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Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal / Giancarlo Guerrero

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Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal / Giancarlo Guerrero AYANA TSUJI Winner of the 2016 Concours Musical International de Montréal Final round: First Prize JEAN SIBELIUS 1865–1957 Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.47 1 I. Allegro moderato 16.55 2 II. Adagio di molto 8.31 3 III. Allegro, ma non tanto 8.13 from the Quarter-final round: Bach Award (best performance of a work by J.S. Bach) Paganini Award (best performance of a Paganini Caprice) CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS 1835–1921 4 Introduction et Rondo capriccioso in A minor, Op.28 9.41 Piano reduction by Georges Bizet (ed. Zino Francescatti) from the Semi-final round: Best Performance of a Sonata · Best Semi-final Recital André-Bachand Award (best performance of the compulsory Canadian work) IGOR STRAVINSKY 1882–1971 Duo concertant 5 I. Cantilène 3.03 6 II. Églogue I 2.18 7 III. Églogue II 2.52 8 IV. Gigue 4.17 9 V. Dithyrambe 3.34 59.42 AYANA TSUJI violin Orchestre symphonique de Montréal / Giancarlo Guerrero (1–3) Philip Chiu piano (4–9) « Je souhaiterais remercier chaleureusement Christiane LeBlanc, directrice générale et artistique du Concours musical international de Montréal pour son soutien indéfectible, son amour de la musique classique et son engagement sans faille auprès des jeunes artistes ainsi, que toute son équipe, Scott Tresham et Dina Barghout en particulier; Luc Fortin, Président de la GMMQ et Louis Leclerc, Directeur des relations de travail à la GMMQ sans l’intervention, la compréhension et l’aide desquels le projet n’aurait jamais vu le jour; Marie-Josée Desrochers et Sébastien Almon de l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal pour leur professionnalisme, leur gentillesse et leur efficacité; Sylvie Bouchard et Aurélie Abdeljebar de l’agence artistique Kajimoto, celles par qui tout a commencé. » “My warmest thanks to Christiane LeBlanc, General and Artistic Director of the Concours musical international de Montréal for her unflagging support, her love for classical music and her unwavering commitment to young artists, along with her entire team, Scott Tresham and Dina Barghout in particular; GMMQ President Luc Fortin and Director of Labour Relations Louis Leclerc, without whose efforts, understanding and assistance this project never would have seen the light of day; Marie-Josée Desrochers and Sébastien Almon from the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal for their professionalism, kindness and effectiveness; Sylvie Bouchard and Aurélie Abdeljebar from Kajimoto artists, who started it all.” Jean-Philippe Rolland Executive Vice-President A&R Warner Classics any composers have relied on the advice of celebrity friends when producing music for the violin. Camille Saint-Saëns worked regularly with the great MPablo de Sarasate, “fresh and young as spring itself”, as Saint-Saëns remembered the young prodigy on their first meeting. His light Franco-Belgian style and Spanish heritage inspired the mercurial Rondo capriccioso in 1863. Igor Stravinsky had two Polish-Jewish collaborators, first Paweł Kochan´ski (Paul Kochanski), later and more crucially, Samuel Dushkin, whose quasi-compositional duties included considering whether the stretched-out opening chord of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto was actually playable on the instrument. The Duo concertant, premiered in Berlin in 1932, was one of several pieces which the two men, neither executants of the very front rank, could tour as a duo. In this respect Jean Sibelius was unusual. Having abandoned what had once been an “overriding ambition, to become a great virtuoso”, he nonetheless seems to have written his own Violin Concerto for a fantasy version of himself, taking years over the project, first mentioned in 1899, and treating its original dedicatee, German violinist Willy Burmester, with shabby indifference. Sibelius, who never attempted to play the work in concert, contemplated a successor concerto during the First World War when he confided to his diary: “Dreamt I was twelve years old and a virtuoso.” He continued to pour forth an underappreciated stream of violin miniatures. In tackling concerto form Sibelius was torn between the desire to provide a vehicle for the player he might have been and his overriding compositional drive for formal clarity and cohesion. However, fulfilling either goal looked problematic when he was spending so much time in the Helsinki drinking dens from which he frequently had to be rescued by his long-suffering wife, Aino. A miracle then that the concerto, its final form achieved only after long struggle, has proved to be one of his greatest successes. The first performance of the tauter revised version took place in Berlin in October 1905 with Karel Halírˇ as soloist and Richard Strauss, no less, on the podium. The work had failed to please in its original incarnation, introduced by Viktor Novácˇek with Sibelius himself conducting in Helsinki after inadequate preparation. On publication, the definitive text was dedicated to the teenage Hungarian violinist Ferenc (or Franz von) Vecsey, among the concerto’s first champions. By now Burmester was refusing to play it having been passed over once too often. The score was no overnight sensation. Worldwide fame came later, assisted from the mid-1930s by the recorded advocacy of Jascha Heifetz, with Sir Thomas Beecham’s London Philharmonic Orchestra. Although the Concerto bristles with technical challenges of the kind that players enjoy overcoming and music critics affect to despise, Sibelius the symphonist treats the orchestra with originality, starting with that famous cushion of pulsating pianissimo strings. Sometimes the orchestra interrupts with a portentous statement; elsewhere it is banished altogether so that the developmental core of the first movement is reimagined as a cadenza for violin alone. Problems of balance were diminished in the revision process which reduced the length of the first movement from 542 to 499 bars. It is still the weightiest, brimming with the self-confidence its composer found unattainable in life. The central Adagio di molto expands with romantic warmth, delighting audiences while troubling some more strait-laced supporters. Donald Francis Tovey was among the earliest commentators to recognise the particular qualities of the third movement and his analogy has stuck: “…if the best work of Sibelius suggests anything else in music, it suggests a Bruckner gifted with an easy mastery and the spirit of a Polar explorer. [The finale is] evidently a polonaise for polar bears…” Despite the symphonic dimensions and romantic impulses of the Violin Concerto, Sibelius was not immune to the self-consciously cool compositional attitude defined in 1920 by his friend Ferruccio Busoni as Junge Klassizität or the “New Classicality”. The veteran Saint-Saëns died a year later, having made an entire career holding fast to timeless principles of elegance and sobriety, balancing Lisztian innovation with Mendelssohnian rectitude. Two of his three violin concertos were written for Sarasate but the brilliant Introduction et Rondo capriccioso most closely reflects the mercurial temperament of its intended protagonist. Quickly entering the repertoire as a virtuoso showpiece, its appeal was such that both Georges Bizet and Claude Debussy made transcriptions, the former for violin and piano, the latter for piano, four hands. It is tempting to hear in Bizet’s arranging chore for publisher Georges Hartmann an operatic recitative and aria such as might have suited the gypsy heroine of his most famous opera a few years later. 5 For Stravinsky in his middle period, the shift towards a detached neo-classical mode of expression became an article of faith. By now he had an image to preserve. In Robin Holloway’s unappealing description: “Stravinsky the tight, mean with the notes, feelings, repressing and mocking the opportunity to involve, identify, indulge; the logician, geometrician, constructor of ‘objects in sound’, fiercely denying his creations any justification beyond this bald definition”. Some of this at least was fashionable posturing. Stravinsky claimed to find the pairing of an essentially lyrical instrument with a percussive one unappealing: “For many years I had taken no pleasure in the blend of strings struck in the piano with strings set in vibration with the bow.” Yet he embarked on the Duo concertant when the need arose. The other impetus came from a biography of the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch. As in his Apollon musagète, choreographed a few years beforehand by George Balanchine, he aimed to apply new-found discipline to invention of lyrical character. Balanchine devised his own humanising take on the Duo concertant in 1972. Standing at the piano with the musicians, his dancers listen to the opening “Cantilène”, with its unsettled piano part and jagged figuration. Later, as the chaste melodies bloom, they dance, mirroring the music and each other, until, finally, they perform within individual circles of light. Today the five movements are more likely to be heard as free-spirited and touching than unduly regimented. But then even on his Columbia 78s, made in 1933 with the composer, Dushkin performs “Églogue II” and the ecstatic closing “Dithyrambe” with more than a touch of portamento. David Gutman 7 ombreux sont les compositeurs qui ont cherché les conseils de grands virtuoses lorsqu’ils ont écrit pour le violon. Camille Saint-Saëns s’en est ainsi remis Nrégulièrement à Pablo de Sarasate qu’il avait trouvé « frais et jeune comme le printemps » lors de leur première rencontre. Le style franco-belge léger de Sarasate et son sang espagnol inspirèrent au compositeur français son Rondo capriccioso de 1863. Igor Stravinsky eut deux « collaborateurs » juifs polonais : le premier fut Paweł Kochan´ski (Paul Kochanski), le deuxième, plus essentiel, Samuel Dushkin, qui avait presque un rôle de co-compositeur et dont l’une des tâches fut de juger si le grand écart de l’accord initial du Concerto pour violon de Stravinsky était jouable ou pas. Le Duo concertant, donné en première audition à Berlin en 1932, fait partie des pièces que les deux hommes, ni l’un ni l’autre interprète de tout premier plan, pouvaient jouer en duo.
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