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Home , Bassoon concerto, Bassoon Concerto (Weber), Fame (soundtrack), Jaap van Zweden, Lorin Maazel, Orchestra

Program

ONe HuNDReD TWeNTy-FiRST SeASON Chicago Director Helen Regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, December 1, 2011, at 8:00 Friday, December 2, 2011, at 8:00 Saturday, December 3, 2011, at 8:00 conductor David mcgill Stucky First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances mozart Bassoon in B-flat Major, K. 191 Allegro Andante ma adagio : di menuetto DAviD McGill

IntermISSIon mahler Symphony No. 1 in Slow. Dragging. like a sound of nature—At the beginning, very leisurely With strong movement, but not too fast Solemn and measured, without dragging Stormily Performed to commemorate the centenary of Mahler’s death in 1911

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommentS By PHilliP HuSCHeR

Steven Stucky Born November 7, 1949, Hutchinson, Kansas.

rhapsodies for orchestra

n September 18, 2008, the as the author of a program note Oday Rhapsodies for Orchestra on the Concerto by Witold was performed for the first time Lutosławski, the late Polish com- in this country, was poser whose music Stucky has stud- in Dallas for the world premiere ied, with the rigor of a true scholar, of another new work, his throughout his career. (Stucky’s , August 4, 1964. Such popu- 1981 book, Witold Lutosławski and larity is rare for a at any His Music, won the ASCAP Deems time, but Stucky has always been Taylor Prize; Stucky was given a highly regarded, frequently com- the Lutosławski Society medal in missioned—he wrote his Picturas de 2005.) Not surprisingly, Stucky has Tamayo for the Chicago Symphony named Lutosławski, along with in 1995—and often honored figure. Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartók, His Second and Ligeti, as important influences won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize on his own music. in Music. Stucky grew up in Kansas and Chicago Symphony audiences Texas, and studied at Baylor were first introduced to Stucky in and Cornell universities. He 1992, when the Orchestra per- taught composition at Lawrence formed his Impromptus. That same University in Appleton, Wisconsin, year, Stucky’s name appeared again and, since 1980, he has served on in CSO program books, this time the faculty of ,

ComPoSeD InStrumentatIon aPProxImate 2008 three and , two PerFormanCe tIme and english , 10 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe three and August 28, 2008, london , two , These are the first four horns, three , CSO performances three and , , , , , suspended , , chimes, tam-tam, bass , , strings

2 where he is the Given Foundation rhapsodic—words I would never Professor of Composition. From have chosen to describe my music— 1988 until 1992, Stucky was the more I realized that boundaries composer-in-residence of the Los are meant to be pushed, and that an Angeles Philharmonic; he cur- external, even foreign stimulus like rently is the orchestra’s Consulting “rhapsodic” could be just the ticket Composer for New Music. He to push mine. also has served as host of the New The resulting work is rhapsodic in York Philharmonic’s Hear & Now two senses. It has a freely develop- concert series. ing form, as if improvised, and it Stucky’s music has long been trades in ecstatic, fervent forms of singled out for the directness and expression. Although it is in one honesty of its style and language. continuous movement, Rhapsodies As Stucky himself wrote, in is titled in the plural because it “New Music and the Masterpiece unrolls as a series of rhapsodic Syndrome,” about the relationship episodes, usually triggered by a between listeners and : single player whose ardent phrases “Our task is not to predict the hab- gradually “infect” his neighbors its of posterity but to respond to the until soon a whole section of the here and now. Genuine composers orchestra is sounding ecstatic. A will somehow make themselves solo (appassionato) draws other understood. Their works are com- high woodwind voices in one by muniqués addressed from human one, until they create a riotous beings to other human beings.” mass of sound. A solo english horn (cantando, fervente) recruits clarinet, , bassoon, and more, Steven Stucky on until its whole neighborhood has rhapsodies for orchestra broken into , too. Solo horn and (nobile) launch still another outbreak, now among the hen the New York brasses. Meanwhile, behind each WPhilharmonic invited me of these episodes of rhapsodizing to compose a short work for flows calmer, supporting music its European tour of August– elsewhere in the orchestra, serving September 2008, the invitation as a backdrop. Unrelenting fervor came with a suggestion from music can only be borne for so long. director : Would Eventually, the orchestra lapses, I consider writing “something spent, into a quiet coda, where rhapsodic”? I ran to the diction- the intense experiences that have ary for help. The more I thought come before can be recollected about the words rhapsody and in tranquility.

3 Wolfgang mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, . Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major, K. 191

lthough Mozart may have Even though the bassoon was not Awritten as many as five bas- a common solo instrument at the soon , this is the only one time, the main thematic material of that has survived. It is the earliest this concerto was carefully designed of all Mozart’s concertos for wind expressly for the instrument, instruments, and, despite the fact showcasing its unique qualities and that it is the work of an adolescent, disguising its limitations in power this is a little masterpiece. The score and range. In this piece, Mozart has is contemporary with Mozart’s first already moved beyond mastering the , in D major, and his general demands of concerto form first concertos—all products to deal, in very specific and creative of the mid-1770s. These are works ways, with the individual needs that show Mozart fully engaged in of his client. Mozart often wrote putting his own stamp on tradi- music for performer-friends, but tional forms and procedures; he is we cannot be certain for whom this no longer an apprentice—even one concerto was intended. There are with the most astonishing gifts— several possible candidates, includ- but a man establishing his own ing two bassoonists employed by the practice. Mozart would never quit archbishop of Salzburg at the time, learning, borrowing, and assimilat- as well as Thaddäus von Dürnitz, an ing what he picked up in the musi- amateur bassoonist from cal world at large, but the process of who apparently had commissioned transforming and personalizing had bassoon works from several compos- already begun. ers, including Mozart.

ComPoSeD moSt reCent aPProxImate 1774 CSo PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme March 28, 2000, Orchestra 18 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe Hall. David McGill, bassoon; unknown Mark elder CSo reCorDIng 1984. Willard elliot, bassoon; FIrSt CSo InStrumentatIon conducting. PerFormanCe solo bassoon, two oboes, two Deutsche Grammophon November 13, 1956, horns, strings Orchestra Hall. leonard Sharrow, bassoon; conducting

4 The first movement highlights with its supporting cast. The second the bassoon’s many virtues, includ- movement is a dreamy , with ing its extraordinary agility and an elaborately embroidered melody the ability to trill, leap (nearly two over muted strings—an early essay octaves in this case), repeat notes in the mood of the Countess’s rapid-fire, sing lyrically, and sit “Porgi amor” from The Marriage of comfortably on prominent low Figaro. The finale is a minuet—not notes. The interaction with the music designed for the ballroom, orchestra is lively and conversa- but based on the lilting rhythms of tional, not that of a star performer the standard courtly dance.

Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony no. 1 in D major

hen Alma Schindler first keep their ears and their hearts if Wmet Gustav Mahler, whom they can’t hear that!” she later married, she could only But as Alma knew, people didn’t remember how much she had always feel what Mahler felt. For disliked his First Symphony. She years the First Symphony led an wasn’t alone. The history of this unhappy existence, greeted by symphony, even into relatively chilly receptions whenever it was recent times, is one of misunder- played and plagued by the com- standing and rejection. The first poser’s continual fussing, both over performance, in Budapest in 1889, details and the big picture. No was greeted with indifference, other symphony gave him so much bewilderment, and, in the words trouble. He couldn’t even decide of the local critic, “a small, but, for if this music was a symphonic all that, audible element of opposi- poem, a program symphony, or a tion.” Mahler seldom understood symphony plain and simple—or the animosity his music aroused. whether it should contain four or A few years later, after Alma had five movements. Figuring all that taken his name and converted to out was not an act of indecisiveness, the cause, Mahler wrote to her after but of exploration. And by the time conducting the First Symphony: Mahler published this music as “Sometimes it sent shivers down my his Symphony no. 1 some fifteen spine. Damn it all, where do people years after he began it, he had not

5 only discovered for himself what the process as much as the com- a symphony could be, but he had poser himself that gives Mahler’s changed the way we have defined their unconventional that familiar word ever since. stamp. Henry James once described We begin in Kassel in 1884, with a novelist as someone on whom Johanna Richter, a soprano destined nothing is lost. For Mahler, that for fame not as a singer, but as the defined a symphonist. The First inspiration for Mahler’s first true Symphony is indebted, in vari- masterpiece, the of a Wayfarer, ous ways, to Johanna Richter, the and as a stimulus for this symphony. Wayfarer songs, incidental music Mahler had gone to Kassel as a Mahler wrote for a production of conductor, but found the working Joseph Victor von Scheffel’s Der conditions unsatisfactory. Whatever Trompeter von Säkkingen, a familiar he missed in his work he gained in children’s round, the wife of Carl life and love. Johanna Richter—or, Maria von Weber’s grandson, more precisely, unreturned love— yodeling, military fanfares, an early unlocked Mahler’s deepest feelings nineteenth-century woodcut, café that year and set his course, not as music, the opening of Beethoven’s an accomplished conductor, which Ninth Symphony, bird song at he surely was, but as a composer of dawn, a love song he wrote in 1880, vision and daring. It took the rest of reveille, the German ländler—and the musical establishment a while sights, sounds, and feelings we will to see it that way. never know. Since Mahler hadn’t Mahler followed an unorthodox written a large, purely orchestral path in getting from Johanna work before, it took him some time Richter to his First Symphony, but to find the right way to bring all his it’s one he would choose again and resources together and to make a again when writing music, and it’s convincing whole of so many parts.

ComPoSeD InStrumentatIon CSo reCorDIngS 1888 four flutes and three 1971. Carlo Maria Giulini , four oboes and conducting. Angel FIrSt PerFormanCe english horn, four clarinets, 1981. Claudio November 20, 1889, two e-flat clarinets and bass Abbado conducting. Budapest, Hungary. The clarinet, three bassoons Deutsche Grammophon composer conducting and , seven horns, four trumpets, 1983. Sir Georg Solti FIrSt CSo three trombones and conducting. london PerFormanCe tuba, , , 1990. Klaus Tennstedt November 6, 1914, , triangle, tam-tam, conducting. eMi Orchestra Hall. Frederick harp, strings Stock conducting 1998. Pierre Boulez conduct- aPProxImate ing. Deutsche Grammophon moSt reCent PerFormanCe tIme 2008. Bernard Haitink CSo PerFormanCe 57 minutes conducting. CSO Resound May 3, 2008, Orchestra Hall. Bernard Haitink conducting

6 In the meantime, life presented Blumine movement, originally part new choices, and love was reawak- of the incidental music he wrote ened by Marion von Weber, the for a staging of Scheffel’s narrative wife of the composer’s grandson. poem Der Trompeter von Säkkingen, The piece Mahler introduced in was subsequently lost. In 1959, Budapest on November 20, 1889, a score of the movement turned was billed as a “ in up at a Sotheby’s auction; it was two parts”—with three movements performed in 1967 for the first time in part 1 and two in part 2. Only since Mahler’s death. The Chicago the funeral march was labeled to Symphony plays Blumine next week help listeners coming to the music under .) In

“The Hunter’s Funeral Procession,” the engraving by Moritz von Schwind which was Mahler’s inspiration for the Funeral March in the First Symphony cold. Today it’s easy to see that it Vienna in 1900, a notice in the pro- wasn’t the lack of labels or com- gram indicated that Mahler wanted ments, but simply the staggering no explanatory notes of any kind. range and provocative juxtaposition Why such indecision? In March of materials that bothered the first 1896, at the time of the audience. For the next perfor- performance, Mahler wrote to the mances, in Hamburg and critic Max Marschalk about adding (in 1893 and 1894), Mahler drew the program in the first place: up a descriptive program, gave titles to the movements, and called the . . . At the time my friends whole piece “Titan, a tone poem in persuaded me to provide a kind symphonic form,” after the popular of program for the D major novel by Jean Paul. For Berlin in symphony in order to make it 1896, Mahler again changed his easier to understand. Therefore, mind, dropped the titles and the I had thought up this title and programmatic explanation, omitted explanatory material after the the second movement (Blumine), actual composition. I left them and settled on “Symphony in out for this performance, not D major, for large orchestra.” (The only because I think they are

7 quite inadequate and do not sings the interval of a fourth instead even characterize the music of a third—eventually pushes the accurately, but also because sounds of nature into a lovely, I have learned through past rolling melody. That tune, begin- experiences how the public has ning with the cuckoo’s descending been misled by them. fourth, comes from the second Wayfarer song, “Ging heut’ Morgen Still, Mahler’s First Symphony übers Feld” (I went through the wasn’t understood. Critics in fields this morning), and its proud Frankfurt complained about the walking music takes Mahler a long program, those in Berlin missed way. Mahler reinvents the song as it. (At this same time, Strauss was he goes, reshuffling phrases and writing Till Eulenspiegel, Thus spake motives so that even someone who Zarathustra, and , knows the song finds this music which begged the same ques- continually fresh. tions.) Even though Mahler finally Next comes a brief scherzo set decided to present this symphony as in motion by the foot-stomping abstract music with no story to tell, dances and yodeling that Mahler he wrestled with the same dilemma heard and had already put to good again in writing Symphonies nos. 2 use in one of his first songs, “Hans and 3 and came to slightly different und Grete,” in 1880. “Dance conclusions each time. Mahler’s around, around!” the song goes. final thoughts on this music were “Let whoever is happy weave in published in 1899 as Symphony and out! Let whoever has cares find no. 1, in four movements, and that’s his way home.” There is a wistful how it’s known today. trio, music Mahler might have The first movement begins “like heard in a Viennese café, more a sound of nature,” with fanfares full of cares than joy, and then the and bird calls sounding from the ländler resumes. distance over the gentle hum of The third movement used to the universe, tuned to A-natural upset audiences, and even today and scattered over seven octaves. it’s puzzling to those hearing it The method is one learned by every for the first time. What are we composer since Beethoven, whose to make of this odd assortment: Ninth Symphony opens with bits a sad and distorted version of and pieces that gradually become “Frère Jacques” (Mahler knew it music. It took Mahler a long time as “Bruder Martin”); a lumbering to get the opening to sound the way funeral march; some cheap dance- he wanted it; every effect is precisely music remembered by pairs of calculated, with consideration given oboes and trumpets over the beat not only to the most delicate shades of the bass drum; and the ethe- of dynamics, but to the placement real closing pages of the Wayfarer of the players on and off the . songs—heaven and earth all rolled A cuckoo—unlike Beethoven’s into one? No wonder people didn’t cuckoo in the Pastoral Symphony, it know whether to laugh or cry.

8 Mahler’s only clue is “The Hunter’s here in 2008, was the first Chicago Funeral Procession”—a woodcut Symphony conductor to restore made earlier in the century by Mahler’s original intentions.) Moritz von Schwind, a friend of The finale begins with a “flash Schubert—which he claimed was of lightning from a dark cloud,” the inspiration for this music. Mahler tells us. “It is simply the About the vulgar band music cry of a wounded heart.” This is Mahler leaves no doubt: “With music in search of victory, and parody” he writes at the top of the Mahler retreats from battle several page, just as the drum and cymbal times before he triumphs. The first join in. (At these performances, the stop allows us to savor some lovely famous “Frère Jacques” theme that pastoral music we would recognize opens the movement, traditionally if Mahler hadn’t ultimately chosen given to muted solo , is to omit his original second move- played by the entire section, muted. ment, Blumine. Later we return to This is a rereading of Mahler’s the fields of the first movement, but intentions, which have long been we’re no longer setting off on our misunderstood. Although Mahler journey—we’re headed straight for experimented with this passage the triumph that Mahler’s wayfarer for several years in order to get the couldn’t achieve. This time success effect he had in mind, he apparently is swift and unequivocal, and when settled on the idea of having all the the seven horns are asked to double basses play this haunting out—“even over the trumpets”— “solo” in , only to discover victory is won. that this was beyond the capability of most orchestral bass sections. Giving it to the principal player alone was an expedient compromise at the time that has erroneously become a convention. Bernard Phillip Huscher is the program annota- Haitink, leading performances tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago

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