Juilliard Orchestra DAVID ROBERTSON , Conductor TOMER GEWIRTZMAN , Piano
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MondaY EVening, April 2, 2018, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL presents Juilliard Orchestra DAVID ROBERTSON , Conductor TOMER GEWIRTZMAN , Piano CHARLES IVES Three Places in New England (1874–1954) The “St. Gaudens” in Boston Common (Col. Robert Gould ShaW and his Colored Regiment) Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut The Housatonic at Stockbridge BÉLA BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3 (1881–1945) Allegretto Allegro religioso—[Poco più mosso]—Tempo I [Allegro ViVace]—[Presto] TOMER GEWIRTZMAN , Piano Intermission ANTONÍN DVO ÁK SYmphonY No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, Ř (1841–1904) From the New World Adagio—Allegro molto Largo ScherZo. Molto ViVace Allegro con fuoco Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, including one intermission The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium. Information regarding gifts to the school maY be obtained from the Juilliard School DeVelopment Office, 60 Lincoln Center PlaZa, NeW York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, eXt. 278 (juilliard.edu/giVing) PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. Notes ON THE PROGRAM by James Keller CHARLES IVES Three Places in New England Born October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut; Died May 19, 1954, in New York City Charles IVes’ Three Places in New complete in full score, but the set Went England —or the New England Sym - unnoticed and unperformed, not to re- phony , as he sometimes called it— emerge for another 15 Years. In 1929 presents much documentarY confusion. Nicolas SlonimskY asked IVes for some - One might trace its conceptual origin thing he might conduct With his Boston to just after his Wedding in 1908, When Chamber Orchestra. IVes offered this IVes and his bride enjoYed a Weekend sYmphonY manqué for a full sYmphonY outing that included a hike along the orchestra, and he then re-orchestrated Housatonic RiVer near Stockbridge, (and considerablY reVised) the piece to Massachusetts. “The mist had not entirelY bring it Within the reach of SlonimskY’s left the riVer bed,” IVes recalled, “and the group. It is sometimes heard todaY in colors, the running Water, the banks and that chamber-orchestra reduction, in elm trees Were something that one Would Which the piano takes on a Wicked alWaYs remember.” On June 30, 1908, he amount of What had preViouslY been jotted a musical sketch relating to the assigned to other instruments. After the eXperience, and seVeral Years later— premiere, at NeW York’s ToWn Hall in apparentlY in 1911–13—he used that as a 1931, IVes came backstage to eXclaim: point of departure for The Housatonic at “Just like a toWn meeting—eVerY man Stockbridge moVement, Which stands as for himself. Wonderful hoW it came the finale. out!” In 1933 SlonimskY conVinced a Boston publisher to issue the piece. BY 1911 he seems to haVe been plan - This Would be the first-eVer commer - ning some sort of orchestral triptYch cial publication of an IVes composition. that Would conclude With a moVement depicting the “ShaW Memorial” monu - In this concert, hoWeVer, We hear the ment bY Augustus Saint-Gaudens in full sYmphonic Version—or rather, a Boston Commons. The first tWo moVe - best-guess reconstruction of IVes’ origi - ments came to naught, but the “St. nal Version, since large chunks of the Gaudens” section found a place at the original scores Were sliced off and dis - opening. In 1912 he set about creating carded in the course of IVes’ 1929 re- the second moVement, Putnam’s Camp , orchestration. Writes James Sinclair in bY essentiallY merging and Working out the preface to the full-orchestra edition: tWo considerablY earlier Works, the “It became clear that the onlY proper Country Band March and the Overture WaY to reViVe IVes’ large-orchestra inten - and March: 1776, noW brought together tions Was to combine the original coloring to depict a child’s dream about a Re - With the compositional reVisions of VolutionarY War camp in Connecticut. 1929. In this WaY the adVantages of BY 1914 all three moVements Were both scores Would be preserVed.” BÉLA BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3 Born March 25, 1881, in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania); Died September 26, 1945, in New York City FeW though theY be, the major Works He hoped to present it to his pianist of Béla Bartók’s last Years—the Wife, Ditta PásZtorY-Bartók, for her Concerto for Orchestra (1943, reVised 42nd birthdaY on October 31, 1945, 1945), the Sonata for Solo Violin imagining that she could use it to (1944), the Piano Concerto No. 3 ensure concert bookings after he Was (1945), and the fragmentarY Viola gone. He nearlY made it. As he labored Concerto (1945)—toWer as high points on the concerto during the summer of of 20th-centurY music. It is a miracle 1945 at Saranac Lake, his condition theY Were Written at all, pendants to a deteriorated and he returned to NeW composing career that Bartók himself York earlier than he had planned. His VieWed as oVer. He had groWn increas - health greW increasinglY perilous, and inglY desperate as National Socialism on September 22 he Was taken bY oVertook Central Europe in the 1930s ambulance from his apartment on West but felt compelled to staY in HungarY 57th Street to West Side Hospital, to look after his adored mother. When Where he died four daYs later. He had she died, in 1939, he Wasted little time Worked on the concerto through his preparing his eXit, and in the fall of last eVening at home and managed to 1940 he and his familY arriVed in NeW finish all but the last 17 measures of its York, Where he spent the fiVe Years that orchestration; before leaVing in the remained to him. ambulance, he asked his son Peter to draW the requisite bar-lines on the The 59-Year-old Bartók felt depressed music paper. “He counted the bar-lines and isolated in his neW surroundings. to make sure their number Was cor - He lacked energY and Was plagued bY rect,” Wrote Peter, “then added a dou - ill health, the first sYmptoms of the ble line to the last one and added the leukemia that Would kill him. He held Word: ‘Vége’ [Hungarian for ‘The out little hope for his future as a com - End’].” The missing music Was sup - poser. BY the summer of 1943 he Was plied bY Bartók’s pupil and friend Tibor confined to a hospital. His Weight had SerlY. Ditta soon returned to HungarY, fallen to 87 pounds and he Was all but Where she liVed in semi-seclusion for a bankrupt When the conductor Serge couple of decades before she eVer KousseVitZkY dropped bY the hospital to plaYed the piece in public. BY and large , commission the Concerto for Orchestra. her role in this spectacularlY beautiful concerto—greatlY lYrical, sometimes Working on that piece jump-started praYerful, often mYsterious, appealinglY Bartók’s creatiVitY and he judiciouslY naturalistic (eVen incorporating quota - committed himself to a feW neW proj - tions of bird songs in the “night music” ects, of Which a Piano Concerto, his of its middle moVement)—Was limited third, held special personal signifi cance. to serVing as muse. ANTONÍN DV Oˇ RÁK Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New World Born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic); Died May 1, 1904, in Prague, Bohemia In June 1891 the American philanthro - The African-American presence in the pist Jeannette Thurber inVited Antonín musical scene Was immense during DVo ák to direct the National Con - DVo ák’s American Years. Ragtime left ř ř serVatorY of Music in NeW York, Which him cold, but he Was fascinated bY the she had been nurturing into eXistence repertoire of Negro spirituals. (The oVer the preceding seVeral Years. DVo ák melodY of DVo ák’s second moVement ř ř Was persuaded. He serVed as the Was later fashioned bY one of his pupils school’s director from 1892 through into the song “Goin’ Home,” Written in 1895, building its curriculum and fac - the stYle of a spiritual.) So far as NatiVe ultY, appearing as a guest conductor, American music is concerned, We knoW and composing such masterWorks as that he attended one of Buffalo Bill his String Quartet in F major (Op. 96, CodY’s Wild West shoWs in NeW York the American ), his String Quintet in E- in the spring of 1893, Which Would flat major (Op. 97), and his SYmphonY haVe included singing and dancing From the New World , Which occupied from a group of Oglala SiouX. Since him during the Winter and spring of DVo ák Was just then completing this ř 1893. Its premiere that December, With sYmphonY, it is impossible that the Anton Seidl conducting the NeW York music he heard then could haVe inspired Philharmonic, Was a huge success, a the Work’s material in anY direct WaY; peak of the composer’s career, and the and the same must be said of the critic for the New York Evening Post Iroquois performers DVo ák encoun - ř proclaimed it “the greatest sYmphonic tered in IoWa a feW months later at a Work eVer composed in this countrY.” performance giVen bY the Kickapoo Medicine CompanY. Still, on the daY of The title came to DVo ák as an after - his neW sYmphonY’s premiere, the New ř thought, and he later eXplained that it York Herald ran an article in Which signified nothing more than “impres - DVo ák emphasiZed the Work’s pur - ř sions and greetings from the NeW ported NatiVe American connections, World.” But for that subtitle, a listener specificallY citing parallels to LongfelloW’s might not consider it less redolent of interminable poem “The Song of the “CZech spirit” than anY of the com - HiaWatha,” Which Was in anY case a poser’s other sYmphonies.