SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA LING CONDUCTS PROKOFIEV AND DVOŘÁK A Jacobs Masterworks Concert Jahja Ling, conductor

December 6, 7 and 8, 2019

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Suite from Introduction Dance of the Birds Cortège Dance of the Tumblers

SERGE PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26 Andante – Allegro Andantino Allegro ma non troppo Wei Luo, piano

INTERMISSION

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 Allegro con brio Adagio Allegretto grazioso Allegro ma non troppo

Suite from The Snow Maiden NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Born March 18, 1844, Tikhvin Died June 21, 1908, Lyubensk

In 1873 the Russian writer completed a fairy-tale play that he called , or “The Snow Maiden.” Set in ancient Russia, it tells of a Snow Maiden (the love-child of spring and winter) who is unable to fall in love. Eventually she is granted the gift of love, and the world blooms around her, but when the sun’s rays strike her, she melts and her despairing lover throws himself in a lake. The play, written in verse, seemed to cry out for music, and Tchaikovsky composed 19 pieces of incidental music for its first production in Moscow on May 23, 1873. A few years later, Rimsky-Korsakov fell in love with Ostrovsky’s play, saying that upon reading it, “My mild interest in the ancient Russian customs and heathen pantheism flamed up.” He asked (and received) Ostrovsky’s permission to turn the play into an opera and composed The Snow Maiden in 1880-81. At the premiere in St. Petersburg on February 10, 1882, the part of Grandfather Frost was sung by the Russian bass Fyodor Stravinsky, just a few months before the birth of his famous son Igor. Rimsky himself assembled a suite of four orchestral excerpts from The Snow Maiden. The first two movements come from the opera’s Prologue. The Introduction is in fact the opening music from the opera, and it pictures icy winter gradually giving way to spring. The Dance of the Birds follows quickly: the birds complain that they are still cold, and Spring orders them to dance to warm themselves – Rimsky gives their chirping and twittering to the woodwinds. The Cortège may be mis-named, for there is nothing funereal about this music. It comes from Act II, when Tsar Berendey must issue a decree to resolve a dispute between lovers. The court assembles to this brief orchestral march, sometimes known as The Procession of Tsar Berendey. The famous Dance of the Tumblers, also known as The Dance of the Clowns, comes from Act III. At a celebration in the forest, Tsar Berendey asks for festive dances, and this is one of them. Rimsky based the dance on an old Russian folksong. It opens with a rousing flourish and then alternates two ideas: the first presented by solo oboe, the second by the violins. Rimsky simply repeats these two themes throughout the brief dance, which offers excitement, bright colors, and non-stop energy right through the breathless close.

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26 SERGE PROKOFIEV Born April 23, 1891, Sontsovka Died March 5, 1953, Moscow

There were several quite different sides to the young Prokofiev. One was the enfant terrible who took a puerile delight in outraging audiences with abrasive, ear-splitting music. When the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1913 inspired a salvo of jeers and hisses, Prokofiev walked on stage, bowed deeply, and sat down to play an equally assaultive encore. Yet there was another Prokofiev, one so different that he seemed to have come from a separate planet altogether. This was a quite traditional composer, drawn to the form and balance of another era. This Prokofiev could compose a work like the beautifully-proportioned Classical Symphony of 1917, a gracious nod to the style of Haydn. When he was able to balance these two creative urges, Prokofiev wrote some of his best music, and the Third Piano Concerto is one of his finest scores. Prokofiev had been planning for some time to write what he called “a large virtuoso concerto” when he finally found time during the summer of 1921, only a few months after his thirtieth birthday. His ballet Chout had been successfully premiered in Paris in May of that year (it would shortly outrage London audiences), and for the summer Prokofiev took a cottage in Entretât in Brittany. There, on the coast of France, he pulled together themes he had been collecting over the previous decade, some of them dating back to his days as a student in Czarist Russia. The concerto took shape across that summer, and he was able to weld this variety of thematic material into a completely satisfying whole, a score that fuses the strength and saucy impudence of the young Prokofiev with his penchant for classical order. Completed in October, the concerto was first performed on December 16, 1921, with Prokofiev as soloist and Frederick Stock conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. One of the most impressive features of the Third Piano Concerto is the range of its color. The piano part – extraordinarily difficult – demands of the performer mechanistic and almost brutal blocks of chords one moment, the most delicate passagework the next. The orchestral writing is just as varied, and Prokofiev enlivens his tonal palette here with such unexpected instruments as castanets, tambourine and bass drum. For all its steely strength, this concerto begins with deceptive restraint. First one and then two clarinets lay out the innocent opening idea, which is briefly taken up by the strings before the music leaps ahead at the Allegro. The piano makes a slashing entrance here, suddenly breaking into the flurry of orchestral motion, and this opening episode pounds its way directly into the second subject, for woodwinds and pizzicato strings over clicking castanet accompaniment. A vigorous extension of these materials brings a surprise: the music rises to an early climax on the reticent tune that had opened the concerto. Solo piano leads the way back to the “correct” themes of the Allegro, and the movement drives to a muscular close. There is no separate cadenza here – or anywhere – in this concerto. The second movement is in theme-and-variation form. Solo flute lays out the lilting and nicely-spiced theme, which extends over several phrases. In the five variations, the piano usually occupies the foreground while the orchestra accompanies with lines woven from bits of theme. Particularly striking is the fourth variation, in which – Prokofiev notes – “the piano and orchestra discourse on the theme in a quiet and meditative fashion.” This variation is in fact marked Andante meditativo, and Prokofiev specifies that individual phrases should be delicatissimo, dolce, espressivo and freddo (cold). At the close of the movement, the complete original theme makes a striking return beneath a lacy piano filigree, and the movement concludes with the unusual combination of a quiet piano chord accompanied only by the stroke of a bass drum. The finale begins with the dry sound of bassoon and pizzicato strings stamping out what will be the main theme of the movement, but the piano has already intruded before this theme can be fully stated. A second subject, sung by the woodwinds in the wistful manner of the very opening of the concerto, is also quickly violated by the piano, which has what Prokofiev describes as “a theme more in keeping with the caustic humor of the work.” But this flowing second theme “wins”: it swells to an expansive statement that becomes the soaring climax of the entire concerto. The long coda grows out of the movement’s pointillistic beginning, stalking along at first and then gradually gathering power and speed. The ending is brilliant. Piano and full orchestra come hammering home on repeated chords that seem to create a halo of light, shimmering and finally burning through the hall. It is a perfect conclusion to a concerto that appeals to our minds and our senses – and finally satisfies both.

Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88 ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK Born September 8, 1841. Muhlhausen, Bohemia Died May 1, 1904, Prague The summer of 1889 was an unusually happy and productive time for Dvořák. At age 48, he found himself a successful composer with a large and devoted family. Earlier that year, his opera The Jacobin had been premiered, and now he took his family to their summer retreat at Vysoka in the countryside south of Prague. There, amid the rolling fields and forests of his homeland, Dvořák could escape the pressures of the concert season, enjoy the company of his wife and children, and indulge one of his favorite pastimes – raising pigeons. Dvořák also composed a great deal that summer. He completed his Piano Quartet in E-flat Major on August 10, writing to a friend that “melodies pour out of me” and lamenting “If only one could write them down straight away! But there – I must go slowly, only keep pace with my hand, and may God give the rest.” A few weeks later, on August 25, he made the first sketches for a new symphony, and once again the melodies poured out of him: he began the actual composition on September 6, and on the 13th the first movement was done. The second took three days, the third one day, and the entire symphony had been sketched by September 23. The orchestration was completed on November 8, and Dvořák himself led the triumphant premiere of his Eighth Symphony in Prague on February 2, 1890. From the time Dvořák had sat down before a sheet of blank paper to the completion of the full score, only 75 days had passed. From the moment of the premiere, audiences have loved this symphony (including one very unusual audience: Dvořák conducted this symphony before 30,000 on an all-Czech program at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893). Surprisingly, the Eighth Symphony has come in for a tough time from certain critics, who find much to complain about. One of them finds the music plain and claims to hear signs of haste in its composition, another criticizes the music’s harmonic sequences, while yet another calls the finale a “not altogether satisfactory design.” All seem baffled by the structure of the movements. Listening to these charges, one might conclude that Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony is a disaster. Actually, this is one of the loveliest pieces of music ever written. It is quite true that Dvořák went his own way in writing this symphony rather than attempting to compose a “correct” symphony, and that may be what bothered those critics; Dvořák’s biographer Otakar Šourek noted that the composer himself felt that in this music he was trying to write “a work different from his other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way.” One can love the Eighth Symphony without knowing any of this, but there is a fierce pleasure in watching Dvořák go his own way. We feel this from the first instant. “Symphony in G Major,” says the title page, but the beginning is firmly in the “wrong” key of G minor, and this will be only the first of many harmonic surprises. It is also a gorgeous beginning, with the cellos singing their long wistful melody. But – another surprise: this theme will have little to do with the actual progress of the first movement. We soon arrive at what appears to be the true first subject, a flute theme of an almost pastoral innocence (commentators appear unable to resist describing this theme as “birdlike”), and suddenly we have slipped into G Major. There follows a wealth of themes – someone counted six separate ideas in the opening minutes of this symphony. Dvořák develops these across the span of the opening movement, and the cellos’ somber opening melody returns at key moments: quietly to begin the development and then blazed out triumphantly by the trumpets at the stirring climax. The two middle movements are just as free. The Adagio is apparently in C minor, but it begins in E-flat Major with dark and halting string phrases; the middle section flows easily on a relaxed woodwind tune in C Major in which some have heard the sound of cimbalon and a village band. A violin solo leads to a surprisingly violent climax before the movement falls away to its quiet close. The Allegretto grazioso opens with a soaring waltz in G minor that dances nimbly along its 3/8 meter; the charming center section also dances in 3/8 time, but its dotted rhythms produce a distinctive lilt here. The movement concludes with some nice surprises: a blistering coda (Molto vivace) whips along a variant of the lilting center section tune, but Dvořák has now transformed its triple meter into a propulsive 2/4. The movement rushes on chattering woodwinds right up to its close, where it concludes suddenly with a hushed string chord. The finale is a variation movement – sort of. It opens with a stinging trumpet fanfare, but this fanfare was an afterthought on Dvořák’s part, added after the rest of the movement was complete. Cellos announce the noble central theme (itself derived from the flute theme of the first movement), and a series of variations follow, including a spirited episode for solo flute. But suddenly the variations vanish: Dvořák throws in an exotic Turkish march full of rhythmic energy, a completely separate episode that rises to a great climax based on the ringing trumpet fanfare from the opening. Gradually things calm down, and the variations resume as if this turbulent storm had never blown through. Near the end comes some lovely writing for strings, and a raucous, joyous coda – itself one final variation of the main theme – propels this symphony to a rousing close. Are the critics’ charges about this symphony true? For the most part, probably yes. Do they matter? No. In this music, Dvořák followed his own instincts – “with individual thoughts worked out in a new way” – and audiences find the Eighth Symphony as lovely and exciting today as they did when it was premiered over a century ago. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger

PERFORMANCE HISTORY by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, San Diego Symphony Archivist Over the years, I remember having heard the “Dance of the Tumblers” played by at least three touring orchestras as an encore piece. However, it was only in the summer of 1984 that the San Diego Symphony first played this very popular, whistle-able excerpt from The Snow Maiden. It was an encore then, too, conducted by Matthew Garbutt. (Then-Associate Conductor Philip Mann offered the “Tumblers” Dance more recently in the 2010-11 season on a Family concert full of, naturally enough, circus music.) Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy tale operas are still popular in Russia, although they simply do not travel well. These concerts offer our Conductor Laureate Jahja Ling the opportunity to acquaint us with more of this brilliant score than usual. Prokofiev's very popular, very dynamic score for his Third Piano Concerto (including sensational runs, etc., for the very hard-working pianist) has become an audience favorite since it was first heard in the 1967-68 season, when Izler Solomon conducted it and Gary Graffman was the soloist. Since that performance, the piece has been repeated here ten times, most recently with Yuja Wang as the soloist and Jahja Ling conducting in the 2010-11 season. Jahja Ling and I have had many opportunities to discuss and mutually admire the music of Antonín Dvořák. This composer's Eighth Symphony is, I know, very close to his heart, with its very hummable, hard to forget, beautiful melodies beautifully orchestrated. Donald Johanos was the guest conductor when this piece was first played by the San Diego Symphony during the 1971-72 season. This symphony has since been played at these concerts 15 times, with Jahja Ling conducting on three occasions, and (most recently) with David Danzmayr leading during the 2017-18 season.