pageant of dramatic tableaux “I know that there is much in that on Finnish history organized by man I also have,” Sibelius told his the Press Pension Fund to inspire wife Aino, “but there isn’t much national pride during a time of one can do about that.” Years great political tension. (The notori- later, when he had grown weary ous February Manifesto of 1899 of hearing variations on the same had deprived Finland of its political comment, he lost patience: “I

9 cannot understand why my sym- passage is grounded throughout phonies are so often compared with by a long-held pedal point. The Tchaikovsky’s. His are movement is tightly knit, organi- very human, but they represent the cally unified (in the best, seemingly soft part of human nature. Mine unconscious manner), and master- are the hard parts.” fully paced. The slow movement—in E-flat, rom the opening measures of a real shock after the E minor of Fhis first symphony, Sibelius the previous music—owes some of establishes himself as an utterly its mood and poignant coloring to distinctive, fresh new voice. “Every Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, but the page . . . breathes of another cut of the melodies, the bracing manner of thought, another way of harmonies, and the unexpected living, even another landscape and shifting are pure Sibelius. seascape than ours,” wrote Ernest The scherzo is vigorous and Newman in 1905. The beginning exciting, with a furious rhythmic is extraordinary: a solitary clarinet drive set in motion by the opening sings a mysterious, exotic melody string . Its midsection over the distant thunder of the trio is delicate, enigmatic, and timpani. The tone shifts at once as prophetic of Sibelius’s future as a the strings interject a bracing new modernist. The finale begins with theme that seems to come from yet the symphony’s opening clarinet another landscape (for one thing, it melody, now transformed by the suggests E minor, the symphony’s strings (and harmonized by the governing key, for the first time). brass). With its powerful energy, The main Allegro energico gives brilliant orchestral effects— the impression of moving across some in open admiration of great spaces, encompassing a Tchaikovsky—and oddly exhilarat- wide range of speeds, from near ing mood swings, it’s the work of a standstill to racing momentum. born symphonist. (And sometimes, in characteristic Sibelius fashion, there seems to be more than one going on at Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2013 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2013 Chicago once.) One particularly energetic tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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