UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY

In Association With Parke-Davis Research, Warner-Lambert Company

Mstislav Rostropovich, Cellist with Sara Wolfensohn, Pianist

Sunday Afternoon, January 10, 1993, at 4:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

PROGRAM

Sonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 6 ...... Richard Strauss Allegro con brio Andante ma non troppo Allegro vivo

Suite No. 5 in C minor for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1011 ...... Bach Prelude - Fugue Allemande Courante Sarabande Gavotte I Gavotte II Gigue

INTERMISSION

Vocalise ...... Rachmaninoff

Sonata in D minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 40 ...... Shostakovich Allegro non troppo - Largo Allegro Largo Allegro

Mstislav Rostropovich is represented by Columbia Artists Management Inc., New York City.

Recordings: Erato, CBS Masterworks, Sony Classical, Angel/Melodya, London, and Deutsche Grammophon

NINETEENTH CONCERT OF THE 114TH SEASON 114TH ANNUAL CHORAL UNION SERIES Program Notes

Sonata in F major for Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor for and Piano, Op. 6 Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1011 Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Richard Strauss's creative career began In 1717, Bach was appointed composer in 1870, when he was six years old, and and music director to Prince Leopold, ruler continued until he wrote his beautiful last of the tiny state of Anhalt-Cothen, an songs, in 1948, seventy-eight years later. accomplished musician with a great appe­ As a boy, he was brought up on a strict diet tite for instrumental music, and it was at of the classics - Haydn, Mozart, and Beet­ his court that Bach wrote much of his hoven - for his father, the famous solo horn chamber music. We know that Bach was player of the Munich court orchestra, was the greatest keyboard player of his time and dogmatically conservative in his musical that he liked to play the viola in ensembles, tastes. The elder Strauss disapproved of but he did not play the cello. Being Bach, such "modernists" as Chopin, Mendels­ however, he mastered any musical medium sohn, and Schumann, who had died some for which he chose to compose. In 1774, thirty or more years earlier, and he detested Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach wrote to J. N. the music of the "radicals," Liszt and Forkel, the scholar who was collecting Wagner, who laid the foundation for Rich­ material for the first book-length study of ard Strauss's greatest mature works. his father, "He understood the capabilities Strauss composed the sonata during of all the string instruments perfectly. This the summer of 1882., when he had just is shown by his solos for the violin and cello completed his preparatory studies and was without bass [accompaniment]." These about to enter the University of Munich. "solos," six for violin and six for cello, are It was performed in public for the first time among Bach's most extraordinary inven­ in December 1883, by the great cellist tions. Hanus Wihan, his father's colleague in the They are full of mysterious musical and orchestra, who was later to be closely mechanical problems. There is more music associated with Dvorak, and to whom in them than can be played, much more Strauss dedicated the work. The music has music than is apparent from a simple read­ a natural fluency that is the sign of a true ing of the notes. Bach was a supremely composer, even a young one whose skills practical man, and he put down on paper are not yet fully formed. only the notes needed to tell the performer Although its structures are classical in where to put his or her fingers. Much of spirit, the work could not have been writ­ the rest of the music is really in the minds ten without knowing the music of Mendels­ of the listener and the player. It is implicit sohn and Schumann. The first movement, in what is written, and to apprehend it Allegro con brio, even opens with the kind requires acts of memory over a short period of leaping and soaring theme that would of time, measured, in places, in little frac­ distinguish Strauss's later compositions. tions of a second, a mental process like The musical high points of this movement "seeing" in a painting details that are only are the climactic fugal section of the devel­ hinted by the artist. opment and the marvelous combination of A suite, in Bach's time, consisted es­ its two principal subjects in the coda. The sentially of a formal opening movement central slow movement, Andante ma non that was a kind of musical call to attention, troppo, is a lyrical song without words, but and then a series of stylized adaptations of a song of great seriousness. In the Finale, 16th-century dances that had moved from Allegro vivo, the mood turns lighter, as the the ballroom to the concert-room in the young composer works his way through a 17th century. In Bach's six cello suites the witty rondo with a rather operatic melody preludes vary considerably in character, but as its recurring principal subject. they are all designed to fix the home key firmly in mind. With few exceptions, the single versatile composer, saying very dif­ movements of each suite are in the same ferent things in very different ways. In key, and Bach uses the same sequence of January 1934, his opera Lady Macbeth of dances in all the suites, except for the Mtsenk was performed for the first time, and next-to-last movements. These "galanter- in the course of that year he also wrote this ies" were then still popular as social dances: Cello Sonata. The harsh human realism of minuets, bourrees and gavottes. the opera did not conform to "socialist In the fifth cello suite, Bach also realism" - an aesthetic concept still in specifies a variant of the usual tuning of the process of formulation that would later get instrument's highest string, in order to the composer into serious difficulties with make a different harmonic vocabulary the authorities - but the Sonata is the kind available. The Prelude of this Suite is in of work that was always welcomed by the two parts, in the manner of a French opera debaters on all sides of the difficult overture, the first grave, the second a lively Shostakovich question. fugue. Next are a meditative Allemande, a A Soviet biographer of the composer dance of German origin; a quick Courante, found that "charmingly chaste purity of a complex French running (or jumping) feeling is a feature of the Sonata. The broad dance; a slow and stately Spanish Sara- melodies bring out its deeply rooted bonds bande; a pair of French Gavottes; and a with classical tradition, primarily with the closing Gigue, derived from the Anglo-Irish traditions of Russian classical music. It is Jig- like a sudden ray of sunshine, unlike the dismal grotesqueries of his operas or the sarcastic eccentricities of his orchestral Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 suites. Periods of spiritual and purely musi­ Serge; Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) cal enlightenment existed in the Shostakovich of those years, in contrast Vocalise is the last song in a set of with parody and buffoonery." [Abridged] It fourteen that Rachmaninoff composed and is tempting to dismiss the works welcomed published in 1912 as his Op. 34. They were by official propagandists and apologists, but dedicated to some of the fine Russian to do so is like punishing the messenger singers of the era - four of them to Feodor who brings bad news. The rich lyricism that Chaliapin. The texts of thirteen of them accounts for the Sonata's warm reception were selected from the works of Pushkin, by Soviet critics is real, and it also accounts Balmont and other great Russian poets, but for the fact that musicians in the rest of the the fourteenth is a vocalise, or wordless world, to whom those critics' opinions song. This Vocalise quickly became one of mean nothing, have also embraced this Rachmaninoff's most popular works and is work - for reasons purely musical, not now often performed in instrumental ver­ political. sions too. The Sonata's first movement is built with classical simplicity. It is an Allegro non troppo based on two contrasting themes, the Sonata in D minor for Cello first elegiac, the second romantic. Next is and Piano, Op. 40 an energetic scherzo, Allegro, full of colorful Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) writing for the instruments, rich in the kind of musical wit and good humor of which History seems to be preparing itself for Shostakovich was the greatest master since a long struggle to decide which was the true Haydn. In the slow movement, Largo, a Shostakovich - if any. It is generally agreed quietly dramatic introductory recitative that he is not to be found in the occasional, leads into a beautiful song of the kind called political works. But the ironist and satirist a "romance" in Russian. The rondo-like of the early films and ballets, the classicist finale, Allegro, is rich in events, as passing of some of the chamber music and sympho' episodes shift from perky to passionate to nies and the tragedian of the last ones seem pastoral to popular. to be wholly different people, not one - Notes by Leonard Burkat About the Artists Mstislav Rostropovich is recognized tial Medal of Freedom, Knight Commander internationally as a consummate musician of the Most Excellent Order of the British and an outspoken defender of human rights Empire, and Commander of the Legion of and artistic freedom. Widely considered to Honor in France (making him only the be the world's greatest living cellist, he has second non-French citizen to receive this recorded virtually the entire cello repertoire most distinguished title). He has also re­ and has inspired some of this era's finest ceived the Officer's Cross of the Order of composers to create works especially for Merit of West Germany and a Certificate him. Now in his sixteenth season as Music of Commendation from the Organization Director of the National Symphony Or­ of American States, and he was elected to chestra, he is also President of the Interna­ the Academy of Arts of the French Insti­ tional Festival of Evian in France. tute, often called the "Forty Immortals." Mr. Rostropovich's humanitarian Other honors bestowed upon Mr. achievements have long been recognized Rostropovich include the Albert around the world. One of his most recent Schweitzer Music Award and the Ernst von projects has been raising funds for the first Siemens Foundation Music Prize, pre­ modem, fully-equipped children's hospital viously given only to Benjamin Britten and in Moscow. His performance at the site of Olivier Messiaen. He is an Honorary Mem­ the Berlin Wall, two days after its destruc­ ber of the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome, tion began, was covered by newscasts Academy of Arts and Sciences of the throughout the world. In July 1991, he gave United States, Royal Academy of Music of a concert in Prague that he had promised England, and Royal Swedish Academy, to the nation in 1968, to take place when and a Fellow of the Royal College of Music the last Soviet soldier left Czechoslovakian in London. Eighteen different nations have soil. bestowed more than sixty major awards Among the recent accolades that have upon him, and he has received medals and been bestowed upon him are the Presiden­ keys from dozens of cities in Great Britain, France, Greece, japan, Israel, Spain, Ven­ he entered the Moscow Conservatory, ezuela, and Portugal. In addition, he holds where his teachers included Sergei Pro­ more than thirty honorary doctorates and kofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich; they sub­ degrees from educational institutions sequently dedicated works to him. Trained around the world, including Harvard, Yale, extensively as a composer, Mr. Rostropovich and Princeton in the United States; Cam­ collaborated with Prokofiev on the 1952 bridge and Oxford in England; and Trinity version of the Sinfonia Concertante and com­ in Dublin. While still a Soviet citizen he pleted (with Kabalevsky) Prokofiev's Concer­ received many honors, including the Lenin tino, left unfinished at the composer's death Prize (the nation's highest honor at that in 1953. Mr. Rostropovich taught at the time), the Stalin Prize, and the title Moscow Conservatory for twenty-six years People's Artist of the USSR. and at the St. Petersburg (formerly Lenin­ Mstislav Rostropovich's leadership of grad) Conservatory for seven. the National Symphony Orchestra is Mstislav Rostropovich's instrumental among the longest and most impressive of mastery and personal friendships with other current music directors of major American important composers have led many to orchestras. Major achievements during his dedicate works to him. Mr. Rostropovich tenure with the orchestra include extensive met Benjamin Britten in 1960, after the touring of the United States and abroad, cellist premiered the first Shostakovich critically acclaimed recordings, seven years concerto (1959) in London. This meeting of nationally broadcast concerts, and sev­ sparked a friendship that inspired Britten eral televised concerts. Under Maestro to return to instrumental composition and Rostropovich's guidance, the orchestra has create his Cello Symphony, Sonata for commissioned works by some of the world's Cello and Piano, and three suites for cello most distinguished composers and has and orchestra expressly for the artist. Mr. begun, with the Sidney L. Hechinger Foun­ Rostropovich perpetuates the Britten leg­ dation, a commissioning project designed acy through his work with the Aldeburgh to create new orchestral works, with special Festival, which the composer founded. encouragement given to American com­ Other composers who have written works posers. The first of the Hechinger Commis­ for Rostropovich include Bernstein, sions, Stephen Albert's symphony River Messiaen, Berio, Ginastera, Lutoslawski, Run, won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize. Last Dutilleux, and Khachaturian. spring, as a guest conductor at the Nether­ Rostropovich and his family departed lands Opera, Maestro Rostropovich con­ from what was then known as the Soviet ducted the premiere of Alfred Schnittke's Union in 1974, in the midst of a contro­ opera Life with an Idiot. versy that received international attention. Mr. Rostropovich's total discography From 1969 until 1973, at the invitation of includes more than 100 recordings as con­ Mr. Rostropovich and his wife, acclaimed ductor, cellist and pianist on every major soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, dissident au­ label. His recordings have brought him the thor Alexander Solzhenitsyn lived in their world's most coveted recording prizes, in­ dacha outside of Moscow. Their aid to him cluding the Grammy Award and the Grand was a milestone in the history of human Prix du Disque. He has recorded nearly the rights. In 1970, Rostropovich wrote an entire cello literature, some of it repeatedly open letter to Brezhnev supporting the (including the Dvorak Cello Concerto six embattled author and protesting Soviet times), as well as double and triple concer­ restrictions on cultural freedom. This ac­ tos and unaccompanied works. tion resulted in cancellations of concerts Born on March 27, 1927, in Baku, a and foreign tours for Rostropovich and city on the west shore of the Caspian Sea, Vishnevskaya, a Soviet media black-out, Mstislav Rostropovich began musical stud­ and the cessation of all recording projects ies in early childhood with his parents. His (one disc was abandoned half-completed). mother was an accomplished pianist, and In 1974, Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya his father was a distinguished cellist who were finally granted exit visas; that same had studied with Pablo Casals. At age 16 year, Mr. Rostropovich received the An- nual Award of the International League of orations with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich Human Rights. Four years later, the Pre­ and numerous solo recitals both in the sidium of the Supreme Soviet stripped United States and abroad. Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Among her recent engagements have Vishnevskaya of their citizenship for "acts been performances as guest soloist with the harmful to the prestige of the U.S.S.R." Milwaukee Symphony, the Montreal Sym­ After that time, the couple traveled with phony, the San Antonio Symphony and special passports issued from Switzerland. the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida; re­ On tour with the National Symphony citals in Washington, DC (at Kennedy Orchestra in February 1990, Mstislav Center), Cincinnati, Memphis, Tennessee Rostropovich returned to the former Soviet and at Caramoor, and an appearance with Union for the first time since 1974. His Vladimir Feltsman and I Musici de Mon­ return received international attention. treal. During the summer of 1991, she The Soviet Legislature restored played at Wyoming's Grand Teton Festival Rostropovich's and Vishnevskaya's citizen­ and gave concerts in Buenos Aries and ships, twelve years after they were revoked Mexico City. She will open her 1992-1993 and less than a month before Mr. season performing a new piano concerto by Rostropovich's first Moscow concert. The Bias Atehortua in a series of concerts with report by Toss, the official Soviet press the National Symphony Orchestra under agency, stated that the Soviet Legislature Rostropovich. also nullified the decree that stripped them Other career highlights for Ms. of their medals and honorary titles. Mr. Wolfensohn have included a highly suc­ Rostropovich continued his activities as an cessful recital tour of Spain and perfor­ outspoken defender of human rights during mances with the Royal Philharmonic his courageous trip to Moscow - unher­ Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony alded, visaless, at great risk to his life - to during the 1988-1989 season. She has also join those in the Russian White House appeared in recital with Rostropovich at resisting the attempted coup. the Royal Birthday Concert in England at This afternoon, Mstislav Rostropovich the King's Lynn Festival. After making a makes his eleventh appearance in Ann successful London debut in 1985 with the Arbor, including five as recitalist, three as Chamber Orchestra of London at the Bar­ concerto soloist, and three as conductor. bican Center, Ms. Wolfensohn returned there in 1987 for three performances, which included critically acclaimed debuts with the Royal Philharmonic and with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Fes­ tival Hall. Sara Wolfensohn has performed at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall with the Tchaikovsky Chamber Orchestra and has been a frequent soloist with orchestras in Brazil, Argentina and Venezula. She has participated in several important feativals, including the Campos do Jordao Festival and the Cape and Islands Chamber Music Festival, under the direction of Samual Sanders. Born in Sydney, Australia, Ms. Wolfensohn began her piano studies in Pianist Sara Wolfensohn is one of the London and continued them in New York, most accomplished and versatile musicians where she studied with Bella Davidovich, of her generation. Her career has already Samual Sanders and Felix Galamir at The encompassed performances with major Juilliard School. This is her first UMS American and European orchestras, collab­ appearance.