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Friday Evening, March 17, 2017, at 7:30 Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Stage presents Susanna’s Secret LEON BOTSTEIN , Conductor Performance #49, Season 2, Concert 20 OTTORINO RESPIGHI Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows ) (1926) (1879–1936) La fuga in Egitto San Michele Arcangelo Il mattutino di Santa Chiara San Gregorio Magno RESPIGHI Rossiniana , P. 148 (1925) Capri e Taormina (Barcarola a Siciliana) Lamento Intermezzo Tarantella “puro sangue” Intermission ERMANNO Il segreto di Susanna (Susanna’s Secret ) WOLF-FERRARI (1907–09) (1876–1948) JINWON PARK, Soprano MICHAEL KELLY, Baritone This evening’s concert will run approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes including one 20-minute intermission. PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. Notes FROM T ŌN MUSICIANS Notes by Sasha Haft, flute Ottorino Respighi Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows ) Ottorino Respighi was born into a fam - ple suggestion from Elsa, after she ily of musicians. After many years of showed him some passages of Grego - study in his hometown, Respighi was rian Chant that she learned during her appointed to a position in the viola sec - studies. Respighi was immediately tion at the Imperial Opera in St. Peters - spellbound by the religiosity and emo - burg. Here he was also able to continue tional harmony he felt upon hearing the studying composition with the greatly chants, and set out to capture those esteemed composer Nikolai Rimsky- feelings in his future compositions. In Korsakov, who took a great interest in the summer of that year, Respighi wrote Respighi and convinced him to pursue a Three Piano Preludes on Gregorian career in composition upon returning Melodies as his first attempt to capture to Italy, where Respighi would be able what he had felt. The piece was later to focus the expertise learned from Rus - orchestrated in 1926 and given a fourth sia’s (and arguably, the world’s) best movement to finish out the suite known orchestrator at the time. today as Church Windows . Immediately upon returning to Italy, Originally, Respighi did not have a spe - Respighi accepted a position first as cific program in mind when writing the professor of composition and then as piece, but upon consulting with Clau - head of the Santa Cecilia Academy in dio Guastalla, an editor and professor Rome. During this time he composed of literature, Respighi and Guastalla the trifecta of Roman tone poems, decided to retroactively add a program which included The Fountains of Rome to his composition. To better match (1917), The Pines of Rome (1924), and Respighi’s colorful and picturesque Roman Festivals (1928). The pieces orchestration, Guastalla suggested they were received with international praise match certain scenes depicted in the and launched Respighi into stardom. stained-glass windows from the sur - rounding Italian Cathedrals with the In 1919, Respighi married Elsa different movements of the piece—The Olivieri-Sangiacomo, a mezzo-soprano Flight into Egypt, St. Michael the who also had been his pupil for a few Archangel, The Matins of St. Clare, and years at the Academy. Respighi’s St. Greogry the Great. Church Windows originated as a sim - Notes by Zachary Silberschlag, trumpet Ottorino Respighi Rossiniana , P. 148 Composed just after his symphonic Composed while Rossini was living in tone poems, Ottorino Resphigi’s France, these pieces have a somewhat Rossiniana strikes a slightly different reminiscent Italian feeling, but tone in an homage to a previous Italian undoubtedly are works of great classi - master, Gioachino Rossini. cism. With Respighi’s genius for orches - tration, Rossini’s pieces are infused Respighi’s admiration for his Italian lin - with signature Respighi rhythms such eage permeates all of his compositions. as tarantellas and sicilianas as well as In his great Roman trilogy, Italian his - 20th-century orchestration fitting any torical references can easily be found in of Respighi’s symphonic poems. His use the use of Italian folk and popular of muted brass, a skill mastered while songs. Even more evident are his many studying with Rimsky-Korsakov in St. compositions with explicit reference to Petersburg, is brilliantly used to evoke a the past, such as Trittico Botticelliano feeling of the distant past in the opening and Ancient Airs and Dances . Perhaps movement. The use of percussion nothing exemplifies Respighi’s nation - enhances the haunting lamenting feel - alism more than his arrangements of ing of the second movement, followed Rossini. As Mahler did for Schumann by his use of bells and winds to evoke and Schoenberg did for Brahms, it can lightness in the intermezzo. Respighi be viewed as the greatest showing of uses the horns and trumpets to bring admiration to arrange pieces of past fel - the Finale, Tarantella “puro sangue” , to low countrymen. its feet in this colorful work. Respighi’s Rossiniana is a four-move - Often misrepresented as a composer of ment orchestral suite derived from a fascist grandeur, Respighi regarded collection of Rossini’s piano works. himself as apolitical. It was not until The collection is titled Perches De Viei - after his death that his music became lesse , or literally “Old Age Sins.” The more anthemic for the Italian fascist music which Respighi arranges can be regime: in particular the symphonic tril - found in a subcategory titled Quelques ogy The Fountains of Rome , The Pines Riens , or “Some Things.” The history of Rome , and Roman Festivals . During behind these piano pieces gives us little his lifetime it was in fact his Rossini insight into why Respighi chose to arrangements— La Boutique Fantas - arrange them. The piano collection is tique (1919) written for the famous bal - known to be an abandoned attempt by let impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his Rossini to compose 24 preludes in all orchestral suite Rossiniana —which keys in the tradition of Bach and were most popular internationally. A Chopin. They were composed hastily largely forgotten relic, Rossiniana is a for a friend in need of money and later delightful work which will be surely categorized and titled by the publisher. enjoyed by performers and audiences alike. Notes by Emmanuel Koh, viola Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari Il segreto di Susanna (Susanna’s Secret ) Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s life and career being a mute servant. The plot focuses were split between Italy and Germany. upon a simple, drawn out misapprehen - His mother was a Venetian noble - sion. Count Gil smells tobacco smoke woman and his father was a Bavarian around his house and begins to suspect painter. He added his mother’s maiden that his wife, Susanna, is having an name, Ferrari, to his surname around affair, because everyone in his house - 1895. Although Wolf-Ferrari showed a hold is a non-smoker. In the end, the great instinct for music from a young truth is disclosed—it is Susanna who is age, his father insisted on young the smoker. Count Gil is ultimately Ermanno following in his footsteps by relieved by Susanna’s admission and attending an art school in Rome. Music celebrates their reconciliation by relin - was merely an activity he pursued in his quishing his own non-smoker status to spare time. His interest in music, how - smoke with his wife. ever, came to overshadow that in paint - ing. He entered the Munich Akademie The opera begins with a sparkling over - der Tonkunst, where he studied under ture, establishing the nostalgically the great composer and pedagogue, familiar atmosphere in the manner and Joseph Rheinberger. spirit of 18th-century opera buffa (comic opera). The success and popu - Susanna’s Secret was composed as a larity of Susanna’s Secret , like many one-act “intermezzo” to a libretto by other comic operas of Wolf-Ferrari’s, is Enrico Golisciani, an Italian librettist owed to some extent to its charming and poet. The opera involves only two simplicity and Mozartian melodic singing characters (a soprano and a appeal. baritone), with the third character THE Artists LEON BOTSTEIN, Conductor E N I Now. He has been music director of the D T American Symphony Orchestra since T A 1992, artistic codirector of Bard Sum - M merScape and the Bard Music Festival since their creation, and president of Bard College since 1975. He was the music director of the Jerusalem Sym - phony Orchestra from 2003–11, and is now conductor laureate. In 2018 he will assume artistic directorship at Grafenegg, Austria. Mr. Botstein is also a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, has made numerous recordings, and is a prolific author and music historian. He is the Leon Botstein brings a renowned career editor of the prestigious The Musical as both a conductor and educator to his Quarterly , and has received many hon - role as music director of The Orchestra ors for his contributions to music. MICHAEL KELLY, Baritone I H S Orchestra, the Houston, Pacific, and Y Kansas City Symphonies, Chamber H T O Music Society of Lincoln Center, Cathe - R O dral Choral Society, Mostly Mozart D Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Ars Lyrica, and Mercury Orchestra Performances: Parisian debut in Stephen Sondheim’s Passion , Théâtre du Châtelet; European debut in Han - del’s Rinaldo with Opernhaus Zürich; Soldier in Matthew Aucion’s The Cross - ing at the A.R.T. Schubert Theatre; Coridon in Acis and Galatea and Myr - til/Tantale in Le Descente D’Orphée/La Appearances: Recitals at Carnegie Hall, Couronne de Fleurs for the Boston the Kennedy Center, Symphony Space, Early Music Festival; The Narrator in Il and at the National Opera Center; Combattimento di