Brava! WATERFRONT INDIAN RESTAURANT

A POPULAR CHOICE FOR AUTHENTIC INDIAN CUISINE AMONGST TSO AUDIENCES

Friday BACH arr WEBERN 9 November 2.30pm Federation Concert Ricercare, from A Musical Offering Hall Hobart Duration 8 mins

MENDELSSOHN MATINEE 4 Karina Canellakis conductor Symphony No 4, Italian Tamara-Anna Cislowska piano Allegro vivace Andante con moto SCHUMANN Con moto moderato Julius Caesar Saltarello (Presto) Duration 8 mins Duration 27 mins Dinner: 7 days a week from 5PM onwards KATS-CHERNIN Piano Concerto No 3, Lebewohl This concert will end at approximately Lunch: Thursday to Saturday 12PM - 2PM Duration 25 mins 4.30 pm.

15 Hunter Street Hobart, Tasmania INTERVAL Duration 20 mins (Opposite Hotel Grand Chancellor and Federation Concert Hall) Phone: 03 6231 4150 Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia www.thesaffron.com.au and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off.

38 39 Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Julius Caesar, Overture, Op 128 for this composer with a passion for literature, may have been a recently published new German translation of The concert overture inspired by Shakespeare’s works. Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar was Like the earlier Manfred Overture, that composed in 1851, in the midst of a to Julius Caesar is essentially tragic in Karina Canellakis has recently been named Tamara-Anna Cislowska is one of Australia’s deteriorating relationship between feeling. Franz Liszt recognised their Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio most acclaimed pianists. Soloist and chamber Schumann and the orchestra and choirs lineage: ‘Like Beethoven,’ he wrote, in Düsseldorf. He had arrived in the Philhamonic Orchestra, succeeding Markus music specialist, she performs in Australia Schumann ‘wrote overtures to great town the previous year, as conductor tragedies, to Schiller’s Bride of Messina Stenz in September 2019. Winner of the and internationally to critical and public of the subscription concerts, under and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.’ Rather 2016 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, acclaim. She has won international prizes good auspices. But things soon started than a sequence of dramatic events, to go wrong, and after complaints Karina Canellakis first made headlines in in London, Italy and Greece, including the Schumann distills from Shakespeare’s from musicians and the committee of 2014 filling in at the last-minute for Jaap Rovere d’Oro, and in Australia, ABC Young play a poetic idea. Indeed he seems to management, Schumann had been have difficulty in getting beyond that van Zweden in Shostakovich’s Symphony Performer of the Year, Freedman Fellowship, virtually sidelined from conducting idea, returning again and again to the duties. The complaints about Schumann’s No 8 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. an Art Music Award for ‘Performance of noble opening subject, presented in the rehearsals and performances can be Recent concerts have included conducting the Year’ (ACT) and the 2015 ARIA for dark key of F minor, in march rhythm. attributed – apart from his undoubted There is no contrasting second subject, Nicola Benedetti in Szymanowski’s Violin ‘Best Classical Album’ with her landmark shortcomings as a conductor – to his so that when the grand peroration comes growing mental problems, which were Concerto No 2 (debuts for both of them with recording of the complete piano works at the end, in the major key, it doesn’t increasingly cutting him off from the the Orchestre de Paris), Haydn and Prokofiev of Peter Sculthorpe. A frequent guest of seem to resolve anything. Interpreters practical world, withdrawing into himself. with the Seattle Symphony, Debussy, orchestras and festivals worldwide, She who believe in Schumann have been After his sad decline, which soon able to show that his often-maligned Rachmaninov and Saariaho at has performed as soloist with the London followed, and the end of his life in orchestral writing enables him to reveal the Indianapolis Symphony, and Mozart Philharmonic, the New Zealand, Christchurch an asylum, even his best-disposed new facets of the same idea, and his and Beethoven and the US premiere of Dai and Auckland Philharmonia orchestras friends were inclined to find signs of his repetitions are opportunities for a study deterioration in the music of these last in depth. Variations of pace and tension Fujikura’s Secret Forest with the Los Angeles and all Australian symphony orchestras, years. The Julius Caesar Overture was are required – as Gal says, Schumann Chamber Orchestra. Karina Canellakis and toured Japan and the USA as cultural one of three concert overtures Schumann is no composer to be dealt with began her career as a violinist and was ambassador for Australia. Engagements composed in 1851, each inspired by metronomically. a literary work. The other two were on initially encouraged to pursue conducting in 2018 include soloist performances with The orchestral writing is more complex Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea and than usual in Schumann, with blurring by Sir Simon Rattle while she was playing in the Queensland, Tasmanian and Canberra Schiller’s The Bride of Messina. All have effects that come from combining suffered neglect until recently, when the the Berlin Philharmonic for two years as a symphony orchestras; Brisbane Festival syncopated notes and ‘straight’ notes music of Schumann’s later years has been member of their Orchester-Akademie. with CIRCA; Dark Mofo; the Australia World on top of each other. For the only time re-evaluated, often positively. In addition to appearing frequently as Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, regional in his orchestral music, Schumann in this Schumann’s Third Symphony had overture adds a bass tuba to the three a soloist with various North American touring for Musica Viva and a London tour recently been premièred, and he was trombones. Was this to emphasise the orchestras, she subsequently played regularly with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Her working on the re-scoring of the much sombre mood, or was the Düsseldorf in the Chicago Symphony for over three most recent release for ABC Classics is Into earlier symphony which became his tuba player underemployed? A music Fourth. Hans Gal has suggested that in director makes use of his resources years, and appeared on several occasions Silence, a solo and orchestral album of the the state of Schumann’s creative mind as long as he has them. This overture as guest concertmaster of the Bergen music of Gorecki, Pärt, Pelecis and Vasks and energies at this time, an overture couldn’t be played by a chamber Filharmoniske Orkester in Norway. Karina is a with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. was easier to throw off in a single effort orchestra of 38! than a symphony. Although Schumann’s graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and A regular presenter on ABC Classic FM radio David Garrett © 2005 knowledge of the works of Shakespeare the Juilliard School. She was born and raised with her program Duet, Tamara also edits was extensive, the Julius Caesar Overture The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra performed in New York City. for Boosey & Hawkes (Berlin). is his only substantial treatment of a this work for the first time with conductor Shakespeare subject. The stimulus, Sebastian Lang-Lessing in Hobart and Sydney on 22 and 30 April 2005. 40 41 Elena Kats-Chernin (born 1957) I know not, facing great sorrow, As the final climax is reached with the to where I can turn. piano part in a vertical ascent of double my fully dismayed heart shutters so octaves, Kats-Chernin reintroduces Piano Concerto No 3, Lebewohl The five movements of the concerto that my tongue is lodged between my expanded material from movements one roughly follow the stages of bereavement gums. and two. Johann likely experienced: shock - unknown, based on a hymn Tamara-Anna Cislowska © 2018 In this work, Elena Kats-Chernin and denial, pain and guilt, anger and by Johann Rist contemplates the uncelebrated wife bargaining, reflection and loneliness, Clashes and manoeuvring between This is the first performance of this work by the of one of her primary inspirations, JS acceptance and reconstruction. Each Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Bach. The Piano Concerto No 3 is called movement is prefaced by a quote from orchestra and soloist, something of a Lebewohl, which means ‘farewell’ in one of Bach’s cantatas from the period. battle of wills and temperament. The German. It’s an old fashioned term of piano writing becomes spiky: seventh endearment, literally ‘live well until we I The deep and bitter flood and ninth intervals alternating with meet again’. Lebewohl explores the though in midst of life we be, fragmented passage work and arpeggios core and soul of JS Bach at the worst snares of death surround us broken apart. The emphasis is always time of his life, the death of his first wife save us, Lord, from sinking slightly off centre. Maria. What are the ramifications of this In the deep and bitter flood. IV So aflame in love tragedy? What does it do to Bach? Kats- - Martin Luther Chernin honours the mysterious Maria though alas, there remains in my love Marked Agitato, this first movement with this work: the ‘forgotten’ wife of the vast imperfection centres around D, the same as Bach’s Baroque master about whom only cursory my entire life hangs on to you. Chaconne for solo violin, often details are known. Let me be so aflame in love recognised as an elegy for Maria Barbara. that I can love you eternally Maria Barbara Bach lived for 36 years. In The piano is relentless throughout, with whole heart, July 1720 her husband Johann returned punctuated with sharp chords featuring with whole soul, with all strength from a six-week trip to find her dead and brass and percussion. and with whole mind buried. Who broke the news to Johann? II …Behind night and clouds - Johann Oswald Knauer Was it Maria’s sister? Was it his own six-year-old son Carl Philipp Emmanuel? how long, how long? A fragile piano line begins the Later, Carl wrote of the awful shock that my anguish is too much movement, sustained and precarious, struck his father: ‘he had left her hale and I can see no end at all quoting Kats-Chernin’s piano piece hearty on his departure. The news that your sweet glance of grace Eggshell. High strings shadow the upper she had been ill and died reached him Is hidden behind night and clouds line and unembellished harmonies only when he entered his own house’. the measure of tears underpin the to and fro in the solo part. Woodwinds enter near the coda. Imagine the scene for the 35-year-old is always fully granted, composer at the prime of his life and the wine of joy is lacking V Allow, princess, allow just one ray beam and almost all my confidence has now, suddenly, violently impelled to allow, princess, allow just one ray the edge of an abyss and plunged to drained away - Salomon Franck beam from Salem’s starry vaults. his heart’s nadir. Maria and Johann and behold, with how great a downpour had seven children together but lost The piano begins with a chorale in of tears three in infancy. It was thought that C-sharp minor, a tonality Bach often we enshrine your memorial. Maria’s unexplained final illness was a used to depict tragedy. A slow-moving In you, you exemplar of a great woman, complication from childbirth. On that string accompaniment enters as the in you, you keeper of the faith, sickening summer day, Johann arrived piano chords gracefully double-back this image of selflessness apparent. home to find himself the sole parent of and retrace. A new idea emerges gently one knows what one possesses from you, four children between five and eleven, undulating over a descending bass line, posterity will not forget you and without his wife of thirteen years. echoing a passacaglia. - Johann Christoph Gottsched How did this affect him? At what cost the III You thunderous word psychological torment of losing Maria? The piano tremolos ever rising, always Of being powerless to intercede in the O eternity you thunderous word, resisting the downward thrust of the most disastrous loss? Did Johann have a O sword which bores through the soul, orchestra which returns in another crisis of faith? Shake his fists in rage at his O beginning without end! passacaglia-like theme reminiscent of the beloved God? O eternity, time beyond time, second movement; chanting and brassy.

42 43 JS Bach (1685-1750) Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Arranged by Anton Webern (1883-1945) Symphony No 4 in A, Op 90 Italian The opening of the symphony is notable for its brilliant and imaginative scoring. Fuga (Ricercare) in six voices (No 2 Webern’s interest in Baroque music was Allegro vivace from A Musical Offering BWV 1079) partly to find rhythmic and contrapuntal The bounding theme for the violins ways of structuring music so as not Andante con moto is presented to the accompaniment to depend on traditional harmonic Con moto moderato of repeated woodwind chords, which practices. His 1935 transcription of the double its effect of almost breathless For a bunch of guys intent on destroying Saltarello (Presto) all that was beautiful and true in Western Ricercata (in Bach’s chamber score the energy. The second subject is a rocking music, the Second Viennese School sure instrumentation is slightly vague) is figure for clarinets and bassoons, which, first and foremost an act of homage, as Tovey says, is obviously in no hurry. loved the classics. Schoenberg used Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony designed to ‘reveal its motivic coherence The development soon presents a fugato Beethoven as the touchstone in most of expresses a northern European’s love and…to indicate the way I feel about on a wholly new theme, then the two his composition lectures, and, a devotee of the sun-drenched south. ‘Blue sky in the piece’. Webern ‘hears’ Bach in main subjects are elaborately worked of Brahms, made an arrangement of the A major’, it has been called. The ideas for an expressive, almost Romantic way, out, and the recapitulation is approached latter’s G minor Piano Quartet which is it came to Mendelssohn as he spent the especially in his use of muted sounds, through a long crescendo beginning often referred to as ‘Brahms’ Fifth’; Alban winter of 1830-31 in Italy, and he wrote divided strings and his avoidance of full under a long-held A for the first oboe – Berg famously quoted Bach’s chorale to his parents that Naples ‘must play a scoring until the end of the piece. a memorable idea. tune ‘Es ist genug’ in his memorial Violin part in it’. Concerto. Anton Webern – arguably the The work demonstrates Webern’s The second movement may have been Fresh and youthful, this symphony, first most radical of the three – produced interest in counterpoint, but also the suggested by a religious procession performed at the London Philharmonic scholarly editions of early Baroque idea of what he and Schonberg called Mendelssohn is known to have seen in Society in 1833, is at the same time one music, like that of Heinrich Isaac, and Klangfarbenmelodie or ‘tone-colour Naples (though Moscheles claimed that of Mendelssohn’s supreme achievements. orchestrated Schubert piano music melody’. Instead of giving a theme to it was based on a Czech pilgrims’ song). For some reason, he was dissatisfied with any one instrument, it is carried note by Although not called a minuet and trio, as well as this movement from Bach’s it, and always intended to revise it. He note from one to another, atomising the this is in effect what the third movement Musical Offering. never got around to doing so, and it was texture into discrete points of sound. is. The trio, with its solemn horns and The visit to the Prussian court of Frederick published only after his death, edited by Nothing of Bach’s is changed except the bassoons, sounds a deeply poetic note. the Great in 1747 has been described orchestration, and as Andrew Ford puts his friend Moscheles. Pedants point out that one of the as ‘the most notable biographical event it, this ‘served to explain the notes; it Mendelssohn’s anxiety about his helped the music express itself’. rhythms of the movement Mendelssohn in Bach’s unspectacular life’. Sebastian symphonies had a lot to do with his calls Saltarello is that of the even more was ostensibly there to see his son, Carl Gordon Kerry © 2004 sense of what Beethoven had done. An furious Tarantella. The energy here is Philippe Emanuel, who was employed by energetic symphony in A was bound even more irresistible than in the first the King; Frederick was a flautist of some The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first to put listeners in mind of Beethoven’s performed this work with conductor Barry Tuckwell movement, so much so that it may pass skill, and had Emanuel as one of several Seventh, and the processional character in Hobart and Launceston on 10 and unnoticed that the movement remains in composers to write for him. At a soiree, 11 August 1983 and, most recently, with Giordano of Mendelssohn’s second movement A minor until the end. Mendelssohn said the king presented a theme of his own Bellincampi in Hobart on 13 June 2014. inevitably recalls the same movement this symphony was composed at one of composition to Sebastian on which to in Beethoven’s symphony. Perhaps also the bitterest moments of his life, when improvise; later Bach took the theme and Mendelssohn was bothered by the he was most troubled by his hypercritical worked it into the set of two ricercata, challenge which faces interpreters of this attitude towards his own music. It is good ten canons and one trio sonata which symphony: how to avoid making each of to be reminded of this because his art now bears the name of A Musical the four movements sound like a moto so transcends the struggle that we can Offering. This itself was no mean perpetuo. The English writer on music, Sir hardly guess that it ever existed. feat, as the ‘royal theme’ is awkward, Donald Tovey, thought that if he wanted constructed from a rising minor arpeggio to change anything, Mendelssohn could Abridged from a note by David Garrett or common chord, followed by a have broadened the design of the last © 2003 falling stepwise chromatic scale. The movement towards the end, as he did in six-voice ricercare (an archaic term in the Scottish Symphony (No 3). Posterity The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first Bach’s day, but signifying here a work performed this work with conductor Percy Code in considers that Mendelssohn should have Hobart on 3 March 1950 and, most recently, with of strict counterpoint) is the culminating remained satisfied with a masterpiece in Otto Tausk in Hobart and Launceston on 11 and movement of the whole work. which he was entirely himself. 12 October 2013.

44 45