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Home , Faniska, Luigi Cherubini

Program

ONe HuNDreD TweNTieTH SeASON Chicago symphony orchestra Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Friday, April 8, 2011, at 1:30 riccardo muti Conductor Cherubini Overture in G Major First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Liszt Les préludes

IntermIssIon shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47 Moderato—Allegro non troppo—Largamente Allegretto Largo Allegro non troppo—Allegro

Maestro Muti’s 2011 Spring Residency is supported in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Steinway is the official piano 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 PHi LLiP HuSCHer

Luigi Cherubini Born September 14, 1760, , Italy. Died March 15, 1842, Paris, .

overture in g major

n 1841, the year before he died, Beethoven and Haydn were in the ILuigi Cherubini had his portrait audience and spoke glowingly of painted by his close friend, the the work. Mendelssohn admired popular neoclassical artist Jean- Cherubini the composer for Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The “his sparkling fire, his clever and painting now hangs in the , unexpected transitions, and the where it is admired by millions of neatness and grace with which he visitors each year; it has become the writes.” Bruckner learned how to lasting image of a major composer write his own sacred music by copy- who is regularly overlooked, if not ing out movements of Cherubini’s nearly forgotten today. masses to study. Brahms, the most Born four years after Mozart, historically aware composer of and outliving Beethoven by fifteen the nineteenth century, revered years, Cherubini was a name to Cherubini, and he hung a copy of be reckoned with for a good half the Ingres painting on the wall of century. Beethoven, remarkably, his apartment (a large white bust of said that Cherubini was the greatest Beethoven, the only other composer composer among his contempo- so honored, sat over the piano). raries (which, just for the record, And Schumann said that “the more boasted a fair number of luminar- we come to understand him the ies, including Rossini). Beethoven more we come to respect him”— had written him an outright fan perhaps anticipating that one day letter about the opera Médée a people would make snap judgments decade before they finally met. on Cherubini’s importance based When Cherubini’s opera on knowing a mere fraction of his was staged in in 1806, both large output. In one of Schumann’s

ComPosed InstrumentatIon aPProxImate 1815 one flute, two oboes, two PerFormanCe tIme clarinets, two bassoons, four 12 minutes FIrst PerFormanCe horns, two trumpets, three 1815, London trombones, timpani, strings These are the first CSO performances

2 most important as a critic, By the early years of the nine- he ranked Cherubini as “superior teenth century, Cherubini had as a harmonist to all his contem- already become that rarest of poraries,” calling him the “refined, musical figures at the time, an scholarly, interesting Italian whose international celebrity. So it is severe reserve of strength and hardly surprising that the new character sometimes leads me to Royal Philharmonic Society in compare him with Dante.” London asked him to write three Cherubini was born in Florence, works—an overture, a symphony, and he enjoyed success with both and an Italian vocal piece—for serious and comic in Italy its second season in 1815 and to and in London before moving come to London to oversee their to Paris in 1788. There he had a performance. The society had string of hits, including Lodoïska in been founded “to promote the 1791 and Médée in 1797 (decades performance, in the most perfect later Brahms still singled it out as manner possible of the best and “the work we musicians recognize most approved instrumental music,” among ourselves as the highest peak of dra- matic music”). His fame continued to spread. Les deux journées was so popular in Vienna that it was staged by two rival theaters on succes- sive nights. His most celebrated works were his so-called rescue operas, which were particularly apt during revolutionary times, when hairbreadth escapes were everyday occurrences. In the first years of the nineteenth century, when Beethoven decided to write an opera, Cherubini’s works were the obvious and the Muse of Lyric Poetry. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1842 models. In fact, it was Emanuel Schikaneder’s staging of Lodoïska in Vienna in and its members wanted to prove 1802 that served as the immediate their seriousness by commission- inspiration for Beethoven’s , ing the most important composers the only that is still of the day. (Their track record performed today. is remarkable: both Beethoven’s

3 Ninth and Mendelssohn’s Italian quartet; it remains a rare visitor on symphonies were written at their concert programs in either version. request.) Cherubini was appar- The concert overture in G major ently the first composer the society that the Chicago Symphony plays approached—at the instigation of (for the first time) this week is one Muzio Clementi, the Roman-born of Cherubini’s finest works, a distil- piano sensation who then lived in lation of all he had learned writing England, and Giovanni Viotti, the overtures for the opera house. The famed violin virtuoso, who had only overture Cherubini wrote for first met the composer in Paris in the concert hall, it is dramatic—as the 1780s. “theatrical” as any opera overture— When Cherubini arrived in impassioned, impeccably crafted London on February 25, 1815, (this was a Cherubini hallmark), he had the overture and the vocal and highly inventive—a reminder work with him. (The symphony of how creativity flourished end- was written in March and April.) lessly within the supposedly limited The vocal piece, a cantata, Inno framework of classical style. It is a alla primavera, is almost never perfect curtain-raiser for a concert, performed today; the Symphony which is what Cherubini had in in D major, Cherubini’s only work mind, but it also opens a window in the benchmark classical form, for concertgoers today on a dis- was not a great success in London tinguished career that has largely and was later reworked as a string slipped from view.

4 Born October 22, 1811, Raiding, Hungary. Died July 31, 1886, Bayreuth, Bavaria.

Les préludes, no. 3, after Lamartine

n May 5, 1856, Liszt sent the toward a new frontier. Scholars and Onewly published scores of six musicians have argued over their of his , including comparative success ever since, Les préludes, to . and, although it is Wagner, largely In return, Wagner sent off the by virtue of an advanced case of original scores to Das Rheingold self-promotion and a very modern and Die Walküre, followed by a understanding of public relations, letter full of kind words for Liszt’s who is generally seen as the greater newest efforts. The two compos- revolutionary, there are those who ers had been unusually close for would agree with the verdict of many years, each sometimes alone Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, who in appreciating what the other knew them both: “[Liszt] has was up to, although in the next hurled his lance much farther into decade, when Wagner fathered two the future than Wagner.” illegitimate children with Liszt’s In November of 1856, Liszt and daughter Cosima, the relation- Wagner took part in a concert ship was severely strained. But in in Saint Gallen, with Wagner 1856—Wagner never suspecting conducting the Eroica Symphony that he would one day have to and Liszt his own Orpheus and Les accept Liszt as his father-in-law— préludes. In 1856, Les préludes was they were united in pushing music new music: it had been finished

ComPosed most reCent aPProxImate 1849–1855 Cso PerFormanCes PerFormanCe tIme May 10, 1992, Orchestra Hall. 16 minutes FIrst PerFormanCe Sir Georg Solti conducting February 23, 1854, weimar September 19, 2010, Cso reCordIngs Millennium Park. riccardo 1977. Daniel barenboim FIrst Cso Muti conducting conducting. Deutsche PerFormanCe Grammophon January 29, 1892, Auditorium InstrumentatIon 1992. Sir Georg Solti Theatre. Theodore three flutes and piccolo, two conducting. London Thomas conducting oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, harp, drum, cymbals, snare drum, strings

5 and first performed only two years Without Les préludes and the rest before in Weimar. But it was also of the Liszt canon, Smetana’s Ma new in the more important sense vlást, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and of modern, fresh, and novel. That Juliet, and Strauss’s Death and is sometimes hard to accept today, Transfiguration are unthinkable. for Les préludes is arguably Liszt’s Perhaps the greatest confu- best-known composition and sion about Liszt’s works has to do certainly his most played orchestral with the relationship between the work; and because of its fame and music and the program—that is, familiarity, and all the music that which came first. In most cases, was later conceived in its image, we it was the music. Les préludes had fail to realize its novelty. a previous life as an overture to There are a number of com- an unpublished choral work, Les mon misconceptions about Liszt’s quatre elemens (The four elements), symphonic poems. Liszt did invent and Lamartine’s poem was only the name—the term sinfonische unearthed when Liszt decided to Dichtung (symphonic poem) was make something of his overture used for the first time in 1854—to and needed a title and general describe music that did not strictly game plan to accompany it. All follow any of the classical forms, the musical themes in Les préludes and that was, in some way, related came from the four pieces of the to literary or pictorial works. But he choral work, and they have more to did not invent the musical concept, do with earth and water than with which is a logical outgrowth of Lamartine’s war and peace. Still, the single-movement dramatic Lamartine’s title has served very overtures of Beethoven, rather than nicely over the years, and, as long multimovement program sympho- as we do not try to read too much nies like Berlioz’s Symphonie fantas- into Liszt’s music, neither Liszt nor tique. There are precedents as well Lamartine suffers. for Liszt’s important experiments The music is conceived in three with one-movement forms and for large paragraphs with a brief his use of thematic transformation, introduction. The first paragraph often in place of a Beethovenian contains most of the material for development of material. Schubert’s the work, including an important, Wanderer Fantasy, which Liszt flowing melody for cellos and knew well, played spectacularly, second violins; the second begins and later arranged for piano and tempestuously but dissolves into orchestra, anticipates much that is a genial, pastoral mood (and essential to Liszt’s best work. introduces a new theme); the final The novelty of Liszt’s symphonic section is a triumphant reworking poems is that, like Berlioz in his (marked marziale) of the first. The Symphonie fantastique, he took whole is tightly knit and wisely ideas that were in the air and made paced, and Liszt’s trademark trans- something unimagined, distinctive, formation of themes is particu- successful, and highly influential. larly effective.

6 dmitri shostakovich Born September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia.

symphony no. 5 in d minor, op. 47

mitri Shostakovich first came This was but one of many battles Dto the United States in March Shostakovich fought in his war 1949. Before a crowd of 30,000 between the public platform and people in Madison Square Garden, his private thoughts. A photo- he sat at a piano and played the graph taken at the time shows scherzo from his Fifth Symphony. Shostakovich, his eyes avoiding the He arrived here as an official camera, standing uneasily between participant in the Cultural and Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller. Scientific Conference for World Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Peace, and he came, against his Symphony is perhaps the best- better judgment, because Stalin known work of art born from the had telephoned him and asked him marriage of politics and music. In to come. 1949, when the Soviet composer It is a disturbing and symbolic came to America, the circum- image: this great man, shy and stances of its creation were as unassuming behind his thick famous as the music itself. The facts glasses, being trotted out to are few, but telling. On January 28, perform his best-known symphonic 1936, while Shostakovich was music on a piano in a sports arena. working on his Fourth Symphony,

ComPosed most reCent aPProxImate 1937 Cso PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme February 8, 2011, 46 minutes FIrst PerFormanCe Orchestra Hall. Leonard November 21, 1937; Slatkin conducting Cso reCordIngs Leningrad, russia 1977. André Previn InstrumentatIon conducting. Angel FIrst Cso two flutes and piccolo, two 2006. Myung-whun PerFormanCes oboes, two clarinets and Chung conducting. July 17, 1941, ravinia e-flat clarinet, two bassoons CSO resound Festival. Nicolai and contrabassoon, four Malko conducting horns, three trumpets, February 10, 1944, three trombones and tuba, Orchestra Hall. Désiré timpani, triangle, snare Defauw conducting drum, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, bells, xylophone, two harps, celesta, piano, strings

7 Pravda denounced his opera Lady man. I saw man with all his experi- Macbeth of Mtsensk in an article ences in the center of the composi- called “Muddle instead of Music.” tion, which is lyrical in form from Although the opera had been beginning to end. In the finale, triumphantly received in both the tragically tense impulses of the Moscow and Leningrad during the earlier movements are resolved in previous two years—and in more optimism and joy of living.” There than 175 performances—it was is, of course, some incontrovert- suddenly and decisively attacked as ible evidence, like the wild success fidgety, screaming, neurotic, coarse, of the Fifth Symphony when it primitive, and vulgar. Although was introduced on November 21, Shostakovich himself was not 1937, in Leningrad under the the recipient of such well-chosen baton of Eugene Mravinsky, and adjectives, there was no question of the subsequent official embrace of where he now stood in the eyes of Shostakovich, speedily returned Soviet authorities. to favor. Shostakovich went ahead and finished his Fourth Symphony—a n the end, the music must speak vast, exploratory, tragic work—but Ifor itself. In place of the “scream- when it came time to unveil it in ing,” “primitive” music that got public, he had second thoughts him into trouble, Shostakovich and withdrew the score. (It waited now gives us clarity and brilliance. twenty-five years to be performed.) And, despite intermittent ten- Then, after a long silence, came his sions, we have a happy ending. official response, written in just Like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and three months. Shostakovich now Mahler before him, Shostakovich issued “the creative reply of a Soviet has written a fifth symphony that artist to justified criticism,” the sets out to triumph over adversity, astonishing phrase that is forever with the major key supplanting the linked with the work’s official title, minor in the final movement. The Symphony no. 5. power of this music is undeniable, Sorting fact from fiction is no although not everyone was satisfied mere pastime in discussing Soviet that its deeper content was really music. On such distinctions hangs politically correct—after hearing our understanding of important Shostakovich’s new symphony for musical impulses. Many a listener, the first time, the great novelist as well as political historian, has Boris Pasternak wrote, “He went pondered the justification for the and said everything, and no one did Soviet criticism and the motiva- anything to him for it.” tion for the reply. For the record, Clarity of form and texture is we can consider the composer’s the hallmark of the large—and not own words, written at the time, uncomplicated—first movement. although they are less than fully From the jagged Grosse Fuge–like enlightening: “The theme of my opening theme to the climatic, Fifth Symphony is the making of a grotesque march over a relentless

8 snare-drum rhythm, Shostakovich days—information that is hard to takes pains not to lose us in intri- digest once one hears this calm and cate lines of counterpoint or disori- controlled music, moving slowly enting harmonies. For every page over vast, wide-open spaces. The of the score that calls on the full lucid, thin textures occasionally resources of the orchestra, there are turn spartan—a solo oboe melody countless others on which few notes against a single sustained violin are written. The second theme, note, a flute duet accompanied by for example, is a serene, soaring a quiet harp—but every phrase violin melody of wide leaps—we carries meaning, and every note is are never quite certain where it will indispensable. land next—over simple chords that If darkness blankets the eloquent slowly change colors as they repeat Largo, the finale erupts with power their “tum ta-ta” pattern. and brilliance. A triumphant The Allegretto that follows (a conclusion was mandatory—par- traditional scherzo and trio form) ticularly after the troubled thoughts is as merry and good-natured of the preceding slow movement. as any music that came from When the D minor struggles finally Shostakovich’s pen. If this were the shift into an affirmative D major only music of his that we knew, we blast, it is only our hindsight—our might not be so quick to read a note knowledge of the undeniable sor- of irony into the solo violin’s teasing row and despair of Shostakovich’s melody in the trio. But this is music last works—that suggests this in a singularly untroubled vein, and happy ending is somehow forced. that is precisely what the Madison Square Garden crowd was meant to hear. Shostakovich claimed he wrote Phillip Huscher is the program annota- the Largo at white heat in three tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago

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