2019 MARCH 40TH SEASON NOWRUZ: PERSIAN NEW YEAR SPECIAL CONCERT Carl St.Clair, conductor Dvořák CARNIVAL OVERTURE Shahrdad Rouhani, conductor and piano Homayoun Shajarian, vocalist Khachaturian “SABRE DANCE” FROM GAYANE Tahmoures Pournazeri, tanbour Rohani DANCE OF SPRING Sohrab Pournazeri, kamancheh and tanbour Shahrdad Rouhani Navid Kandelousi, violin Rohani FREEDOM Shahrdad Rouhani Rohani PERSIAN GARDEN FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA Navid Kandelousi Rohani BEAUTY OF LOVE Shahrdad Rouhani Rohani MEDLEY IN ISFAHAN SCALE Shahrdad Rouhani Intermission THE MUSIC OF HOMAYOUN SHAJARIAN, TAHMOURES POURNAZERI, AND SOHRAB POURNAZERI This concert is genorously sponsored by Anoosheh and Alan Oskouian, with generous additional support from members of Pacific Symphony’s Cyrus Society. Sunday, March 24, 2019 @ 7 p.m. This concert’s special cultural sponsor is the Segerstrom Center for the Arts Farhang Foundation. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall OFFICIAL HOTEL OFFICIAL TV STATION OFFICIAL MUSIC STATION CULTURAL SPONSOR PacificSymphony.org 40TH SEASON | MARCH 2019 25 PROGRAM NOTES should have been far more influential in they are often viewed as two pawns the development of American classical stranded on the Kremlin’s deadly cultural Antonin Dvořák: music than it turned out to be. chessboard. But there was a third pawn For the Prague premiere of the in the game: Aram Khachaturian, whose Carnival Overture overture—a concert that turned out to popular and exuberant “Sabre Dance” is his be a kind of farewell performance for most often-heard composition. Observed at the the departing Dvořák—he wrote his own Composed as part of a serious four- astronomical moment program notes. Regarding the “Carnival act ballet, the gleeful “Sabre Dance” marking the onset of Overture,” he commented that it was became one of those excerpts that springtime, Nowruz intended to evoke “a lonely, contemplative popped up seemingly everywhere. In is a good time for wanderer reaching at twilight a city where movies, television shows and cartoons, it music with energy, a festival is in full swing. On every side is became the go-to background track for optimism and growth. heard the clangor of instruments, mingled hilarious chaos and frenzied scrambling. That’s what we hear with shouts of joy and the unrestrained And why not? It’s irresistibly catchy, as in Antonin Dvořák’s hilarity of the people giving vent to their numerous cover artists have discovered. “Carnival Overture,” feelings in songs and dances.” But it was also part of a serious oeuvre as well as a melancholy glance back at Through much of the overture, but that included symphonies and concertos winter’s cold. But in addition to spring, we especially in its brilliant opening, its as well as full-length ballet scores. Six hear swing—the rhythmic impulse that vibrancy and color outweigh the “lonely, years after composing it, Khachaturian— makes this composer’s music seem to contemplative” side of the wanderer’s like Shostakovich and Prokofiev— dance. Dvořák believed passionately in feelings. The rapid tempos deploy all the was denounced by Stalin’s cultural composers’ use of indigenous sources sections of the orchestra in whirling, colorful bureaucracy. for their compositions, and in his own array. Ringing percussive accents convey So who was the real Aram music, native Czech sources account for the impression of celebratory dance. The Khachaturian? He was born in 1903 in the distinctively swaying melodies and overture is structured in basic sonata plan. the Armenian town of Tiflis, a suburb of ever-present danceability. By 1891, when But at the beginning of its development, Kodzhori (now Tbilisi). His family was in Dvořák began composing the “Carnival Dvořák embedded a melancholy passage the bookbinding trade, but even in early Overture,” his advocacy of this Czech- voiced by the English horn—a melody that childhood, Khachaturian was passionate centric approach was well established; represents, in the composer’s words, “a pair about the sounds and music around he stipulated that his German music of straying lovers.” This romantic interlude him. He later wrote, “Old Tiflis is a city of publisher include Czech titles for his gives the overture a sense of narrative sounds, a city of music. It took [only] a compositions, and as an esteemed faculty completion when the overture’s carnival stroll along the streets and lanes away member of the Prague Conservatory of atmosphere resumes. An energetic coda from the center, to plunge into the musical Music, he taught students how to integrate concludes the overture. atmosphere which was created by all the folk themes into classical forms. various sources …” The overture took shape over the Aram Khachaturian: Khachaturian’s musical interests took summer of 1891; it is saturated with the on a new seriousness when he arrived in warmth and energy of long summer days. “Sabre Dance” Moscow at the age of 19 and enrolled in It was during this period of composition a cello class at the Gnesin Music School. that Dvořák accepted Jeanette Thurber’s When we think of the His achievements bespeak his youthful invitation to become the director of the major 20th-century ambitions: while earning his degree in National Conservatory of Music in New composers who lived Moscow State University’s rigorous biology York City; he conducted the overture’s and worked under curriculum, he became a student leader premiere performance in Prague in April Soviet domination, at Gnesin, earning the right to perform in 1892, and the second performance at Prokofiev and the competitive student concerts at the Carnegie Hall the following October during Shostakovich come Moscow Conservatory. his residency in the U.S.—a period that to mind first; in fact, Khachaturian was one of the first Antonín Dvořák Aram Khachaturian Born: 1841. Nelahozeves, Bohemia Born: 1903. Tbilisi, Georgia Died: 1904. Prague, Czechia Died: 1978. Moscow, Russia “Carnival Overture” “Sabre Dance” Composed: 1891 Composed: 1939 World premiere: April 28, 1892, with Dvořák conducting World premiere: Dec. 9, 1942, staged by the Kirov Ballet Most recent Pacific Symphony performance: Sept. 24, 2016, with Most recent Pacific Symphony performance: May 12, 2012, with Carl St.Clair conducting Maxim Eshkenazy conducting Instrumentation: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English Instrumentation: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; horn), 3 clarinets (1 doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons; alto sax; 4 horns, timpani, percussion; harp; strings 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; timpani, percussion; harp; celesta; strings Estimated duration: 10 minutes Estimated duration: 2 minutes 26 MARCH 2019 | 40TH SEasON PacificSymphony.org students in Gnesin’s new composition which the “Sabre Dance” is excerpted—is take a talent like that of the Bach family, class, where a visit by the already- the standout, along with his landmark since J.S. Bach brought authoritative famous Sergei Prokofiev proved fateful Spartacus (1954). clarity to the Baroque era, while his sons for him: not only was he deeply inspired Gayane was first produced in 1939, helped define the next musical styles to by Prokofiev, but Prokofiev in turn when it was called Happiness. It was emerge in Europe. was so impressed with Khachaturian’s revised in 1941-42 and revived with its Bach? Did somebody mention Bach? potential that he brought some of current name, but revised again in 1952 In researching Shahrdad Rohani, your Khachaturian’scompositions to Paris and 1957, by which time the libretto had intrepid annotator found a resemblance for performance there. Prokofiev, changed substantially. The story is of between this Iranian-born composer’s and by extension Khachaturian, were peasant love and inter-ethnic conflict family and the Bach family. Rohani’s walking a political tightrope: Prokofiev’s that begins with the unhappy marriage brothers, like Rohani, are eminent international travels reflected a of the Armenian cotton farmer Gayane composers and instrumentalists in their “cosmopolitanism” that was suspect to and her drunken, abusive husband, Giko, own right. Their father, Reza Rohani, was Soviet cultural bureaucrats, but they also who falls in with smugglers despite a revered musician in Iran, and his children recognized that global recognition of Gayane’s opposition. The tensions and followed suit. All told, the members of the Soviet cultural achievement was beneficial complications mount until, in Act III, Giko Rohani family are regarded as “National to the regime. stabs Gayane and is arrested by Kazakov, Musical Treasures” in Iran. Nonetheless, in 1948, Khachaturian commander of the Soviet frontier guard. Born in 1954, Rohani began violin was officially denounced by the Soviet As Gayane regains her health, she and studies at age 5 with his father. He then ministry of culture. At age 45 he was at Kazakov fall in love. Finally, in Act IV, entered the conservatory in Tehran, and the height of a major career, presumably Gayane and Kazakov are united as part of continued his studies at the Vienna with decades more work ahead of him. a triple wedding that turns into a joyous Conservatory. In the 1980s he accepted a He apologized and returned to Armenia celebration of inter-ethnic harmony. The scholarship for music study at UCLA. for “re-education.” But in 1957, when colorful folk dances of many peoples Stylistically, Rohani’s amalgam of he was re-appointed to the Soviet include the