Program

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

Thursday, December 20, 2012, at 8:00 Friday, December 21, 2012, at 1:30 Saturday, December 22, 2012, at 8:00 Jaap van Zweden Conductor Christopher Martin Trumpet Shostakovich Festive Overture, Op. 96 First Chicago Symphony Orchestra subscription concert performances Rouse Heimdall’s Trumpet (In four movements) Christopher Martin Commissioned for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by the Edward F. Schmidt Family Commissioning Fund World premiere

Intermission Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony, Op. 58 Lento lugubre Vivace con spirito Andante con moto Allegro con fuoco

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommentsComments by PhilliDanielp Ja Huscherffé Phillip Huscher

Dmitri Shostakovich Born September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia.

Festive Overture, Op. 96

n March 1956, six months before symphony, composed in 1971, Ihis fiftieth birthday, Shostakovich includes an obvious quotation from fretted: “I’ll soon start to feel like a Rossini’s overture to his last opera, Rossini. As everybody knows, that William Tell. composer wrote his last composi- And the circumstances in which tion at the age of forty, after which Shostakovich composed his Festive he lived until the age of seventy Overture in 1954 seem rather akin without composing another note. to Rossini, who famously had to That’s small comfort for me.” To be locked into his hotel room until anyone who knew Shostakovich, he composed the required overture renowned for the phenomenal to his opera The Thieving Magpie; speed at which he could write his Shostakovich, again, composed his compositions, and who indeed overture against the clock, provid- remained productive to the last ing the work within a day. But in months of his life, his worry that Shostakovich’s case, it was not a he was bound to creatively “dry situation of his own making. The up” might appear histrionic and conductor, Vasily Nebolsin, had rather absurd. Yet Rossini’s brilliant found himself with no opening facility until he “retired” from work ready for the planned concert composition clearly resonated in to mark the seventy-fifth anniver- Shostakovich’s mind: it seems sary of the October Revolution, and no coincidence that his very last had approached Shostakovich in

Composed First CSO Instrumentation 1954 performance two flutes and piccolo, three November 23, 1974, oboes, three clarinets, two First performance Orchestra Hall (Popular bassoons and contrabas- November 6, 1954; Moscow, concert). Arthur soon, four horns, three Russia Fiedler conducting trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, percus- These are the Chicago Most recent CSO sion, strings Symphony Orchestra’s performance first subscription con- July 1, 2006, Ravinia Festival. Approximate cert performances James Conlon conducting performance time 6 minutes

2 some panic just two days before the witnessed one courier after another dress rehearsal asking him to fill collecting manuscript pages from the breach. Shostakovich, the ink still wet, Shostakovich’s friend, to be transcribed into individual Lev Lebedinsky, recalls how orchestral parts by Nebolsin’s team Shostakovich asked him to stay and of copyists. keep him company while he com- The result, as Lebedinsky recalls, posed the overture. The composer is “this brilliant effervescent work, “was able to talk, make jokes, and with its vivacious energy spilling compose simultaneously.” In due over like uncorked champagne.” In course, Nebolsin telephoned and its bubbling high spirits, it seems asked if Shostakovich had anything to foretell Bernstein’s overture ready for his copyists—should he to Candide, composed just two send a courier? A slight hesitation, years later. and then Shostakovich replied: “Send him!” Lebedinsky then —Daniel Jaffé

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3 Christopher Rouse Born February 15, 1949, Baltimore, Maryland.

Heimdall’s Trumpet

agnarök is Armegeddon rational, Apollonian type of person. Rin Norse mythology—or If, on the other hand, you’re expos- Götterdämmerung, the twilight of ing the wounds of a lifetime and the gods, in Wagner parlance. It is perhaps some kind of embracing signaled by the sound of a trumpet. view of how you function as part of That is the subject of Christopher a wounded species, that makes you Rouse’s new work for the Chicago more vulnerable.” Even in a later Symphony and its principal work such as Rapture, the 2000 trumpet, Christopher Martin. It is score that the CSO played in 2006, Heimdall, the Norse god, who calls which reflected a shift toward a the heroes to the field where the more tonal music and attempts to last battle will be fought, marking “project a sense of spiritual ecstasy,” the end of the world of gods and Rouse is still grappling with seri- men. In some accounts, his call can ous, substantive ideas. be heard throughout the heavens, the earth, and the lower world. ouse was largely self-taught as Rouse has long been drawn to Ra composer when he entered weighty subjects. Many of his early the Oberlin Conservatory. He works probe the troubled human received a bachelor’s degree there condition in bleak and unsparing in 1971 and subsequently studied language. “Most of my music deals at Cornell University; his teachers with pain,” he told a New York include George Crumb and Karel Times reporter back in 1992. “If Husa. He has been on the faculty your modus vivendi as a com- of the Eastman School of Music poser,” he continued, “is to explore since 1981. (In 1983, he taught the organizational techniques, you have school’s first course in the history revealed yourself as an intelligent, of rock and roll.) From 1986 until

Composed Instrumentation Approximate 2011–12 three flutes and piccolo, performance time three oboes, three clarinets, 22 minutes Commissioned for the three bassoons and Chicago Symphony contrabassoon, four horns, Orchestra by the three trumpets, two bass Edward F. Schmidt Family trumpets, three trombones Commissioning Fund and tuba, timpani, percus- These are the world sion, harp, strings premiere performances

4 1989, Rouse served as composer- the fifteenth-century Indian mystic in-residence of the Baltimore poet Kabir; Seeing, a piano concerto Symphony. His Symphony no. 1, that is also a meditation on mad- written for that orchestra, received ness as seen in the tragic lives of the prestigious Kennedy Center Robert Schumann and the rock Friedheim Award in 1988. Since guitarist-songwriter Skip Spence; 1997, he has taught composition at and Concert de Gaudí, a guitar the Juilliard School. This year, he concerto inspired by the Spanish began a two-year appointment as architect Antoni Gaudí. Rouse’s composer-in-residence of the New preoccupation with concertos and York Philharmonic. concerto-like works spans thirty In 1993, Rouse was awarded years, from his Violin Concerto of the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 1991 through a series of orchestral Trombone Concerto; written in works featuring solo trombone, memory of Leonard Bernstein, it cello, flute, percussion, piano, quotes from Bernstein’s Kaddish guitar, oboe, and clarinet—former Symphony. Rouse’s sphere of CSO principal clarinet Larry reference is wide and very per- Combs and the Orchestra gave sonal. Iscariot (1989), for chamber the world premiere of the Clarinet orchestra, uses the chorale tune Concerto here in 2001—and now, “Es ist genug” that has figured with this new work for the Chicago prominently in works by Bach and Symphony, the trumpet. in Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Bonham, scored for eight percus- eindall’s Trumpet is the lat- sionists, is a tribute to the late Hest of Rouse’s scores inspired John Bonham, drummer of Led by myth, including Gorgon and Zeppelin. His Cello Concerto Phaeton, two orchestral works from incorporates a song by William the 1980s, and Morpheus, a solo Schuman and Arnalta’s lullaby cello piece—all based on Ancient from Monteverdi’s The Coronation Greek mythology. Der gerettete of Poppea, and it quotes music Alberich (Alberich saved), a fan- by Stephen Albert and Andrzej tasy for percussion and orchestra Panufnik, whose deaths partly on themes by Wagner that was inspired the work. Der gerettete premiered in 1998, brings us closer Alberich (Alberich saved), which to the Norse legends that generated was premiered in 1998, is a fantasy Heimdall’s Trumpet. for percussion and orchestra on The Chicago Symphony and themes by Wagner. Martin chose Rouse for this com- In recent years, Rouse has been mission largely because of his flair particularly drawn to writing for writing big dramatic pieces works for a solo instrument with for large orchestra, and the desire orchestra, but these scores are not to produce a concerto that is, as pure, abstract concertos in the Martin puts it, a “real conversa- classical sense. Kabir Padavali is an tional ensemble piece” rather than orchestral song cycle with texts by a solo showcase pure and simple.

5 This kind of interaction is evident phrase, is stentoreo, after Stentor, from the beginning of the work, the mythological figure who was which unfolds as a kind of call and known for his booming voice. response between the solo trumpet and first the brass section, and then hristopher Rouse offers the winds. Despite the complexity Cthese comments about and importance of the orchestral Heimdall’s Trumpet: writing through the four-movement work, the solo trumpet inevitably Cast in four movements, the has the most challenging role to title of the piece refers properly play, one that not only stretches the to the finale, which attempts trumpet’s expressivity, but, quite in a general way to depict literally, its range as well. At the these mythological events as end of the third movement, Rouse I imagine them. The onset writes the lowest fundamental C of Ragnarök occurs only at on the instrument—on the piano the very end of the work, in it’s the note one octave up from the a very short orchestral fortis- bottom, down in the trombone’s simo outburst followed by an register. (Lying in what trum- extended silence. The first peters call the pedal range, this movement is declamatory note doesn’t appear in any of the in nature and gives way to a standard literature, and, as Martin whirlwind scherzo that utilizes notes, it is normally played only in a variety of mutes for both the the privacy of the practice room.) soloist and the orchestral brass Rouse’s second movement uses section. The third movement octatonic scales (built out of eight is a largo that swings like a rather than seven notes), which are pendulum between sections more common to jazz than orches- of substantive dissonance and tral music (Martin remembers straightforward consonance. practicing them when he studied The aforementioned finale, jazz at Eastman). more specifically dramatic The ending of Heimdall’s Trumpet, and programmatic in nature, where myth and music become returns to the more aggressive one, is, appropriately, high drama. world of the first movement. A passage for solo trumpet, in The solo trumpet part requires cadenza-like phrases, and two bass much of the player, who must trumpets—an instrument one rarely possess enormous technical hears—drives the piece toward the prowess, including the abil- moment of Heimdall’s fateful call, ity to produce pedal tones at the moment of Ragnarök. The last some length. expression marking that Rouse writes, over the trumpet’s final —Phillip Huscher

6 Piotr Tchaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia. Died November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Manfred Symphony, Op. 58

n the winter of 1867–68, dur- deliberately kept this subtext vague, Iing his tour of Russia, Berlioz simply suggesting a hero whose “life conducted a performance of Harold is broken, his obsessive, fateful ques- in Italy, his work for orchestra and tions remain unanswered.” viola obbligato based on Byron’s Stasov had originally hoped that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. This Balakirev might make this into a deeply impressed both Mily symphonic work, but Balakirev Balakirev, founder of the so-called turned the project down; Stasov’s Mighty Handful (whose mem- subsequent attempt to interest bers included Rimsky-Korsakov, Berlioz himself was definitively Borodin, and Mussorgsky), and the quashed by the French composer’s art critic and historian Vladimir death early in 1869. Balakirev, Stasov, the group’s intellectual having for a while appeared the godfather. Indeed, Stasov was most vital figure on the Russian inspired to draft a program for a musical scene, suffered a nervous four-movement symphony based on breakdown in 1872 and withdrew Byron’s dramatic poem Manfred. completely from all musical activity It is widely thought that Byron’s for almost two years. poem was part autobiographical, the And there it might have rested exiled hero’s feelings of guilt for an if Tchaikovsky had not written unspecified romantic transgression to Balakirev in 1881. Back in reflecting Byron’s own feelings while 1869, Balakirev had persuaded in exile for his incestuous love affair Tchaikovsky to compose the with his half-sister Augusta. Stasov fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet,

Composed First CSO Instrumentation 1885 performance three flutes and piccolo, two December 23, oboes and english horn, two First performance 1898, Auditorium clarinets and bass clarinet, March 23, 1886; Moscow, Theatre. Theodore three bassoons, four horns, Russia Thomas conducting two trumpets and two cornets, three trombones Most recent CSO and tuba, timpani, percus- performance sion, two harps, strings November 12, 1983, Orchestra Hall. Michael Approximate Tilson Thomas conducting performance time 56 minutes

7 not only providing a thorough head, and don’t hurry to finish at ground plan of the work includ- all costs.” Tchaikovsky, though in ing key signatures, but also giving principle open to the idea, initially stringent and invaluable criticism of revolted at the idea of working to the work-in-progress. Tchaikovsky Stasov’s synopsis. However, he soon was fully mindful of his debt to came under Balakirev’s spell—it Balakirev in composing this early seems that an intense and candid masterpiece, and now—having conversation on spiritual matters extensively reworked Romeo and played a large part in this—and was Juliet for republication—anxiously persuaded to compose Manfred. wrote to Balakirev asking if he had In their correspondence, received a copy of the revised score: Balakirev—for all his recognition of “I want you to know that I have such achievements of Tchaikovsky’s not forgotten who was responsible as the Second and Third sympho- for this score’s appearance in this nies and the tone poem Francesca world, that I vividly recall the da Rimini—appears quite oblivi- friendly sympathy you showed at ous to the fact Tchaikovsky was the time, which I hope even now is no longer a budding composer not completely extinguished.” of some promise, but already a Balakirev, who had gradu- well-established composer of such ally been works as the Fourth Symphony, reestablishing Piano Concerto no. 1, and Eugene himself in the Onegin. Notwithstanding these music world, achievements, Balakirev—rather and was per- like a doting parent stuck in a time haps hoping warp—seems to have assumed to regain his that Tchaikovsky would gratefully former mas- receive advice on such details as tery through what key each movement of the an association symphony should be and which which had compositions he should use as proved so models, ranging from works by fruitful, seized Liszt and Berlioz to pieces by a Tchaikovsky (right) and his opportu- certain young Tchaikovsky. Yet violinist Iosif Kotek nity and urged Tchaikovsky seems to have meekly Tchaikovsky paid some heed to Balakirev’s to take up the Manfred project. prescriptions, and at least to have “Your Francesca [da Rimini] sug- made some study of Berlioz’s works. gested to me that you would be able Tchaikovsky began work to tackle this subject brilliantly,” in April 1885, after a visit to he wrote to his former protégé; Switzerland to attend his dying “provided, of course, you make an friend, the violinist Iosif Kotek; effort, that you apply to your work while there, Tchaikovsky had just a little more criticism, allow read Byron’s Manfred, hoping that your fantasy to mature in your the Alpine environment would

8 stimulate him to begin the sym- biographer David Brown noting phony. At first, Tchaikovsky found “the feebleness of the melodic it hard to start, confessing to his material” and that its bacchanal friend Sergey Taneyev: “It’s a thou- lacks “the spice of true villainy sand times pleasanter to compose or the relish of an honest hell- without a program.” However, ish debauch.” It is perhaps this the project eventually seized his movement which has prevented imagination, and before too long he Tchaikovsky’s Manfred from being was writing to another friend, the better known or more frequently singer Emiliya Pavlovskaya: “Now performed; which is greatly to be I can’t stop. The symphony’s come regretted, since not only the first out enormous, serious, difficult, movement, but also the second absorbing all my time, sometimes and third movements include some wearying me in the extreme; but of Tchaikovsky’s most brilliantly an inner voice tells me that I’m not orchestrated and affecting music, as laboring in vain, and that this will demonstrated by the scherzo second be perhaps the best of my sym- movement and the pastoral third phonic compositions.” movement. It was in an attempt Certainly it was one of his most to rescue the symphony that the ambitious—the most extended of great Russian conductor Yevgeny his symphonic works and requiring Svetlanov the largest orchestral force. The prepared an Manfred Symphony’s premiere held edition which in Moscow on March 23, 1886, has since been seemed to confirm Tchaikovsky’s taken up by assessment of his work, though he several con- gloomily predicted: “because of ductors, and its difficulty, impracticability, and will be heard complexity it is doomed to failure in tonight’s and to be ignored.” Contrary to his concert: this expectations, Manfred was quickly cuts such taken up, and before the year was sections of out it had been performed in Saint the finale as Petersburg and even New York. the fugue, Mily Balakirev Sadly, Tchaikovsky, in little over and, instead two years, took strongly against of the original the work, telling the grand duke “happy” death scene apotheosis for Konstantin Konstantinovich, “it is organ solo, finally takes us back to an abominable piece . . . I loathe the doom-laden coda from the first it deeply, with the one exception of movement—far more faithful to the the first movement . . . the finale in spirit of Byron’s original. particular is something loathsome.” The finale is indeed the one chaikovsky’s opening movement movement which has received Tpresents Manfred, brooding the most criticism, Tchaikovsky and despairing. In Tchaikovsky’s

9 own description of the first move- appear to intermingle. Manfred’s ment, he clearly nudges closer to relatively brief intrusion is an effec- Byron’s original than had Stasov tive foil to this pastoral idyll. in the original scenario, describ- Stasov’s specified “wild, ing the hero as “tortured by the unbridled allegro” for the finale burning anguish of hopelessness was realized by Tchaikovsky in an and memory of his guilty past . . . . extended bacchanal. Svetlanov’s Memories of his ruined Astarte, edition tightens this considerably, whom once he had passionately reducing the finale by over a third loved, gnaw and eat at his heart, of its original length. The bacchanal and there is neither Grace nor as a result is more clearly a prelude an end to Manfred’s boundless to Manfred’s own despairing despair.” One may hear echoes of theme, and we can also hear how Wagner’s Tristan in Tchaikovsky’s the orgy is both part of Manfred’s portrayal of the doomed hero. After corrupt nature and something he Manfred’s musings reach an incon- despises. We hear a tender recol- clusive climax, and some tormented lection of Astarte’s theme in muted musings (surely recalled by Elgar strings and harp—now seemingly for his First Symphony), we are quite beyond Manfred’s reach. introduced to his beloved Astarte Then, accompanied by pulsating through a tender theme played by horns, Manfred dies in despair and muted strings. his requiem is not the complacent The second movement scherzo organ apotheosis (Tchaikovsky presents the Alpine fairy, appearing having mistakenly believed that “in a rainbow from the waterfall’s Manfred is finally forgiven), but the spray,” depicted by Tchaikovsky in coda from the first movement. an intricate web of sparkling and gently flashing textures by upper —Daniel Jaffé strings and woodwinds. A central trio section presents a hauntingly songful theme which foretells Daniel Jaffé is a regular contributor to BBC Music Magazine and a special- the main theme of the following ist in English and Russian music. slow movement. He is the author of a biography of The pastoral slow movement Sergey Prokofiev (Phaidon) and the opens with the bucolic sound of Historical Dictionary of Russian Music an oboe. Episodes of enchantment (Scarecrow Press). follow, in which birdsong and the Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2012 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2012 Chicago “sweet bells of the sauntering herd” tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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