CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE ONSTAGE © Elena Martunyuk Today’s performance is sponsored by Dotty and Paul Rigby Bob and Ruth Murray COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL The Community Advisory Council is dedicated to strengthening the relationship between the Center for the Performing Arts and the community. Council members participate in a range of activities in support of this objective. Nancy VanLandingham, chair Mary Ellen Litzinger Lam Hood, vice chair Bonnie Marshall Pieter Ouwehand William Asbury Melinda Stearns Patricia Best Susan Steinberg Lynn Sidehamer Brown Lillian Upcraft Philip Burlingame Pat Williams Alfred Jones Jr. Nina Woskob Deb Latta Eileen Leibowitz student representative Ellie Lewis Jesse Scott Christine Lichtig CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT PENN STATE Opus 3 Artists present Moscow State Symphony Orchestra Pavel Kogan, conductor Joshua Roman, cellist 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 11, 2014 Eisenhower Auditorium The performance includes one intermission. This presentation is a component of the Center for the Performing Arts Classical Music Project. With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project provides opportunities to engage students, faculty, and the community with classical music artists and programs. Marica Tacconi, Penn State professor of musicology, and Carrie Jackson, Penn State associate professor of German and linguistics, provide faculty leadership for the curriculum and academic components of the grant project. sponsors Dotty and Paul Rigby Bob and Ruth Murray media sponsor WPSU The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. PROGRAM Faust: Ballet Music Charles Gounod (1818–1893) I. Dance of the Nubian Slaves II. Cleopatra and the Golden Cup III. Antique Dance IV. Dance of Cleopatra and Her Slaves V. Dance of the Trojan Maidens VI. Mirror Dance VII. Dance of the Phryné Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) Joshua Roman, cellist I. Allegro non troppo II. Allegretto con moto III. Allegro non troppo INTERMISSION Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra tour is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Russian Federation. Exclusive Tour Management and Representation: Opus 3 Artists 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016 www.opus3artists.com followed by Cleopatra and the Golden PROGRAM NOTES Cup, a slower dance, Adagio, which in BY SUSAN HALPERN its second part becomes more spirited, Animato. Then comes the wonderfully Ballet Music from the Opera melodic Antique Dance, Allegretto, Faust and Dance of Cleopatra and Her Slaves, Moderato maestoso. Next is Dance of Charles Gounod’s Faust is the most the Trojan Maidens, Moderato con moto, popular of the many musical works and Mirror Dance, Allegretto. The finale, based on the old tale of the man who Dance of the Phryné, is Allegro vivo. sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for youth and love. In its original form, Camille Saint-Saëns called this ballet it had one brief dance episode—a car- suite “a masterpiece of its kind,” but nival scene—but for a new production Gounod had been reluctant to take it at the Paris Opéra in 1869, Gounod on and considered letting Saint-Saëns composed a complete ballet to be compose it for him; Saint-Saëns had placed near the beginning of Act Five. tentatively agreed with the under- This production, the work’s most lavish standing that Gounod could replace up until that time, helped Faust achieve it with his own music whenever he remarkable popularity in France. It was wanted to do so. According to Saint- almost a requirement of French operas Saëns, after that interchange with to include ballet because the wealthy Gounod, “I never wrote a note, and and aristocratic patrons expected it. never heard any more about it.” Because the Parisians’ expectations were so strong, Giuseppe Verdi com- Now, almost all performances of the posed ballet music for the Paris perfor- opera omit the substantial ballet, leav- mances of his operas. ing the ballet music to be heard only rarely in concert. The new scene Gounod composed took Faust to the highest point in the Hartz The orchestra includes two flutes (one Mountains to witness Walpurgis Night, doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clari- or “Witch’s Night,” on the eve of May 1. nets (one doubling bass clarinet), two In an attempt to distract Faust from bassoons, four horns, four trumpets, his grief at the absence of his beloved three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass Marguerite, the devilish Mephistopheles drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, transports Faust to a cave and conjures harp, and strings. up for him the sight of the most beauti- ful queens and courtesans of antiquity: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Thais, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Astarte, No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 and Phryné. The ballet music keeps with the presence of the Devil, who Camille Saint-Saëns, an extensive continues to encourage Faust in his traveler, took many concert tours and worldly pursuits. An orgiastic ballet full pleasure trips—visiting more diverse of revelry takes place, continuing until places than most well-traveled tourists dawn. today. He traveled to the United States twice and made his South American The first of the dances is Dance of the debut at the formidable age of 81. Nubian Slaves, a waltz, Allegretto. It is When not traveling, he was a com- poser, a conductor, and a pianist. He tial theme reappears, and the tempo contributed to France’s musical life by quickens as the recapitulation brings establishing the importance of instru- the concerto to a dazzling climax. mental composition, when opera had long been the dominant form. The work is scored for an accompany- ing orchestra of two flutes, two oboes, This concerto, one of the most popu- two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, lar in the cello’s relatively small solo two trumpets, timpani, and strings. repertoire, was composed in 1872. It debuted on January 19, 1873, at a Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 concert of the Paris Conservatory Orchestra, with soloist and dedicatee Johannes Brahms spent a large part August Tolbecque. A compact work in of his early years wandering from one a single continuous movement, its new city to the next, meeting important ideas about concerto form give the participants in Germany’s decentralized soloist—not the orchestra—the initial musical life and broadening his artis- statement of major themes. The music tic horizons. When he was in his 20s, has great melodic vitality and much he held a post at the court of a minor charm. Like many other composers of principality. He settled in Vienna when the nineteenth-century concerto, Saint- he was in his 30s—and like Beethoven Saëns combines elements of three sep- before him and Mahler after—he soon arate movements into one three-part began to spend his summers in the structure with the last part functioning country. In winter, Brahms polished his both as finale and as recapitulation of recent compositions and planned his the first part. next ones, but the serious business of invention and creation were summer The concerto begins, Allegro non activities or him. troppo, energetically with the cello set against the violins and violas as Brahms wrote his Symphony No. 4, two it announces the main theme. After movements each summer, during 1884 the cello develops the first theme, the and 1885 in the Styrian Alps of Austria. orchestra takes it over; then the cello He returned home one day from a introduces the second theme, which mountain walk to find his home on fire. has a brief development before the Fortunately, his friends had saved most initial theme returns for both orchestra of his books and music. Fortuitously, and soloist to develop at length. Then, the manuscript of this symphony was a new theme is articulated, Allegro among the papers saved. molto, and the music quickly transi- tions into the central section, Allegretto Hans von Bülow prepared the orchestra con moto, a light, graceful minuet. At for its first performance of Brahms’s this point, the muted strings sing the Symphony No. 4 at the court of the theme, and the cello answers with Duke of Meiningen. Brahms conducted another dance-like theme. Both are the premiere on October 25, 1885. developed: the minuet by the orches- A week later, Bülow had his chance tra and the waltz by the soloist. In the to conduct the new work, and in third and last section, the cello displays November, Brahms and Bülow set off showy runs and passagework, the ini- on a concert tour of Germany and the Netherlands with the new symphony in their repertoire. The work was slow to stones of the symphonic repertoire. win public favor. Even in Brahms’s own This grave symphony, which has been Vienna, the symphony disappointed called an “elegiac” and a “character” his friends and delighted his enemies. symphony, reflects the earnestness Twelve years later there was an and introspection of Brahms’s late extraordinary performance of the sym- years. The first movement,Allegro non phony again in Vienna. Fatally ill with troppo, which begins lyrically, becomes a disease of the liver, Brahms made alternately contemplative and dra- his last public appearance at a concert matic, and it builds to a very dramatic of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and tension-filled climax. The second, on March 7, 1897.