Juilliard Orchestra Itzhak Perlman , Conductor Zlatomir Fung , Cello
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Thursday Evening, December 6, 2018, at 7:30 The Juilliard School presents Juilliard Orchestra Itzhak Perlman , Conductor Zlatomir Fung , Cello ANTONIN DVO Rˇ ÁK (1841 –1904) Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (1896) Allegro Adagio, ma non troppo Finale: Allegro moderato ZLATOMIR FUNG , Cello Intermission EDWARD ELGAR (1857 –1934) Enigma Variations , Op. 36 ( Variations on an Original Theme ) (1899) Theme I. (C.A.E.) II. (H.D.S-P) III. (R.B.T.) IV. (W.M.B.) V. (R.P.A.) VI. (Ysobel) VII. (Troyte) VIII. (W.N.) IX. (Nimrod) X. (Dorabella)—Intermezzo XI. (G.R.S.) XII. (B.G.N.) XIII. (* * *)—Romanza XIV. (E.D.U.)—Finale (played without pause) Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, including an intermission The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium. Information regarding gifts to the school may be obtained from the Juilliard School Development Office, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, ext. 278 (juilliard.edu/giving). Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. Notes on the Program as the String Quartet in F major (Op. 96, the “American”), String Quintet in E-flat by James M. Keller major, Symphony From the New World , and (in his final year here) Cello Concerto. Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 ANTONÍN DVO Rˇ ÁK This grand and noble work was first heard Born September 8, 1841, in Mühlhausen when Dvo rˇák played through it privately in (Nelahozeves), Bohemia August 1895 with his close friend Hanuš Died May 1, 1904, in Prague, Bohemia Wihan, an eminent cellist and the work’s dedicatee. Wihan suggested a few techni - As a young man, Antonín Dvo rˇák was cal alterations, which the composer incor - worthily employed as a musician, though porated; but Dvo rˇák rejected as superflu - his position as principal violist in Prague’s ous Wihan’s idea of inserting a large-scale Provisional Theatre orchestra earned him solo cadenza in the Finale —to the distress little money. In 1871 he left the orchestra of the cellist, who had spent considerable to devote himself to composing full-time, care crafting one that incorporated material but still some years would pass until he from the earlier movements. Dvo rˇák took managed to get his music published the precaution of spelling out his position thanks to the support of the influential in a letter to his publisher early that October: music critic Eduard Hanslick and fellow composer Johannes Brahms. Even then, I shall only give you my work if you his mature masterpieces were slow to promise not to allow anybody to make make their way into the international reper - any changes—my friend Wihan not toire, embraced in England and America excepted— without my knowledge and sooner than in the rest of Europe. Except consent, and this includes the cadenza for the Slavonic Dances, Carnival Overture, which Wihan has added to the last move - and Symphony From the New World , ment … I told Wihan straight away when Dvo rˇák remained little played outside his he showed it to me that it was impossi - native land until practically the middle of ble to stick bits on like that. The finale the 20th century. closes gradually diminuendo , like a sigh—with reminiscences of the first and In 1891 Dvo rˇák received a communication second movements—the solo dies from Jeannette Thurber, a Paris-trained down to pianissimo —then swells again American musician who was now a New and the last bars are taken up by the York philanthropist bent on raising American orchestra and the whole concludes in musical pedagogy to European standards. stormy mood. That was my idea and I To this end she had founded the National cannot depart from it. Conservatory of Music in New York, incor - porated by special act of Congress in 1891, Feathers were apparently ruffled enough and she set about persuading Dvo rˇák to that Dvo rˇák enlisted a different cellist, Leo serve as its director. She succeeded, and Stern, for the premiere (in London on the following year Dvo rˇák and his family March 19, 1896), as well as for the first moved to New York. He would remain until Prague performance. But a truce was soon 1895 (though spending summer vacations struck, and within a few years Wihan elsewhere), building the school’s curricu - began performing this piece, too, includ - lum and faculty, appearing as a guest con - ing, on one occasion in Budapest, with ductor, and composing such masterworks Dvo rˇák conducting—and with no cadenza. Dvo rˇák enjoyed a long and happy marriage Music Society. The following year he got a to Anna Cˇ ermáková, whom he wed in public performance, in Birmingham, of an 1873. But she had not been his first love; orchestral intermezzo he had written, and several years before he had experienced a he very gradually built a reputation from serious infatuation for one of her elder sis - there. By the mid-1890s he was deemed a ters, Josefina, who had been taking piano name to reckon with, and in 1900 his ora - lessons from him at the time. Nothing torio The Dream of Gerontius , presented physical came of that early attraction at the Birmingham Festival, established (which in any case seems to have been him as Britain’s leading composer, a per - strictly one-way), and Josefina and Antonín fect embodiment of the plushly comfort - spent 30 years living as affectionate and able, healthily vigorous spirit of the entirely platonic in-laws. Josefina’s health Edwardian moment. declined while the Dvo rˇ áks were in America, and she died just a month after The year before Gerontius (deemed by they returned to Prague. It appears that the many to be his masterpiece), the British composer worked a tribute to her into his public got its first taste of what would Cello Concerto by incorporating into the become the most performed—and most slow movement a quotation from his song discussed—of Elgar’s major instrumental “Lasst mich allein” (“Leave Me Alone,” compositions, his Variations on an Original Op. 82, No. 1), which Dvo rˇák’s biographer Theme (Op. 36), popularly known as the Otakar Šourek maintained was a particular Enigma Variations . The work’s title, as favorite of Josefina’s. It was on learning of announced on the program at its premiere her death that Dvo rˇák crafted the coda at (in 1899 in London), was simply Variations the concerto’s end. for Full Orchestra. But more mischief was afoot than that perfunctory title might sug - Enigma Variations , Op. 36 ( Variations gest. The program note on that occasion on an Original Theme ) revealed that Elgar had crafted each of the EDWARD ELGAR variations to describe some friend or Born June 2, 1857, at Broadheath, acquaintance, but he would not reveal their Worcestershire, England identities; the connection was suggested Died February 23, 1934, in Worcester, by initials attached to each section, but it England was understood that these might not always be simplistic renderings of the ini - Edward Elgar holds sway as the preemi - tials of the names of the subjects of “por - nent representative of the Edwardian Era, traits” but rather encodings of some more the late-Imperialist moment of British his - arcane sort (perhaps alluding to a nick - tory named after the monarch who reigned name, for example). And then the com - over it—Edward VII, who on July 4, 1904, poser suggested that something deeper turned the composer into Sir Edward. The might be going on: son of an organist in Worcester, Elgar enjoyed a none-too-spectacular career The enigma I will not explain—its “dark early on, deputizing for his father in church saying” must be left unguessed, and I lofts, picking up a bit of instruction on vio - warn you that the apparent connection lin, serving as bandmaster at the Worcester between the Variations and the Theme is County Lunatic Asylum, and, in 1882, often of the slightest texture; further, acceding to the position of music director through and over the whole set another of the Worcester Amateur Instrumental and larger theme “goes,” but is not played—so the principal Theme never At least part of Elgar’s enigma was solved appears, even as in some late dramas— quickly. The identities of the subjects por - e.g. Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept trayed by the variations leave not much princesses —the chief character is never room for doubt: an assortment of family, on the stage. friends, and colleagues. Many believe that the larger enigma of these variations, the Predictably, this made everyone terribly “dark saying” to which Elgar alluded, may curious, and a flurry of hypothesizing be mere subterfuge: that the enigma can - ensued, some of it so imaginative as to not be guessed with certainty because no verge on the certifiably batty. For his part enigma exists. What there can be no Elgar fanned the flames of speculation by doubt about is that in this work Elgar sup - dropping elusive comments such as “the plied the symphonic repertoire with one of theme is so well known that it is extraordi - its richest sets of orchestral variations, nary that no one has spotted it,” as he captivating in their working out, evocative remarked to Arthur Toye Griffith (portrayed in their instrumentation, elegant in their in Variation VII) or, to Dora Penny (a.k.a. overall balance. Mrs. Richard Powell, and the “Dorabella” of Variation X), that he was flabbergasted James M.