Program

One hundred TwenTieTh SeASOn Chicago Symphony orchestra Music director Pierre Boulez helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, March 17, 2011, at 8:00 Saturday, March 19, 2011, at 8:00 Tuesday, March 22, 2011, at 7:30 Charles Dutoit Conductor John Sharp Cello Kenneth olsen Cello Katinka Kleijn Cello Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 Penderecki Concerto grosso for Three Cellos and Orchestra Andante sostenuto Andante con moto Allegro con brio JOhn ShArp KenneTh OlSen KATinKA KleiJn First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances

IntermISSIon

(continued) elgar Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36 Theme (Andante) 1. C.A.e. (Andante) 2. h.d.S.-p. (Allegro) 3. r.B.T. (Allegretto) 4. w.M.B. (Allegro di molto) 5. r.p.A. (Moderato) 6. Ysobel (Andantino) 7. Troyte (presto) 8. w.n. (Allegretto) 9. nimrod (Adagio) 10. intermezzo (dorabella). (Allegretto) 11. G.r.S. (Allegro di molto) 12. B.G.n. (Andante) 13. *** romanza (Moderato) 14. Finale. e.d.u. (Allegro)

The appearance of John Sharp is endowed in part by the John Ward Seabury Distinguished Soloist Fund. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. Steinway is the official piano of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

2 CommentS BY phillip huSCher

Hector Berlioz Born December 11, 1803, Côte-Saint-André, France. Died March 8, 1869, Paris, France.

Roman Carnival overture, op. 9

ike Beethoven’s Leonore over- exemplary precision and energy,” Ltures, this music is what Berlioz he later recalled. But even the was able to save for the concert hall humiliation of failing at Europe’s from a troubled opera. But where most important opera house had Beethoven’s Fidelio has found a begun to fade, and the work itself secure place in the opera repertory, was virtually forgotten, Berlioz Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini is known didn’t give up on it. almost solely for its offspring. In the early 1840s, when his The Roman Carnival Overture is career as a conductor temporar- not literally the overture to Berlioz’s ily overtook that as a composer, opera; that music, too, has become Berlioz pulled some of the best an orchestral favorite, and to hear music from the opera and fashioned Berlioz’s own first-hand report, this Roman Carnival Overture it was the only music applauded to add to his concert programs. at the premiere of the opera on For Berlioz, it was only a small September 10, 1838, at the Paris souvenir of a major work, but Opera. “The rest was hissed with from the very first performance

ComPoSeD moSt reCent aPProxImate 1843–44 CSo PerFormanCeS PerFormanCe tIme december 16, 2000, 9 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe Orchestra hall. February 3, 1844, paris. The CSo reCorDIngS composer conducting July 10, 2005, ravinia A 1958 performance with Festival. itzhak perlman Fritz reiner conducting FIrSt CSo conducting is included on From the PerFormanCe Archives, vol. 3 February 9, 1894, Auditorium InStrumentatIon A 1961 performance with Theatre. Theodore Thomas two flutes and piccolo, two pierre Monteux conducting conducting oboes and english horn, two is included on Chicago clarinets, two bassoons, four Symphony Orchestra: The horns, two trumpets and two First 100 Years cornets, three trombones, timpani, cymbals, tambou- rines, triangle, strings

3 under his baton in 1844, it found enjoyed an untroubled and highly immense success with the public. successful career. The opera remained unknown and The original overture to little appreciated, despite Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini gave Berlioz the radical revision and an important pattern he would use for the Roman revival led by Franz Liszt at his Carnival and all subsequent over- prestigious Weimar opera house tures: a brief allegro introducing a in 1852. The failure of Benvenuto larger slow section, crowned by the Cellini continued to haunt and return of the allegro. Here the fast mystify Berlioz: “I have just re-read music comes from the Mardi gras my poor score carefully and with finale to act 1; the slow melody is the strictest impartiality,” he wrote Cellini’s tender and expansive aria, in his Memoirs, “and I cannot now sung by the english horn. The help recognizing that it contains contrast of love song with joyous a variety of ideas, an energy and dance music is highly effective, exuberance and a brilliance of the orchestration is brilliant even color such as I may perhaps never by Berlioz’s standards, and, like find again, and which deserved Beethoven’s Leonore overtures, it a better fate.” In the meantime, conveys a sense of drama the opera the Roman Carnival Overture itself rarely achieves.

Symphony Center Information

The use of still or video cameras please turn off or silence all and recording devices is prohibited personal electronic devices in Orchestra hall. (pagers, watches, telephones, digital assistants). latecomers will be seated during designated program pauses. please note that Symphony Center is a smoke-free environment. please use perfume, cologne, and all other scented products Your cooperation is greatly sparingly, as many patrons are appreciated. sensitive to fragrance.

note: Fire exits are located on all levels and are for emergency use only. The lighted exit sign nearest your seat is the shortest route outdoors. please walk—do not run—to your exit and do not use elevators for emergency exit. Volunteer ushers provided by The Saints—Volunteers for the Performing Arts (www.saintschicago.org)

4 Born November 23, 1933, Dębica, Poland.

Concerto grosso for three Cellos and orchestra

hen Penderecki burst on Music in the mid-fifties, Poland Wthe new-music scene with was awaking from a deep, paralyz- his searing, noisy Threnody for the ing cultural isolation. Penderecki Victims of Hiroshima in 1960, he didn’t even hear Stravinsky’s didn’t seem like a composer who seminal The Rite of Spring of 1913 would one day write a concerto until sometime around 1956, grosso, a form in vogue more than when he was in his early twenties. three hundred years earlier. But the That year, a group of composers last decades of the twentieth cen- founded the Warsaw Autumn tury were a time of stylistic variety Festival and programmed “new” and liberation (as well as confu- music by the founding fathers of sion), and many a composer ended modernism, including Stravinsky, up miles from where his career Schoenberg, and Webern, as well began. In any event, Penderecki’s as contemporary works by Luigi gear-shifting wasn’t an outright Nono and Karlheinz Stockhausen. reversal—a Jackson Pollock sud- (Nono himself came to Poland, denly painting like Renoir—as armed with scores of recent music.) much as a serious attempt to find Penderecki was suddenly exposed a synthesis between new and old, not only to twentieth-century clas- and to discover “a sort of universal sics, but also to the new serialism of language,” as he once said. Pierre Boulez and the chance music Penderecki’s entire career has of John Cage. been colored by his understanding Penderecki made headlines of and acceptance of the “new” in his own in 1960 with his Threnody music. When he studied composi- for the Victims of Hiroshima, a tion at the Kraków Academy of ten-minute, densely layered work

ComPoSeD InStrumentatIon cymbal, cymbals, tubular 2000 two flutes and piccolo, two bells, tam-tams, tambou- oboes and english horn, two rine, tenor drum, military FIrSt PerFormanCe clarinets, e-flat clarinet and drum, bass drum, glocken- June 22, 2001, Tokyo, Japan. bass clarinet, two bassoons spiel, marimbaphone), harp, Charles dutoit conducting and contrabassoon, four celesta, strings These are the first CSO horns, two trumpets, performances three trombones and tuba, aPProxImate timpani, percussion (triangle PerFormanCe tIme tree, bell tree, suspended 35 minutes

5 scored for fifty-two strings that completed in 1965, Penderecki boldly announced the arrival of returned to a traditional form rarely a new pioneer. Throughout the used since the time of Bach and sixties, Penderecki was regarded relied on triads to anchor important as one of the most brilliant and points in the score. adventuresome figures in music. In the mid-seventies, Penderecki But he quickly tired of the avant- fell under the spell of romanticism, garde, sensing that it was prevent- and his output began to reveal the ing him from writing the music he depth of that influence. By the late really wanted to compose. In the seventies, in works such as Paradise seventies, when he began a second Lost, commissioned by the Lyric career as a conductor (Penderecki Opera of Chicago (and premiered conducted the Chicago Symphony here in 1978), Penderecki had in Schubert’s Fifth Symphony and comfortably settled into his most his own Seven Gates of Jerusalem romantic phase. He was not the in March 2000), the experience first composer to undergo a com- of performing Bruckner, Sibelius, positional crisis that led him to a and Tchaikovsky pointed the way more conservative language. But his out of this creative impasse and interest in old-fashioned sensibilities began to influence his own music in and big, time-honored forms such profound ways. This gradual retreat as the symphony and concerto— toward more traditional tonal which, to progressive composers, procedures, a full decade before reached the end of the line with so-called neoromanticism became Prokofiev and Shostakovich—was popular, was viewed by some of unexpected and puzzling. “This his colleagues as the worst kind of continuation is something very cowardice—as an act of betrayal. important to me,” he said at the “The solution to my dilemma was time, “and all I’m doing now is try- not to go forward,” he later admit- ing to carry on a tradition.” ted, “and perhaps destroy the whole In writing this concerto grosso, spirit of music as a result, but to Penderecki looks all the way back gain inspiration from the past and to the tradition of his baroque look back on my heritage.” predecessors. In its heyday, the Early in his career, Penderecki concerto grosso was the standard hinted that he hadn’t abandoned vehicle for a small group of soloists the traditions of Western music; in musical dialogue with a larger some of his most daring scores, ensemble (Bach’s Brandenburg including Polymorphia of 1961, Concertos are the most famous end tellingly, if incongruously, example). But unlike the solo with resounding major chords. He concerto, which flourished in the studied the late-Renaissance coun- hands of Mozart and Beethoven, terpoint of the Dutch and Flemish the concerto grosso fell out of schools before he began the Stabat favor by the end of the eighteenth Mater of 1962. With the ambi- century. Today, a concerto for tious, large-scale Saint Luke Passion more than one instrument is

6 something of a rarity, and the idea Like many of Penderecki’s recent of writing one for three cellos is scores, the concerto grosso reaches essentially unprecedented. for a common ground between his In this work, Penderecki takes his early and later personas—a recon- title quite literally, for the work is, ciliation of sorts between his youth- in fact, a “big concerto” in style and ful avant-garde tendencies and his dimension—grand, imposing, pow- more conservative, romantic nature. erful. It does not follow the formal Aggressively percussive music footprint of the baroque form other alternates with long stretches of than in its structural use of blocks eloquent, lyrical music. “I no longer of dialogue between soloists and ask myself, ‘Is this music differ- orchestra. Like baroque composers, ent or original?’ ” he told The New who loved the challenge of compos- York Times in 1996. “So many new ing for identical solo instruments, things have been discovered in the Penderecki writes lines for his three twentieth century that now, at the cellos that crisscross, mirror, echo end of the century, we need some each other, and even toss phrases kind of synthesis, some musical back and forth, like questions and language which will allow us just to answers. But he also gives each write music.” This concerto grosso, cello its own identity—each one is written at the turn of the new introduced separately at the begin- century, resonates with the voices ning and each gets its own separate of history, but it is Penderecki’s monologue in the shared cadenza own unmistakable voice that speaks near the end of the final movement. most powerfully.

7 Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath, near Worcester, England. Died February 23, 1934, Broadheath.

Variations on an original theme (Enigma), op. 36

he temptation to improvise at “Surely you are doing something Tthe piano after a hard day’s that has never been done before!” work surely never produced greater Alice wasn’t quite right, in terms results than on an October evening of historical fact—Schumann’s in the countryside Carnaval, for example, depicts in 1898. Tired out from hours of a number of characters, real and teaching violin and writing music imagined—but she obviously that would never make him famous, sensed that her husband had hit Edward Elgar began to play a tune upon something important—not that caught his wife’s ear. Alice only to his own faltering career, asked what it was. “Nothing,” he but for music itself. And so replied, “but something might be what was begun “in a spirit of made of it.” And then, to prove—or humor” was soon “continued in perhaps, test—his point, he began deep seriousness,” as Elgar later to play with it. “Powell would have recalled of the music that would done this, or Nevinson would have make him famous, along with looked at it like this,” he com- Powell, Nevinson, and a number mented as he went, drawing on the of the composer’s other friends. names of their friends. Alice said, On October 24 he wrote to

ComPoSeD CSo PerFormanCeS, trumpets, three trombones October 1898–February 19, eDwarD elgar and tuba, timpani, side 1899 ConDuCtIng drum, triangle, bass drum, April 5 and 6, 1907, cymbals, organ, strings FIrSt PerFormanCe Orchestra hall June 19, 1899, london. hans aPProxImate richter conducting moSt reCent PerFormanCe tIme CSo PerFormanCe 29 minutes FIrSt CSo november 18, 2003, PerFormanCe Orchestra hall. david CSo reCorDIngS January 3, 1902, Auditorium Zinman conducting 1974. Sir Georg Solti Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting. london conducting. u.S. premiere InStrumentatIon A 1986 performance (nimrod two flutes and piccolo, two variation only) with Sir Georg oboes, two clarinets, two Solti conducting is included bassoons and contrabas- on From the Archives, vol. 21 soon, four horns, three

8 , the closest of all not yet a household name, even those friends, in England, Richter’s advocacy was decisive. . . . I have sketched a set of The first performance was a Variations (orkestra) on an great success for both Elgar and for original theme: the Variations British music. The critics recog- have amused me because I’ve nized the work as a landmark, and labeled ’em with the nicknames although one was aggravated that of my particular friends—you the dedication “To my friends pic- are Nimrod. That is to say, I’ve tured within” didn’t name names, written the variations each he was at least honest enough to one to represent the mood admit that the music stood hand- of the “party”—I’ve liked to somely on its own. The friends imagine the “party” writing have long ago been identified, but the var: him (or her) self and a greater question still remains. have written what I think they At the time of the premiere, wd. have written—if they were Elgar wrote: asses enough to compose—it’s a quaint idea & the result The enigma I will not is amusing to those behind explain—its “dark saying” must the scenes & won’t affect the be left unguessed, and I warn hearer who “nose nuffin.” you that the apparent connec- tion between the Variations The work went well. On and the Theme is often of November 1, Elgar played at the slightest texture; further, least six variations for Dora through and over the whole Penny, now known as Dorabella, set another and larger theme or variation 10. On January 5, “goes,” but is not played—so Elgar wrote to Jaeger: “I say— the principal Theme never those variations—I like ’em.” By appears, even as in some late February 22 he told Dorabella dramas—e.g., Maeterlinck’s that the variations were done, “and L’ intruse and Les sept prin- yours is the most cheerful. . . . I cesses—the chief character is have orchestrated you well.” The never on the stage. orchestration of the piece took the two weeks from February 5 to 19, Those are words Elgar later came 1899. Elgar then sent the score off to regret, for the public’s curiosity to Hans Richter, the great German often overshadowed the music. conductor known for championing Elgar himself only made matters both Wagner and Brahms. Elgar worse by divulging that the “larger waited a long, nervous month for theme” fit in counterpoint with his a response, but Richter recognized original theme, by telling Arthur the quality of this music and agreed Troyte Griffith (variation 7) that to give the premiere in London. the theme “is so well known that For Elgar, already in his forties and it is extraordinary that no one

9 has spotted format, Elgar contributed his own it,” and by comments on this circle of men and admonishing women in his life. Here, then, fol- Dorabella lows the portrait gallery, with some that she, of all of Elgar’s remarks. people, had Theme. This is an original not guessed melody, as Elgar’s title boasts, born it. Several that October night in 1898 and melodies have without connections to anyone in been favored the composer’s life. (It has been over the years, suggested that those important first including four notes perfectly set the com- Edward and Caroline “God Save the poser’s own name, but, as we shall Alice Elgar just after their marriage King,” “Rule, see, Elgar saves himself for last.) Britannia!,” It’s worth remembering, however, and, most that when he wrote The Music often, “Auld lang syne,” but to date Makers (an autobiographical, Ein the Enigma still maintains its place Heldenleben kind of work) in 1912, in Elgar’s title. (Dorabella and he recalled this theme to represent her husband Richard Powell once the loneliness of the creative artist. asked Elgar outright about “Auld 1. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar lang syne” and he denied it, but by was the composer’s wife. “The variation,” Elgar writes, “is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate addi- tions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this Hew David Steuart- Richard Baxter William Meath reference to one Powell, Variation 2 Townshend, Baker, Variation 4 Variation 3 whose life was a romantic and delicate inspira- then he was so tired of the whole tion.” She was his muse; after Alice mystery that many doubted the died in 1920, Elgar never really sincerity of his answer.) worked again. The little triplet For full descriptions of the figure in the oboe and the bassoon “friends pictured within,” we at the very beginning mimics the are indebted to the invention of whistle with which Elgar signaled the piano roll; when the Aeolian Alice whenever he came home. Company later issued the Enigma 2. (H.D.S.-P.) Hew David Variations in this newfangled Steuart-Powell played chamber

10 music with Elgar. “His characteris- 6. (Ysobel) Isabel Fitton was an tic diatonic run over the keys before amateur violist. “The opening bar, a beginning to play is here humor- phrase made use of throughout the ously travestied in the semiquaver variation, is an ‘exercise’ for cross- [sixteenth note] passages; these ing strings—a difficulty for begin- should suggest a toccata, but chro- matic beyond H.D.S.-P.’s liking.” (Their frequent partner was Basil Nevinson, variation 12.) 3. (R.B.T.) Richard Baxter Townshend, who regularly rode through the streets of Oxford on his bicycle with the bell constantly ringing, is here remembered for his “presentation of an old man in some amateur theatricals—the Richard Penrose Isabel Fitton, Arnold, Variation 5 Variation 6 low voice flying off occasionally in ‘soprano’ timbre.” (Dorabella also recognized the bicycle bell in the pizzicato strings.) 4. (W.M.B.) William Meath Baker was “a country squire, gentleman, and scholar. In the days of horses and carriages, it was more difficult than in these days of petrol to arrange the carriages for the day to suit a large number of guests. This variation was written after the Arthur Troyte Winifred Norbury, Griffith, Variation 7 Variation 8 host had, with a slip of paper in his hand, forcibly read out the arrange- ments for the day and hurriedly left ners; on this is built a pensive, and the music room with an inadvertent for a moment, romantic movement.” bang of the door.” 7. (Troyte) Arthur Troyte 5. (R.P.A.) Richard Penrose Griffith, an architect, was one Arnold was a son of Matthew of Elgar’s closest friends. “The Arnold and “a great lover of music uncouth rhythm of the drums and which he played (on the pianoforte) lower strings was really suggested in a self-taught manner, evading by some maladroit essays to play difficulties but suggesting in a the pianoforte; later the strong mysterious way the real feeling.” rhythm suggests the attempts of the In the middle section we learn instructor (E.E.) to make some- that “his serious conversation was thing like order out of chaos, and continually broken up by whimsical the final despairing ‘slam’ records and witty remarks.” that the effort proved to be in vain.”

11 8. (W.N.) Winifred Norbury works. Dorabella remembered that lived at Sherridge, a country house, Jaeger also spoke of the hardships with her sister Beethoven endured, and he urged Florence. The music Elgar not to give up. Elgar later was “really suggested wrote to him: “I have omitted your by an eighteenth- outside manner and have only seen century house. The the good lovable honest SOUL in gracious personali- the middle of you. The music’s not ties of the ladies are good enough: nevertheless it was an sedately shown”— attempt of your E.E.” Jaeger died especially Winifred’s young, in 1909. Twenty years later characteristic laugh. Elgar wrote: “His place has been Alfred Jaeger, 9. (Nimrod) occupied but never filled.” Variation 9 Nimrod is the 10. (Dorabella) Dora Penny, “mighty hunter” later Mrs. Richard Powell, and named in Genesis to the Elgars, always Dorabella, 10; Alfred Jaeger from Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Her (“Jaeger” is German variation, titled Intermezzo, is for “hunter”) was shaded throughout by “a dancelike Elgar’s greatest and lightness,” and delicately suggests dearest friend. That the stammer with which she spoke is apparent from this in her youth. extraordinary music, 11. (G.R.S.) Dr. George R. which is about the Sinclair was the organist of Herford Dora Penny, strength of ties and Cathedral, though it’s his beloved Variation 10 the depth of human bulldog Dan who carries the music, feelings. These forty- first falling down a steep bank three bars of music into the River Wye, then pad- have come to mean dling up stream to a safe landing. a great deal to many Anticipating the skeptics, Elgar people; they are, for writes “Dan” in bar five of the that reason, often manuscript, where Dr. Sinclair’s played in memoriam, dog barks reassuringly (low strings when common words and winds, fortissimo). fail and virtually 12. (B.G.N.) Basil G. Nevinson all other music falls was a fine cellist who regularly Dr. George R. short. The varia- joined Elgar and Hew David Sinclair and his dog Dan, Variation 11 tion records “a long Steuart-Powell (variation 2) in summer evening talk, chamber music. The soaring cello when my friend discoursed elo- melody is “a tribute to a very dear quently on the slow movements of friend whose scientific and artistic Beethoven.” The music hints at the attainments, and the whole-hearted slow movement of the Pathétique way they were put at the disposal Sonata, though it reaches the more of his friends, particularly endeared rarefied heights of Beethoven’s last him to the writer.”

12 13. (***) The only enigma among time when friends were dubious the portraits: just asterisks in and generally discouraging as to place of initials, and “Romanza” at the top of the page. The clarinet quoting from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage midway through points to Lady Mary Lygon, who supposedly was cross- ing the sea to Australia as Elgar wrote this music (she wasn’t). “The drums suggest the distant throb of a liner,” Elgar writes. Although Elgar eventually confirmed the Basil G. Nevinson, Lady Mary Lygon, Variation 12 Variation 13 attribution, it has never entirely sat- isfied a suspicious public. Dorabella claimed that in the composer’s the composer’s musical future.” mind, the asterisks stood for “My Alice and Jaeger, two who never sweet Mary.” lost their faith in him, make brief 14. (E.D.U.) Edu was Alice’s appearances. The music is forceful, nickname for her husband. This even bold. It’s delivered with an is his self-portrait, written “at a unusual strength known best to late

traCKIng Down tHe enIgma in 1953 the Saturday Review should have been obvious to the slow movement, echoes sponsored a contest for the dora penny, “of all people,” of the opening of elgar’s best solution to the identity as elgar remarked, because . The two of elgar’s “enigma.” The the British penny was passages aren’t identical top prizes (the composer’s engraved with the figure rhythmically—moreover, daughter Carice elgar Blake of Britannia. in 1984 derek Mozart is in G major, elgar in was one of the judges) hudson showed even more G minor—but they are strik- were awarded to the Agnus persuasively how a phrase ingly similar. There are other dei from Bach’s B minor of “Auld lang syne” fits connections: two weeks mass, the trio “una bella elgar’s theme and many of before elgar invented his serenata” from Mozart’s the variations. theme at the piano, he had Così fan tutte, the slow in 1991, Joseph Cooper, heard the Prague Symphony. movement of Tchaikovsky’s a British pianist, proposed a Mozart’s symphony also pathétique Symphony, and new solution. he claimed he was the closing work on the “God Save the Queen.” stumbled upon the answer concert of June 19, 1899, none, however, seemed thirty years ago at a perfor- when the Enigma Variations particularly convincing and mance of Mozart’s Prague were given their first the search continued. in Symphony in royal Festival performance. Although elgar 1976 Theodore Van houten hall in london, but chose authority Jerrold northrop proposed “rule, Britannia!” to keep it a secret. As he Moore hailed Cooper’s solu- which includes a phrase followed a score during that tion, other scholars, elgar that’s nearly identical to the long-ago concert, Mr. Cooper lovers, and puzzle fanatics opening of the Enigma and noticed, midway through remain unconvinced.

13 bloomers, the defiance of an out- manuscript, but it’s written in sider intent on finding an audience, pencil and not by Elgar. When the and the confidence of a man who Chicago Symphony introduced this has always wished to be more than music to the United States in 1902, another variation on a theme. the program page listed it only as A parting word about the title. “Variations, op. 36.” The work wasn’t at first called Enigma. Elgar used the word for the first time in a letter to Jaeger written at the end of May 1899, three months after the score was finished. Enigma is written on Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2011 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago the title page of the autograph tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

14