Riccardo Muti Conductor Dvo Rák Symphony No. 5 in F Major, Op. 76
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Program ONe HuNdred TWeNTy-SeCONd SeASON Chicago symphony orchestra riccardo muti Music director Pierre Boulez Helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, September 20, 2012, at 8:00 Saturday, September 22, 2012, at 8:00 Wednesday, September 26, 2012, at 8:00 Friday, September 28, 2012, at 8:00 riccardo muti Conductor Dvo ˇrák Symphony No. 5 in F Major, Op. 76 Allegro ma non troppo Andante con moto— Scherzo: Allegro scherzando Finale: Allegro molto IntermIssIon martucci Notturno, Op. 70, No. 1 respighi Feste romane Circenses Il Giubileo L’Ottobrata La Befana The concerts on September 22, 26 & 28 are generously sponsored by Cindy Sargent. The concert on September 26 is generously supported by the Julius N. Frankel Foundation. Comments By PHILLIP HuSCHer antonín Dvo ˇrák Born September 8, 1841, Mühlhausen, Bohemia (now Nelahozeves, Czech Republic). Died May 1, 1904, Prague, Czechoslovakia. symphony no. 5 in F major, op. 76 o the late nineteenth century, 1936) did we begin to use the cur- TDvořák was the composer of rent numbering. five—not nine—symphonies. His This F major symphony is first four, never published during Dvořák’s most significant product his lifetime, were unknown, and of 1875, a result of the encourage- so his last, From the New World, ment he felt after winning the spent its first half century as no. 5. Austrian competition—along The F major symphony performed with powerful endorsements and at these concerts is really Dvořák’s four hundred gulden—for the fifth, although it took some time first time, and the most promising to get this all straightened out. sign that the judges had picked Like his nineteenth-century col- extremely well. The prize launched leagues Schubert and Bruckner, one of the most prolific years of Dvořák has been good to musi- Dvořák’s career, and in addition to cologists, who sometimes make this symphony, composed in just a living cleaning up after the six weeks during the summer, he fact. Only with the publication also wrote his five-act grand opera of Dvořák’s first four symphonies Vanda in three months and turned in the 1950s (the long-lost First out several substantial chamber Symphony was rediscovered pieces as well. But the symphony after the composer’s death and is the giant leap—a great advance performed for the first time in over anything he had written ComPoseD most reCent aPProxImate 1875 Cso PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme March 29, 2003, 39 minutes FIrst PerFormanCe Orchestra Hall. Pinchas March 25, 1879, Prague Zukerman conducting FIrst Cso InstrumentatIon PerFormanCe two flutes, two oboes, January 24, 1919, Orchestra two clarinets and bass Hall. Adolf Weidig conducting clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, triangle, strings 2 before. It’s easy now to see it as a heavy Wagnerian fog that clouds score of extraordinary promise, some of his early works and has a because we know the brilliant natural warmth and simplicity that Seventh Symphony, for example, often eluded Brahms. Still, Dvořák or the timeless From the New couldn’t escape the inevitable World that followed, but the Fifth comparison to Brahms: when he Symphony is itself a very impres- dedicated this symphony to Hans sive accomplishment. von Bülow, the great conductor said We tend to think of Brahms he was thrilled to accept this honor and Dvořák as contemporary from Dvořák, “next to Brahms, the symphonists—their most famous most gifted composer of today.” symphonies were all premiered within the span of some fifteen his symphony is the first years—who influenced each other Timportant work of Dvořák’s in various ways. (When Dvořák maturity, and Simrock insisted began his Seventh, for example, (against Dvořák’s wishes) on pub- he was still under the spell of lishing it with a phony, high opus Brahms’s new Third, which he had number to give it the stature of an just heard.) But Dvořák composed even later composition. (Simrock this F major symphony a year picked op. 76, which puts it in the before Brahms finished his first, company of pieces composed a full and so this is his answer to the decade later, even though Dvořák classics by Beethoven, Schubert, had appropriately written op. 24 and Schumann that he knew, not at the top of his manuscript.) For a reaction to a work saddled with such a convo- Brahms. (In luted numbering history, the music fact, if either itself is a marvel of natural, unfussy composer had expression and clarity of form. The an influence entire symphony reveals remarkable on the other assurance and control, suggesting at this point, that the speed of its composi- it’s the other tion was the result of certainty, way around: not haste. Brahms got The opening Allegro ma non to know at troppo is filled with genial, out- least three doorsy music—clarinet bird calls of Dvořák’s and hunting horns paint an inviting symphonies pastoral scene in high summer. The while he was movement is vigorous and muscular Conductor Hans von Bülow, still writing until the very end, when Dvořák the dedicatee of Dvo ˇrák’s Fifth Symphony his first one.) opts for quiet contentment over Dvořák’s visceral excitement. F major The melancholy Andante—an symphony sings with his own intermezzo in a moderate tempo unmistakable voice; it’s free of the rather than a self-important slow 3 movement—suggests the dumka, F major work. Dvořák shrewdly the mournful peasant dance that withholds F major for a very long Dvořák loved. The scherzo, which time, which only adds to the sus- follows immediately after only a pense and drama. This entire move- moment’s hesitation, takes its time ment, with its driving rhythms, big shaking the spell of the Andante themes, and heated development, before it breaks into a jovial, rustic confirms Dvořák’s stature as a dance. (The way Dvořák blurs natural symphony composer. Both the distinction between the two the brief, unannounced return of inner movements is novel and the opening material of the first highly effective.) movement, pianissimo, and the The finale shatters the sym- triumphant recovery of F major, phony’s pastoral mood with its celebrated with pealing trumpets, powerful opening in A minor—an only add to its continuous sense of unexpectedly foreign key in an excitement and discovery. 4 giuseppe martucci Born January 6, 1856, Capua, Italy. Died June 1, 1909, Naples, Italy. notturno, op. 70, no. 1 lthough he grew up during the not abandon his career as a piano Agreat age of Verdi—he was virtuoso, and in 1874, he gave a born two years after the premiere concert in Rome that was highly of La traviata—and died when praised by Liszt. Once he settled Giacomo Puccini was at the peak in Naples in 1881, where he was of his success, Giuseppe Martucci named conductor of the Orchestra is the rare Italian composer of his Napoletana, Martucci established generation who never wrote an himself in that most elite circle opera. After studying piano with of musicians—the triple threat of his father, a trumpet player and being an accomplished pianist, bandmaster in the Neapolitan army, conductor, and composer. in 1867, Martucci publicly played Martucci wrote music for piano a piece that he had composed for throughout his career. His earli- the first time. Soon afterwards, est works are mainly short piano he began to work in Naples with pieces—of the first fifty opus Beniamino Cesi, who had studied numbers in his catalog, all but three with the great piano virtuoso and are for solo piano—and they range sometime Liszt rival (though that from barcarolles and mazurkas to was largely a public relations con- fugues and sonatas (there also is a coction) Sigismond Thalberg. At piano duet arrangement of themes the same time, the young Martucci from Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera). began to study composition seri- In 1886, Martucci gave the pre- ously at the Naples conservatory. At miere of his B-flat minor piano his father’s insistence, Martucci did concerto, a large and ambitious ComPoseD most reCent aPProxImate 1891, for piano; Cso PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme orchestrated 1901 January 23, 1959, 6 minutes Orchestra Hall. Fernando FIrst PerFormanCe Previtali conducting date unknown InstrumentatIon FIrst Cso two flutes, two oboes, two PerFormanCe clarinets, two bassoons, two March 24, 1919, horns, harp, strings Orchestra Hall. Giorgio Polacco conducting 5 score that solidified his reputation originally composed this nocturne for infusing the Austrian-German in G-flat major for solo piano (it was tradition with an Italian sensibil- the first in a set of two) in 1891, the ity. (Riccardo Muti and the CSO year the Chicago Symphony played played the concerto last season with its first concerts, and then orches- Gerhard Oppitz as the pianist.) trated it in 1901. Particularly in its Although Martucci’s attention had orchestral version, it has become shifted to the classic large forms by one of his most frequently per- then—he began two symphonies in formed works, and as an example of 1889—he occasionally returned to the Italian gift for natural sing- the piano miniatures on which he ing melody and for simple, direct had cut his teeth as a composer. He expression, it is without peer. 6 ottorino respighi Born July 9, 1879, Bologna, Italy. Died April 18, 1936, Rome, Italy. Feste romane ttorino Respighi came to this of Respighi’s greatest champions. Ocountry for the first time in Feste romane, the third panel in December 1925. He was already Respighi’s Roman triptych, and the well known among music lovers for work that closes this concert, was The Fountains of Rome, a brilliant not yet written, but it would join its tone poem composed in 1916, three two companions three years later.