Bahl Conducts Mendelssohn & Sibelius

program notes

2020 - 2021 SEASON Celebrating 100 Years

Bahl Conducts Mendelssohn & Sibelius February 13 at 7:30 p.m. | February 14 at 2 p.m. Holland Performing Arts Center Ankush Kumar Bahl, conductor (biography on pg. 3)

FELIX MENDELSSOHN The Hebrides, Op. 26 (“Fingal’s Cave”) (1809-1847)

JEAN SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 (1865-1957) I. Allegretto II. Andante; ma rubato III. Vivacissimo IV. Finale: Allegro moderato program notes Program Notes by Steven Lowe

The Hebrides, Op. 26 (“Fingal’s Cave”) Felix Mendelssohn Born: Hamburg, February 3, 1809 Died: Leipzig, November 4, 1847

At age 20 Mendelssohn made the first of nine visits to England, the country that shared Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s delight in his music, and, like the royal family, adopted him as their favorite composer. On August 7, 1829, the young but seasoned traveler explored the famous Fingal’s Cave in the wild Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland. Poet Carl Klingermann, Mendelssohn’s fellow explorer that day, limned of this natural wonder, “A greener roar of waters surely never rushed into a stranger cavern—comparable, on account of the many pillars, to the inside of an immense organ, black and resounding, lying there absolutely purposeless in the utter loneliness, the wide gray sea within and without.” The power, otherworldliness, and romance of the place had a similar effect on Mendelssohn, who conveyed the many moods of the sea-lashed cavern in the language he knew best: music. The very day of the visit the composer dashed off a letter to his sister Fanny, jotting down the eventual opening theme that had come to him in direct response to the atmosphere of the cave. The Hebrides represented a new kind of work, the “concert overture,” as opposed to the traditional opera or other stage-related prelude. A mood of excitement and unpredictability is established immediately by the presentation of the theme alluded to above, essentially a melodic kernel with strong rhythmic and harmonic implications suggestive of restlessness and constant change. The second theme, richly lyrical and lengthy in its unfolding, was described by the famous musical commentator Sir Donald Tovey (1875-1940) as “the greatest melody Mendelssohn ever wrote.” A third theme, as pounding as the relentless surf, adds yet more emotional and pictorial contrast to this superb miniature tone poem. The development section revels in unbridled storminess. The overture ends with a return to the mystery and uneasy calm of the opening bars.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43 Jean Sibelius Born: Hämeenlinna, Finland, December 8, 1865 Died: Järvenpää, Finland, September 20, 1957

Jean Sibelius’ standing in the pantheon of composers seems assured but it was not always thus. Born in 1865, the Finnish composer was branded as a progressive in his youth, found his music accepted with great passion through World War I, saw it eclipsed by the new revolutionaries in the 1920s (mainly Schoenberg and Stravinsky and their conductorial advocates), experienced a resurgence of popularity during the ‘30s due to championship by Sir Thomas Beecham and other Brits, then fell into a long decline beginning in the ‘40s. It was not until the pendulum swung away from atonalism in the 1970s that younger composers and new audiences caught up with Finland’s most beloved composer.

Early in his career, Sibelius became a friend of Mahler, who treated his junior (by five years) as a peer among composers. Their famous dialogue in 1907 is worth repeating. Strenuously debating the nature of the symphony, Mahler issued his oft-quoted dictum that “a symphony must be like the world—it must be all- embracing.” Sibelius would have none of that, and countered that “a symphony must be distinguished, rather, by its style and severity of form and by the profound logic that creates an inner connection between its various motifs.”

Coursing through much of Sibelius’ music is a melancholic strain filled with a beauty of the yearning type. It seems to vivify the character of the Scandinavian mindset—“the idea of North” as Glenn Gould termed it in an intriguing television program he produced for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation some 50 years ago. Like a beautiful landscape viewed with the sun hovering over the distant Southern horizon, Sibelius’ best works capture a haunting beauty that evokes the essence of Northern European culture, yet transcends geographical particularity by reaching into the collective heart of listeners around the world.

Sibelius composed the Symphony No. 2 in 1902 on the heels of his immensely popular Finlandia, stating that the new symphony was “a confession of the soul.” Later he wrote, “It is as if the Almighty had thrown down the pieces of a mosaic for heaven’s floor and asked me to put them together.” The individual movements are highly sectionalized, reflected in changes in mood and tempo.

The work is cast in four movements. The abbreviated tempo indication, Allegretto, introduces a three-note rising figure in the strings. This germ of a theme spawns several themes throughout the symphony, not just in the first movement. The ensuing Tempo, Andante, ma rubato opens with a drum roll and anxious pizzicato strings. A restless journey characterizes the movement, underpinned with dark, solemn sonorities and (per the composer’s words) tinged with premonitions of Death.

A deft scherzo marked Vivacissimo envelops a lovely pastoral Trio section. The Finale: Allegro moderato, brings the work to a triumphant and resounding conclusion in this the composer’s longest symphony. The opening movement’s three-note motif brings together the disparate elements of the entire enterprise.

Ankush Kumar Bahl, Omaha Symphony’s next Music Director, is recognized today by orchestras and audiences alike for his impressive conducting technique, thoughtful interpretations, and engaging podium presence.

Currently Music Director Designate of the Omaha Symphony, his tenure in Omaha begins in the summer of 2021. In concert, he has left The Washington Post “wanting to hear more” and has been praised by The New York Times for his “clear authority and enthusiasm” and ability to “inspire.” His recent and future guest conducting highlights include core classical repertoire performances with the New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, as well as return engagements with the Omaha Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. (among others). Bahl also has enjoyed prestigious summer festival engagements with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, the Chautauqua Institute, and at Wolf Trap with the NSO.

Bahl is a proud recipient of four separate Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards between 2011 to 2016 and of the 2009 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship (Leipzig). A protégé of former New York Philharmonic Music Director Kurt Masur, Bahl served as his assistant conductor at the Orchestre National de France, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In addition, Bahl has been fortunate to count Maestros Jaap van Zweden, Zdenek Macal, Christoph Eschenbach, David Zinman, and Gianandrea Noseda among his mentors.

From 2011-15, Bahl was the Assistant Conductor at the National Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach. During his four year tenure, Bahl conducted over 100 performances, including his subscription debut in 2012, his Wolf Trap debut in 2013, the inaugural concert of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall’s Rubenstein Family Organ, numerous run out concerts for the NSO’s In Your Neighborhood program, and his annual Young People’s Concerts which educated over 24,000 students each year. In addition, Bahl was the primary conductor for their Beyond the Score series. In February 2013, Bahl’s ability to step in on short notice was once again called upon when he successfully replaced Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos at a few hours’ notice in a concert with the NSO that featured soloists Kelley O’Conner and Daniil Trifonov. Other soloists Bahl has collaborated with include Lang Lang, Sara Chang, Lara St. John, Karen Gomyo, Nicholas Drauticourt, Bhezod Aburiamov, Benjamin Grosnver, Orion Weiss, Conrad Tao, Charlie Albright, Philadelphia Orchestra Concertmaster David Kim, and Concertgebouw Concertmaster Vesko Eschkenazy.

American born and of Indian descent, Ankush Kumar Bahl is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and received a double degree in music and rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival with David Zinman and completed his master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting at the Manhattan School of Music with Zdenek Macal and George Manahan. In recent years Bahl has been a frequent collaborator with jazz legend Wayne Shorter, leading his quartet in concerts of his orchestral music at both the Kennedy Center and the Detroit Free Jazz Festival.