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Home , Bruno Walter, Eugene Ormandy, James Levine, Only Just Beginning

Program

ONe HuNDReD TweNTy-FIRST SeASON Chicago orchestra Helen Regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, December 8, 2011, at 8:00 Friday, December 9, 2011, at 1:30 Saturday, December 10, 2011, at 8:00 conductor Jeremy Denk mahler Blumine Performed to commemorate the centenary of Mahler’s death in 1911 Beethoven No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37 Allegro con brio Largo Rondo: Allegro JeReMy DeNk

InTermIssIon Brahms, orch. schoenberg Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 Allegro Intermezzo: Allegro, ma non troppo Andante con moto Rondo alla zingarese: Presto

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

Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, , .

Blumine

his music was lost for more Werner, the trumpeter, serenades Tthan seventy years. Mahler his beloved on the opposite side conducted it for the last time in of the Rhine. It was composed in June 1894 in Weimar. At that time, 1884, when Mahler was work- this small-scaled andante, titled ing on the Songs of a Wayfarer and Blumine, was the second movement only just beginning to think about of his First Symphony, a power- tackling a big symphonic poem, the house work in five movements. But, composition that would eventu- after the Weimar performance— ally become his Symphony no. 1. the third ever given of the new Although Blumine eventually found symphony—the decided its way into the symphony, it was to drop it from the score. When the never intended for that piece and symphony was published in 1889, it never quite fit in. It took Mahler there were just four movements, just three performances—the and Blumine was gone for good. premiere in in 1889, a Blumine had, in fact, been written second performance in Hamburg earlier, as part of Mahler’s inciden- in 1893, and the Weimar concert tal music for a staging of Scheffel’s of 1894—before he was convinced poem Der Trompeter von Säkkingen; that it felt like an insertion, even it accompanied the scene where an interruption, in the narrative

ComPoseD mosT reCenT InsTrumenTaTIon 1884 Cso PerFormanCe two flutes, two oboes, two August 9, 2002, Ravinia , two bassoons, four FIrsT PerFormanCe Festival. Christoph horns, trumpet, timpani, November 20, 1889, eschenbach conduct- harp, strings budapest, as second move- ing. Performed as the ment of Symphony no. 1. The second movement of aPProxImaTe composer Symphony no. 1 PerFormanCe TIme 10 minutes FIrsT Cso PerFormanCe April 17, 1969, Orchestra Hall. conducting. Performed as the second movement of Symphony no. 1

2 flow of the symphony. Scored for ered movement on June 18, 1967, a smaller orchestra than the rest at the Aldeburgh Festival. “It was of the symphony, and of slight a strange and touching experience, dimensions and delicate colors, it like a vivid dream in which one seemed “insufficiently symphonic,” meets a long-dead friend,” William Mahler later told the conductor Mann wrote in the Times. The fol- , one of the earliest lowing year, a performance given in champions of his music. And with New Haven reinserted Blumine into that, Blumine disappeared. the First Symphony, an attempt at In December 1959, Mrs. James reconstructing Mahler’s original M. Osborn of New Haven, symphonic plan (even though it Connecticut, bought a manuscript inconsistently mixed the 1893 of Mahler’s First Symphony at a Blumine with the 1906 revision of Sotheby’s auction and subsequently the rest of the symphony). But since placed it in the Osborn Collection then, few conductors have chosen of the Library. This, to ignore Mahler’s own wishes, and it later turned out, was the ver- Blumine remains a historical curios- sion of the symphony Mahler had ity that stands alone. (Oddly, the conducted in Hamburg in 1893, only previous Chicago Symphony before he decided to cut Blumine performances of Blumine both from the score; the composer had treated it not as a separate piece, given the manuscript to Jenny Feld, but inserted it into the symphony.) a woman he tutored at the Vienna The music itself, with its quietly Conservatory. She, in turn, passed haunting trumpet solo, is pure it on to her son, who eventually “innocent, uncomplicated lyricism,” contacted Sotheby’s. The score sat in the words of Donald Mitchell. in the Yale collection, evidently The name Mahler gave it, Blumine, unexamined, until 1966, when is a tribute to Jean Paul, one of Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell Mahler’s favorite writers, who had saw it and realized that Blumine titled a collection of his articles had been found at last. Herbst-Blumine, apparently invent- conducted the ing the word Blumine at the time, first performance of the rediscov- as a variant of Blume, or flower.

3 Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, . Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Concerto no. 3 in C minor, op. 37

e’re not certain that Beethoven would make his reputation as a Wand Mozart ever met. Their virtuoso performer, not as a com- names were mentioned in the poser. Neefe didn’t live long enough same breath as early as 1783, when to understand how limited his view Beethoven’s first composition was, but he did see his prize student teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, take the first steps to becoming not wrote these words in the first public a second Mozart, but more impor- notice of his promising pupil: “This tantly, the mature Beethoven. youthful genius is deserving of help It’s likely that these two great to enable him to travel. He would did meet early in surely become a second Wolfgang 1787, when the sixteen-year-old Amadeus Mozart were he to Beethoven made his first trip from continue as he has begun.” his native Bonn to Vienna, to Neefe was suggesting that, with breathe the air of a sophisticated proper sponsorship, his young pupil musical city. Beethoven stayed no could tour the music capitals and more than two weeks, and he may entertain kings with his dazzling even have taken a few lessons from keyboard talent—like most musi- Mozart before his teacher was sud- cians, Neefe assumed that Mozart denly called home by the news of

ComPoseD mosT reCenT aPProxImaTe 1800 Cso PerFormanCes PerFormanCe TIme March 2, 2010, Orchestra 34 minutes FIrsT PerFormanCe Hall. , April 5, 1803, Vienna. The piano; Gianandrea Cso reCorDIngs composer as soloist Noseda conducting 1959. , piano; walter Hendl July 15, 2010, Ravinia FIrsT Cso conducting. RCA PerFormanCe Festival. Jorge Federico 1971. , December 16, 1910, Osorio, piano; James piano; Orchestra Hall. ernest Conlon conducting conducting. Hutcheson, piano; Frederick InsTrumenTaTIon Stock conducting 1983. , solo piano, two flutes, two piano; oboes, two clarinets, two conducting. Philips bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings

CaDenza TbD

4 his mother’s failing health. There is, by Mozart he so honored.) And on however, no mention of Mozart in a April 2, 1800, at his historic first letter Beethoven wrote at the time. public concert, Beethoven included When late in 1792, Beethoven a symphony by Mozart on the returned to Vienna, where he would program, which also was sup- stay for the rest of his life, it was posed to have introduced his brand to study with Haydn, for Mozart new piano concerto (his third) in lay in an unmarked grave. We can C minor. For reasons that we will sense disappointment in the famous never know, however, Beethoven words Count Waldstein inscribed played one of his earlier concer- in the album that served as a fare- tos instead. well gift from Beethoven’s friends: This C minor piano concerto is one of a handful of works in which You are going to Vienna in the spirits of Mozart and Beethoven fulfillment of your long- convene. To suggest, as some writ- frustrated wishes. The Genius ers do, that Beethoven modeled of Mozart is still mourning his concerto after Mozart’s own and weeping over the death of C minor piano concerto (K. 491) her pupil. She found a refuge is to confuse the deepest kind of but no occupation with the artistic inheritance with plagiarism. inexhaustible Haydn; through The choice of key certainly can’t him she wishes once more to be taken as a homage to Mozart, form a union with another. for Beethoven seemed unable to With the help of assiduous get C minor out of his system at labor you shall receive Mozart’s the time. (Think of the Pathétique spirit from Haydn’s hands. Sonata, or, a bit later, the funeral march from the Eroica Symphony, Beethoven arrived in Vienna the , and, of in the second week of November course, the Fifth Symphony.) 1792. He quickly realized that Obviously, Beethoven remem- Haydn had little to teach him and bered Mozart’s C minor concerto took comfort in the fact that he was when he was writing his own—they welcome in the same homes where share too many musical details for Mozart was once popular. sheer coincidence. According to a To Beethoven, Vienna was popular anecdote, Beethoven and Mozart’s city. The first music the Johann Cramer were he published there was a set of walking together when they heard variations for and piano on the finale of the Mozart concerto “Se vuol ballare” from Mozart’s coming from a nearby house; . In March Beethoven stopped and exclaimed: 1795, he played Mozart’s D minor “Cramer, Cramer! We shall never piano concerto (K. 466) at a concert be able to do anything like that!” organized by the composer’s widow But in his own C minor con- Constanze. (He later wrote caden- certo, Beethoven does something zas for it as well, the only concerto far more remarkable: he writes

5 music that pays tribute to this great theme that imitates the beating of a masterpiece and, at the same time, drum every time it appears. transcends the Mozartean model. It There’s nothing Mozartean was conceived in a complimentary, about Beethoven’s choice of key rather than a competitive spirit. for the central slow movement: Mozart’s untimely death spared E major, with its key signature of Beethoven a head-on rivalry with four sharps, is bold and unexpected the one composer he worshiped, in a concerto in C minor, with leaving him to make his own way three flats. For a moment the first in Vienna. (He hardly knew that E major chord, given to the piano Schubert existed, even though alone, seems all wrong, as if the they lived in the same city for soloist’s hands have landed in the years; once, when asked to name wrong place; at the same time, the greatest living composer it’s fresh and irresistible. Where other than himself, he suggested Mozart generally wrote andante or Luigi Cherubini.) adagio, Beethoven dictates largo. Even nineteenth-century Deliberately paced and magnifi- listeners, who thought Mozart a cently expansive, this is the first lightweight and Beethoven a quar- great example of a new kind of slow relsome revolutionary, heard the movement. Throughout the rest of resemblance in this music—both the nineteenth century, composers in its details as well as its spirit and would profit from remembering sensibility. Certainly the way the this music, although it’s arguable soloist continues to play right after that no one after Beethoven ever the first movement cadenza up to thought of anything like the lovely, the final bar can be found only in fully blossomed romanticism of K. 491 among all of Mozart’s piano the duet for flute and bassoon over concertos. Beethoven’s open- plucked strings and piano arpeggios ing theme, too, tosses a glance at midway through. Mozart’s. But on the big issues— The way Beethoven glances over how the music moves forward, the final double bar of this move- the way it approaches the turning ment at the opening of the finale points in its progress—there is also is new. The two movements less agreement. As Donald Tovey aren’t yet literally connected, as pointed out, Beethoven doesn’t they will be in later music, but yet seem to have figured out what Beethoven uses all of his wit and Mozart always understood—that wisdom to carry us from one to the you shouldn’t give too much away next. He capitalizes on the fact that before the soloist enters and the G-sharp is the same note on the drama really begins. There are keyboard as A-flat, and he uses that touches of pure Beethoven, like the note to pivot from the remote world unannounced entry of the timpani of E major back to C minor. Our just after the cadenza—a complete ears easily make the connection, surprise, even though it has been and the rondo finale races forward, thoughtfully prepared by a main full of pranks and good humor.

6 Having convinced his listen- end of one of the invisible pas- ers (and himself, perhaps) that sages, and my scarcely conceal- E major is no stranger to C minor, able anxiety not to miss the Beethoven returns to the key of his decisive moment amused him slow movement in the middle of the greatly, and he heartily laughed finale as if it were the most logical at the jovial supper which we move of all. Beethoven recovers ate afterwards. C minor again, but, after a brief cadenza, he tears off at a gallop into Nearly a year later, Beethoven C major, where he has been headed finally got around to writing all along. down the piano part for a per- It’s not clear why this concerto, formance given by his student evidently designed for Beethoven’s Ferdinand Ries, who provided his first Vienna concert in April 1800, own cadenza. wasn’t performed that night. The first reviewer of the Third Perhaps it simply wasn’t ready. The Concerto commented that the manuscript suggests that last- piece should succeed “even in places minute changes were still being like Leipzig, where people were made before its premiere on accustomed to hearing the best of April 5, 1803, when Beethoven Mozart’s concertos.” He continued, also introduced his new Second suggesting that this music would Symphony and the oratorio Christ always require on the Mount of Olives. Even then, the music was more firmly fixed in a capable soloist who, in addi- Beethoven’s mind than on the page. tion to everything one associ- Ignaz von Seyfried, the new con- ates with virtuosity, has under- ductor at the Theater an der Wien, standing in his head and a agreed to turn pages for Beethoven, heart in his breast—otherwise, only to discover that it was easier even with the most impressive said than done: preparation and technique, the best things in the work will be I saw almost nothing but left behind. empty leaves, at most on one page or another a few Egyptian Those are wise words, particu- hieroglyphs wholly unintel- larly from a man working in a field ligible to me and scribbled that to this day expects sound down to serve as clues for him. judgments on new music heard He played nearly all of the solo cold. What no critic could predict part from memory since, as is that this concerto, rooted in the was so often the case, he had previous century and a pioneer in not had time to put it all down its own, would continue to speak as on paper. He gave me a secret strongly and directly to the centu- glance whenever he was at the ries that followed.

7 Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany. Died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Quartet no. 1 in g minor, op. 25 (Orchestrated by )

rnold Schoenberg was twenty- both men—showed the score to Atwo when Brahms died. Both Brahms, who was impressed—or at men, the revered master and the least intrigued—by the music and young prodigy, were members of asked about this man, unknown the Vienna Composers Association. to him. Zemlinsky explained that Although they did not know Schoenberg had been working as a each other—we are not even copyist and arranger in Vienna to certain if they ever shook hands— make ends meet. Brahms at once Schoenberg was poised to become offered to provide a stipend so that Brahms’s true heir and to carry Schoenberg could study at the his legacy into the next century. conservatory, but when Zemlinsky Early in 1897, only weeks before presented the offer, the proud Brahms died, Schoenberg began young composer turned it down. his first string quartet, a sumptu- Forty years later—when ous work in D major. Alexander Schoenberg had become famous not von Zemlinsky—a promising for following in Brahms’s footsteps, young musician and a friend of but instead, in public opinion, for

ComPoseD mosT reCenT aPProxImaTe 1855–1859, revised 1861 Cso PerFormanCes PerFormanCe TIme April 24, 1999, Orchestra 43 minutes Schoenberg orchestration: Hall. Christoph May 2–September 19, 1937 eschenbach conducting Cso reCorDIng 1964. Robert Craft FIrsT PerFormanCe June 22, 2001, Ravinia conducting. Columbia November 16, 1861, Festival. Christoph Hamburg eschenbach conducting Schoenberg orchestration: InsTrumenTaTIon May 7, 1938, Los Angeles three flutes and piccolo, FIrsT Cso three oboes and english PerFormanCe horn, two clarinets, e-flat December 15, 1938, and bass clarinet, Orchestra Hall. Frederick three bassoons and contra- Stock conducting bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three and , timpani, glocken- spiel, xylophone, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, strings

8 squandering his inheritance and that now might well be applied to trashing the great Viennese tradi- Schoenberg himself. tion—Schoenberg orchestrated the Four years later, in the spring master’s G minor piano quartet—a of 1937, Schoenberg undertook gesture of honor, homage, and love. an orchestration of Brahms’s first To many, it also looked like an piano quartet, linking his name, attempt at reconciliation, although by the hyphen on the front of the Schoenberg passionately believed score, if not by deeper musical that he had not shown any disre- affinity, with that of his beloved spect for Brahms and his tradi- ancestor—and by implication, with tion—that he had never written a the procession of names to which note of music that Brahms would he felt he now not have understood. belonged: Shortly after Brahms’s death, Bach, Mozart, Schoenberg struck out boldly on his Beethoven, own. Even as early as Transfigured and Wagner Night, a richly chromatic string (the men he sextet written in 1899, he appeared once rightly to be following in Wagner’s rather called his than Brahms’s footsteps, and over “teachers”). the next decade he carried music Schoenberg to a point beyond the vision of had known either of his predecessors. After his Brahms’s invention of the twelve-tone system chamber in the early 1920s, Schoenberg music since was regularly accused of overturn- his youth, A formal photograph of Arnold Schoenberg ing the great tradition of Western and he often music. In 1933, for the centenary of had played Brahms’s birth, Schoenberg wrote either the or parts of a now-famous essay, “Brahms the these great works with friends. The Progressive,” that not only demon- early G minor piano quartet was strated his forerunner’s far-reaching one of his favorites, although he innovations in musical language— was always frustrated that he could harmony, phrase structure, and not hear everything he saw on the rhythmic development—but also pages of the score. implied that Schoenberg had merely By 1937, Schoenberg was a picked up where Brahms left off. It master at transcribing music for was Brahms, Schoenberg insisted, orchestra—early in his career he not Wagner, who had pointed the had arranged countless operetta way “toward an unrestricted musi- tunes to make a living, and, more cal language.” “He would have been recently, he had made magnificent a pioneer if he had simply returned transcriptions of Bach’s organ to Mozart,” Schoenberg wrote. “But works. From the Bach project he he did not live on inherited fortune; had proved how, in the translation he made one of his own”—words from keyboard to full orchestra,

9 ironically, one could achieve greater piano music.) Schoenberg’s orches- clarity. “Our ‘sound-requirements’ tration is a marvel of ingenious and do not aim at ‘tasteful colors,’ ” savvy planning—betraying at every he wrote at the time. “Rather, the turn his craftsmanlike knowledge purpose of the colors is to make the of the orchestra from the inside out. individual lines clearer, and this is It’s as if a great painting has been very important in the contrapuntal touched by the hand of a sensi- web! . . . We need transparency, tive restorer, shedding new light that we may see clearly!” on familiar shapes, brightening In the case of Brahms’s piano colors, and sharpening contrasts. quartet, Schoenberg was especially Schoenberg is always faithful to aware that the piano often drowned the original—he does not “touch out the strings, and in reassigning up” the notes of Brahms’s score the lines of Brahms’s music to the as he goes; he merely adds color full orchestra, he was careful to and weight. redress that balance. (Schoenberg Schoenberg later referred to this eschews the obvious and naïve idea score as “Brahms’s Fifth,” imply- of leaving Brahms’s string parts to ing that he had merely brought the orchestral strings and letting the inherent symphonic nature of the winds and brass take over the this music to light. (The remark sChoenBerg’s CommenTs on orChesTraTIng Brahms’s QuarTeT

In a letter dated March 18, mY InTenTIons: I had only to transpose this 1939, Schoenberg wrote sound to the orchestra and 1. To remain strictly in the the following comments to this is in fact what I did. style of brahms and not Alfred Frankenstein, the Of course, there were go farther than he himself music critic for the San heavy problems. brahms would have gone if he Francisco Chronicle. likes very low basses, lived today. Here are a few remarks of which the orchestra about the “brahms.” 2. To watch carefully all possesses only a small these laws which brahms number of instruments. He mY reason: obeyed and not to violate likes a full accompaniment such, which are known with broken chord figures, 1. I like this piece. only to musicians edu- often in different rhythms. 2. It is seldom played. cated in his environment. And most of these figures cannot easily be changed, 3. It is always very badly how I DID IT: because generally they have played, because the better I am for almost fifty years a structural meaning in his the pianist, the louder he very thoroughly acquainted style. I think I resolved these plays and you hear nothing with brahms’s style and his problems, but this merit of from the strings. I wanted principles. I have analyzed mine will not mean much to once to hear everything, many of his works for myself our present-day musicians and this I achieved. and with my pupils. I have because they do not know played as violist and cellist about them and if you tell this work and many others them there are such, they numerous times: I therefore do not care. but to me it know how it should sound. means something.

10 recalls ’s com- between piano and strings, dra- ment, made nearly a century earlier, matic in its black-and-white repar- that he heard “veiled ” tee, Schoenberg produces instead in the young Brahms’s piano a continual unfolding of shifting music.) Despite the integrity of his orchestral colors. (The movement approach, Schoenberg calls for an is also enhanced and even trans- orchestra Brahms himself never formed by the addition of cymbals, used—beginning, in the very first triangles, and bass drums.) measure, with an E-flat clarinet Schoenberg’s light-as-a-feather and bass clarinet that do not appear orchestration of the second move- in any Brahms score, and later call- ment makes something surpris- ing for sizeable percussion. (In his ingly dramatic of Brahms’s gentle four symphonies, Brahms allowed intermezzo. In the middle section nothing more than a single triangle of the following slow movement, in the Fourth.) Still, Schoenberg’s Schoenberg provides all the fire and orchestration is purely in the brilliance of a real military band spirit of Brahms, despite its little where Brahms had only mimicked anachronisms—which Schoenberg one. In the finale, which Brahms handily dismissed, claiming that marked alla zingarese (in the gypsy he had done nothing that Brahms style), Schoenberg makes some- himself would not have done “if thing hair-raisingly explicit of the he lived today.” (For Schoenberg’s composer’s original intent, throw- full defense, see his letter to Alfred ing in the tambourine and xylo- Frankenstein reprinted here.) The phone, and luxuriating in the kind true mark of Schoenberg’s achieve- of orchestral effects that Brahms ment is that, without changing a suggested but never used. The last- single note in Brahms’s score, he ing impression of the entire score has managed to reveal new truths is that it is neither pure Brahms about the original work. nor characteristic Schoenberg, but In the first movement, for instead a meeting of two peers, dif- example, Schoenberg refuses ferent but utterly compatible. to orchestrate a repeated pas- sage the same way twice. What was mere repetition in Brahms becomes development here. And, in the development section, where Phillip Huscher is the program annota- Brahms wrote a rapid-fire dialogue tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago

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