Maxim Vengerov
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SEASON OPENING GALA MAXIM VENGEROV TUESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2017 CONCERT PROGRAM Broadcast Partner Supported by Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO WELCOME A message from the Governor A message from tonight’s supporters It is with great pleasure that I welcome We are absolutely delighted to welcome you to the Opening Gala of another you to the opening of the Melbourne season of the enchanting music of the Symphony Orchestra’s 2017 season. Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO). This season the MSO will treat us to a As Australia’s oldest professional marvellous feast of music-making that orchestra, established in 1906, the MSO will showcase a remarkable range of engages 2.5 million people each year orchestral repertoire. We’re excited to through its live performances, recordings, see the talented MSO musicians joined by broadcasts and digital streaming. a huge line up of guest artists, including tonight’s superstar Maxim Vengerov. As its Patron, I am proud of the MSO for its breadth of programming, its It is an honour to witness one of the commitment to music education and its world’s greatest violinists here in diversity across Victoria, as well as its Melbourne to open the season in style. representation of us on the global stage. We look forward to seeing you at many I wish the MSO the very best for the more concerts throughout the year. year ahead. Marc Besen AC The Honourable Linda Dessau AC and Eva Besen AO Governor of Victoria A message from the Minister A message from our Chairman We are fortunate to have such a world- As a Melburnian I am extremely class orchestra here in Melbourne. proud of our world class orchestra. The Australian Government is proud of I am excited that tonight the its ongoing support of the Melbourne extraordinary virtuoso Maxim Vengerov Symphony Orchestra, and commends will grace our city's stage for this very the generosity of its supporters in special season opening event. The MSO’s the community. I congratulate the 2017 season is filled with superstar talent Orchestra and wish you well for and repertoire and I cannot wait to your performance tonight. I have no experience the variety of performances doubt that the audience will be just in the year ahead. as captivated by your music as the We truly are lucky to have such a versatile Sultan was with Scheherazade’s orchestra that can deliver world class stories. To quote The Arabian Nights, performances for everyone to enjoy, from from which Rimsky-Korsakov drew the classroom to the glorious surrounds his inspiration, you will ‘beguile the of Hamer Hall. waking hour of our night’. I wish Sophie and the MSO the best of It’s going to be a wonderful season. luck for a tremendous 2017 season. Senator The Hon Mitch Fifield Michael Ullmer Minister for the Arts Chairman, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra 2 ARTISTS Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Conductor Benjamin Northey Violin/Conductor Maxim Vengerov REPERTOIRE Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D INTERVAL Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade Please note this performance will be recorded and broadcast on Foxtel Arts Running time 1 hour and 40 minutes including a 20-minute interval. 3 BENJAMIN NORTHEY CONDUCTOR Since returning to Australia from Arnaldo Cohen, KD Lang, Kurt Elling, Europe in 2006, Benjamin Northey Tim Minchin, Barry Humphries, Slava has rapidly emerged as one of the Grigoryan and Emma Matthews. nation’s leading musical figures. In Australia, Northey has made his Since 2011, he has held the position of mark through his many critically Associate Conductor of the Melbourne acclaimed appearances as a guest Symphony Orchestra and, in 2015, conductor with all the Australian state he became Chief Conductor of the symphony orchestras as well as opera Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. productions including Don Giovanni 2015/2016 engagements included and Così fan tutte for Opera Australia. returns to all the major Australian Recordings include several orchestral orchestras, the HKPO, the NZSO releases for ABC Classics with the and Turandot for Opera Australia. Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmanian, Adelaide and West Australian Northey studied with John Hopkins Symphony Orchestras. at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and then Northey is the recipient of numerous with Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam awards including the 2010 Melbourne at Finland’s prestigious Sibelius Prize Outstanding Musician Award, Academy where he was accepted the Brian Stacey Memorial Award, the as the highest placed applicant in Nelly Apt Scholarship and the 2007 2002. He has appeared with the Limelight Magazine Best Newcomer London Philharmonic Orchestra, Award. Northey is an Honorary Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Fellow of the University of Melbourne Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Conservatorium where he is also a Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, lecturer in conducting. He currently New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, lives in Melbourne with his wife (the Auckland Philharmonia and the accomplished French Horn player Southbank Sinfonia of London. Joanne Montesano) and their children. He has collaborated with acclaimed Image courtesy Matt Irwin. artists including Julian Rachlin, Alban Gerhardt, Marc-Andre Hamelin, 4 MAXIM VENGEROV VIOLIN/CONDUCTOR One of the world’s finest musicians performed an artist residency at the and most in-demand soloists, Grammy Barbican Centre in London. That season award-winning violinist Maxim he also took up a position as artist-in- Vengerov also enjoys international residence with the Oxford Philharmonic. acclaim as a conductor. This season’s engagements include Born in 1974, he began his career guest conducting engagements as a solo violinist at the age of five, with the RTÉ National Symphony won the Wieniawski and Carl Flesch Orchestra in Dublin and Munich international competitions at ages Philharmonic, a European tour with 10 and 15 respectively, studied with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Galina Tourchaninova and Zakhar Bron, performances at the Park concerts made his first recording at the age of with the New York Philharmonic in 10, and went on to record extensively New York and Shanghai. In Australia for labels including Melodia, Teldec he performs a gala concert with the and EMI, earning Grammy and Sydney Symphony Orchestra and takes Gramophone artist of the year awards. up the position of Artist-in-Residence of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. In 2007 he followed in the footsteps of his mentor, the late Mstislav A passionate educator, Maxim Rostropovich, and turned his attention Vengerov has held various teaching to conducting, and in 2010 was positions around the world and is appointed the first chief conductor currently Ambassador and visiting of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra. Professor of the International Menuhin In 2014 he graduated with a Diploma of Music Academy in Switzerland (IMMA) Excellence from the Moscow Institute and Polonsky Visiting Professor of of Ippolitov-Ivanov with Yuri Simonov Violin at the Royal College of Music in and, having enrolled in a further two- London. In 1997 he became the first year program of opera conducting, classical musician to be appointed is scheduled to conduct his first International Goodwill Ambassador performances of Eugene Onegin by UNICEF. in Brisbane and Moscow in 2017. He plays the ex-Kreutzer Stradivarius In 2013 the annual Vengerov Festival (1727). was launched in Tokyo and he Image courtesy B Ealovega. 5 PROGRAM NOTES PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY In December 1881 Adolph Brodsky (1840-1893) premiered the concerto at a Vienna Philharmonic concert under Hans Violin Concerto in D, Op.35 Richter. The Viennese critics, always Allegro moderato fairly conservative, were almost Canzonetta (Andante) – universal in their condemnation of Finale (Allegro vivacissimo) the work. Maxim Vengerov Violin However Brodsky was not dissuaded Benjamin Northey Conductor and remained the work’s most fervent champion. Auer eventually overcame Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is his opposition to the concerto and a distinguished member of that played it to great acclaim. company of musical masterpieces After a scene-setting introduction and that survived a traumatic debut to the soloist’s announcement of the main become one of the most beloved themes, the temperature of the first works of its kind. It could almost be movement rises considerably, with described as a love letter, written the solo part becoming much more in 1878 whilst the composer was on virtuosic and the orchestral writing holiday in Switzerland with his brother increasingly colourful. There is a Modest and the violinist Josef Kotek, magnificently varied cadenza for Tchaikovsky’s pupil at the Moscow the soloist. Conservatory. At some point in their friendship, according to biographer Kotek felt Tchaikovsky’s original slow Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky movement was too insubstantial and and Kotek became lovers. sentimental, and the composer agreed, replacing it with the Canzonetta. Kotek’s inspiration and advice were The Finale follows on without a crucial in the concerto’s composition break, and immediately the soloist and he was originally to have been its has a dazzling, short cadenza, which dedicatee; but Tchaikovsky, concerned leads straight into the movement’s at the gossip this would cause in vigorous main theme, a short, folk- Moscow, instead dedicated it to like dance tune. The second theme, Leopold Auer, a renowned performer introduced over a bagpipe-like drone and teacher whose pupils would on the strings, is a temporary lyrical include Jascha Heifetz. However Auer resting-place in the movement’s claimed that the work was technically wild infectiousness. impossible and structurally weak, and Abridged from a note © Phillip Sametz refused to learn it. Then Kotek decided The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, with soloist not to play it either. Lionel Lawson and conductor George Szell, was the first of the Australian state orchestras to perform this work, on 21 May 1938. The Orchestra’s most recent performance took place in March 2016, with Sir Andrew Davis and soloist Ray Chen.