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, February 26, 2015, at 8:00 Friday, February 27, 2015, at 1:30 Saturday, February 28, 2015, at 8:00 Tuesday, March 3, 2015, at 7:30

Riccardo Muti Conductor Scriabin Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 29 Andante Allegro Andante Tempestoso Maestoso

INTERMISSION

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique) Adagio—Allegro non troppo Allegro con grazia Allegro molto vivace Finale: Adagio lamentoso

This concert series is made possible by the Juli Grainger Endowment. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines.

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

Alexander Scriabin Born January 6, 1872 [December 25, 1871, old style], Moscow, Russia. Died April 27, 1915, Moscow, Russia. Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 29

From his youth, when he etudes, and even Polish mazurkas. To study the interpreted the signifi- first nineteen opus numbers in Scriabin’s catalog, cance of his birth on all pieces for piano solo, one would never pre- Christmas Day as a sign dict the important orchestral music that would that he should do great quickly follow. things, Scriabin believed he would play a decisive he move away from writing solo piano role in the history of music was a tough and decisive step for all music. But his early death the pianist-composers of the nineteenth at the age of forty-three century,T but Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and cut short his career just as he was venturing into Brahms were already mature artists with individual pioneer territory. Like many composers of a less and recognizable styles when they stopped com- revolutionary bent, Scriabin started his musical posing exclusively for the piano. But when Scriabin life as a pianist and his composing career writing wrote a piano in 1896—the first of his only piano pieces. In 1884, he began to study works to call for orchestra—he had not yet dis- piano with Nicolai Zverev, who had already covered the voice that would ultimately make his accepted Sergei Rachmaninov as a pupil. The two music unique. The Chopinesque concerto scarcely students became good friends—Scriabin was hints at the direction Scriabin’s career would take. older by just one year—though they were some- Then, three years later, he began his first symphony times later portrayed as rivals once their musical (performed by the CSO under Riccardo Muti last ambitions ventured in different directions. At the month), and a new world of complex sounds and time they met, both Scriabin and Rachmaninov philosophical ideas opened up before him. He were beginning to compose piano pieces for was now on the path to becoming, as the novelist themselves to play. In 1888, Scriabin entered the Boris Pasternak later said of him, “more than just Moscow Conservatory, where he excelled equally a composer.” Within a year after he completed as a pianist and composer. When he graduated in his first symphony, he eagerly began and quickly 1892, he was awarded the second gold medal in finished a second—the work that is performed this composition (Rachmaninov took first place, for week—as if he had found his true calling at last. his Aleko). But the traditional form of the symphony would After Scriabin left the conservatory, he began only briefly satisfy Scriabin’s musical ambitions. a career as a concert pianist. While his recital All three of the works he called symphony were programs often included music by Schumann and composed within a five-year period, and already Liszt, two composers who also started out as pia- with the third, Scriabin felt the need for a descrip- nists, Scriabin’s particular favorite was Chopin. tive subtitle, The Divine Poem, recognizing that That influence is reflected not only in his reper- his ideas were beginning to outgrow the sym- toire, but in the titles and nature of the music he phonic model. He did not even bother to label the wrote at the time—sets of preludes, impromptus, two grand orchestral pieces he wrote afterward, COMPOSED FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES four horns, three , three 1901 November 13, 14 & 15, 1969, Orchestra , , , Hall. Georg Semkow conducting percussion, strings FIRST PERFORMANCE January 12, 1902; Saint Petersburg, INSTRUMENTATION APPROXIMATE Russia three and piccolo, two , PERFORMANCE TIME three , two , 48 minutes 2 The Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus, as sympho- merely produced military parade music, despite nies. Both of those works are single-movement the grandeur of his ambitions, and considered tone poems, if any conventional title can do rewriting it, but by then he had given up on pure justice to their extraordinary form and substance. symphonic form altogether.)

ike his First Symphony, Scriabin’s Second he Second Symphony, like Scriabin’s is a score that shows the composer working First, fell flat at the premiere, given under comfortably within the symphonic tradi- Liadov’s baton in Saint Petersburg, in Ltion, and yet, at the same time, yearning to break January 1902.T There were boos and catcalls, and free of its conventions and limitations. “What a the work was hardly better received in Moscow symphony, but what kind?” the composer Anatoly a year later. Scriabin was devastated, but he had Liadov scribbled on the margin of the manuscript already moved on to a third symphony, which he of Symphony no. 2 when he studied it for the first would call The Divine Poem. Oddly, even after that time. Instead of the First Symphony’s unexpected work and The Poem of Ecstasy were programmed six movements, Scriabin now writes five—as close with some regularity—the CSO played The Divine as he would come to the standard four-movement Poem almost annually in the 1920s and ’30s—and layout. Scriabin’s opening movement is really Scriabin became a kind of cult favorite, his first a true introduction, for it introduces central two have remained largely over- thematic ideas that will govern the music that looked. When Riccardo Muti led Symphony no. 1 follows: a dynamic Allegro (in regulation here (and in Carnegie Hall) earlier this year, the form), an atmospheric and lyrical slow movement Chicago Symphony was playing the piece for the colored by the sounds of birdcalls, a tempestuous first time. The Orchestra has played Symphony and driven scherzo, and a grand triumphant finale. no. 2 just once before—nearly a half century ago. The Second Symphony is still grounded in the spirit of the nineteenth-century masters Scriabin n the few years he had left after composing revered—it reflects what Scriabin, a conservatory his Second Symphony, Scriabin ventured professor at the time, spoke of as the difficulty of farther into the great unknown, where music teaching other people’s music while writing his Iand color are closely linked, and where “art must own. But it also is the work of a composer with unite with philosophy and religion in an indivis- his own individual voice—to this day, no other ible whole to form a new gospel.” After his Fifth music sounds quite like Scriabin’s—and it marks Piano Sonata, composed in 1907, he broke with an advance over Scriabin’s own first symphony in tonality. A single dissonant chord, the so-called the sophistication of its thematic development, , provided the foundation for all of the brilliant yet subtle coloring of its orchestra- his final compositions. He had, in effect, created tion, and its success in unifying a large structure a new system of tonal organization to replace through the recurrence of the main musical ideas. traditional harmony. After his death, no one truly The heart of the score is its sumptuously followed his path (Prokofiev and Szymanowski colored central slow movement, which opens briefly came under his spell), and, in the end, and closes with the imitating the sounds despite the urgency and fierce passion of his ideas, of birds, so unexpected in a symphony written he did not—to use current parlance—make a in the opening years of the twentieth century— difference. Stravinsky, who disliked both Scriabin and some four decades ahead of the celebrated and his music, once commented, “Although his birdsong in the music by Olivier Messiaen. (The death was tragic and premature, I have sometimes Chicago Symphony plays Messiaen’s masterwork, wondered at the kind of music such a man would the Turangalîla-symphonie, under Esa-Pekka have written had he survived into the 1920s.” Salonen in May.) As in his first symphony, Scriabin’s original language was, in its own Scriabin wanted to write a finale with universal way, as revolutionary as that of Mahler, Strauss, appeal—something so simple and captivating Schoenberg, or Debussy, all of whom were that it would move all people. His solution here writing at the same time. It is difficult to know is a straightforward triumphant march in 4/4 where Scriabin was headed, and how he might time and in C major. (Scriabin later feared he had ultimately have changed the course of music.

3 Piotr Tchaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia. Died November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 (Pathétique)

Five days after he con- last days that still persists today. In 1979, the ducted the premiere of this Russian émigré musicologist Alexandra Orlova symphony, Tchaikovsky published a now-infamous article proposing drank a glass of unboiled that Tchaikovsky had in fact committed suicide water, a careless move that by poison, on the orders of his fellow alumni year in Saint Petersburg, of the School of Jurisprudence, to cover up where countless cases of his alleged affair with the nephew of Duke cholera had recently been Stenbock-Thurmor. For a time in the 1980s, reported. He died four suicide and homosexuality replaced the quaint days later. When the old tale of cholera and drinking water, and, symphony was performed for a second time the as Tchaikovsky’s obituary was rewritten, the following week, the hall was draped in black and a Pathétique Symphony became the chief musical bust modeled after the composer’s death mask was victim in this tabloid tale. Even Tchaikovsky’s prominently displayed. An eleven-year-old boy, biographer David Brown, writing in the sac- who would soon become Russia’s most celebrated rosanct Grove, accepted Orlova’s theory. But composer, attended that concert with his father, in recent years, scholars have wisely backed the great Fyodor Stravinsky. Little Igor, off—evidence is almost totally undocumented— whose own music would eventually refute much of and a number of musicologists, including the what Tchaikovsky’s glorified, understood, even at biographer Alexander Poznansky, have refuted the time, the magnitude of this loss—not just to Orlova convincingly. his family (his father was famous for his interpre- tations of several Tchaikovsky roles) but to the he circumstances surrounding the larger music world as well. composition of the Pathétique Symphony At the time he died, Tchaikovsky was one of are dramatic and mysterious, if less the great figures in music: he was at the peak luridT than pulp fiction. In December 1892, of his creative powers, and he was both famous Tchaikovsky abruptly decided to abandon work and beloved far beyond his native Russia. His on a programmatic symphony in E-flat major death came as a shock (he was only fifty-three) on which he had been struggling for some and the suspicious circumstances surrounding time—“an irreversible decision,” he wrote, “and his fatal illness, coupled with the tragic tone of it is wonderful that I made it.” (He eventually his last symphony—curiously titled Pathétique— turned portions of the abandoned symphony produced a mystique about the composer’s into his third piano concerto, which the Chicago

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE February–August 1893 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME July 31, 2011, Ravinia Festival. James 48 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Conlon conducting October 28, 1893. The com- CSO RECORDINGS May 1, 2 & 3, 2014, Orchestra Hall. poser conducting 1952. Rafael Kubelík conducting. Christoph von Dohnányi conducting Mercury FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES INSTRUMENTATION 1957. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA April 27 & 28, 1894, Auditorium three flutes and piccolo, two oboes, 1976. Sir Georg Solti conducting. Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting two clarinets and , two London July 29, 1937, Ravinia Festival. Vladimir bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, 1984. James Levine conducting. RCA Golschmann conducting three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass 1986. Claudio Abbado conducting. CBS drum, cymbals, tam-tam, strings 1998. Daniel Barenboim conducting. Teldec 4 Symphony played for the first time this past brother’s presence wrote on the first page the title December.) But the failure of the new symphony that “remained forever,” as Modest later recalled, left Tchaikovsky despondent and directionless, although the composer himself soon had second and he began to fear that he was “played out, thoughts. (Tchaikovsky’s publisher, who knew dried up,” as he put it. (“I think and I think, the marketing value of a good title, ignored and I know not what to do,” he wrote to his the composer’s urgent request that it simply be nephew Bob Davydov, whose friendship and printed as Symphony no. 6.) encouragement would help see him through Like the abandoned E-flat major symphony, this crisis.) Although he felt that he should give the new B minor score was programmatic, but, as up writing “pure music, that he wrote to Bob, “with such is, symphonic or chamber a program that will remain music,” within two months a mystery to everyone—let he had begun the symphony them guess.” Bob was only that would prove to be his the first to ponder, in vain, greatest—and his last. the meaning of this deeply Renewed—and relieved— personal work. (And even he, by the old, familiar joy of to whom Tchaikovsky would composing, Tchaikovsky ultimately dedicate the score, wrote frantically. Within couldn’t draw a satisfactory four days, the first part of the answer from the composer symphony was complete and except that it was “imbued the remainder precisely out- with subjectivity.”) lined in his head. “You cannot Tchaikovsky carried his imagine what bliss I feel,” he program with him to the wrote to Bob on February 11, grave. Cryptic notes scribbled 1893, “assured that my time among his sketches at the has not yet passed and that I time refer to a symphony can still work.” The rest went Tchaikovsky with his nephew, about life’s aspirations and smoothly and the symphony Bob Davydov, in 1892 disappointments—yet another was completed, without set- manifestation of the central backs, by the end of August. theme of both Swan Lake Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere and Eugene Onegin, and, in fact, the great theme of his new symphony on October 28 in of the composer’s life: the painful search for an Saint Petersburg. The audience—“all Saint ideal that is never satisfied. Petersburg”—rose and cheered when the com- As scholars have learned more about poser appeared on stage. But after the symphony, Tchaikovsky’s unfulfilled homoerotic passion the applause was half-hearted; the crowd didn’t for his nephew Bob—a mismatch of youth and know what to make of this sober, gloomy middle age, and a tangle of sexual persuasions in music. Leaving the concert hall, Tchaikovsky a society fiercely intolerant of homosexuality— complained that neither the audience nor the the temptation to read this symphony as the orchestra seemed to like the piece, although two composer’s heartbreaking confession of a painful, days later he decided that “it is not that it wasn’t repressed life has inevitably proved irresistible. liked, but it has caused some bewilderment.” In the inexhaustibly expressive, but sufficiently The morning after the premiere, the composer ambiguous language of music, Tchaikovsky told his brother Modest that the symphony could tell the story of his life—honestly and needed a title. (Tchaikovsky had originally unsparingly—without ever giving up its secrets. thought of calling it the Program Symphony.) The abstract nature of music has, arguably, never Modest first suggested Tragic and then been so fearlessly tested. Pathétique, which in Russian carries a meaning The temptation to read something tragic into closer to passionate, full of emotion and suf- this score is as old as the music itself. Even fering. Tchaikovsky agreed at once, and in his the composer, who didn’t want to divulge his

5 meaning, admitted before the premiere that it “tenderly, very songfully, and elastically,” is one had something of the character of a requiem. of Tchaikovsky’s greatest melodies. (Tchaikovsky (The incantations in the first move- carefully directs the emotional development of ment actually quote a Russian Orthodox chant this rich and expansive tune all the way down for the dead.) And surely the first audience was to a virtually unprecedented thread of sound, stunned—or bewildered, as Tchaikovsky noted— marked pppppp.) The recapitulation reorders by the unconventionally slow and mournful and telescopes events so that the grand and finale, trailing off into silence at the end, with expressive melody, now magically rescored, steals just cellos and basses playing pppp. When in suddenly and unexpectedly, to great effect. Tchaikovsky died so suddenly and violently on The central movements are, by necessity, the heels of the premiere, the symphony became more relaxed. The first is a wonderful, singing, identified at once, perhaps inextricably, with its undanceable waltz, famously set in 5/4 time. composer’s death. By the memorial performance (There’s a real waltz, in 3/4, in Tchaikovsky’s on November 6, the Russian Musical Gazette Fifth Symphony.) The second is a brilliant, had already determined that the symphony was dazzlingly scored march, undercut throughout by “indeed a sort of swan song, a presentiment a streak of melancholy. of imminent death.” (More than a century The finale begins with a cry of despair, and later, Orlova’s devotees were to make much although it eventually unveils a warm and of the slowly fading final pages as a depiction consoling theme begun by the violins against of suicide.) the heartbeat of a horn ostinato, the mood only continues to darken, ultimately becoming threat- he score itself, though perhaps dulled ening in its intensity. In a symphony marked by by familiarity, is one of Tchaikovsky’s telling, uncommonly quiet gestures—and this most inspired creations. All of its true from a composer famous for bombast—a single masterstrokesT are purely musical, not program- soft stroke of the tam-tam marks the point of no matic. It begins uniquely, with the sound of return. From there it is all defeat and disintegra- a very low solo over murky strings. tion, over a fading, ultimately faltering pulse. (This slow introduction is in the “wrong” key, but eventually works its way into B minor.) The entire first movement sustains the tone, although not the tempo, of the somber open- Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago ing. The soaring principal theme, to be played Symphony Orchestra.

© 2015 Chicago Symphony Orchestra

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