Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey Conductor Harry Bennetts Violin
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A NIGHT OF ROMANTIC CLASSICS 2 NOVEMBER 2018 Melbourne Town Hall CONCERT PROGRAM Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey conductor Harry Bennetts violin Dvořák Carnival Overture Korngold Violin Concerto INTERVAL Brahms Symphony No.1 Running time: One hour and 50 minutes, including a 20-minute interval In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. The MSO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which it is performing. MSO pays its respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other mso.com.au communities who may be in attendance. (03) 9929 9600 2 MELBOURNE SYMPHONY BENJAMIN NORTHEY ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR Established in 1906, the Melbourne Benjamin Northey is Chief Conductor Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an of the Christchurch Symphony arts leader and Australia’s oldest Orchestra and Associate Conductor professional orchestra. Chief of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has Benjamin appears regularly as guest been at the helm of MSO since 2013. conductor with all major Australian Engaging more than 4 million people symphony orchestras, Opera Australia each year, the MSO reaches diverse (Turandot, L’elisir d’amore, Don Giovanni, audiences through live performances, Così fan tutte, Carmen), New Zealand recordings, TV and radio broadcasts Opera (Sweeney Todd) and State Opera and live streaming. Its international South Australia (La sonnambula, Les audiences include China, where MSO contes d’Hoffmann). His international has performed in 2012, 2016 and most appearances include concerts with recently in May 2018, Europe (2014) and London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Indonesia, where in 2017 it performed Philharmonic Orchestra and Mozarteum at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Orchestra Salzburg. Prambanan Temple. An Honorary Fellow at the University The MSO performs a variety of of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, concerts ranging from symphonic his awards include the prestigious 2010 performances at its home, Hamer Hall Melbourne Prize Outstanding Musician’s at Arts Centre Melbourne, to its annual Award as well as multiple awards for his free concerts at Melbourne’s largest numerous recordings with ABC Classics. outdoor venue, the Sidney Myer Music Benjamin Northey’s Associate Bowl. The MSO also delivers innovative Conductor position is generously and engaging programs and digital supported by Anthony Pratt. tools to audiences of all ages through its Education and Outreach initiatives. 3 HARRY BENNETTS PROGRAM NOTES VIOLIN ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841–1904) Carnival Overture, Op.92 Romanticism, as commentator Gabriel Josipovici notes, ‘had begun as a movement against the arbitrary authorities of the 18th century’, and left a number of legacies to the intellectual Sydney-born Harry Bennetts studied and aesthetic life of the 19th. Music, at the Australian National Academy rather than adhering to the more abstract of Music under Robin Wilson, and in formal ideals of Classicism as exemplified the Karajan Academy of the Berlin by the works of Haydn and Mozart, Philharmonic Orchestra mentored by became increasingly subjective and concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley. ‘poetic’. Another result of the Romantic Previous teachers include Mark movement was a renewed interest in the Mogilevski and Philippa Paige. arts practised outside major metropolitan centres. Composers throughout Europe After success in national competitions, revisited the folk cultures of their native Harry performed as soloist with the countries, reflecting both a Romantic Tasmanian and Canberra Symphony interest in ‘unspoiled’ ways of life and orchestras, and performed solo and the related local nationalisms which had chamber recitals at the Sydney Opera grown up particularly in the wake of the House, Melbourne Recital Centre and 1848 revolutions. Berlin Philharmonie. He has performed chamber music at festivals in Townsville, Written in 1892, the Carnival Overture Berlin and Melbourne with such artists is one of three in a series originally as Kathryn Stott, Alexander Sitkovetsky known as Nature, Life and Love – the and Siobhan Stagg. more customary titles In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello came Whilst completing studies, Harry later. This triptych shows Dvořák’s was accepted into the International essential Romanticism in his adherence Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove in the to the cult of Nature and his delight in class of Thomas Adès, and performed as celebrating his ethnic musical roots. an Emerging Artist with the Australian Where the first piece celebrates the Chamber Orchestra. During his time in emotions of the individual contemplating Germany he performed regularly with nature, the landscape of Carnival, the the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He most frequently played of the three has participated in masterclasses with overtures, is quite definitely populated. Pinchas Zuckerman, Christian Tetzlaff The opening suggests a rural carnival and members of the Doric string quartet. in full swing and the piece as a whole is dominated by boisterous dance rhythms. 4 There are, however, reflective moments. the music for The Adventures of Robin Significantly, after the first statement Hood, expecting to return in a few of the dance music, Dvořák inserts one months to supervise the premiere of such passage where the clarinet recalls Die Kathrin. But Germany’s annexation the theme associated with Nature from of Austria in March 1938 made a return In Nature’s Realm. It is as if the quiet to his homeland impossible, and his contemplation of nature makes possible family, including his younger son, the energy and joy of the carnival spirit. escaped Austria on the last unrestricted train. Korngold’s belongings, home, Adapted from notes © Gordon Kerry property and life savings were The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first confiscated by the Nazis. With his performed the Carnival Overture on 8 September 1941 with conductor Sir Bernard Heinze, and Vienna house already under German most recently in July 2016 under the direction occupation, he could imagine his of Benjamin Northey. collection of music being consigned to the flames. With extraordinary ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD courage, Korngold’s publishers broke (1897–1957) into his house in the dead of night and Violin Concerto in D, Op.35 smuggled his scores into the USA inside Allegro nobile shipments of newly published music. Romance: Andante Films were now Korngold’s only source Finale: Allegro assai vivace of income. When his father berated him for not writing absolute music, Between 1935 and 1938 Korngold Korngold replied that if anyone in and his family lived a transatlantic America wanted to perform his music existence. While writing his opera they knew where to find him. As his Die Kathrin, and preparing for the wife said later: ‘It was almost as if he first performance of his song cycle had made a vow not to write any more Unvergänglichkeit (The Eternal) in until Hitler was defeated.’ Vienna, he adapted Mendelssohn’s A The Violin Concerto was to be the Midsummer Night’s Dream music for work that announced Korngold’s return Max Reinhardt’s film production of the to the concert hall. His ideas for this play for Warner Bros. On back-and- work seem first to have surfaced in forth visits to Hollywood, he composed 1937. A theme used throughout the film the music for several other Warner Another Dawn, which he scored that pictures, including Anthony Adverse, year, is also the principal melody of the the score which won Korngold his first concerto’s first movement; and a jaunty Academy Award. transformation of the opening title Korngold’s decision to make the United theme for that year’s movie The Prince States his home coincided with his loss and the Pauper forms the basis for the of interest in writing concert music or concerto’s finale. works for the lyric stage. Leaving most But Korngold did no serious work on the of his family behind, he left Vienna for piece until the war in Europe was over. Hollywood in January 1938 to compose At this time his old friend, the violinist 5 Bronislaw Huberman, revived a running was rightly concerned at how it would joke that dated back to Korngold’s be received when Heifetz took it to New teenage years. Every time Huberman York a few weeks later. Irving Kolodin’s met Korngold, he would say: ‘Erich, review of the concerto in the New York where’s my violin concerto?’ Sun contained the famously cheap jibe, ‘More corn than gold’, which hurt the At dinner one night in 1945, Huberman composer deeply. The other New York asked the usual question, whereupon critics were not much kinder. Posterity’s Korngold went to the piano and played answer to Korngold’s question has the opening theme. Huberman cried: been mixed: the work languished on ‘That’s it! That will be my concerto – the fringes of the repertoire until the promise me that you’ll write it.’ 1980s, by which time the influence of When the concerto was ready for contemporary music’s style police had performance, Huberman was somewhat begun to wane. The concerto is now vague about when he might get around the most performed of all Korngold’s to performing it, yet was equally anxious concert works. that no-one else would play it before By 1945, Korngold’s enjoyment of the him. When Jascha Heifetz expressed film-scoring process had abated, and interest in it, Korngold did not hesitate. he was concerned that some of his best ‘Huberman,’ he told his friend, ‘I haven’t musical ideas were disappearing as each been unfaithful yet, I’m not engaged… film was taken out of circulation. He had but I have flirted.’ Huberman’s death a no hesitation in re-casting themes from short time later brought this chapter in his films in his concert music. the concerto’s life to an end. The first movement is primarily lyrical, For Korngold, the concerto symbolised and casts the soloist as a storyteller.