Please note that maestro muti has regretfully withdrawn from these concerts due to illness. Pierre Boulez, 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 riccardo muti 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 Gustav Mahler). Their student- today hears Stravinsky’s Symphony teacher relationship lasted only in E-flat, Richard Strauss’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 conducting 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 chamber music 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. Symphony Center information The use of still or video cameras Please turn off or silence all and recording devices is prohibited personal electronic devices in Orchestra Hall. (pagers, watches, telephones, digital assistants). Latecomers will be seated during designated program pauses. Please note that Symphony Center is a smoke-free environment. Please use perfume, cologne, and all other scented products Your cooperation is greatly sparingly, as many patrons are appreciated. sensitive to fragrance. note: Fire exits are located on all levels and are for emergency use only. The lighted exit sign nearest your seat is the shortest route outdoors. Please walk—do not run—to your exit and do not use elevators for emergency exit. Volunteer ushers provided by The Saints—Volunteers for the Performing Arts (www.saintschicago.org) 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 Georg Solti (u.S. premiere) bassoon, four horns and for london, 1980 under tenor horn, three trumpets, James levine for RCA, 1984 three trombones and tuba, under Claudio Abbado for timpani, bass drum, cymbals, deutsche Grammophon 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.