Please note that Maestro Muti has regretfully withdrawn from these concerts due to illness. , the CSO’s Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus, has graciously agreed to step in to conduct a revised program of music by Webern and Mahler.

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

Thursday, October 14, 2010, at 8:00 Friday, October 15, 2010, at 1:30 Saturday, October 16, 2010, at 8:00 Sunday, October 17, 2010, at 3:00 Pierre Boulez Conductor Webern Passacaglia for Orchestra, Op. 1 Mahler Symphony No. 7 Slow—Allegro risoluto, ma non troppo Night Music 1: Allegro moderato Scherzo: Shadowy Night Music 2: Andante amoroso Rondo finale: Allegro ordinario

There will be no intermission.

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 Phillip Huscher

Anton Webern Born December 2, 1883, Vienna, Austria. Died September 15, 1945, Mittersill, near Salzburg, Austria.

Passacaglia for Orchestra, Op. 1

p. 1 is a composer’s calling four years’ study with Arnold Ocard—the earliest music that he Schoenberg, and the last music of officially sends out into the world. its kind to come from his pen. And For every composer like Franz because none of his subsequent Schubert, whose first published compositions were to the public’s work (the song Der Erlkönig) is liking, op. 1 has remained Webern’s a masterpiece that he will often most played and most easily equal but seldom surpass, there are understood work, despite the real countless others for whom op. 1 advances of his later music. scarcely conveys what later years The year 1908 marked a turning will bring. Orchestral music bear- point for Webern. He had begun ing op. 1 has seldom stayed in the composition lessons with Arnold repertory; it usually is followed by Schoenberg in the autumn of music which is better, more popu- 1904 (probably at the suggestion lar, and more characteristic—who of ). Their student- today hears Stravinsky’s Symphony teacher relationship lasted only in E-flat, ’s four years, their equally important Festmarsch, or Shostakovich’s friendship a lifetime. Like any Scherzo in F-sharp? intense and decisive association, Anton Webern’s op. 1, the it was complicated. Schoenberg Passacaglia for Orchestra, is his regularly spoke of Webern with the first truly original statement, highest of praise—“a real genius marking his independence from as a composer,” he said in 1937, for

Composed Most recent CSO bassoon, four horns, three 1908 performance trumpets, three trombones March 9, 2006, Bernard and tuba, timpani, cymbals, First performance Haitink bass drum, triangle, 1908, Vienna, the composer tam-tam, harp, strings conducting Instrumentation two flutes and piccolo, two Approximate First CSO oboes and english horn, two performance time performance clarinets and bass clarinet, 11 minutes February 10, 1994, Désiré two bassoons and contra- Defauw conducting

2 example—and yet after Webern’s world of Bayreuth, the Wagnerian death, he privately grumbled that festival Webern attended as a Webern had used “everything I do, present on graduation from the plan, or say,” often getting to the Klagenfurt Gymnasium in 1902. finish line before his teacher. The Passacaglia is the work that A quick look at Webern’s progress brings them all together. under Schoenberg proves the value It is also music of remarkable of these lessons. Both the 1905 individuality, suggesting but not String Quartet and the 1907 String yet exploiting those qualities by Quintet are highly accomplished which Webern’s subsequent work works, and if they tell us more is known: clarity, brevity, economy about influence than about Webern of materials, dynamic restraint, the himself, they mark a great advance “active” use of silence, the scrupu- over his modest pre-Schoenberg lous placement of each note—as efforts. The 1908 Passacaglia, the if the composer had only been first music Webern was willing to allotted so many to use during his acknowledge, was, in effect, his lifetime and therefore regretfully graduation thesis. It predicts great relinquished every one. things, though not necessarily the Like all Webern’s music, the extraordinary direction Webern’s Passacaglia is orderly and exquisitely music would take. crafted. Webern often placed his This important first step is also new thoughts in old forms. For his Webern’s last piece for standard op. 1, he chose the seventeenth- orchestra used in a conventional century passacaglia, a dance in tri- way. Like the contemporary works ple meter (for Webern it is neither) of Mahler, which Webern admired over a repeated bass line. Webern and conducted with considerable first presents his bass line—moving authority, it is from D and back in eight notes— written for a large orchestra. Schoenberg’s presence is felt, too—the Schoenberg of Transfigured Webern’s bass line for the Passacaglia for Orchestra Night and Pelleas and Melisande, not of the and follows it with twenty-three later atonal pieces. The formal variations, grouped in three para- structure reminds us that the pas- graphs, and a coda as long as several sacaglia finale of Brahms’s Fourth variations. As the music progresses, Symphony (scarcely twenty years the theme disappears into the old in 1908) was often performed orchestral fabric. and discussed and obviously Each paragraph (variations 1-11, influential. There are fleeting 12-15, and 16-23) is shaped like moments that recall the unlikely an arch, speeding up and growing

3 louder to a midpoint, and then a slow “movement” within the backing off in tempo and dynamic. larger framework. (Webern knew The very first variation (pianissimo) the finale of Brahms’s Fourth for flute, trumpet, harp, violas, and Symphony, a large passacaglia with cellos, would not seem out of place subdivisions.) The coda begins in the austere and crystalline world quietly and slowly, building in of Webern’s later work. The middle volume, tempo, and activity and group, variations 12-15, with its then ending “ppp decrescendo,” as calm tempo and quiet voice— Webern stretches our understand- mostly pp and ppp—suggests ing of dynamics.

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4 Gustav Mahler Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No. 7

ustav Mahler composed music The summer of 1904 was the most Gonly during the summer, when productive of Mahler’s life. He he had time off from his job as finished his Sixth Symphony, began director of the Vienna Court Opera, the Kindertotenlieder, and wrote and every June he worried that he two movements of the Seventh wouldn’t be able to write anything. Symphony—the two nocturnes For seven years, he and his fam- that became its second and fourth ily summered at Maiernigg, on movements. But when he returned the Wörthersee, where he courted to Maiernigg the following June, he inspiration by maintaining a precise didn’t know how to continue with and orderly routine. Every morning this symphony and, for the first he rose at 5:30 and went for a swim time, he felt the desolation of being in the lake (he liked to begin with unable to compose a single mea- a high dive and stay under water as sure of music, despite daily effort. long as he could hold his breath). After two weeks of blank pages Afterwards, he dressed and climbed and nervous pacing, he gave up the hill to his studio, a tiny hut deep and went hiking in the Dolomites in the woods, where his breakfast (walking was one of his great had been carefully placed on the pleasures and it had gotten him table. For seven hours he worked through tough times before), but there without interruption on music still no music came to him. (“There his friends rarely understood. I was led the same dance,” he told

Composed Most recent CSO tam-tam, triangle, glocken- summers of 1904 and 1905 performance spiel, tambourine, cowbells, November 24, 2006, Pierre tubular bells, mandolin, First performance Boulez conducting guitar, two harps, strings September 19, 1908, Prague, the composer conducting Instrumentation Approximate four flutes and two piccolos, performance time First CSO three oboes and english 79 minutes performance horn, three clarinets, E-flat April 15, 1921, Frederick clarinet and bass clarinet, CSO recordings Stock conducting three bassoons and contra- 1971 under Sir (U.S. premiere) bassoon, four horns and for London, 1980 under tenor horn, three trumpets, for RCA, 1984 three trombones and tuba, under for timpani, bass drum, cymbals,

5 his wife Alma.) He returned to Opera in New York, to begin in Krumpendorf, on the shore oppo- the new year.) Shortly after Mahler site Maiernigg, convinced that the and his family arrived in Maiernigg entire summer was lost. “You were that summer, his four-year-old not at Krumpendorf to meet me,” daughter Maria took ill with he later wrote to Alma, “because I scarlet fever and died; a few days had not let you know the time of later Mahler was diagnosed with my arrival. I got into the boat to a serious heart condition. Mahler be rowed across. At the first stroke quickly abandoned Maiernigg and of the oars the theme (or rather rented a place at Toblach, in the the rhythm and character) of the Dolomites. He spent his days there introduction to the first movement reading a book of Chinese poems came into my head.” a friend had given him, and he In that moment, Mahler dis- attempted to follow the regimen of covered the beginning of this leisurely strolls and lean cuisine the symphony, with its haunted horn doctors ordered. He wrote no music call over lapping waters, and he that summer. remembered how it felt to be filled Mahler returned to Vienna, with music and eager to work it out where he conducted for on paper. The floodgates opened. the last time on October 15, bid In four weeks, Mahler composed farewell to the Viennese public the remaining three movements— with a performance of his Second the ones we now know as the first, Symphony on November 24, third, and last. By mid-August his and left for New York in early Seventh Symphony was completed December. He originally thought of in essence, if not in detail, and he giving the premiere of the Seventh returned to Vienna knowing that Symphony in New York, but recon- his holiday had been exceedingly sidered, explaining, “The Seventh is well spent. too complicated for a public which The Seventh Symphony wasn’t knows nothing of me.” (At that performed for three years, dur- point, New Yorkers had heard only ing which time Mahler’s life was Mahler’s Fourth Symphony; the turned upside down. Although Chicago Symphony hadn’t even the summer of 1906 was highly played any of Mahler’s music yet.) productive—the massive Eighth The premiere of the Seventh was Symphony was sketched in its then scheduled for September 19 entirety in just eight weeks—the in Prague, as part of a festival following year brought disrup- honoring the sixtieth year of the tion and tragedy. In March 1907, emperor Franz Joseph’s reign. After Mahler gave in to pressure from spending the summer of 1908 in the administration of the Vienna Toblach, Mahler traveled to Prague Opera and to rising anti-Semitism, to begin rehearsals. and resigned his position as director The young conductor Otto of the company. (He then signed Klemperer, who went to Prague a contract with the Metropolitan to watch Mahler at work, later

6 recalled that around two dozen consequences, and Mahler’s brave rehearsals were necessary to prepare new score sounded to him like this difficult new symphony. “Each music from the old world. It struck day after rehearsal,” Klemperer him as “perfect repose based on wrote, “[Mahler] used to take perfect harmony. . . . I have put you the entire orchestral score home with the classical composers—but with him for revision, polish- as one who to me is still a pioneer.” ing, and retouching.” Rehearsals Most listeners then, however, found were somewhat chaotic, and the Mahler’s music nearly as incompre- musicians were wary of Mahler’s hensible as Schoenberg’s, and the demanding score; a brass player Seventh Symphony, in particular, confronted the composer: “I’d just took a long time to make friends. like to know what’s beautiful about The Seventh has remained blowing away at a trumpet stopped something of an outsider among up to a high C-sharp.” Mahler Mahler’s symphonies. It is still had no answer, although he put a the least well known of the nine characteristically philosophical spin he completed; it is often the last on the encounter when he wrote one conductors learn, and the one to Alma about man’s inability to orchestras rarely play—with the understand the agony of his own possible exception of the Eighth, existence. When Alma arrived which is seldom performed simply in Prague a few days before the because of the enormous forces it premiere, she found the hotel suite requires. When littered with orchestra parts and and the Chicago Symphony her husband a nervous wreck. The performed the Seventh Symphony Seventh Symphony was received for the first time, in April 1921, with respect rather than enthu- it had never before been played in siasm (the critic from Berlin was this country. particularly hard on the work). When Mahler conducted the he Seventh Symphony doesn’t score in a few weeks later, Tdisclose its secrets readily. the response was similar, but the Perhaps because of its jigsaw composer was not disheartened. He construction—further complicated had learned to expect no more. by the composer’s bout with writer’s In November 1909, Arnold block—it lacks the sheer narrative Schoenberg attended the Vienna sweep of Mahler’s other sympho- premiere of the Seventh conducted nies. Mahler’s working methods by Ferdinand Löwe. Schoenberg were always idiosyncratic, but himself stood at the threshold of the Seventh gave him particular a new frontier in music—“I am trouble. He didn’t have a grand conscious of having broken through design in mind when he started every restriction of a bygone composing it in 1904, and when he aesthetic,” he wrote that year. He returned to the symphony the fol- had already abandoned tonality, lowing summer, he apparently still a move of almost unfathomable hadn’t outlined the entire work.

7 The three movements he wrote that “three night pieces” (referring to year weren’t composed “in order,” the central triptych), and of the and, according to Donald Mitchell, finale as “bright day.” who has studied the composer’s The Seventh Symphony is in five manuscript, the first movement was movements, a scheme Mahler had the last one to be finished. used most recently in his Fifth Like its two immediate predeces- Symphony. This time he chose a sors, the Seventh is purely instru- symmetrical arrangement, with a mental; there’s no vocal text to dark and fiery scherzo at the center, suggest an extramusical topic, and surrounded by the two nocturnes Mahler never divulged a hidden and framed at either end by large program, even when pestered by and energetic movements (there colleagues and friends. The Seventh is no true slow movement). Like is sometimes called the Song of the the Fifth Symphony, the Seventh Night; the title isn’t Mahler’s, but doesn’t end in the key in which it he once wrote to the Swiss critic begins, but a half step higher—here William Ritter of the symphony’s moving from its brooding B minor

Mahler’s Seventh minus eleven minutes—An American premiere in Chicago

On April 15, 1921, the penultimate concert of the was a great demonstration Chicago Symphony 1920–21 season in Chicago. for Mr. Stock, in which he Orchestra gave the American Perhaps fearing that the had all the players rise and premiere of Mahler’s Chicago public would not join.” After the concert, Seventh Symphony under share his enthusiasm for Stock said, “Mahler is one Frederick Stock. This the Seventh Symphony, of the coming composers was the sixth of Mahler’s Stock announced that he and the musical world is symphonies to be performed had cut out eleven minutes just beginning to understand in the United States, and it is of music, paring the playing him.” Mahler’s Seventh the only one that Stock and time down to one hour and Symphony was programmed his orchestra introduced to four minutes. One critic the following two seasons this country. The Chicago noticed that unusually long under Stock’s baton, but Symphony played Mahler’s pauses between movements, over the next fifty years the music for the first time however, were still neces- Chicago Symphony played in 1907, when the local sary for the “refreshment” it only twice. Even in recent premiere of the composer’s of the players. The Chicago years, Mahler’s Seventh Fifth Symphony was neatly performance was well hasn’t achieved the popular- summarized by the Chicago received. The Chicago ity of several of the com- Examiner headline, “Ugly Evening Post reported that poser’s other symphonies. In Symphony Is Well Played.” “the orchestra played with Chicago, its champions over Stock heard Mahler’s astonishing virtuosity. There the past four decades form Seventh Symphony for the was nothing Mahler could a short but distinguished first time in Amsterdam in write which they could not list: Sir Georg Solti, Claudio 1920. He got a copy of the play, as they demonstrated Abbado, , score in Paris and pro- to full satisfaction. At the and Pierre Boulez. grammed the work for the close of the symphony there —P. H.

8 introduction to the brilliant C major of the fi nale. Th e opening movement is the largest—a great journey through shadow and light set in motion by the boat- man’s oars at Maiernigg. A magnifi cent theme rises over the rhythm of the rowing— “Here nature roars,” Mahler told Ritter. Mahler gave this melody to the tenor horn, an instrument with a dark and mysterious tone that he remembered from the military bands which he often heard as a child, when his family lived near an army barracks. Th is movement is one of Mahler’s most fantastic creations. Th e harmonies are bold and exotic, often built from superimposed fourths rather than thirds, like the chords Schoenberg was coincidentally using at the same time. For the last time, Mahler follows the itinerary of sonata form—he specifi es that the rhapsodic second theme should be performed in pre- cisely the same tempo as the fi rst (a recommendation that is often ignored). His sense of fearless adventure gives this music its character and force, and it’s marked throughout by resonant, glittering sonorities. At the height of the develop- ment section, Mahler stops to listen to the world around him; one hears only distant fanfares and the gentle hum of the night. Suddenly the harp reveals the sky, afi re with stars.

9 The first of the two movements when Olin Downes, the conserva- that Mahler titled “night music” is tive New York Times music critic, a slow march through a nocturnal wrote disparagingly of Mahler’s landscape; he once described it as a Seventh Symphony, Arnold “night patrol.” It begins with horn Schoenberg sent him an angry calls echoing across the valley and letter, offering the simple melodies is colored by cowbells and bird- from this movement as evidence of calls—the sounds of nature that he Mahler’s creative power. so loved. Mahler said he wanted The finale instantly brings the the cowbells to sound as distant “bright day” of C major. It opens as possible, as if coming from far in a blaze of timpani flourishes and across the meadow. At one of the horn fanfares; the effect is momen- rehearsals in Prague, the composer tarily blinding, like “parting the asked to have a window closed curtains in a dark room and finding because he was disturbed by a bird oneself dazzled by brilliant sun- outside—“This one’s not in my light,” as Donald Mitchell suggests. score,” he said. The music recalls—and practically At the beginning of the quotes—Wagner’s prelude to Die third movement, Mahler wrote Meistersinger; on at least one occa- Schattenhaft (shadowy). The darkest sion, Mahler actually conducted the of his scherzos, this is a nightmare Wagner score and the symphony of waltz tunes and ländler. He on the same program to underscore filled these pages with ominous and their affinity. The mood of Mahler’s grotesque effects; even the quietest finale, like Wagner’s opera, is joy- passages are disturbed by startling ous, occasionally riotous, and even thumps from the timpani and loud playful. The nocturnal specter of noises in the bassoons and tuba. the first movement returns near the A more genial trio offers a brief end, but it only demonstrates, by change of mood, but no real relief. contrast, the indomitable brilliance The second Night Music is a of the finale’s primary colors. This serenade in F major scored for is the most openhearted, exuber- chamber orchestra; a solo violin has ant, and good-humored music of the lover’s song, accompanied by Mahler’s career, and by the time the plucked strings of the mando- he conducted the premiere only lin, guitar, and harp. (Mahler con- three years after he had finished the ceived this music with the guitar symphony, it was a kind of music he in mind—Schoenberg later wrote could not ever write again. that “the whole movement is based on this sonority”; the mandolin was an afterthought.) This is intimate, often delicate music, and Alma said that when her husband wrote it he was “beset by Eichendorff-ish visions—murmuring springs and Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2010 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2010 Chicago German romanticism.” In 1948, tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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