• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Seiji Ozawa, Music Director One Hundred and Thirteenth Season, 1993-94 SUPPER CONCERT III Saturday, January 8, at 6 Tuesday, January 11, at 6 KEISUKE WAKAO, oboe THOMAS MARTIN, clarinet VALERIA VILKER KUCHMENT, violin NANCY BRACKEN, violin MICHAEL ZARETSKY, viola JONATHAN MILLER, cello JAMES ORLEANS, double bass JONATHAN BASS, piano PROKOFIEV Quintet in G minor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, Opus 39 Tema con variazioni: Moderato Andante energico Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio Adagio pesante Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto Andantino Messrs. WAKAO and MARTIN; Ms. VILKER KUCHMENT, Mr. ZARETSKY, and Mr. ORLEANS ARENSKY Trio No. 1 in D minor for violin, cello, and piano, Opus 32 Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegro molto Elegie. Adagio Finale: Allegro non troppo Ms. BRACKEN, Mr. MILLER, and Mr. BASS Baldwin piano Please exit to your left for supper following the concert. Week 9 Sergei Prokofiev Quintet in G minor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, Opus 39 While living in Paris in the mid-1920s, Prokofiev was eager to compose a Second Symphony far different from his first, the witty Classical Symphony of his schooldays. He was widely regarded as an enfant terrible writing in an advanced and difficult musical style, but some of his works had been performed in Paris already under the sponsorship of conductor Serge Koussevitzky, so he had hopes of attracting attention. In order to support himself while working on the new symphony, he accepted a commission from Romanov's "Wandering Ballets," a company that planned to tour a series of short ballets with an "orchestra" of but five instruments. Prokofiev proposed that the ensemble consist of oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass, and for that unusual quintet he composed a circus ballet entitled The Trapeze. Yet all the while he intended also that the music be performable as a self-sufficient concert work. The Trapeze was performed in Italy and Germany with fair success, although Prokofiev recalled that the dancers had difficulty with his unusual rhythms, such as a 5/4 measure, consisting of ten eighth-notes, divided into 3+4+3 eighths. Composition of the work gave Prokofiev no trouble (unlike the Second Symphony, over which he slaved for months). But as a concert work, separated from the visual elements of the ballet, it was regarded as one of the composer's most advanced and daring, often turning polytonal and remaining intensely chromatic virtually throughout. Years later, after he returned to Russia, where he had to accommodate his musical style to Soviet demands for simplicity and lyricism, Prokofiev "confessed" in his memoirs that the Quintet and his Second Symphony—his "most chromatic" works—had been tainted by his contact with the West: "This was the effect of the Parisian atmosphere where complex patterns and dissonances were the accepted thing, and which fostered my predilection for complex thinking." Though Prokofiev was never again so far advanced in harmonic complexity we may wonder whether this scapegoating of Paris is to be taken at face value. But it is always fascinating to hear a piece in which the composer steps outside his normal habits and attempts something quite new. In Prokofiev's case, that step took him to the edge of an abyss, from which he quickly recoiled. Anton Arensky Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Opus 32 Anton Arensky (1861-1906) showed himself to be so gifted during his student years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory that, upon graduation, he at once became a professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory. A highly eclectic composer whose music shows the strong influence of Chopin and Mendelssohn as well as his Russian contemporaries, Arensky had an attractive gift for melody and the ability to turn out effective keyboard miniatures, though he was not so successful with larger forms. At thirty-four he resigned his professorship to return to St. Petersburg and become director there of the Imperial chapeL In just six years he left that position with a pension that allowed him to devote himself to composition and to his very successful appearances as pianist and conductor Unfortunately, he also devoted himself to gambling and drinking, both habits pursued from his youth. His health failed, and he succumbed to tuberculosis at forty-four. In his short lifetime, Arensky produced three operas, two symphonies, a piano concerto, incidental music to Shakespeare's Tempest, choral works, and chamber music, including two piano trios. He published the first trio in 1894; the work was inspired by the cellist Karl Davidov who, in addition to his magnificent playing, had served with distinction as director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory between 1876 and 1886. The opening movement is darkly dramatic, followed by themes lyrical and impetuous by turns, all imbued with that rich sombre lyricism that characterizes so much Russian romantic music, particularly that of Arensky and his best-known student Rachmaninoff. The scherzo is spiced with Mendelssohnian sparkle; the contrasting Trio is a lyrical, even sentimental, waltz with perhaps just a touch of parody. The third movement reverses this layout: the Elegie's outer sections are subdued, whereas its middle section features a lighter song from the piano over murmuring strings. The finale is a vigorous rondo in which Arensky rounds out his trio by bringing back the central part of the Elegie for one of his episodes and the first theme of the opening movement for another. —Notes by Steven Ledbetter Keisuke Wakao joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal oboist in the fall of 1990. A native of Tokyo, Mr. Wakao received his performance diploma from the Manhattan School of Music, where he served on the faculty following his graduation in 1987. Mr. Wakao studied with Joseph Robinson, principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic, with whom he gave a joint recital in Tokyo in 1984. While a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1984 and 1987 he studied with Alfred Genovese and Ralph Gomberg. A finalist in the 1988 Lucarelli International Oboe Competition at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Wakao started the Keisuke Wakao Oboe Camp in Tokyo in 1988. He is currently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music. Currently acting principal clarinet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Martin became the BSCXs assistant principal clarinet and E-flat clarinet in the fall of 1990, having joined the orchestra in the fall of 1984 as second clarinet. He is also principal clarinet of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Before joining the Boston Symphony he was principal clarinet of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Mr. Martin graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where he was a student of Stanley Hasty and former BSO clarinetist Peter Hadcock. He also participated in master classes with Guy E>eplus of the Paris Conservatory. Mr. Martin performs frequently as a recitalist and chamber musician and has been heard on "Morning Pro Musica" on WGBH radio. After graduating from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Valeria Vilker Kuchment became a faculty member at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory College. She was a prizewinner in a number of international violin and chamber music competitions, including the International Competition at Prague, and at Munich, where she was awarded first prize. Ms. Vilker Kuchment has appeared as recitalist, soloist, and in chamber music throughout the USSR, Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Since coming to the United States in 1975 she has performed throughout the country. Ms. Vilker Kuchment joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 1986-87 season. A faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, she has recorded for Melodiya in the former Soviet Union and for Sine Qua Non in the United States. Violinist Nancy Bracken studied with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute of Music and later with Donald Weilerstein of the Cleveland Quartet at the Eastman School of Music, where she received a master of music degree in 1977. Originally from St. Louis, she was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra for two years before joining the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1979. Ms. Bracken has received awards from the National Society of Arts and Letters and the Artist Presentation Society of St. Louis, and was the first-prize winner in the Music Teachers National Association string competition in 1975. She has participated in summer music festivals in Aspen and the Grand Tetons and was concertmaster and a frequent violin soloist with the Colorado Philharmonic for two summers. Since joining the BSO, Ms. Bracken has played numerous solo recitals and chamber music concerts, including a performance at Tanglewood with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax in 1989. Bom in the Soviet Union in 1946, violist Michael Zaretsky studied originally as a violinist at the Central Musk School in Moscow and at the Music College of the Moscow State Conservatory. In 1965 he continued his education as a violist at the Moscow State Conservatory. In 1972 Mr. Zaretsky immigrated to Israel, where he became principal violist of the Jerusalem Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra and a soloist of Israeli Radio. In 1 973 he auditioned for Leonard Bernstein, who helped him obtain an immigration visa to the United States and brought him to Tanglewood. There, while a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, he successfully auditioned for the BSO, which he joined that falL An established soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Zaretsky has been soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra and other orchestras in North America. Elected to the Pi Kappa Lambda Chapter of the National Music Honor Society for his achievement in teaching, he currently teaches at the Boston University School of Music and the Longy School of Music Cellist Jonathan Miller's teachers included Bernard Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio, Raya Garbousova, Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, and Edgar Lustgarten.

Load more

  4

Copy Link