UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Zubin Mehta Music Director and Conductor Maxim Vengerov, Violinist Thursday Evening, March 21, 1991, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan PROGRAM Symphony No. 2 ......................... Josef Tal (in one movement) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 35 ........ Tchaikovsky Allegro moderate Canzonetta Finale Maxim Vengerov, Violinist INTERMISSION Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 .................. DvoMk Allegro maestoso Poco adagio Scherzo: vivace Finale: allegro The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is represented by ICM Artists, Ltd., New York City. The Orchestra gratefully acknowledges American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as a prin­ cipal underwriter of the Orchestra's North American tour. The box office in the outer lobby is open during intermission for purchase of tickets to upcoming concerts. Copies of this title page are available in larger print; please contact an usher. Thirty-third Concert of the 112th Season 112th Annual Choral Union Series Program Notes Symphony No. 2 transparent figures. The episodes that follow JOSEF TAL (b.1910) are in the same vein, based either upon Honoring the composer's 80th birthday linear, melodic formulation or, as in the last he Polish-born Israeli composer episode, upon strong rhythmic patterns. The Josef Tal was born September 18, work comes to its climax in the last episode, 1910, near Poznan. After study­ in which all the previously heard elements ing at the Hochschule fur Musik participate. After this, there is a more sub­ in Berlin, he emigrated to Pales­ dued atmosphere and, towards the conclu­ tineT in 1934 and taught composition and sion, the full twelve-tone-row is heard in a piano at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, melodic presentation." serving as its director from 1948 to 1952. He was later on the faculty of Hebrew University Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 in Jerusalem and headed its musicology de­ PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) partment from 1965 to 1971. he year of the Violin Concerto, Tal received a generous UNESCO 1878, was marked by a time of grant in 1957 to study electronic music, after rich harvest in Tchaikovsky's which he was appointed director of the Israel creative life. The year witnessed Center for Electronic Music. Named a Fellow the completion of his remarkable of the West Berlin Academy of the Arts in operaT Eugene Onegin as well as of the Fourth 1971, Tal applies a variety of techniques in Symphony, the First Suite for Orchestra, and his music. Patriotic Hebrew themes often a group of smaller compositions. appear in his productions. Tchaikovsky counted on the Hungar­ Josef Tal's Symphony No. 2 was com­ ian violinist Leopold Auer to play the solo posed in 1968 on commission from the Israel part at the premiere of the Violin Concerto Philharmonic Orchestra. It is characterized and sent the finished score to Auer for his by great sweeping drive, strength, and inter­ perusal. The violinist's reaction was entirely nal logic. It is not a symphony in the usual unfavorable. "Some of the passages," Auer classical sense that refers to a defined form. insisted, "are outright unperformable!" Nor Rather, it is a symphony in the original was he alone in finding fault with the new meaning of the word: a combination of work. Mme Nadezhda von Meek, Tchai­ sounds. kovsky's friend and benefactress, was critical In a conversation with Dr. Uri of the score, especially of the first movement. Toeplitz, the composer gave the following In a letter, Tchaikovsky replied with his explanatory remarks: customary courtesy to the woman he was "A new approach demands a new con­ never to meet, but he refused to make any ception in musical thought, which in this revisions of the opening movement. As it work has many elements in common with happened, Tchaikovsky had doubts regarding twelve-tone technique. other sections of the music and rewrote the "The work is written in one movement. slow (second) movement. In order to obtain the most pliable organiza­ At this point, Tchaikovsky was advised tion of events, the following formal structure by his friends to approach another violinist, is followed: there is a main group, which in likewise of outstanding reputation. Adolf the course of the work is twice repeated in Brodsky had been a child prodigy and became varied versions. Between these, there are famous both for his innate musicianship and different episodes, which are in contrast to virtuosity. Tchaikovsky was pleased when the what preceded, and they pave the way for brilliant violinist agreed to be soloist at the what follows. premiere. "There is no real theme in the begin­ But Brodsky was in no rush to perform ning. Instead, minor motives are gradually the work. Undecided, he waited for two years assembled until maximal density and strength before playing the demanding solo part in are reached, when all twelve notes are repre­ public, complaining to Tchaikovsky that he sented. This is followed by a separation into had "crammed too many difficulties into the different elements, containing a minimum of music." Nor did Brodsky hesitate to point out that the orchestral parts "swarmed with er­ four horns, and two trumpets. The heavy rors. " And it was not an easy task to induce brass and battery are avoided. The string Hans Richter, the celebrated music director quintet, particularly the first violin section, of the Vienna Philharmonic, to conduct the is discreetly treated to afford continuous challenging concerto. After much bickering, prominence to the solo part. Richter and the Philharmonic scheduled the The concerto renounces the traditional premiere of the concerto for December 4, introduction by the full orchestra. Instead, we 1881. It took all of Brodsky's persuasiveness hear the first violins playing an allegro. This to discourage Richter from making extensive beginning announces the chief subject, not cuts in the score. Despite his grumbling, in its totality, but only in fragments, until Brodsky remained ever-loyal to Tchaikovsky finally the complete theme is heard, moderate and emerged as the protagonist of what was assai, with its appealing, lilting tone lines. to become one of the most popular concertos The second subject is likewise entrusted to in music literature. the solo violin con molto espressione. The Tchaikovsky was in Rome during the development assigns more prominence to the Vienna premiere and therefore anxiously orchestra. Tchaikovsky reverses the order of awaited his work's most important critique, the classical concerto: the extended tutti the one by Eduard Hanslick, music editor of follows - rather than anticipates - the expo­ Vienna's Neue freie Presse and, at that time, sition of the solo. The cadenza, likewise, Europe's most renowned music critic. assumes an unusual place: it is heard prior to Hanslick, when writing the review of the the recapitulation. (Here Tchaikovsky ap­ Tchaikovsky Concerto, seems to have dipped pears to be influenced by the design of his pen not in ink but in vitriol: Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.) The reprise "For a while the concerto has propor­ is brought by the flute. The chief theme and tion, is musical, and is not without genius, the final ornaments of the violin cadenza but soon savagery gains the upper hand and dovetail. lords it to the end of the first movement. The The second movement is a melancholy violin is no longer played. It is yanked about. serenade. An octet of wind instruments sets It is torn asunder. It is beaten black and blue. the stage for the entrance of the lovely I do not know whether it is possible for canzonetta, as Tchaikovsky called this middle anyone to conquer these hair-raising difficul­ movement. Resembling a sad folk tune, the ties, but I do know that Mr. Brodsky martyr­ theme rises from the muted principal violin. ized his hearers as well as himself. Friedrich The solo also sings the second theme, which Vischer [a German writer on the philosophy is more animated. Delicate embellishments of art] once asserted in reference to lascivious are spun around its graceful strains. The paintings, that there are pictures which 'stink canzonetta is designed as an ABA form. The in the eye.' Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto elegiac main theme returns. In its epilogue, brings to us for the first time the horrid idea the andante leads without break into the racy that there may be music that stinks in the finale. ear." There follows a short, capricious intro­ To the end of his days, Tchaikovsky duction, allegro vivacissimo, followed by a remembered Hanslick's review with bitter­ cadenza. The ensuing rondo is a somewhat ness. But he had the satisfaction of experi­ robust dance. The solo violin part, as one may encing the ever-increasing success of the expect, is replete with brilliant and difficult concerto that, before long, was performed in passage work. The second theme is heard in all music centers of Europe and America. the solo over a drone bass of the cellos. A In general, the fabric of the Violin third theme, molto meno mosso, evolves as a Concerto and its three movements is of conversation between woodwinds. Mean­ lighter weight than that of Tchaikovsky's while, the solo excels in a series of unaccom­ symphonic scores, but the music is original panied passages prior to the return of the full and imaginative. At times, high and low tone orchestral forces. The entire ensemble, set colors are placed side by side, as in a Byzan­ homophonically, is now geared to an exuber­ tine mosaic. Certain aspects of the concerto's ant conclusion. Slavic expression bewildered the work's first -Dr. Frederick Dorian audiences outside of Russia. Tchaikovsky's orchestration calls for woodwinds in pairs, Symphony No.