Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 123, 2003-2004

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA James Levine, Music Director Designate Bernard Haitink, Principal Guest Conductor Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Laureate 123rd Season, 2003-2004 £*= CO> «** CHAMBER MUSIC TEA III Friday, February 20, at 2:30 COMMUNITY CONCERT HI Sunday, February 22, at 3, at Twelfth Baptist Church, Roxbury, MA This concert is made available free to the public through the generosity of State Street Corporation. MARK McEWEN, oboe THOMAS MARTIN, clarinet CATHERINE FRENCH, violin AZA RAYKHTSAUM, violin (2nd violin in Shostakovich) MICHAEL ZARETSKY, viola MIHAILJOJATU, cello JAMES ORLEANS, double bass RANDALL HODGKINSON, 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. McEWEN, MARTIN; Ms. FRENCH, Mr. ZARETSKY, and Mr. ORLEANS SHOSTAKOVICH Quintet in G minor for piano and strings, Opus 57 Prelude. Lento Fugue. Adagio Scherzo. Allegretto Intermezzo. Lento Finale. Allegretto Mr. HODGKINSON, Ms. FRENCH, Ms. RAYKHTSAUM, Mr. ZARETSKY, and Mr. JOJATU Steinway and Sons Piano Week 15 a Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) 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 school- days. He was widely regarded as an enfant terrible writing in an advanced and dif- ficult 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 attract- ing 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 just 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. Composi- tion 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 ele- ments of the ballet, it was regarded as one of the composer's most advanced and daring, often turning polytonal and remaining intensely chromatic virtually through- out. 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, along with the 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." We may wonder whether this scapegoating of Paris is to be taken at face value. To be sure, Prokofiev was never again so far advanced in harmonic complexity, but the more lyric side that he showed in his later years had already been part of his personality from early in his career. In any case, 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. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Quintet in G minor for piano and strings, Opus 57 As a young man, Dmitri Shostakovich established his reputation at a single stroke with the precocious First Symphony, composed when he was but nineteen. As befits a composer still in the conservatory, that work reflects an understanding of the classical tradition, even when employed with a tinge of modernistic updating. But he had scarcely left the conservatory before joining the avant-garde camp— vigorous part of Soviet music-making in the 1920s, though later viciously stamped out by a musician's union that was highly politicized. Still, for all his youthful love of shock value, Shostakovich continued to maintain an ambiguous relationship bal- anced between the avant-garde and classical decorum. Since Shostakovich was himself a fine pianist, it can hardly be surprising that many of his early works were for that instrument: the Aphorisms, the First Piano Sonata, and the First Piano Concerto, a work of prankish humor, can be grouped along with the satirical opera The Nose as compositions that won the approval of modernist critics. The piano quintet was composed in 1940 during the tense period between the outbreak of war in Europe and the Nazi invasion of Russia. Shostakovich had by this time achieved first fame and then notoriety when attacks on his opera Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk caused the opera to be removed from performance (though it had been received with acclamation all over the world). Soon afterward the composer himself withdrew the Fourth Symphony before its premiere, fearing that the advanced musical style would lead to unpleasant—even fatal—consequences for himself. Shostakovich then ''redeemed" himself with the political powers through his Fifth Symphony, which had a simpler harmonic language. That symphony was followed by, among other works, the First String Quartet and the present quintet, all of which share the more accessible musical style, though they remain characteristic of Shostakovich's sensibility and imagination. The composer himself played the piano in the first performance, which took place with the Beethoven Quartet in the Moscow Academy of Music on November 23, 1940. Rostislav Dubinsky, longtime first violinist of the Borodin Quartet, called the event "the last ray of light before the future sank into a dark gloom" of desperate warfare. —Notes by Steven Ledbetter Raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Mark McEwen became the Boston Symphony's second oboe in September 1996, having previously been acting principal oboe of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and principal oboe of the Florida Orchestra and the Music Festival of Taipei. Mr. McEwen played oboe and English horn with the Milwaukee Symphony during the 1993-94 season and has performed as soloist with the Elora Festival of Ontario and the Orchester Staatsbad Meinberg in Germany. An alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, he has also held fellowships at Aspen and with the Colorado Philharmonic. Thomas Martin served as principal clarinet of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra before joining the Boston Symphony in the fall of 1984. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Mr. Martin graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where he was a student of Stanley Hasty and Peter Hadcock. He participated in master classes with Guy Deplus of the Paris Con- servatory. Mr. Martin performs frequently as a recitalist and chamber musician and has been heard on "Morning Pro Musica" on WGBH radio. He has appeared on the Supper Concerts series at Symphony Hall, on the Friday Preludes at Tanglewood, at the Longy School of Music, and at the Gardner Museum. A native of Victoria, British Columbia, violinist Catherine French has performed frequently as a recitalist in the United States and Canada. The recipient of numerous Canadian study grants, she won the grand prize at the National Competitive Festival of Music in 1986, was the overall winner of the Canadian Music Competition in 1988, and won first prize in the CBC Young Artists Competition in 1989. In 1990 she won the concerto competition at Indiana University, where she was a pupil of Miriam Fried. Following her graduation from Indiana University she earned a professional studies diploma at Marines College of Music as a student of Felix Galimir. In May 1994 she received her master of music degree from the Juilliard School following studies with Joel Smirnoff. Ms. French joined the BSO in September 1994. BSO violinist Aza Ray khtsaum was born in Leningrad and began studying the piano at five, taking up the violin a year later at the suggestion of her teacher. Ms. Raykhtsaum majored in violin at the Leningrad Conservatory, where she studied with the renowned Ryabinkov, subsequently becoming concertmaster of the Leningrad Conservatory Orchestra and a first violinist in the Leningrad Philharmonic. She immigrated to the United States in 1980, joining the Houston Symphony as a first violinist and then becoming a member of the BSO in 1982. She has appeared as soloist in the Glazunov Violin Concerto with the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of John Williams. In addition to teaching privately, Ms. Raykhtsaum performs chamber music frequently in the Boston area with her husband, BSO principal cellist Jules Eskin. Born in the Soviet Union, Michael Zaretsky immigrated to Israel in 1972, becoming principal violist of the Jerusalem Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra and a soloist of Israeli Radio. In 1973 he auditioned for Leonard Bernstein, who helped him obtain an immigration visa to the United States and brought him to Tanglewood, where, while a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, he successfully auditioned for the BSO, which he joined that fall. Mr. Zaretsky has been soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra and other orchestras in North America. He currently teaches at the Boston University School of Music and the Longy School of Music. His CDs for the Artona label include a Bach album with harpsichordist Marina Minkin and two discs with pianist Xak Bjerken: "Black Snow" (music of Shostakovich, Glinka, and Jakov Jakoulov), and the Brahms/Schumann disc "Singular Voices." Cellist Mihail Jojatu was born in Romania and studied at the Bucharest Academy of Music before coming to the United States in 1996.

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