Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 2018-2019 Mellon Grand Classics Season

April 12 and 14, 2019

LEONARD SLATKIN, CONDUCTOR GARRICK OHLSSON, PIANO

LEONARD SLATKIN Kinah

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF Concerto No. 4 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 40 I. Allegro vivace II. Largo — III. Allegro vivace Mr. Ohlsson

Intermission

EDWARD ELGAR Variations on an Original Theme, “Enigma”, Opus 36 Enigma: Andante Variations: I “C.A.E.” L’istesso tempo II “H.D.S.-P.” Allegro III “R.B.T.” Allegretto Variation IV (W.M.B.): Allegro di molto Variation V (R.P.A.): Moderato Variation VI (Ysobel): Andantino Variation VII (Troyte): Presto Variation VIII (W.N.): Allegretto Variation IX (Nimrod): Adagio Variation X “Dorabella – Intermezzo” Allegretto Variation XI (G.R.S.): Allegro di molto Variation XII (B.G.N.): Andante Variation XIII “*** – Romanza” Moderato Variation XIV “E.D.U.” Finale

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PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA

LEONARD SLATKIN

Kinah (“Elegy”) for Mixed Orchestral Ensemble (2015)

Leonard Slatkin was born in Los Angeles on September 1, 1944. He composed Kinah in 2015, and it was premiered at the Orchestra Hall in Detroit by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led by Slatkin on December 6, 2015. These performances mark the Pittsburgh Symphony premiere of the work. The score calls for four horns, trumpet/flugelhorn, percussion, two harps, celesta, piano and strings. Performance time: approximately 14 minutes.

Mr. Slatkin has kindly provided the following information for this work.

Kinah, the Hebrew word for “elegy,” is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Felix Slatkin and Eleanor Aller. On February 6, 1963, my parents rehearsed the Brahms “Double” Concerto with the Doctor’s Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles. It was to be the first time that my father, Felix, a violinist, and his wife, Eleanor, a cellist, would play this work in public. There was a great deal of anticipation for this performance, as the two were regarded as part of the elite of the Hollywood musical establishment. [Felix was also a conductor, arranger (for, among others, Frank Sinatra and Nat “King” Cole) and concertmaster of the 20th Century Fox Orchestra. Eleanor was principal cellist of the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra and the dedicatee of Korngold’s Cello Concerto. The Slatkins, both children of Russian Jewish émigrés, also co-founded the acclaimed Hollywood String Quartet in 1939.] I was nineteen years old and not sure what I was going to do with the rest of my life as far as a career was concerned. Attending the rehearsal seemed a chore, but I saw that everyone there was mesmerized by the pair’s incredible way with this piece. We all knew that the concert would be an evening to treasure. Alas, the performance never took place as my dad died two nights later, at the age of 47. The respect he was shown was evident in the memorial service held two days later, when 1,500 people showed up to pay their respects, including Frank Sinatra. I really never had adequate time to mourn and so it seemed right for me to compose this brief elegy as a tribute to both my parents. My father would have turned 100 in December 2015, when Kinah was premiered, and my mom would have been 98. The piece is scored for metal percussion instruments, two harps, celesta, piano, four horns and strings. There are also off-stage instruments including a trumpet, flugelhorn [the mellow cousin of the trumpet], violin and cello. The chord sounded at the opening comprises notes taken from the melody of the slow movement of the Brahms Concerto. The flugelhorn intones the elegy itself, followed by a steady build-up in the other instruments. This leads to a short and fast interlude, once again using the first four notes of the Double Concerto’s slow movement. Various unusual sound effects interrupt. After this burst of activity, the elegy melody returns, this time transformed into a canon [i.e., in exact imitation]. As the textures thicken, the four-note motif becomes agitated and repetitive, with flurries of sound coming from almost all the instruments. To conclude, when the activity dies down, a distant violin and cello play the first few passages of the Brahms but they do not complete their phrases, a reminder that the public never heard my parent’s interpretation of the piece. The last utterance of the two soloists utilizes the final bars of the Concerto’s Andante, with a brief silence occurring just before a dark, bell-like sound in the orchestra brings Kinah to an end. Although we are not a devout family, there was always something of our Jewish heritage felt in our household. I can only hope that this short work, about fourteen minutes long, plays appropriate homage to my parents.

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SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Concerto No. 4 in G minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 40 (1926, revised 1941)

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Oneg (near Novgorod), Russia, on April 1, 1873, and died in Beverly Hills, California, on March 28, 1943. He composed his Fourth Piano Concerto in 1926, and it was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Leopold Stokowski with Rachmaninoff as soloist on March 18, 1927. Rachmaninoff later revised the concerto in 1941. The Pittsburgh Symphony first performed the concerto at Syria Mosque with conductor John Pritchard and pianist Yakov Zak in January 1965, and most recently performed it with conductor Aldo Ceccato and pianist Barbara Nissman in March 1990. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings. Performance time: approximately 27 minutes.

Rachmaninoff was living in Moscow when the Russian Revolution erupted in March 1917. Realizing that the days of his aristocratic world were numbered, he made the painful decision to leave his beloved homeland by accepting an offer that fortuitously arrived just at that time to give a recital tour of Scandinavia. He secured visas for himself and his family before departing in November, but left behind his home, his possessions and his money, taking with him only 2,000 rubles — then practically worthless — and such personal belongings as fit into a small suitcase. He never saw Russia again. During the next year, Rachmaninoff received repeated proposals to perform in America, and, on November 1, 1918, he sailed from Oslo to New York. His financial situation when he arrived in this country was difficult, since his family’s wealth had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks and the income from the performance of his works was meager because Russia was not then a signatory of the international copyright laws that would have assured his royalties. To support his family and pick up the frayed threads of his career, he began the coast-to-coast performance tours that were to continue virtually uninterrupted for the next 25 years. So intense was his concertizing during his first American decade that he was unable to compose a single piece. He once told an interviewer that creative work was impossible for him while he was preoccupied with performing: “When I am concertizing, I cannot compose. When I feel like writing music, I have to concentrate on that — I cannot touch the piano. When I am conducting, I can neither compose nor play concerts. Other musicians may be more fortunate in this respect; but I have to concentrate on any one thing I am doing to such a degree that it does not seem to allow me to take up anything else.” It was not until 1926, when he began the Piano Concerto No. 4, that he again found time to compose. The Concerto opens with an energetic orchestral flourish as introduction to the main theme, which is presented by the piano. This sweeping melody, enriched by full piano chords and accompanied by swift triplet pulsations in the winds, spans a grand arch, climbing and descending through a wide-ranging scale pattern. The flourish and the sweeping main theme are repeated. A transition, filled with rippling figurations for the soloist, leads to the poetic second theme, given by the unaccompanied piano, and another lyrical strain initiated by the violins. The development section is rhapsodic in nature, with reminiscences of the main theme woven among new melodies and passages of an improvised character. The order of the themes is reversed in the recapitulation, with the poetic complementary subject recalled by the solo flute. In the movement’s final pages, the orchestral flourish that began the Concerto returns to herald the final traversal of the main theme, spun out by the violins above a piano accompaniment of broad arpeggios. A brief coda of only six measures brings the movement to an abrupt close. Nikolai Medtner, the Russian composer and friend to whom Rachmaninoff dedicated the Fourth Concerto, thought that some extra-musical inspiration — perhaps the depiction of a solemn religious procession — lay behind the austere second movement. The entire movement is built on the opening theme. The first section, unsettled in emotion, mixes major and minor tonalities to create the bittersweet melancholy that marks so much of Rachmaninoff’s music. The middle portion is a stormy transformation of the theme led by the horns to which the piano provides stern commentary. The hushed solemnity of the opening returns to round out this deeply felt intermezzo. The finale pierces brusquely into this quiet reverie. This movement was extensively revised in 1941 and shows Rachmaninoff’s closest approach to modernity in its harmonic pungency and sardonic humor. It is a dazzling display of athletic virtuosity for the soloist. The finale’s structure is complex, supporting not

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only its own thematic material, but also references to melodies from the first movement as a way of unifying the Concerto’s overall form.

SIR EDWARD ELGAR

Variations on an Original Theme, “Enigma,” Opus 36 (1898-1899)

Sir Edward Elgar was born in Broadheath, England, on June 2, 1857, and died in Worcester on February 23, 1934. He composed his “Enigma” Variations in 1898-1899, and it was premiered at St. James’s Hall in London with conductor Hans Richter on June 19, 1899. The Pittsburgh Symphony first performed the Variations at Carnegie Music Hall with condcutor Emil Paur in April 1907, and most recently performed it with conductor Nikolaj Znaider in March 2012. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, organ and strings. Performance time: approximately 35 minutes.

Throughout his life, Edward Elgar had a penchant for dispensing startling or mystifying remarks just to see what response they would elicit. Turning that trait upon his music, he added the sobriquet “Enigma” above the theme of the splendid set of orchestral variations he composed in 1898-1899, positing not just one puzzle in the Enigma Variations, however, but three. First, each of the fourteen sections was headed with initials or a nickname that stood for the name of the composer’s friend portrayed by that variation. The second mystery dealt with the theme itself, the section that bore the legend “Enigma.” It is believed that the theme represented Elgar himself (note the similarity of the opening phrase to the speech rhythm of his name — Ed-ward EL-gar), thus making the variations upon it portraits of his friends as seen through his eyes. The final enigma, the one that neither Elgar offered to explain nor for which others have been able to find a definite solution, arose from a statement of his: “Furthermore, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’ but is not played.... So the principal theme never appears, even as in some recent dramas — e.g., Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept Princesses — the chief character is never on stage.” Conjectures about this unplayed theme that fits each of the variations have ranged from Auld Lang Syne (which guess Elgar vehemently denied) to a phrase from Wagner’s Parsifal. One theory was published by the Dutch musicologist Theodore van Houten, who speculated that the phrase “never, never, never” from the grand old tune Rule, Britannia fits the requirements, and even satisfies some of the baffling clues Elgar had spread to his friends. (“So the principal theme never appears.”) We shall never know for sure. Elgar took the solution to his grave. Variation I (C.A.E.) is a tender depiction of the composer’s wife, Alice. Variation II (H.D. S.-P.) represents the warming-up finger exercises of H.D. Steuart-Powell, a piano-playing friend. Variation III (R.B.T.) utilizes the high and low woodwinds to portray the distinctive voice of Richard Baxter Townsend, an amateur actor with an unusually wide vocal range. Variation IV (W.M.B.) suggests the considerable energy of William Meath Baker. Variation V (R.P.A.) reflects the frequently changing moods of Richard Penrose Arnold, son of the poet Matthew Arnold. Variation VI (Ysobel) gives prominence to the viola, the instrument played by Elgar’s pupil Isobel Fitton. Variation VII (Troyte) describes the high spirits of Arthur Troyte Griffith. Variation VIII (W.N.) denotes the grace of Miss Winifred Norbury. Variation IX (Nimrod) is a moving testimonial to A.J. Jaeger, Elgar’s publisher and close friend. Variation X (Dorabella): Intermezzo describes Dora Penny, a friend of hesitant conversation and fluttering manner. Variation XI (G.R.S.) portrays the organist George R. Sinclair and his bulldog, Dan, out for a walk by the River Wye. Variation XII (B.G.N.) honors the cellist Basil G. Nevinson. Variation XIII (* * *): Romanza was written while Lady Mary Lygon was on a sea journey. The solo clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture and the hollow sound of the timpani played with wooden sticks suggests the distant rumble of ship’s engines. Variation XIV (E.D.U.): Finale, Elgar’s self-portrait, recalls the music of earlier variations. ©2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda