Season 20102010----20112011 The Philadelphia Orchestra Thursday, November 111111,11 , at 8:00 Saturday, November 131313,13 , at 8:00 Tuesday, November 16, at 8:00 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Conductor Jennifer Montone Horn Weber Overture to Oberon Reger Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132 Intermission Strauss Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major I. Allegro— II. Andante con moto III. Rondo: Allegro molto First Philadelphia Orchestra performances Strauss Suite from Der Rosenkavalier This program runs approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes. Born in Burgos, Spain, in 1933, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos studied violin, piano, music theory, and composition at the conservatories in Bilbao and Madrid, and conducting at Munich’s Hochschule für Musik, where he graduated summa cum laude and was awarded the Richard Strauss Prize. He currently is chief conductor and artistic director of the Dresden Philharmonic. Mr. Frühbeck has served as general music director of the Berlin Radio Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the National Symphony, and music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna Symphony, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Turin, the Bilbao Orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, and the Spanish National Orchestra, where he was appointed conductor emeritus in 1998. For many seasons he was also principal guest conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo. Each season Mr. Frühbeck returns to North America as guest conductor for the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood Music Festival. He regularly appears with The Philadelphia Orchestra, where he made his debut in 1969. Other recent appearances include performances with the Chicago, National, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Puerto Rico symphonies, and the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics. He is also a regular guest conductor with major European ensembles, including the Philharmonia Orchestra; the Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg philharmonics; the German radio orchestras; and the Vienna Symphony. He has also conducted the Israel Philharmonic and the major Japanese orchestras. Since 1975 Mr. Frühbeck has been a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He has been awarded numerous honors and distinctions, including the Gold Medal of the City of Vienna, the Bundesverdienstkreutz of the Republic of Austria and Germany, the Gold Medal from the Gustav Mahler International Society, and the Jacinto Guerrero Prize, conferred in 1997 by the Queen of Spain. He is also the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Navarra in Spain. Mr. Frühbeck has recorded extensively for the EMI, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Spanish Columbia, and Orfeo labels. Jennifer Montone joined The Philadelphia Orchestra as principal horn in 2006. She is on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and Temple University. Previously the principal horn of the Saint Louis Symphony and associate principal horn of the Dallas Symphony, Ms. Montone was an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, and performer/faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Prior to her tenure in Dallas, she was third horn of the New Jersey Symphony and performed regularly with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. Ms. Montone has performed as a soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the National Symphony, the Polish National Radio Symphony, and the Curtis Orchestra, among others. Her recording of the Penderecki Horn Concerto with the Warsaw National Philharmonic will be released in December. She regularly appears as a featured artist at International Horn Society workshops and International Women’s Brass conferences. As a chamber musician Ms. Montone has performed with the Bay Chamber Concerts, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Bellingham Music Festival, the Spoleto (Italy) Chamber Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. In May 2006 Ms. Montone was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. She is also the winner of the 1996 Paxman Young Horn Player of the Year Award in London and the 1998 Philadelphia Concerto Soloists Competition. She was a fellow in the Tanglewood Music Festival Orchestra in 1996 and 1997. Ms. Montone is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Julie Landsman, principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera. A native of northern Virginia, Ms. Montone studied with Edwin Thayer, principal horn of the National Symphony, as a fellow in the Symphony’s Youth Fellowship Program. FRAMING THE PROGRAM Before the 19th century it was rare for composers to be overly concerned with timbre, with what particular orchestral instrument was playing and how. The focus was more on melody, harmony, and counterpoint. Carl Maria von Weber was one of the early Romantics to change that and the Overture to his last opera, Oberon, is testimony to his innovations in orchestral color. Max Reger found much of his inspiration in music from the past and in some of his most successful pieces actually transformed the past. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart is constructed on the lilting opening theme of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331. Two works by Richard Strauss are featured on the second half of tonight’s concert. The Horn Concerto No. 2, a lyrical and witty work, was written during the Second World War. Strauss was approaching the age of 80, but the Concerto nonetheless displays unusual freshness and youthful vitality. The concert concludes with a Suite drawn from his great opera Der Rosenkavalier, composed 30 years earlier. Parallel Events 1825 Weber Overture to Oberon Music Boieldieu La Dame blanche Literature Pushkin Boris Godunov Art Constable Leaping Horse History Decembrist Revolt in Russia 1914 Reger Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart Music Stravinsky Le Rossignol Literature Joyce Dubliners Art Matisse The Red Studio History World War I begins 1941942222 Strauss Horn Concerto No. 2 Music Copland Rodeo Literature Camus L’Étranger Art Braque Patience History Fermi splits the atom Overture tttoto Oberon Carl Maria Von Weber Born iiinin Eutin, Germany, November 18, 1786 Died iiinin London, June 5, 1826 The tragic tale of the composition of Weber’s final opera, Oberon, is perhaps as interesting as the plot of the opera itself. Dying of consumption at the age of 38, the impoverished Weber felt he could not refuse the offer from English impresario Charles Kemble to compose an opera on the subject of Oberon, King of the Elves, for the London stage—even though he sensed that the project would be the death of him. “Whether I travel or not, in a year I’ll be a dead man,” he wrote to a friend after he had completed the Oberon score, of his decision to make the trip to England to see the work through to performance. “But if I do travel, my children will at least have something to eat, even if Daddy is dead—and if I don’t go they’ll starve. What would you do in my position?” Both points of Weber’s prediction proved correct: The 12 initial performances of Oberon netted his family a great deal of money; and within a few weeks of the work’s successful premiere in April 1826, the composer collapsed of exhaustion and died. Though the composition of operas had always been the center of Weber’s existence, it was not until the last six years of his life that he had finally been given the opportunity to compose the three stage works that quickly took their place among the masterworks of Romanticism: Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon. Their influence on composers later in the 19th century, including Wagner, was deep. Oberon, though perhaps the least carefully polished of the three, is in many ways the most interesting—an erratic mix of brilliant dramatic scenes and fervently lyrical arias and ensembles. A Closer Look Weber was intrigued from the beginning by the libretto’s elements of magic, exoticism, and romance, which were the hallmarks of his own operatic interests. Based on an 18th-century retelling by Christoph Martin Wieland of a 13th-century French chanson de geste, James Planché’s libretto for Weber’s work tells the story of Oberon who, having quarreled with his wife, makes up his mind not to reconcile their differences until the day that he encounters a pair of lovers willing to die for love. Only then, seeing that true love is possible, will he believe in the continued viability of romance. He finally does find this hope, in the love of Huon of Bordeaux (the heroic tenor) for the lovely Rezia (the soprano), daughter of the Caliph of Baghdad. Oberon puts the lovers through a series of tests, which they pass—living happily ever after. Oberon is best known today for its Overture. In addition to being a brilliant concert-opener, the piece is a sonata form in which each theme is derived from an important moment in the opera. The opening horn-call represents the “magic horn” that Huon is given for protection; the descending woodwind chords represent the fairy kingdom; the racing ascent of the main theme (in the violins) is the rescue and flight with Rezia; the lyric solo-clarinet tune is Huon’s prayer for Rezia’s recovery after a shipwreck; and the closing theme reappears at the climax of Rezia’s big second-act aria. —Paul J. Horsley The Overture to Oberon was composed from 1825 to 1826. Fritz Scheel conducted the first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Overture in February 1901. It was a favorite of Leopold Stokowski, and Eugene Ormandy frequently took the piece on tour. The most recent subscription performances were in March 2004, with Wolfgang Sawallisch on the podium.