CLASSICAL FIVE Four Seasons SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2020 ▪ 7:00 p.m. • FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF HUNTSVILLE Timothy Chooi, Huntsville Orchestra • GREGORY VAJDA, Music Director & Conductor

Antonio Vivaldi Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), op. 8 (1678–1741) La primavera (Spring), op. 8, no. 1, RV 269 I. Allegro II. Largo e pianissimo III. Allegro pastorale

L’estate (Summer), op. 8, no. 2, RV 315 I. Allegro non molto II. Adagio e piano—Presto e forte III. Presto

L’autunno (Autumn), op. 8, no. 3, RV 293 I. Allegro II. Adagio molto III. Allegro

L’inverno (Winter), op. 8, no. 4, RV 297 I. Allegro non molto II. Largo III. Allegro Timothy Chooi, violin

INTERMISSION

Richard Strauss Aus Italien (From Italy), Symphonic Fantasy, op. 16 (1864–1949) I. Auf der Campagne (On the Roman Campagna) II. In Roms Ruinen (In the Ruins of Rome) III. Am Strande vom Sorrent (On the Beach of Sorrento) IV. Neapolitanisches Volksleben (Neapolitan Folk-Life)

Davidson Classical Series Concert Sponsor: PHYSICIANS 100

Guest Artist Sponsor: PAT AND GENE SAPP

Production Sponsor: REALTORS® OF NOTE 62 • HSO SEASON 65 • SPRING nature of the cycle, describing through music the full round of the year, was a somewhat unusual practice Program Notes in instrumental music of the time. Vivaldi even wrote sonnets to pair with the printing of each piece: we are told that the second movement of Spring depicts a shepherd and his dog slumbering beneath a tree, while the opening of Winter represents whipping winds VIVALDI and chattering teeth. In the middle of Summer we are Le quattro stagioni, op. 8 subjected to a terrifying thunderstorm, and the finale of Autumn tells the story of an early morning hunt. The reputation of Antonio Vivaldi has followed its own course of seasons. His published sonatas, concertos, This engaging program aside, The Four Seasons em- and a few choral works were well known to contem- bodies all that is best-loved about Vivaldi. Though he porary cognoscenti across Europe; J. S. Bach, for one, has been criticized for a lack of development—some learned much from Vivaldi’s art, imitated his style in say he is better at presenting ideas than at working certain respects, and created transcriptions of his works through them musically—there is no doubt that Vivaldi for the benefit of pupils. By 1800, Vivaldi’s music had is one of the great extroverts of the art form, able to fallen into neglect, where it lay dormant until resurrected captivate and titillate an audience as few others can. in the 1920s and 1930s—fortuitously in time for the age of He is particularly adept in capitalizing on the rhetoric recording and broadcast. The Italian composer Alfredo of the concertante style, building drama out of the Casella and the violinist Fritz Kreisler both championed soloist’s seemingly spontaneous virtuosity and the more the cause. Today Vivaldi is often counted as one of the deliberate, predictable commentary from the larger “big three” Baroque composers alongside Bach and ensemble. [ca. 45’] Handel. His popularity depends heavily on the many concertos he published, The Four Seasons foremost among them, though in recent years his colorful operas STRAUSS have also garnered increased attention. Aus Italien, op. 16

Vivaldi, son of a Venetian barber and violinist, was , born the son of a famous Munich horn one of nine children in a middle-class family. Asthma player in 1864, benefited in youth from precocious prevented his progress at -playing, so he took up talent, shrewd intellect, and frequent associations with his father’s instrument as a teenager. It was determined leading artistic figures of that time and place. The boy that he should enter the clergy, and he earned his ordi- practically lived among the ranks of the Munich Court nation at age 25. He was fondly nicknamed “The Red Orchestra, which was like a trade school for him; given Priest” thanks to his copious crimson hair. his skill, zeal, and superlative training, it is hardly surpris- ing that Strauss had achieved his first professional post For about thirty years, Vivaldi was associated with the as conductor by age twenty-one. Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, an orphange where he taught violin, directed the orchestra, and composed We know Strauss as one of the defining operatists of the hundreds of pieces for performance by the pupils long 20th century, but his first successes as a composer were after he had stopped actively teaching. His work took his ten “” for orchestra—symphonic works him to Rome and to the town of Mantua, where The of the programmatic type—especially (1889) Four Seasons were composed between 1718–1722. and Death and Transfiguration (1890), which estab- lished him internationally as a leading composer while The Four Seasons was, from the outset, all about publi- yet in his twenties. Strauss’ musical voice reflects both cation. Vivaldi and his Amsterdam distributor, Le Cène, his scrupulously conservative training and a fascination had enjoyed success with the concerto collections with the experiments of Wagner and Berlioz. Strauss L’estro armonico and La stravaganza, so it was hoped would interact significantly with interwar trends and that the 1725 release of these imaginative new works currents, so it cannot be said that he worked in a would build on the momentum. The programmatic

HSO SEASON 65 • SPRING • 63 vacuum, but his formidable stature as the last great descriptions of the beautiful countryside, the old Forum Romantic icon is derived from the manner in which he in Rome, and other such delights. These epistles be- seems to have sprung fully formed and armored, like came the basis of his first tone poem, From Italy. Athena, from the forehead of an Olympian. Aus Italien, though a forward-thinking, capricious com- Just as he was leaving the podium of the Meiningen position, is wrapped in the traditional four-movement Orchestra to command the Bavarian State Opera in symphonic package. It shares this in common with 1886, Strauss spent a couple of months on vacation Respighi’s great Roman Trilogy, written about sixty years sightseeing in Italy. This was undertaken at the direct later. Strauss got into a bit of trouble with his boisterous suggestion of Brahms. The journey was not without its Neapolitan finale—he was sued, successfully, because difficulties (a leaky boat, for one, and the same cholera he had borrowed “Funiculi, Funiculà” as a folk tune outbreak later memorialized in Thomas Mann’s Death when in fact it was a copyrighted popular song by the in Venice). But Strauss wrote home to Mom with glowing composer Luigi Denza. [ca. 43’]

Guest Artist

Timothy Chooi, violin • Performances with Belgian National Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Sichuan Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and Montreal Symphony • Appearances at Twickenham Fest, Ravinia Festival, Verbier Festival, and Carnegie Hall • First Prize, 2018 Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition; Second Prize, 2019 Queen Elizabeth Competition

64 • HSO SEASON 65 • SPRING