University Symphony Orchestra
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Orchestra Series: University Symphony Orchestra Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at 8pm Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center Pacific Lutheran University School of Arts and Communication and The Department of Music present Orchestra Series: University Symphony Orchestra Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, Conductor Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at 8pm Lagerquist Concert Hall, Mary Baker Russell Music Center Welcome to Lagerquist Concert Hall. Please disable the audible signal on all watches, pagers and cellular phones for the duration of the performance. Use of cameras, recording equipment and all digital devices is not permitted in the concert hall. PROGRAM Karelia Suite, Op. 11 .................................................................................................... Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) Intermezzo Ballade Alla marcia Sinfonia V in D Major ...................................................................................... Jiří Antonín Benda (1722-1795) Allegro Andante molto Tempo di menuetto Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56a .......................................... Johannes Brahms (1843-1889) Chorale St. Antoni Var. I: Poco più animato Var. II: Più vivace Var. III: Con moto Var. IV: Andante con moto Var. V: Vivace Var. VI: Vivace Var. VII: Grazioso Var. VIII: Presto non troppo Finale Program Notes Jean Sibelius, often considered Finland’s most important composer and a standard-bearer of Finnish culture, followed a winding path through his artistic development toward that distinction. Moreover, the story of the embrace of his own national heritage is a familiar one among composers of his generation. Like Dvořák and Grieg, Sibelius initially gravitated toward the Germanic influence that pervaded European music in the mid- nineteenth century. As a young man he went first to Berlin to study, and later to Vienna. It is in the Austrian capital, enthralled with the music of Anton Bruckner, that he discovered his affinity for the orchestral medium. At the same time, he was secretly engaged to Aino Järnefelt, the young Finnish speaking sister of Armas Järnefelt, a conductor of Sibelius’ acquaintance. Sibelius, whose first language was Swedish, only began to embrace the native Finnish culture during this period. When he returned to Finland in 1891 he began to seek out folk musicians and folk literature, beginning a self-education that would transform his music and his career. Much of the Finnish cultural heritage was centered in the region of Karelia in the southeastern portion of Finland and beyond, inside Russia. This is the region where the folk traditions and the traditional ways of pre-industrial life were still preserved most authentically. Sibelius even extended his honeymoon travels with Aino in 1892 into this area, where he recorded many folk songs. The Karelia Suite is comprised of music that originally appeared in En Saga, a tone poem that the composer wrote for a student association in 1892. While it is based on authentic folk material, it was only later in the decade that he turned to the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic poem, for the inspiration for some of his best-known nationalist works. This suite was published in its present form in 1906. Jiří Antonín Benda is one of a host of mid-eighteenth-century composers to have lived and worked in and around the court of Frederick the Great in Prussia. As such, he is an exemplar of the “Berlin school” of composition, which included such well-known colleagues as Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun and his brother, Johann Gottlieb Graun, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Benda’s own eldest brother, František, leader of the Royal Prussian Band. While the latter was the most famous Benda around 1750, he is perhaps best known today as the brother of Jiří Antonín. This shift in recognition has come about only in recent decades as musicologists have become more aware of the importance of J. A. Benda as the inventor of the musical melodrama in the 1770’s. Primarily through this accomplishment he became an important influence for a younger generation of composers, including no less then Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Beethoven’s early teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe. Benda’s twelve surviving sinfonias (assigned numbers and published by twentieth-century Czech musical scholars) likely pre-date his more famous stage works. He produced the sinfonias during a period as Kapellmeister at the modest court of Gotha, where the production of opera was prohibited by a conservative religious establishment for most of his tenure. Even so, the expressive and imaginative melodic writing that would characterize his later melodramas and operas is clearly present on the miniaturist canvas of the mid-century symphony. Jaroslav Pohanka, one of the editors of the modern edition of Benda’s sinfonie, believes that this particular work was written late in the composer’s symphonic period, probably around 1765. As evidence they cite the presence of a written cello part. This feature was absent from many of Benda’s earlier symphonies, probably because his payroll simply did not include money for a cellist. (Although there is evidence to suggest that one of the court ceremonial trumpeters may have played cello in the court orchestra at least occasionally prior to the official listing in court records.) They also note the well-defined sonata form in the first movement as well as the sophisticated formal and expressive writing in the second. Finally, the use of the two flutes as solo instruments in the last movement would have been uncharacteristic of Benda’s earlier practice, and indeed of symphonic writing in general during this period. It is in the extremely expressive second movement that Benda’s connection to the Berlin school, especially C. P. E. Bach, the originator of the hyper-expressive empfindsamer Stil (“feeling style”) is most obvious. Johannes Brahms’ list of orchestral works is surprisingly short, especially compared to his choral and vocal chamber works. He came to symphonic writing rather late. His first symphony was not finished until the composer was in his forties, and it took him fourteen years to write it! Evidence from his own correspondence suggests that his reluctance was borne of the weight that he perceived from the Beethovenian legacy with which he had been connected in print by his friend Robert Schumann. This set of variations was composed, premiered both in Europe and the United States, and published while he continued to work on his first symphony. The apparent relative ease with which he produced this non-symphonic piece may have something to do with its likely origin as a work for two pianos. It is unclear which of the two versions was actually written first, but the piano duet was premiered first (by Brahms himself, along with Clara Schumann) and published just prior to the orchestral premiere in 1873. Its American premiere was conducted by Theodore Thomas with his own orchestra in 1874. The tune, “St. Anthony Chorale,” was one that Brahms found a few years earlier in a sketchbook of Franz Josef Haydn. That it was actually composed by Haydn is doubtful. Some have speculated that one of Haydn’s students, Ignace Pleyel, actually wrote the melody. Whatever its origin, Brahms transcribed it faithfully in the first section of the piece, even preserving Haydn’s instrumentation to a large extent. The tune shows up most clearly again in the finale. The eight variations in between, however, seem more based on the odd five-bar structure of the original phrases, and on the harmony more than on melodic details. About the Conductor Jeffrey Bell-Hanson is in his thirteenth season as conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Music at Pacific Lutheran University. He brings to the podium a dedication not only to high standards, but also to performances informed by scholarship. His thirty-year career on the podium and as a teacher has also included faculty appointments in Kansas, Louisiana and Michigan, where he won recognition for excellence in teaching both from Michigan Technological University and the State of Michigan. In addition to his academic positions, Dr. Bell-Hanson has conducted orchestras and wind ensembles throughout the United States and in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, including the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra, the Vratza Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Bulgarica. Dr. Bell-Hanson’s career-long concern for the orchestra as a model of community has led him to believe deeply in its ability to teach a sense of shared values. Eminent musicologist, Richard Crawford, in his 2001 book, America's Musical Life: A History, wrote of the "sense of shared purpose" in one of Dr. Bell-Hanson's orchestras, noting the focus on performing literature both historic and new that "did honor to the art of music." “Please support our local partnered arts organizations” University Symphony Orchestra 2014-2015 Jeffrey Bell-Hanson, Conductor Flute Trombone Viola Jennifer Dyer Frances Steelquist Dan Stell Hannah Reierson Nathan Tunheim Dakota Stone Katherine Nakasone Collin Ray Stephanie Paladino Benhaz Fanibanda Flute/Piccolo Tuba Nathan Brown Jennifer Dyer Alan Young Helen Wagner © Oboe/English Horn Timpani/Percussion Cello Austin Bastrom Emilio Gonzales Piper Foulon Lydia Robinson Shayla Chaykin Gigi Greir Jennifer Delegard Kelsey Kosin Thomas Jack Amy Arand Majorie Rasmussen Clarinet Soren Iverson Daniel Kennett Keyboard Holly Ellis Lyndi Knox Amy Arand Kyle Hersey © Devin Turner Christiaan Garcia © Harp Lori Lamm © Bassoon Miranda Campos Helene Beck Bass Alex Orlowski Violin I Taylor Whatley Megan Cummings August Giles Jordan Hamilton Samatha Rodahl James Hatley Contrabassoon Laura Hillis Adam Masucci Helene Beck Kieran Kim-Murphy Dylan Nehrenberg Horn Boris Potapov Taylor Mills Kaitlyn Hall Lucas Batanian Hansol Hyon Michaela Thompson Hannah Sinnes Alexander Justice © Community Member Violin II † PLU Faculty Trumpet North Foulon Foster Robertson Dylan Harm Orchestra Librarian, Claire Rehmke Robert Layton Dawn Brown Logistics Manager, Alex Orlowski Claire Rehmke Magdiel Habila Office Assistant, Amy Van Cleave Ruby Reagan Svend Rønning † Mark Jasinski © Isiah Behner .