CONCERT PROGRAM March 6-7, 2015
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CONCERT PROGRAM March 6-7, 2015 David Robertson, conductor Christine Brewer, soprano Bjorn Ranheim, cello S. Katy Tucker, visual design FAURÉ Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, op. 24 (1901, orchestral version) (1845-1924) Bjorn Ranheim, cello WAGNER Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Götterdämmerung (1872-74) (1813-1883) Christine Brewer, soprano S. Katy Tucker, visual design INTERMISSION BRUCKNER Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1889 version, ed. Nowak) (1824-1896) Mehr langsam, misterioso Adagio, bewegt, quasi Andante Ziemlich schnell Allegro 23 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS These concerts are part of the Wells Fargo Advisors series. These concerts are presented by Mary Pillsbury. David Robertson is the Beofor Music Director and Conductor. Christine Brewer is the Sanford N. and Priscilla R. McDonnell Guest Artist. The concert of Friday, March 6, is underwritten in part by a generous gift from Sally S. Levy. The concert of Saturday, March 7, is underwritten in part by a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. Wilfred R. Konneker. Visual enhancements during these concerts are underwritten in part by a RAC Innovation Fund Grant from the Regional Arts Commission. Pre-Concert Conversations are sponsored by Washington University Physicians. Large print program notes are available through the generosity of the Delmar Gardens Family and are located at the Customer Service table in the foyer. 24 FROM THE STAGE Bjorn Ranheim, cello, on Fauré’s Elegy: “I have strong ties to this piece. I actually won a competition with it in high school. I really identified with it—lush melo- dies, mournful with the heart on the sleeve, hauntingly beautiful. I’ve never played it with orchestra before, which makes this performance extra special. “It’s not a very challenging work technically. It’s all about pacing and the arc of the work. You need to think about the structural concepts and how to make it all cohesive. “For me, in a lot of ways it’s very helpful to think of the Elegy as song, how a vocalist would think of it. I think David Robertson programmed it, in part, because it’s an ideal lead in to Christine Brewer. She’s a dear friend, and it’s great to say I’m the opening act for Christine Brewer.” DILIP VISHWANAT Bjorn Ranheim 25 SURVIVING WAGNER BY RENÉ SPENCER SALLER Worshipped and despised, Richard Wagner dominated the second half of the 19th century. His influence shaped every aspect of the culture— musical, political, literary, philosophical—and TIMELINKS persisted long after his death in 1883. (Think you’ve escaped the heavy hand of Wagner? Not if you’ve seen Star Wars or a Bugs Bunny car- 1872-74 toon.) Although tonight’s program includes WAGNER only one work by Wagner, his presence looms Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Götterdämmerung over everything. The Götterdämmerung extract German troops leave is bookended by works from two of Wagner’s France following Franco- contemporaries: Gabriel Fauré’s Elegy, which was Prussian War premiered as a piece for cello and piano the year Wagner died, and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony 1889 BRUCKNER No. 3, nicknamed “Wagner” because of its effu- Symphony No. 3 in D sive inscription: “Symphony in D minor dedi- minor cated in deepest veneration to the honorable Herr Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 Richard Wagner, the unattainable, world-famous, premieres and exalted Master of Poetry and Music by Anton 1901 Bruckner.” Although Bruckner was completely FAURÉ sincere, the dedication is so extravagantly unctu- Elegy for Cello and ous that it’s easy to see why he was mocked as a Orchestra, op. 24 suck-up, even by his fellow Wagnerians. Posthumous showing of Wagner was an odd choice of idol for the van Gogh paintings causes awkward, provincial, and inhibited late-bloomer. sensation in Paris Bruckner was as insecure as Wagner was ego- maniacal. Never mind that he was also a devout Catholic, and Wagner’s religion—how best to describe it? Neopagan Teutonic Pessimism? A pastiche of Schopenhauer, medieval Christian legend, and rank self-interest? It seems unlikely that Bruckner, the pious lifelong bachelor, delved too deeply into the wanton weirdness of Wag- ner’s ideology, its obsessive conflation of sex and death. In any case, it didn’t matter to him. During the Munich premiere of Tristan und Isolde in 1865, Bruckner got sucked into his Master’s sound-world, and everything changed. Fauré, for his part, had a more nuanced appreciation. Between 1879 and 1882, in Ger- many and London, the Frenchman attended many performances of Wagner operas (including the entire Ring Cycle—twice). Fauré studied Wag- ner’s music closely and found much to admire, 26 but he stopped short of hero worship. In fact, he and his former student André Messager were known for entertaining party guests with their piano duet “Memories of Bayreuth,” a Wagnerian mash-up that’s equal parts homage and parody. Fauré’s aesthetic—refined, ironic, antiquarian— was incompatible with Wagner’s all-encompass- ing Gesamtkunstwerk. Whereas Wagner was the undisputed king of his self-invented “universal music drama,” Fauré excelled in exquisite min- Fauré portrait by iatures: chamber music, art song, piano pieces. John Singer Sargent, 1889 Unlike Wagner, he didn’t chafe against the “tyr- Born anny of form” or presume to invent a new kind May 12, 1845, Pamiers, France of art that would replace religion. Still, he found Died inspiration in Wagner’s sensuous textures, his November 4, 1924, Paris startling tonalities, his ability to induce and sus- First Performance tain the intense longing for the unattainable that April 1901, Pablo Casals epitomized the Romantic spirit. was soloist, with Fauré conducting the Société Nationale de Musique, in GABRIEL FAURÉ Paris Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, op. 24 STL Symphony Premiere February 16, 1957, Gregor AN ELEGIAC FORAY As initially conceived, the Piatigorsky was soloist, with Vladimir Golschmann Elegy was meant to be the second movement conducting of a sonata. Fauré often wrote his slow move- ments first, and in June 1880 he presented the Most Recent STL Symphony Performance partial sonata to a small audience in the home October 19, 2013, Yo-Yo of his friend and colleague Camille Saint-Saëns. Ma was soloist, with David Although the response was good, he never fin- Robertson conducting a Gala ished the remaining movements. In January concert 1883, he published the composition as a stand- Scoring alone piece, Elegie, dedicated to the cellist Jules solo cello Loeb, who performed its premiere in December 2 flutes 1883, with piano accompaniment. The cello-and- 2 oboes 2 clarinets piano version proved so popular that the conduc- 2 bassoons tor Edouard Colonne requested an orchestral ver- 4 horns sion. Fauré, by that time a professor at the Paris strings Conservatoire, completed the scoring in 1901. In Performance Time April of that year, the legendary Pablo Casals per- approximately 8 minutes formed as the soloist, under Fauré’s own baton. The solo cello’s range of colors is well served by Fauré’s characteristic restraint as an orches- trator. Plangent and warm in the upper regis- ters, lustrous as ebony at the low end, the cello pleads and wails its way through the stages of grief. (The word elegy is derived from the Greek word elegos, or “song of mourning.”) The work 27 is in free ternary form: a melancholy C-minor opening, a contrasting subject in a major key, and a return to the minor-key opening lament. Against a backdrop of throbbing dirge- like strings, the cello croons a dark and tender melody, a stepwise descending phrase that pulls us down like Demerol to a place where our pain feels caressed, contained. Suddenly, a wrench- ing ascending interval from the solo cello, a two- note question that dies away unanswered. The Born second subject, a contrasting major-key melody, May 22, 1813, in Leipzig is jauntier, with frisky winds and strings tossing Died the tune around to subtly syncopated rhythms. February 13, 1883, in Venice When the cello returns, it’s in its upper register, First Performance and it sounds almost happy—but happy in that August 17, 1876, Hans Richter blues-stained, breakable way, like Nina Simone conducting a concert singing “Here Comes the Sun.” Next, some bra- performance in Bayreuth vura passagework sparks up the cadenza, a dis- STL Symphony Premiere sonant flurry that transitions back to C minor. January 1, 1915, with Olive The mournful opening melody returns, this Fremstad, soprano, Max Zach time pitched high and plaintive. Finally, a deep conducting calm descends, as the cello plummets to sound Most Recent STL Symphony the aching final notes. Performance October 3, 1970, Eileen Farrell, soprano, Walter Susskind conducting RICHARD WAGNER Scoring Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Götterdämmerung 3 flutes piccolo BURNING LOVE Like all but one of Wagner’s 3 oboes heroines, Brünnhilde dies. No need for a spoiler English horn alert. They always die. They have to die. But first 3 clarinets bass clarinet she sings ecstatically and lengthily, wrapping up 3 bassoons the epic in a victorious death-drunk swoon. As 8 horns in all of Wagner’s best moments, time seems to 4 Wagner tuben stop while she sings, suspended in the promise 3 trumpets of infinite bliss. This once-immortal mortal, a bass trumpet Valkyrie, has free will, which allows her to charge 4 trombones tuba on horseback into her murdered husband’s 2 timpani funeral pyre so that they can burn together. In percussion so doing, she will purify a cursed and oft-stolen 2 harps magical ring, return it to the Rhinemaidens, and strings save the world. If that doesn’t make sense to you, Performance Time don’t worry about it.