Program

ONe HuNDreD TWeNTIeTH SeASON Chicago Symphony riccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Wednesday, February 23, 2011, at 6:30 (Afterwork Masterworks, performed with no intermission) Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Leila Josefowicz Violin Salonen Violin Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43

Thursday, February 24, 2011, at 8:00 Saturday, February 26, 2011, at 8:00 Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Leila Josefowicz Violin Debussy Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun Salonen Violin Concerto Mirage— Pulse I Pulse II Adieu LeILA JOSeFOWICz Commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the , and the New York City Ballet First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances

IntErmISSIon Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 Allegretto Andante, ma rubato Vivacissimo— Finale: Allegro moderato

These violin concerto performances have been enabled by the Paul Ricker Judy Fund. Saturday’s concert is generously sponsored by Baxter International Inc.

Steinway is the official of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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

Claude Debussy Born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. Died March 25, 1918, Paris, France.

Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

he year Debussy returned to became friends. In 1898, he was TParis from Rome—where among those first notified of the he unhappily served time as the poet’s death. reward of winning the coveted Prix Mallarmé’s poem, The Afternoon de Rome—he bought a copy of of a Faun, was published in 1876, in Stéphane Mallarmé’s The Afternoon a slim, elegantly bound volume with of a Faun to give to his friend Paul a line drawing by Edouard Manet Dukas, who didn’t get beyond the on the cover. We don’t know when preliminary round of the competi- Debussy first thought of interpret- tion. Eventually Dukas would ing Mallarmé’s faun and his dreams establish his credentials with The of conquering nymphs, nor to what Sorcerer’s Apprentice, but by then, degree he and Mallarmé discussed Debussy was already famous for his the prospect. As late as 1891, Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun. Mallarmé was still contemplating By 1887, Stéphane Mallarmé had some kind of dramatized reading begun hosting his famous gather- of his text, and perhaps Debussy ings every Tuesday evening in his was meant to fit into that scheme. apartment, where his daughter Debussy began sketching his music Geneviève served the punch. in 1892. In 1893 and again in 1894, Debussy sometimes dropped in at announcements promised “Prélude, 89, rue de Rome (an unfortunate interludes et paraphrase finale” for reminder of a city he had hap- The Afternoon of a Faun, but the full pily left) to partake of the punch orchestral score Debussy finished and the lively exchange of ideas, on October 23, 1894, contained and in time, he and Mallarmé only the prelude.

ComPoSED moSt rECEnt CSo rECorDIngS 1892–October 23, 1894 CSo PErFormanCE 1976, Sir Georg Solti April 11, 2008, Orchestra conducting. London FIrSt PErFormanCE Hall. Valery Gergiev 1990, Sir Georg Solti December 22, 1894, Paris conducting conducting. London

FIrSt CSo InStrumEntatIon aPProxImatE PErFormanCE three , two and PErFormanCE tImE November 23, 1906, english horn, two , 10 minutes Orchestra Hall. Frederick two , four horns, Stock conducting two harps, cymbals, strings

2 Mallarmé first heard this music (known in English as “My heart in Debussy’s apartment, where the and thy sweet voice”) from Samson composer played his score at the and Dalila. But where Dalila’s aria piano. “I didn’t expect anything is rooted in D-flat major and com- like this,” Mallarmé said. “This mon time, Debussy’s portrait of the music prolongs the emotion of my faun eludes our attempts to tap our poem, and sets its scene more viv- feet or to establish a key; its insis- idly than color.” The first orchestral tence on the interval from C-sharp performance, on December 22, was to G-natural argues repeatedly an immediate success (despite poor against the E major key signature horn playing), and an encore was printed on the page. demanded. Mallarmé was there; The whole of the Prelude can be he later said that Debussy’s music considered a series of variations on “presents no dissonance with my a single theme, and we can simply text: rather, it goes further into the listen to the ways it changes, almost nostalgia and light with subtlety, imperceptibly, and grows. There’s a malaise, and richness.” more conventional middle sec- Revolutionary works of art are tion in D-flat, urgently lyrical and seldom granted such instant, easy more fully scored, which raises the success. Inevitably, there was some music to fortissimo for the only question about the score’s program- time in the piece and then sinks matic intentions, to which Debussy down again with the sounds of the responded: “It is a general impres- melody. sion of the poem, for if music were Debussy uses the orchestra with to follow more closely it would extraordinary finesse, drawing such run out of breath, like a dray horse rich and provocative sounds from competing for the grand prize with his winds (including three flutes, an a thoroughbred.” english horn, and four horns) that The music itself seems to have we scarcely notice the absence of ruffled few feathers, despite the , , and timpani. way it quietly, yet systematically, The only percussion instruments overturns tradition and opens necessary are two antique cym- new frontiers in musical language. bals, each allotted just five notes Toward the end of his life, Maurice apiece—a triumph of artistry over Ravel remembered that “it was cost-efficiency. [upon] hearing this work, so many In 1912, Sergei Diaghilev, who years ago, that I first understood would soon create a notorious what real music was.” Pierre Boulez scandal with Stravinsky’s Rite of would later date the awakening of Spring, produced a ballet from modern music from Debussy’s score. Debussy’s music. It was danced and Saint-Saëns might well have choreographed by the celebrated noted how the now-famous open- Nijinsky, who claimed never to ing flute melody, all sinuous curves have read Mallarmé’s text, and and slippery rhythms, resembles the who caused a sensation by foisting most popular melody he would ever heavy-duty eroticism on Debussy’s write, “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” delicate score.

3 Esa-Pekka Salonen Born June 30, 1958, , .

Violin Concerto

sa-Pekka Salonen’s new violin the next-to-last program Salonen Econcerto has already enjoyed would lead as the L.A. orchestra’s a multifaceted life. Unusually, music director (his final concert, a it was commissioned by two week later, was an all-Stravinsky —the Los Angeles affair). Although Salonen says it Philharmonic, where Salonen was was not intended as a “farewell” music director from 1992 to 2009, concerto, it was the last in a series and the Chicago Symphony, where of major scores of his that he led he has become a frequent guest during his seventeen seasons with conductor in recent years—and a the orchestra, including his break- dance company—the New York through work, the LA Variations he City Ballet, which under both its completed in 1996. founder, George Balanchine, and At the New York City Ballet its current director, Peter Martins, premiere of the Violin Concerto has an impressive track record of last June—the danced piece is titled introducing new works, including Mirage, Salonen’s own title for the Stravinsky’s Orpheus and Agon. first movement—there was not only The first performance of the added dimension of chore- Salonen’s Violin Concerto was ography, by Balanchine disciple given in Walt Disney Concert Martins, but there were also sets Hall in April 2009—only days designed by the Spanish architect after the score was finished—in Santiago Calatrava. (“The set looks

ComPoSED CommISSIonED InStrumEntatIon 2008–2009 Los Angeles Philharmonic, solo violin, three flutes, Chicago Symphony piccolo and , two FIrSt PErFormanCE Orchestra, New york oboes and english horn, two April 9, 2009, Walt Disney City ballet clarinets, bass and Concert Hall. Leila , two bas- Josefowicz, violin, with the aPProxImatE soons and , composer conducting the PErFormanCE tImE two horns, two trumpets, two L.A. Philharmonic 32 minutes trombones, timpani, percus- These are the first CSO sion (bass drum, drum set, performances glockenspiel, tuned gongs, log drum, marimba, tom- toms, vibraphone, tam-tam), harp, celesta, strings

4 like the halves of a huge, vertically Symphony on short notice in bisected heart, steely but transpar- London in 1983, he quickly became ent, with elaborately latticed cross- an internationally known conduc- rays,” wrote Alastair Macaulay in tor for whom composing was a The New York Times. “The halves, sideline. Nearly a decade passed hinged together, change forma- before Salonen found the time to tion dramatically” for each of the complete another major work. It concerto’s four movements.) In both was with the successful premiere of the L.A. Philharmonic and New the LA Variations in 1997, writ- York City Ballet performances, the ten to showcase the Los Angeles soloist was Leila Josefowicz, for Philharmonic, that Salonen at last whom Salonen wrote the piece—he entered a new and highly produc- openly calls her a “partner” in tive phase in his composing career. the composition process—and Since then, he has produced nearly who plays it again this week in its one large-scale work each year, Chicago premiere. From the out- including , which he led of-nowhere fiddling with which it here in its American premiere opens to the surprising chord of its with the Chicago Symphony in final measure (at the New York City 2003, and a , which Ballet performances, Calatrava’s set Yefim Bronfman played with our was suddenly illuminated by prisms Orchestra under the composer’s of colored light to underline the baton in 2006. This new work unexpected harmonic shift at the for violin and orchestra is only end), this is music of great virtuos- the second full-length concerto ity for orchestra and soloist alike. in his modestly sized but steadily Although today Salonen is one of growing catalog. the few major musical figures who is known as both a composer and a conductor of distinction, when Esa-Pekka Salonen on his he entered the Violin Concerto in Helsinki in the 1970s, it was to study horn and composition. He wrote my Violin Concerto enrolled in ’s con- Ibetween June 2008 and ducting class because he felt that March 2009. Nine months, the young composers should learn to length of human gestation, a lead their own works. Composing beautiful coincidence. remained Salonen’s focus: in I decided to cover as wide a range Helsinki, he studied with the of expression as I could imagine visionary , over the four movements of the and in the early 1980s, he worked concerto: from the virtuosic and with Niccolò Castiglioni in Milan flashy to the aggressive and brutal, and in the Finnish Broadcasting from the meditative and static to Company studios. the nostalgic and autumnal. Leila After leading an acclaimed Josefowicz turned out to be a fan- performance of Mahler’s Third tastic partner in this process. She

5 knows no limits, she knows no fear, sleep, but there is no angst, just and she was constantly encouraging some gentle, diffuse thoughts on me to go to places I was not sure I your mind. Finally, the first rays would dare to go. As a result of that of the sun can be seen through process, this concerto is as much a the curtains, here represented by portrait of her as it is my more pri- the flutes. vate narrative, a kind of summary of my experiences as a musician and Movement III a human being at the watershed age Pulse II of fifty. The pulse is no longer a heartbeat. This music is bizarre and urban, Movement I heavily leaning towards popular Mirage culture with traces of (synthetic) The violin starts alone, as if the folk music. The violin is pushed to music had been going on for some its very limits physically. Something time already. Very light bell-like very Californian in all this. Hooray sounds comment on the virtuosic for freedom of expression. And line here and there. Suddenly, we thank you, guys! zoom in to maximum magnifi- cation: the open strings of the Movement IV violin continue their resonance, but Adieu amplified; the light playfulness has This is not a specific farewell to been replaced by an extreme close- anything in particular. It is more up of the strings, now played by the related to the very basic process of cellos and basses; the sound is dark nature, of something coming to an and resonant. end and something new being born Zoom out again, and back in out of the old. Of course, this music after a while. The third close-up has a strong element of nostalgia, leads into a recitative. Solo violin is and some of the short outbursts playing an embellished melodic line of the full orchestra are almost that leads into some impossibly fast violent, but I tried to illuminate the music. I zoom out once again at the harmony from within. Not with big very end, this time straight up in gestures, but with light. the air. The violin follows. When I had written the very last Finally all movement stops on chord of the piece, I felt confused: the note D, which leads to . . . why does the last chord—and only that—sound completely differ- Movement II ent from all other harmony of the Pulse I piece? As if it belonged to a differ- All is quiet, static. I imagined a ent composition. room, silent: all you can hear is the Now I believe I have the answer. heartbeat of the person next to you That chord is a beginning of some- in bed, sound asleep. You cannot thing new.

6 Born December 8, 1865, Tavastehus, Finland. Died September 20, 1957, Järvenpää, Finland.

Symphony no. 2 in D major, op. 43

he spell of Italy often has a of Finland. But in Italy, Tsalutary effect on artists from Sibelius’s thoughts turned away the North. Goethe regularly from his homeland, and he con- recommended making the trip templated a work based on Dante’s to Italy—Mendelssohn took his Divine Comedy. While staying in advice and returned with his Italian the sun-drenched seaside town Symphony. Berlioz toured Italy of Rapallo, he toyed with a four- against his better judgment and movement tone poem, Festival, ended up staying fifteen months, based on the same “Stone Guest” addicted to the countryside (Harold theme that Mozart had treated in in Italy is the souvenir he brought Don Giovanni. Nothing ever came us). Wagner claimed he got the idea of these ideas, but he did begin for the opening of Das Rheingold in his Second Symphony, which he La Spezia on the western seacoast. finished once back in Finland. Tchaikovsky later nursed a broken We should not credit Italy alone spirit in Italy and took home his with the warmth and ease of Capriccio italien, as untroubled as Sibelius’s Second Symphony, for any music he ever wrote. years later he would return there Jean Sibelius went to Italy in only to write , the bleakest 1901. Even then his name meant of all his works. But Sibelius did fjords and bitter cold to people love Italy (he later admitted it was who had not yet heard his music. second only to his native Finland), To those who had—in particular and his extended stay there in 1901 the overly popular , certainly had a profound effect first performed at a nationalistic on Finland’s first great composer. pageant in 1899—Sibelius was His sketchbooks confirm that

ComPoSED FIrSt CSo InStrumEntatIon 1902 PErFormanCE two flutes, two oboes, two January 1, 1904, Auditorium clarinets, two bassoons, FIrSt PErFormanCE Theatre. Frederick four horns, three trumpets, March 8, 1902, Helsinki, the Stock conducting three trombones and tuba, composer conducting timpani, strings moSt rECEnt CSo PErFormanCE aPProxImatE February 11, 2006, PErFormanCE tImE Orchestra Hall. David 44 minutes robertson conducting

7 ideas conceived in Rapallo turn up quite different. Sibelius and Mahler throughout the Second Symphony, met in Helsinki in 1907, and their and even Sibelius himself admit- words on the subject, often quoted, ted that Don Juan stalks the suggest that this was the only time second movement. their paths would ever cross, liter- Sibelius is more interesting as ally or figuratively. Sibelius always a composer than as a nationalist. remembered their encounter: Ultimately, the qualities that give his music its own quite singular When our conversation cast—the bracing sonorities and touched on the essence of sym- craggy textures, and the quirky but phony, I said that I admired compelling way his music moves its severity and style and the forward—are the product of musi- profound logic that created cal genius, not Finnish heritage. It an inner connection between is true that he developed an abiding all the motives. This was the interest in the , the Finnish experience I had come to in national epic, as a schoolboy, and composing. Mahler’s opinion that he knew, loved, and sometimes was just the reverse. “Nein, remembered his native folk song die Symphonie müss sein when writing music. But he did not wie die Welt. Sie müss alles even learn Finnish until he was a umfassen.” (No, the symphony young man (having grown up in a must be like the world. It must Swedish-speaking household), and embrace everything.) his patriotism was fueled not so much by landscape and congenital Those lines have often been pride but by marriage into a power- repeated to explain why Mahler’s ful and politically active family. It is symphonies sprawl and sing, precisely because Sibelius’s music is resembling no others ever writ- not outwardly nationalistic (of the ten, but they are just as useful in picture-postcard variety) that it is seeing Sibelius’s point of view. By so profound—specific and evoca- 1907, Sibelius had fixed his vision tive, yet also timeless and universal. on symphonic music of increasing The symphony was the most austerity; his Third Symphony, important genre for Sibelius’s completed that summer, marks the musical thoughts at a time when turning point. That same summer, the form didn’t seem to suit most Mahler put the final touches on composers. Strauss, Schoenberg, his Eighth Symphony, scored for Stravinsky, and Bartók, for eight vocal soloists, chorus, boys’ example, all wrote symphonies of choir, and huge orchestra; taking various kinds, but their pioneer- as its text a medieval hymn and the ing work was done elsewhere. closing scene from Goethe’s Faust; The one contemporary of Sibelius and lasting nearly two hours—the whose symphonies are played work we know as the Symphony of today, Gustav Mahler, took the A Thousand. Five years earlier, in symphony to mean something 1902, the year Sibelius’s Second

8 Symphony was first performed, matters, Sibelius cunningly Mahler had unveiled his third, chose to speak about “a spiritual which lasts longer than Sibelius’s development” instead.) first two symphonies combined. There is true, sustained lyricism Sibelius’s Second Symphony in the slow second movement, but is a bold, unconventional work. that is not how it opens. Sibelius We know too many of his later begins with a timpani roll and rest- works, and too much later music less pizzicato strings from which a in general, perhaps, to see it that tune struggles to emerge. way, but at the time—the time of Melody eventually does take wing, Schoenberg’s luscious Transfigured but what we remember most is Night, not Pierrot lunaire; of the wonderful series of adventures Stravinsky’s academic E-flat sym- encountered in the process. phony, not The Rite of Spring—it The scherzo is brief, hurried staked out new territory to which (except for a sorrowful woodwind Sibelius alone would return. The theme inspired not by Finland’s first movement, like much of his fate, as commentators used to insist, most characteristic music, makes but by the suicide of Sibelius’s sis- something whole and compelling ter-in-law), and expectant. When, out of bits and pieces. As Sibelius after about five minutes, it leads would later write: “It is as if the straight into the broad first chords Almighty had thrown down the of the finale, we realize that this is pieces of a mosaic for heaven’s what we were waiting for all along. floor and asked me to put them From there the fourth movement together.” Heaven’s floor turns out unfolds slowly, continuously, and to be designed in a familiar sonata with increasing power and majesty. form, but this isn’t readily apparent. It rises and soars in ways denied (Commentators seldom agree on the earlier movements, and that, of the beginning of the second theme, course, is Sibelius’s way: heaven’s for example.) Certainly any sym- floor visible at last. phony that begins in pieces can’t afford to dissect things further in a traditional development section. In fact, for Sibelius, development often implies the first step in putting the music back together. (Once, Phillip Huscher is the program annota- when asked about these technical tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago

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