Juilliard Orchestra DAVID ROBERTSON, Conductor STEPHEN KIM, Violin
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Tuesday Evening, February 25, 2020, at 8:00 Isaac Stern Auditorium / Ronald O. Perelman Stage THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL presents Juilliard Orchestra DAVID ROBERTSON, Conductor STEPHEN KIM, Violin STEVEN MACKEY Beautiful Passing (2008) (b. 1956) STEPHEN KIM, Violin Intermission GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor (1901–02) (1860–1911) Erster Teil 1. Trauermarsch: in gemessenem Schritt, Streng, Wie ein Kondukt 2. Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemenz Zweiter Teil 3. Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell Dritter Teil 4. Adagietto: Sehr langsam 5. Rondo-Finale: Allegro Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, including an intermission This performance is made possible with support from the Celia Ascher Fund for Juilliard. PLEASE SWITCH OFF YOUR CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES. Notes ON THE PROGRAM by James M. Keller Beautiful Passing STEVEN MACKEY Born February 14, 1956, in Frankfurt, Germany Lives in Princeton, New Jersey Growing up in northern California, percussion is managed by a timpanist Steven Mackey engaged in a favorite and two other players; they sometimes activity of male teenagers—playing employ special techniques, like bowing electric guitar in rock bands. His gongs and cymbals or dropping tennis awareness of “concert music” developed balls onto the head of a kettledrum. a bit later, in the course of studies at the University of California, Davis; Although Mackey principally composes State University of New York at Stony for instrumental ensembles, his Brook; and Brandeis University (from catalogue also includes several vocal which he holds a Ph.D.). Since 1985 he and stage works. One of them, the has taught at Princeton University, and multidisciplinary Slide (2009), for actor/ in 1991 he was awarded that school’s singer, electric guitar, and instrumental first-ever distinguished teaching award. ensemble, won the 2012 Grammy for best small ensemble performance. He At about the time he joined the is much drawn to the contrast inherent Princeton faculty, Mackey revived his in the concerto format. Apart from interest in the electric guitar. He has Beautiful Passing and the concertos composed two concerto-like works with electric guitar, he has written spotlighting that instrument plus a such orchestral works to feature flute, double concerto for violin, electric trumpet, viola, piano, organ, timpani, guitar, and string orchestra; and he has and percussion. often appeared playing electric guitar with notable ensembles, including the Mackey’s pieces often display a Kronos and Arditti Quartets. That psychedelic quality. “The material instrument has become a signature in my music—the tunes, chords, and sound in many of his scores, though not textures––tend to explore fringe modes in Beautiful Passing, his violin concerto of consciousness rather than brand- from 2008. One suspects the electric name emotion or logical thought,” guitar might threaten to overpower he has written. “Generally speaking, the other instruments in an orchestral these fringe modes are alert and lucid texture that, ultimately, must partner as opposed to trance-like. Often it is a solo violin. Instead, Mackey employs the unlikely combination of otherwise a modest orchestral complement of simple elements that transcends and double winds (plus bass clarinet and confounds familiar patterns.” doublings on piccolo, English horn, E-flat clarinet, and contrabassoon) and Beautiful Passing is a deeply personal strings (with harp and piano), though piece. “The governing metaphor of with a rich percussion section, which the work,” he said, “has to do with is another of his hallmarks. Here, the the violin gaining control of its own destiny, competing with, commanding, a group mentality, a mass hysteria and ultimately letting go of the that is both scary and funny. It isn’t orchestra. This metaphor arises from so much malevolent as it is mechani- my experience, during the composition cal and oblivious to the nuance of the of the piece, watching my mother gain violin. That insensitivity is threaten- control of her destiny to the point of ing but, like a bull in a china shop, predicting the day she would let go, also somewhat funny to observe with predicting the day of her death. Her last enough distance. Gradually, a few words to me were, ‘Please tell everyone members of the orchestra hear the I had a beautiful passing.’” voice of reason and become support- ive of the violin. After a cadenza that Mackey has provided this guide for lis- impresses the orchestra with flutter- teners: ing delicacy the violin introduces its own version of brutality—crushing Beautiful Passing is in two halves triple stops—which command, for separated by a violin cadenza. The the first time, a consensus between first half deals with the interaction the orchestra and soloist. In this sec- between the sharply contrasting ma- ond part they retain the individuality terials of the violin and the orchestra. but conspire toward common goals, The orchestra develops something of unlike the first part. Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor GUSTAV MAHLER Born: July 7, 1860, in Kalischt, or Kalište,˘ Bohemia Died: May 18, 1911, in Vienna Throughout his career Gustav Mahler three-year tenure in which the normal balanced the competing demands roller coaster of Viennese musical of his dual vocation as a composer politics was rendered more intense and conductor. Responsibilities on by the anti-Semitic sentiments that the podium and in the administrative often dogged him. He was hanging office engulfed him during the concert on to his other principal position, as season, forcing him to relegate his director of the Vienna Court Opera, composing to the summer months, but his anxiety at work was leading to which he would typically spend as a frequent medical problems. Another near-hermit in some pastoral spot in important event occurred while he was the Austrian countryside. His getaway working on this piece: In November while writing his Fifth Symphony was 1901, he met Alma Schindler, who was Maiernigg, a bump on the map on the just then concluding a fling with her south shore of the Wörthersee in the composition teacher, Alexander von southern Austrian region of Carinthia. Zemlinsky. Gustav and Alma married He completed construction of his villa a few months later, having already there while this work progressed during set about making their first baby. It the summers of 1901 and 1902. would be a complicated and often unhappy marriage, though they stayed He was escaping a Vienna that had together until Mahler’s death. In 1902, become a source of inordinate stress. the newlywed Mahlers were already He had just been ousted as director of having problems, not least of which, the Vienna Philharmonic following a as far as Alma was concerned, were the frequent visits paid by one of their confirmed to him. Scored for only strings neighbors, a Wagnerian soprano with and harp, it stands apart from the rest of whom Gustav had had an affair some the symphony in its basic sound; and its years earlier. character—pensive, soulful, nostalgic, more resigned than mournful—renders What Mahler achieved during those it uniquely memorable. two summers marked his return to the purely instrumental symphony. Notwithstanding its great popularity, His First Symphony had been strictly the Adagietto represents only a orchestral, but the three that followed fraction of the emotional spectrum it all expanded the forces by using of this symphony. Bruno Walter, singers, as soloists, in chorus, or both. Mahler’s assistant in both Hamburg But if Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is not (1894–96) and Vienna (beginning in unusually radical in its forces, extensive 1901), witnessed the creation of the though they are, his use of those forces Fifth Symphony. He characterized it is profoundly imaginative. On top of thus: “A work of strength and sound that, its structure is curious indeed. self-reliance, its face turned squarely The piece unrolls over five movements towards life, and its basic mood one (rather than the classic four of most of optimism. A mighty funeral march, symphonies), and those movements are followed by a violently agitated first grouped into three overriding sections: movement, a scherzo of considerable the first and third sections both comprise dimensions, an adagietto, and a two movements, while the Scherzo rondo-fugue, form the movements.” stands in the middle as a section unto In 1911, Mahler remarked that his itself. From its opening trumpet fanfare Fifth Symphony had come to represent to its majestic conclusion some 70 “the sum of all the suffering I have minutes later (and a semitone higher, been compelled to endure at the hands since the underlying tonality moves of life.” For us, too, it may convey from C-sharp into D), Mahler’s Fifth suffering, but also joy, hope, and many Symphony traces a vast panorama of other aspects of the human condition. human emotions. —James M. Keller The Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth is the most famous movement from any James M. Keller, the program annotator Mahler symphony. The conductor of the New York Philharmonic and the Willem Mengelberg claimed that it was San Francisco Symphony, is the author an encoded love letter from Gustav to of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide Alma—a fact he insisted both parties had (Oxford University Press). MEET THE Artists DAVID ROBERTSON, Conductor David Robertson is a sought-after figure in the worlds of opera, orchestral music, and new music. A champion CHRIS LEE of contemporary composers and an advocate for his art form, Robertson is the chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and recently completed a 13-year tenure as music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He has served as artistic leader to many musical institutions, including the Orchestre National de Lyon, and— as a protégé of Pierre Boulez—Ensemble Intercontemporain.