PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, March 5, 2015, at 8:00 Friday, March 6, 2015, at 1:30 Saturday, March 7, 2015, at 8:00

Riccardo Muti Conductor Stephanie Jeong Kenneth Olsen Jonathan Biss Ligeti Lontano for Orchestra Beethoven in for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 56 (Triple) Allegro Largo— Rondo alla polacca STEPHANIE JEONG KENNETH OLSEN JONATHAN BISS

INTERMISSION

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 17 (Little Russian) Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo Andantino marziale, quasi moderato Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace Finale: Moderato assai

These performances are generously sponsored by the Randy and Melvin Berlin Family Fund for the Canon. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

György Ligeti Born May 28, 1923, Dicsöszenmárton, Transylvania. Died June 12, 2006, Vienna, Austria. Lontano for Orchestra

Like ’s of music opened up before him. He went to Also sprach Zarathustra, Darmstadt for the legendary summer courses which has never com- in composition and worked for a time at the pletely recovered from its electronic studios of the West German Radio in starring role in 2001: A Cologne. This was his opportunity to start over Space Odyssey, György as a composer and to leave behind the outdated, Ligeti’s music first came nationalistic music and folk-song arrangements to widespread attention of his Budapest years—“prehistoric Ligeti,” as he with the 1968 Stanley would eventually call it. Kubrick film. By then, Ligeti had fled his native Hungary and had n the sixties, Ligeti became a great explorer become one of the pioneers of the international of the sonic landscape, and he created several avant-garde. He had grown up sheltered from the of the most striking scores of the modern advances in contemporary European music and Iage, including the landmark Atmosphères of 1961 was anxious to try different things. (In 1952, he (a title he had intended to give to an electronic set to music a Hungarian poem in which the work left unfinished), part of which ended up in narrator travels the world, wondering if he “will Kubrick’s soundtrack, and Lontano, composed ever have another home apart from the sky.”) six years later, a work which, as Ligeti said, After graduating from the Academy of Music in opens and closes “a window on long-submerged Budapest in 1949, Ligeti taught harmony, dream worlds of childhood.” The title, Lontano counterpoint, and analysis there for six years (and (Distant), then, reflects not only Ligeti’s evo- had several of his compositions published), cation of time past, but a musical landscape waiting for a chance to break away. of many layers receding into the distance, In 1956, he escaped occupied Hungary which “shimmer through each other, super- and moved to Vienna. (He had risked his life impose themselves, and produce an imaginary once before, during the bombing of Budapest, perspective through multiple refraction and when he hid in an attic rather than find shelter reflection.” It is a work of dazzling effect, and underground so that he could listen to radio one that reveals itself gradually—“as though broadcasts of new music from West Germany.) [the listener] were stepping from brilliant In Vienna, he met Karlheinz Stockhausen, one sunlight into a dark room and becoming aware of the leaders of the avant-garde, and new worlds little by little of the colors and contours.”

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1967 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME February 8 & 10, 2007, Orchestra Hall. 13 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE David Zinman conducting October 22, 1967; Donaueschingen, Germany INSTRUMENTATION four , two piccolos and alto , FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES four and english horn, four February 7, 8 & 9, 1974, Orchestra Hall. clarinets, bass clarinet and contrabass Christoph von Dohnányi conducting clarinet, three and contra- , four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, strings

2 Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany. Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria. Concerto in C Major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 56 (Triple)

On August 26, 1804, but by Beethoven’s other —the Beethoven wrote to his three for piano that precede it and the two publisher, Breitkopf & for piano and one for violin that follow. Härtel, offering “my There is little doubt that the man behind the oratorio; a new grand Triple Concerto was the archduke Rudolph, who symphony; a concertante began studying piano with Beethoven in 1803. for violin, violoncello, and Rudolph was just a teenager and only moderately pianoforte with full talented, but he had money and a title (he was orchestra; three new the son of Emperor Leopold II), both of which sonatas for pianoforte would prove useful to Beethoven in time. He solo . . . . The title of the symphony is became a good and loyal friend, one of the few really Bonaparte.” Beethoven could always count on during his What an astonishing output Beethoven stormy career. Rudolph was a respectable pianist, lumped together—the prodigious harvest of just although he was never much of a composer, a one season, from the end of 1803 into the first pity since he was the only composition student weeks of the following summer—and it’s hard for Beethoven ever took on. His name will live as us today to believe that Breitkopf didn’t jump at long as Beethoven’s music is played: he is the it. The symphony is, of course, the one we now archduke of the Archduke Trio and the hero of the call Eroica, at Beethoven’s insistence, and the Lebewohl (Farewell) Piano Sonata; the Fourth story of how Napoleon won an empire but lost a and Fifth piano concertos are dedicated to him. symphony is as famous as the music itself. This concerto was the first musical product of their friendship, and Rudolph apparently played e know a great deal about the the piano solo at the first performance. We symphony. But the history of know virtually nothing of that event, including the “concertante” for three the date. And we don’t know why Beethoven soloistsW and orchestra—the work we have chose to write a concerto for this unprecedented come to call the Triple Concerto for sheer solo trio, unless that was Rudolph’s suggestion convenience—is sketchy. From the start it has as well. The idea of a concerto for more than been overshadowed, not just by the Waldstein one soloist was extremely popular in the late and Appassionata sonatas or the Eroica eighteenth century (the most famous is Mozart’s Symphony, with which it is contemporary, for violin and viola), but

COMPOSED July 26, 1957, Ravinia Festival. Beaux INSTRUMENTATION 1803–1804 Arts Trio (Menahem Pressler, Daniel solo violin, cello, and piano; one Guilet, and Bernard Greenhouse) as flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two FIRST PERFORMANCE soloists, Georg Solti conducting bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, May 1808; Vienna, Austria timpani, strings MOST RECENT FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES CSO PERFORMANCES APPROXIMATE January 12 & 13, 1900, Auditorium July 7, 2007, Ravinia Festival. Beaux PERFORMANCE TIME Theatre. Leopold Godowsky, Emil Arts Trio (Menahem Pressler, Daniel 35 minutes Baré, and Bruno Steindel as soloists, Hope, and Antonio Meneses) as Theodore Thomas conducting soloists, James Conlon conducting June 7 & 8, 2012, Orchestra Hall. Stefan Jackiw, Pavel Gomziakov, and Kristian Bezuidenhout as soloists, Trevor Pinnock conducting 3 Beethoven’s idea of using the common the realm of the piano sonata and the concerto. as his solo ensemble was something of a novelty. The first movement of the Triple Concerto is The work was viewed as an oddity and long, although this is due not only to the expand- was rarely performed during the composer’s ing musical universe, but to problems inherent lifetime—Beethoven never played it, even in writing for three soloists: Beethoven often though he often championed his other concertos states a theme twice, once for piano alone, and from the keyboard. Like the Choral Fantasy then again for violin and cello playing as a pair, (for piano solo, chorus, and orchestra), it is an doubling the dimensions of entire passages. unconventional hybrid that requires unusual Tovey believed that “the true solution of performing forces. Long ago, Donald Tovey sug- an art problem is often first achieved on the gested that if we didn’t know that Beethoven had largest possible scale.” And here, in his largest written this concerto, first movement to date, Beethoven makes real we wouldn’t be so headway with the problem that had plagued hard on it. The more each of his three previous concertos—how to perfect examples conceive the opening orchestral exposition so of the composer’s that it presents the important material but saves fourth and fifth the heart of the drama for the second exposition, piano concertos or which introduces the soloist. There are also other the advances. (If it were not for the extraordinary encourage our opening measures of the concertos that follow— criticism. But Tovey the Fourth , with its unaccom- points out that those panied piano solo; the Emperor, with its heroic pieces could never cadenza; and the Violin Concerto, with its solo Rudolph von Habsburg, have been written timpani—the beginning of the Triple Concerto Beethoven’s student without the Triple would appear in all the music history books.) and friend Concerto. It is, in his Beethoven begins quietly, with the and words, a “study” for basses of the orchestra—who seem to be trying these other more important and successful works. out the theme—and then gradually works up to It is not an isolated experiment—a dead end— a full-voice statement of his big C major tune. It but a stepping stone to greater things. is a dramatic touch, and a disarmingly low-key beginning for a piece of such obvious grandeur. he Triple Concerto raises problems that As in the Waldstein Sonata, Beethoven follows would have defeated a lesser composer. substance with brevity. The slow movement There is, first of all, the peculiar chal- has barely spread out its generous cello melody, lengeT of writing for not one solo instrument but to which the violin and piano add their own for three, each a virtuoso in its own right. And thoughts, before the cello leads the music directly although Beethoven had often written for the into the genial polonaise that launches the finale. combination of piano, violin, and cello—his The proportions are unexpected and shift from op. 1 is a set of piano trios—he had never before slow movement into finale so quickly that the contemplated how to integrate that ensemble dance is well under way before we can get our with an orchestra. Beethoven finds a way to treat bearings. After a few leisurely swings around his soloists both as a trio and as individuals, the polonaise tune, the violin suddenly takes although, for reasons that may never be clear, off running—allegro and in 2/4 rather than it is the cello that continually takes the lead. the prevailing 3/4—sweeping everyone along With the Eroica Symphony, Beethoven broke to a brilliant conclusion. The slightest sugges- ground for a first movement of unprecedented tion of a cadenza for the solo trio and a return scale. Two efforts of 1804, the Waldstein Sonata to the original tempo surface just before the and this concerto, carry that spaciousness into final cadences.

4 Piotr Tchaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia. Died November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 17 (Little Russian)

“He is the most Russian not only because it comes from early in his composer of us all,” Igor career, before his language grew more European Stravinsky said in 1924, in outlook, but also because it is the one most when a reporter asked thoroughly saturated by Russian musical folklore. him what he thought Tchaikovsky takes much of his most prominent of Tchaikovsky. melodic material from three folk songs from Tchaikovsky’s music Ukraine, frequently known as “Little Russia” was part of Stravinsky’s at the time. (It was the critic Nikolai Kashkin upbringing. But it was who gave this symphony its Little Russian the earlier works that nickname shortly after the composer’s death.) Stravinsky loved—the scores that were steeped No other work by Tchaikovsky found such in the sounds and styles of Russian tradition, favor with the Kuchka—the “handful” of not the later, more cosmopolitan pieces. composers who met regularly in Saint Petersburg “Tchaikovsky’s music, which does not appear to foster their devotion to a distinctly Russian specifically Russian to everybody, is often more musical art: Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest profoundly Russian than music which has long Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and since been awarded the facile label of Muscovite Alexander Borodin. Tchaikovsky’s relation- picturesqueness,” he wrote in a letter to the ship with the members of the Russian Five, as choreographer and impresario Sergei Diaghilev. they became known, was always cautious and “This music is quite as Russian as Pushkin’s verse complicated, but with his Second Symphony he or Glinka’s song.” It was Tchaikovsky’s Second found that his objectives perfectly dovetailed and Third that Stravinsky often with theirs. “I played the finale at a soiree at conducted during his career, instead of the more Rimsky-Korsakov’s,” Tchaikovsky wrote of familiar late ones (after he settled in Los Angeles his Christmastime visit to Saint Petersburg in 1940, he led the little-known Symphony no. 2 in 1872. “The entire company almost tore me at the Hollywood Bowl, normally a haven of to pieces in their enthusiasm—and Madame popular symphonic classics). This was the music Rimsky-Korsakov begged me in tears to let her he was most attached to—the music he felt arrange it for piano duet.” Tchaikovsky had fin- reflected the true Tchaikovsky. ished work on the symphony only weeks earlier. “I think this is my best work with respect to chaikovsky’s Second Symphony, long perfection of form, a quality in which I have not known as the Little Russian, is arguably shined before,” he wrote to his brother Modest T the most Russian of all his symphonies, that November. COMPOSED FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES INSTRUMENTATION 1872–73, revised 1879–80 February 14 & 15, 1902, Auditorium two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, FIRST PERFORMANCE two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, June 26, 1965, Ravinia Festival. André First version: February 7, 1873; timpani, percussion, strings Previn conducting Moscow, Russia APPROXIMATE Revised version: February 12, 1881; MOST RECENT PERFORMANCE TIME Saint Petersburg, Russia CSO PERFORMANCES 32 minutes July 19, 1973, Ravinia Festival. Sergiu Comissiona conducting CSO RECORDING February 3, 4 & 5, 1983, Orchestra Hall. 1984. Claudio Abbado conducting. CBS Claudio Abbado conducting 5 Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony was a Concerto, Eugene Onegin, the Violin Concerto, great public success at its Moscow premiere in and both a third and fourth symphony). It is February 1873. Tchaikovsky wrote to his father considerably shorter (368 measures instead of that he was called to the stage several times. 486); Tchaikovsky himself used the word com- Plans were underway, he said, for a second per- pression to describe his working process, which formance to be given in Moscow that spring. He went so smoothly that he wrote to Nadezhda also could not resist boasting that he had received von Meck, his new patroness, that he had redone a sizeable honorarium and that a collection was half the movement by lunchtime the very first under way to present him with a gift at the next day. The slow introduction, with its solo horn performance. When the symphony was repeated playing the folk-song melody, “Down by Mother in April, Tchaikovsky was crowned with a laurel Volga,” and the coda, based on the same tune wreath and given a silver cup. In the meantime, and leading the movement to an unexpectedly the symphony was successfully introduced in quiet ending, are nearly all that remain unal- Saint Petersburg as well. And it was played yet tered from Tchaikovsky’s original manuscript. again in Moscow at the end of the season. The second movement offers a new home for “To tell the truth,” Tchaikovsky wrote after the wedding march from act 3 of his ill-fated, the premiere, “I’m not completely satisfied with unpublished opera Undine. It is not a true slow the first three movements, but “The Crane” itself movement, in the traditional sense of that [the finale, named after the Ukrainian folk tune] designation, but a character piece of unexpected hasn’t come out so badly.” Seven years later, lightness and grace. The middle section quotes Tchaikovsky another Ukrainian folk tune. Tchaikovsky’s own retrieved the theme, like so many of his, is both simple and manuscript memorable. “The fact is that he was a creator of from his melody, which is an extremely rare and precious publisher gift,” Stravinsky wrote. and began The scherzo is one of Tchaikovsky’s most revisions. In delightful inventions, harmonically bold and January 1880, rhythmically driven, yet inventive and playful at he itemized every turn. The spunky trio, with its folksy char- his work: he acter, jumps from the prevailing three beats in had com- each measure to two. The coda conflates elements pletely recom- of both scherzo and trio. posed the first The grand opening of Tchaikovsky’s finale movement, anticipates the majestic Promenade and Great leaving only Gate of Kiev in Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an the introduc- Exhibition by two years. The entire movement is Igor Stravinsky tion and coda dominated by the folk song “The Crane,” which untouched; is suggested in the big chords of the introduction rescored the and then races through the ensuing Allegro second movement; altered the third; and short- like wildfire. After the premiere, Tchaikovsky ened and reorchestrated the finale. When he was claimed that his version of the tune—not quite done, he destroyed the original. (It was recon- the standard textbook melody—was the one structed after his death from the orchestral parts, he learned from Piotr Gerasimovich, the aging but has rarely been performed.) butler at Kamenka, his sister’s family estate, who persisted in humming the song in his ear as he he opening movement we know today— worked on the finale. by far the most radically reworked of the four movements—is essentially a new piece, and the product of a more mature and sea- T Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago soned composer (in the meantime, Tchaikovsky had written Swan Lake, the First Piano Symphony Orchestra.

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