THE 2016–17 CONCERT SEASON AT PEABODY Peabody Conductors Orchestra April 26, 2017 Peabody Wind Ensemble April 28, 2017 STEINWAY. YAMAHA. [ YOUR NAME HERE ] With your gift to the Piano Excellence Fund at Peabody, you can add your name to the quality instruments our outstanding faculty and students use for practice and performance every day. The Piano Department at Peabody has a long tradition of excellence dating back to the days of Arthur Friedheim, a student of Franz Liszt, and continuing to this day, with a faculty of world-renowned artists including the eminent Leon Fleisher, who can trace his pedagogical lineage back to Beethoven. Peabody piano students have won major prizes in such international competitions as the Busoni, Van Cliburn, Naumburg, Queen Elisabeth, and Tchaikovsky, and enjoy global careers as performers and teachers. The Piano Excellence Fund is a new philanthropic focus, created to support this legacy of excellence by funding the needed replacement of more than 65 pianos and the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of nearly 200 pianos on stages and in classrooms and practice rooms across campus. To learn more about naming a piano and other creative ways to support the Peabody Institute, contact: Jessica Preiss Lunken, Associate Dean for External Affairs [email protected] • 667-208-6550 It is almost impossible to imagine that we are entering the final weeks of the 2016–17 academic year and concert season. As we do so, we eagerly anticipate the launch this fall of the new Breakthrough Curriculum and reimagined ensembles program here at Peabody. Even as we look forward, we celebrate the many wonderful performances that have occupied these stages at Peabody this year and will continue in the weeks ahead. For example, it is hard to imagine a more exciting event than the Peabody Symphony Orchestra performance with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin leading Peabody faculty artist and world renowned flutist Marina Piccinini in Aaron Jay Kernis’ Flute Concerto, co-commissioned by the Peabody Institute and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, among others. The PSO has the distinct honor of doing the world premiere recording of this work — which is to be paired with the composer’s Second Symphony, recorded this past fall under the direction of Marin Alsop — on the PSO’s upcoming Naxos recording, our second in as many years. Other performances feature the Peabody Concert Orchestra, Peabody Singers, STEINWAY. and Peabody-Hopkins Chorus under the direction of Ed Polochick in a program that includes John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music and Mendelssohn’s glorious YAMAHA. Lobgesang. We also have the Peabody Conductors Orchestra with director of graduate conducting Marin Alsop’s gifted students on the podium for performances [ YOUR NAME HERE ] of Haydn, Beethoven, and Stravinsky. In addition, we hear from the Peabody Wind Ensemble under the direction of Harlan Parker for one final concert this season. With your gift to the Piano Excellence Fund at Peabody, you can add your And for something completely unique and wonderful, Peabody’s now annual name to the quality instruments our outstanding faculty and students use Gospel Concert featuring The Divine Voices of Praise from Ark Church and The for practice and performance every day. Sanctuary Choir from New Shiloh Baptist Church, along with Peabody Conservatory performers all brought together and inspired by musicology faculty member The Piano Department at Peabody has a long tradition of excellence dating Andrew Talle’s gospel project. We are thrilled to host this event as a way of celebrating back to the days of Arthur Friedheim, a student of Franz Liszt, and continuing this art form and our community. to this day, with a faculty of world-renowned artists including the eminent Leon Fleisher, who can trace his pedagogical lineage back to Beethoven. I hope you’ll join us for all these concerts, of course, free and open to everyone. And I hope you’ll stay tuned to the many exciting initiatives and projects happening Peabody piano students have won major prizes in such international at Peabody as we go forward in the coming months and especially as we celebrate competitions as the Busoni, Van Cliburn, Naumburg, Queen Elisabeth, the remarkable burgeoning talent that Peabody fosters as we launch 21st century and Tchaikovsky, and enjoy global careers as performers and teachers. careers and artists that will shape the world with their very distinctive voices. The Piano Excellence Fund is a new philanthropic focus, created to support this legacy of excellence by funding the needed replacement of more than 65 pianos and the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of nearly 200 pianos on stages and in classrooms and practice rooms across campus. Fred Bronstein To learn more about naming a piano and other creative ways to support the Peabody Institute, contact: Dean Jessica Preiss Lunken, Associate Dean for External Affairs [email protected] • 667-208-6550 2 PEABODY CONDUCTORS ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP Director of Graduate Conducting Ryan Tani, conductor Alan Buxbaum, conductor Nell Flanders, conductor Thomas Fortner, conductor Wednesday, April 26, 2017 Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall 2:30pm Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Ryan Tani, conductor Symphony No. 104 in D major, H. 1/104, “London” Franz Joseph Haydn Adagio—Allegro (1732–1809) Andante Menuet—Allegro Spiritoso Alan Buxbaum, conductor Nell Flanders, conductor The Firebird Suite (1919) Igor Stravinsky Introduction (1882–1971) Kastchei’s Enchanted Garden and Dance of the Firebird Round of the Princesses Infernal Dance of Kastchei and His Subjects Berceuse Finale Thomas Fortner, conductor This concert is Octava-enabled. In consideration, please mute electronic devices when using Octava during performances. The use of cameras and sound recorders during performances without the express prior written permission of Peabody is strictly prohibited. Notice: For your own safety, look for your nearest exit. In case of emergency, walk, do not run to that exit. 3 PROGRAM NOTES Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 Egmont is set in 16th century Holland Ludwig van Beethoven and deals with Spain’s annexation of Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany; that country. The Spanish Duke of Alba Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria. has imprisoned the Dutch hero, Egmont, and plans to kill him to prevent the This work was first performed on independence of Holland. As Egmont June 15, 1810, at the Hoftheater in marches off to his execution, he remembers Vienna with Beethoven conducting. It a dream in which his love, Clärchen, is scored for woodwinds in pairs with appeared to him revealing that his added piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, death would be the catalyst of Dutch timpani, and strings. rebellion and freedom. This nationalist Despite the common belief that Ludwig triumph through personal defeat van Beethoven was a leading proponent strangely foreshadows the Wagnerian of the Classical idiom of balance and ideal of redemption through personal symmetry, quite early in his career his sacrifice. In this scene, Goethe calls for music began to display the full-fledged a “symphony of victory.” Romantic tumult and storminess that In the overture, Beethoven summarizes would spark the creativity of more than a the entire action of the play in microcosm; century of composers. Beethoven’s style from its measured and heavy minor-key of orchestration, with its use of string introduction, representing the malevolent tremolos, shocking dynamic contrasts, Duke, through the tumultuous and and solo lines for wind instruments, churning “allegro” of the exposition, displays the revolutionary spark he showing Egmont’s tribulations, to the gained, as a teenager, from hearing triumphant and victorious ending. music of French political refugees passing through his hometown of Bonn. ©2016 Orpheus Music Prose & Craig Doolin Nowhere is this more evident than in his www.orpheusnotes.com music for the stage. Beethoven’s overtures were mostly for use in theatrical productions, with four Symphony No. 104 in D major, of them — Fidelio and Leonore Nos. 1–3 — H. 1/104, “London” composed at various times for different Franz Joseph Haydn productions of his opera Fidelio. Most Born ca. March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria; of the other overtures were from stage Died May 31, 1809, in Vienna, Austria. plays — Coriolanus, Ruins of Athens, and Egmont. These miniature masterpieces The work was premiered on May 4, 1795, are filled with intense drama in their brief at King’s Theater in London, conducted duration of 10 to 15 minutes. Nearly all by the composer. It is scored for pairs of of this music was associated with a single flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, performance of its associated play. and trumpets, with timpani, and the Beethoven’s incidental music to Johann usual complement of strings. Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Egmont Franz Joseph Haydn lived in a quickly dates from the winter and spring of changing world. In his 77 years, he 1809–10 for a production of the play on experienced the rise of the Age of May 24. The most popular of the several Enlightenment, the French and American pieces in the score, the overture, was Revolutions, and the beginnings of the written in June — too late for its Industrial Revolution in England. intended performance. Musically, he lived from just after the 4 composition of Bach’s Brandenburg composed symphonies Nos. 99 to 104. Concertos until just after Beethoven’s Haydn relished his newly found artistic Pastoral Symphony. Of course, as musical freedom and used it to his advantage. fashion changed so did instrumentation. The 12 symphonies composed for the In Haydn’s youth, before the orchestra visits, cumulatively called the “London” gained a standardized instrumentation, or “Salomon” symphonies, call for a instrumental ensembles usually consisted larger orchestra than had been at his of very small forces that could be contained disposal at Esterháza.