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Home , Eugene List, Sergei Prokofiev, Totentanz (Liszt), Yulianna Avdeeva

CLASSICAL SERIES PROKOFIEV’S ROMEO & JULIET

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 & 11, AT 8 PM SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, AT 2 PM NASHVILLE JOANN FALLETTA, conductor ,

MAURICE RAVEL La Valse - 12 minutes

FRANZ LISZT No. 1 in E-flat Major for Piano and - 19 minutes Allegro maestoso Quasi adagio - Allegretto vivace Allegro marziale animato Yulianna Avdeeva, piano

– INTERMISSION –

SERGEI PROKOFIEV Suite from , Op. 64bis, Op.64ter - 38 minutes The Young Girl Juliet Friar Laurence Masks Romeo and Juliet Before Parting The Death of Tybalt Dance of Antilles Girls Romeo at the Grave of Juliet

This concert will last one hour and 50 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission.

This concert will be recorded live for broadcast. Please keep noise to a minimum to ensure the highest-quality recording.

INCONCERT 19 CLASSICAL

PROGRAM SUMMARY “At the close of World War I, recorded…the violent death of the 19th-century world,” cultural historian Carl Schorske writes of La Valse. “The waltz, the symbol of gay Vienna, became in the composer’s hands a frantic danse .” Although Ravel himself denied any reference to a “dance of death” or a symbolic depiction of a civilization’s demise, La Valse is one of his most fascinating and daring scores.

Ravel’s initial dramatic idea for the version of La Valse was to set it in 1855. This was the very year in which , an archetypal Romantic, presented his First . Liszt came to fame as a prodigy virtuoso who stirred up a wave of hysterical adulation, coined , with his feats at the keyboard. But his First Piano Concerto goes beyond such grandstand performances and turns the genre into a synthesis of the virtuoso concerto with the organically unified symphony.

Like Liszt, remade his image. The former bad boy of music, who escaped to the West in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, decided to return to his homeland, just as Stalin was cracking down on fellow composers like Shostakovich. Prokofiev believed he had developed a new style more accessible to the common people — a style he called the “New Simplicity.” It was through such works as his ballet score Romeo and Juliet that he perfected this new approach, with results that continue to cast a spell over audiences today.

MAURICE RAVEL La Valse

Born on March 7, 1875, First performance: in Ciboure, France December 12, 1920, in , with Camille Chevillard Died on December 28, 1937, the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris

First Nashville Symphony Estimated performance: Composed: length: February 18, 1958, with music 1919-20 12 minutes director Guy Taylor

fter World War I, Serge Diaghilev version that was, appropriately, premiered A commissioned Maurice Ravel to write in Vienna — Diaghilev turned it down on another ballet for his company in Paris the grounds that it was more “the portrait — having previously collaborated with the of a ballet” than an actual ballet. For that French composer for Daphnis et Chloé. Ravel reason, the full orchestral score was fi rst heard returned to a piece he had started at least more as part of a concert, though Ravel later than a decade before, in which he intended collaborated with another choreographer, to pay tribute to the Viennese waltz of the Ida Rubinstein, who produced both La Valse 19th century. and Boléro as . Aft er Ravel completed the orchestral score Th e biographer Arbie Orenstein observes in 1920 — having also prepared a two-piano that “the motif of death recurs insistently in

20 JANUARY 2020 CLASSICAL

[Ravel’s] oeuvre.” Th e composer described La fortissimo. An imperial court, about 1855.” Valse as “a sort of apotheosis of the Viennese Ravel exploits the most refi ned technical waltz, mingled with…the impression of a means in his treatment of , rhythmic fantastic, fatal whirling.” accents, dynamics, timbres and even allusions to the musical past to weave what he described WHAT TO LISTEN FOR as a choreographic poem for orchestra. Opening with the mysterious, indeterminate n La Valse, Ravel radically reimagines the sound of muted double basses, the piece Iassociations conjured by the waltz. The also calls to mind the suddenly varying profound cataclysm of World War I had perspectives of cinema. Strains of various imbued the popular dance with an unexpected, waltzes shift in and out of focus. haunting resonance. Even if the widespread Midway through, an apparent quotation interpretation of this music as a metaphor of the rhythmic motto of the Scherzo from for the breakdown of faith in European Beethoven’s Ninth intrudes with primal civilization was not his intention, contemporary force. What we might have expected as a composer George Benjamin argues that the recapitulation filters all that has gone score’s “one-movement design plots the birth, before through a strange new lens, and the decay and destruction of a musical genre.” circling momentum of the waltz collapses in Ravel envisioned this music to accompany violent entropy. the originally intended ballet, whose scenario he described as follows: “Swirling clouds aff ord Ravel’s score calls for 3 fl utes (3rd doubling piccolo), glimpses, through rift s, of waltzing couples. 3 (3rd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, , 2 , contrabassoon, 4 horns, The clouds scatter little by little; one can 3 trumpets, 3 , , timpani, percussion distinguish an immense hall with a whirling (triangle, tambourine, snare drum, cymbals, bass crowd. Th e scene grows progressively brighter. drum, castanets, tam-tam, , crotales), Th e light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the 2 harps and strings. SUPPORT MUSIC IN TENNESSEE WITH AN ARTS PLATE

INCONCERT 21 CLASSICAL FRANZ LISZT Concerto No. 1 in E-fl at Major for Piano and Orchestra

Born on October 22, 1811, First performance: in Raiding, Hungary February 17, 1855, with Liszt as the soloist and Died on July 31, 1886, conducting the Weimar Court in Bayreuth, Germany Orchestra

First Nashville Symphony Composed: Estimated performance: 1830-1853; length: March 5, 1957, with soloist revised 1855-56 19 minutes Eugene List and music director Guy Taylor

he search for extreme experience that new generation of composers. Th us the long Ttranscends the ordinary is a cornerstone revision process before he felt ready to unveil of . With his astounding the First Piano Concerto, whose fi rst inspiration virtuosity and his declaration that the piano dates back to 1830, when he was 19. By 1834, represented “the microcosm of music,” Franz Liszt had fi nished a preliminary version, but Liszt embodied this worldview. His feats he remained unsatisfi ed and never performed whipped up a frenzied, hysterical response from it, opting in 1839 to begin a wholesale rewrite, audiences — famously coined “Lisztomania” which proceeded in fi ts and starts alongside his by the poet Heinrich Heine. Over a century numerous other projects for another decade later, the director Ken Russell borrowed the and a half. He was by then also working on term to title his 1975 fi lm starring Th e Who’s his Second Piano Concerto as well as many Roger Daltrey as the amorous musical hero. other pieces for solo piano and orchestra, Capable of transforming his instrument such as the marvelous Totentanz, inspired by into a veritable orchestra and playing whole the “dance of death” depicted on a medieval programs from memory, Liszt even titled Italian fresco. A little over three decades ago, one series of fiercely difficult piano pieces archives revealed remnants of a third piano Transcendental Études. And the influence concerto that Liszt never completed. of his pianism spread far and wide. Take The long gestation of the First Piano Ravel: though he is often characterized as Concerto helps explain the disparate identities quintessentially French, several of his piano embedded in this work. Liszt the virtuoso works show inspiration from Liszt, the superhero coexists with the avant-garde Hungarian purveyor (along with his son-in- composer striving to evolve novel compositional law Richard Wagner) of the so-called “New techniques. While he was working on the fi nal German School.” form of this concerto, Liszt developed further Ironically, it was not until Liszt had retired his more radical concept of the orchestral from his career as a touring virtuoso soloist . Wagner declared that purely that his two for the instrument took orchestral music was a dead end and that the fi nal shape. Th ese works are vintage products path of the future demanded a breakdown of of the years when Liszt determined to focus established genres and artistic disciplines to on his mission as a composer and a guru to a create a new, text-based synthesis of music

22 JANUARY 2020 CLASSICAL and . Even though he was an advocate terms for this type of piece, implying a synthesis of Wagner’s music, Liszt pursued his own of concerto and symphony. vision of the “music of the future” in these The concept of thematic transformation wordless . drives the entire work. Liszt introduces the Using his idea of what he called “thematic main thematic idea in rawest form right at the transformation,” Liszt evolved a forward- start: an imperious seven-note motto stated by looking technique for his instrumental works. the string body, followed by a curt two-note The transformation in question goes far response from the woodwinds. Liszt — or, beyond the conventional process of theme more likely, his champion Hans von Bülow — and variations. It involves the subtle reworking jokingly fit words to this motto mocking the and development of a small set of thematic composer’s critics: Das versteht ihr alle nicht, ideas to generate the musical substance of a haha! (“Not a single one of you gets it, haha!”) work. The very character of the theme itself It is fascinating to trace Liszt’s transformations can be heard to change as it is presented in — in timbre, mood, interaction and so on — varying contexts. of this tight chromatic motto. From its first Such thematic transformation has some entrance, the intensifies it into a dazzling kinship with the “idée fixe” or obsessive mini-, for example, which then takes (musical) idea that Berlioz developed in his shape as a melancholy duet with solo clarinet, . It was actually Berlioz another major protagonist in this work. The who conducted the world premiere of the First slow movement is closer in spirit to Italian bel Piano Concerto, as part of a Berlioz Festival canto singing. (If your ear conjures Chopin that Liszt had organized in Weimar, where he during this movement, recall that this form was serving as the court’s music director. The of was an abiding inspiration to him as year of the premiere, 1855, is, incidentally, the well.) In the Scherzo section, Liszt’s use of the same year Ravel imagined as the setting for triangle stirred controversy — not just from his original scenario for La Valse. conservative critics, but even from Wagner, who complained to Liszt’s daughter (and, later, WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Wagner’s wife) Cosima about its “vulgarity.” Music from preceding sections is continually hough it lacks the kinds of programmatic rethreaded into the fabric, with the spirited Tassociations with an outside literary text finale providing a summation. In its final or work of art that are an essential feature of pages, Liszt supplies a coda of assertive, symphonic poems, the First Piano Concerto even manic energy — as if wrapping up an shares with them the concern for organic unity. ordinary virtuoso concerto rather than the Thus, like Liszt’s great Piano in B minor unusual vision to which we have just been from the early 1850s, the Concerto contains made witnesses. multiple movements that are interconnected and played as a single vast movement, with In addition to solo piano, the First Concerto is only brief pauses to separate them. Viewed scored for 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, independently, the Concerto’s four movements timpani, cymbals, triangle and strings. suggest the outline of a symphony: an opening Allegro maestoso, a slow movement, a Scherzo and a finale. Liszt’s writing throughout does not stint on virtuoso demands. But such displays are integrated within the innovative design — concerto symphonique was one of his preferred

INCONCERT 23 CLASSICAL SERGEI PROKOFIEV Suite from Romeo and Juliet

First performance: Born on April 23, 1891, in The complete ballet was fi rst performed Sontsovka, (part of the at the time) on December 30, 1938, in Brno (part of what was then Czechoslovakia). The fi rst two Concert Suites were premiered Died on March 5, 1953, before the ballet: November 24, 1936, in in Moscow (Suite No. 1) and April 15, 1937, in Leningrad (Suite No. 2).

Composed: Estimated First Nashville Symphony 1935 length: performance: (complete ballet) 38 minutes October 12-14, 1978, with music director Michael Charry

ergei Prokofiev emerged as one of the away from his former avant-garde stance in Sicons of early 20th-century . favor of what he called a “new simplicity.” By He cultivated this image while living a life of this he meant a stylistic direction that avoided voluntary exile from his Russian homeland in novelty for the sake of novelty but, at the same the 1920s, fi rst trying (without much success) time, was not merely a return to “old-fashioned” to conquer the United States and then moving forms and ideas. Th e ballet Romeo and Juliet, around Paris and other parts of Western which Prokofi ev composed in the white heat Europe. But aft er nearly two decades abroad of inspiration during the summer of 1935, in the West, Prokofiev longed to return to brims with the newfound lyricism and , which of course was a vastly diff erent directness of this “new simplicity” and remains place under Stalin’s control. one of Prokofi ev’s best-loved achievements. Soviet authorities sweetened the allure for For the scenario, he collaborated with the the nomadic composer by ensuring special adventurous director Sergei Radlov, who privileges, such as a roomy Moscow apartment had introduced important avant-garde and permission to keep his beloved blue Ford works in the years just aft er the Bolshevik as private property. The ballet Romeo and Revolution (including The Love for Three Juliet originated during this period and was Oranges, Prokofiev’s operatic mating of an undertaking of enormous importance, commedia dell’arte with ). Together, since it would mark Prokofi ev’s fi rst major they tailored Shakespeare’s play into a ballet work specifically intended for the Soviet of 52 mostly brief scenes. The biographer stage. And so in 1936 a “” came Harlow Robinson notes that this fl eetingly back to the socialist paradise. But in January episodic, “montage-like dramatic structure” of that year, Pravda’s notorious attack on likely was inspired by Prokofi ev’s recent forays the young signaled an into fi lm music. ominous change. His off ense? Daring to write The original Prokofiev/Radlov scenario, “Formalist” music (in other words, in a style however, devised a “happy ending” simply by deemed insuffi ciently accessible). Th e offi cial altering the timing of Romeo’s return in the reprimand foreshadowed a long-lasting era tomb scene — possibly a politically cautious of harshly repressive cultural politics which bow to the doctrine of “Socialist Realism,” discouraged innovation. with its insistence on conveying an optimistic, On his own, Prokofi ev had begun to turn upbeat tone. But Prokofi ev came to realize

24 JANUARY 2020 CLASSICAL that his music contradicted this false happy deftly portrays the innocence of Juliet, while ending — how could the strains of “Romeo the tenderness shared between her and Romeo at the Tomb of Juliet” do otherwise? — and never falters into cheap sentimentality. The Shakespeare’s tragic conclusion was restored. music of the ball where they meet evokes As it turned out, internal developments did Prokofiev’s neoclassical vein. interfere with the reception of Romeo and Juliet. The more consciously “populist” style In the tense aftermath of the Shostakovich Prokofiev adopts does not prevent him from affair, the Bolshoi Theater broke its contract to introducing harsh dissonances or surprising produce the premiere. The dancers complained tonal shifts. He cleverly contrasts his portrayal about the difficulties of negotiating Prokofiev’s of the humble, trustworthy Friar Laurence complex meters. What later earned recognition — the kindhearted Franciscan who hopes as a great classic of the Soviet era and of the to make lasting peace by joining the two in last century in general was thus initially staged marriage — with the decorous passion of outside the — in Brno (in what the lovers. The score’s most incandescent was then Czechoslovakia), in 1938. This was an lyricism is reserved for the lengthy balcony abridged version in just one act, and Prokofiev scene, as the winds chirp like a celestial clock was not allowed to attend. But it proved to be for the lovers who want time to stand still. a great triumph. After Mercutio is fatally wounded in his duel Meanwhile, Prokofiev fashioned two with Tybalt, Romeo fatefully seeks to avenge orchestral suites so he could present his music him and slays Tybalt in a scene of blood- to the Russian public in the concert hall. He curdling, violent emotion that anticipates also prepared a piano suite called Ten Pieces aspects of West Side Story. The so-called for Piano. The belated Soviet premiere of “Dance of the Antilles Girls” — Juliet’s servants the ballet occurred on January 11, 1940, at — refers to a passage that is not found in the Kirov Theater in Leningrad and actually Shakespeare but somehow made its way into the won the composer a Stalin Prize. Prokofiev Russian treatment. introduced a third suite in 1946 as well. The At the conclusion of this Suite, we discover complete ballet score itself runs close to three Romeo at Juliet’s tomb. Here Prokofiev takes hours in duration. advantage of music’s unique capacity to summon memories in an instant, bringing out the WHAT TO LISTEN FOR inconsolable sadness of the encounter. Unlike the ironic poses of his earlier experimental any conductors have responded to the years, the composer remains directly invested Mchallenge of representing the essence in the feelings being evoked onstage — and in of Romeo and Juliet by devising their own the primacy of that experience, made present arrangements, mixing and matching excerpts through his economical use of leitmotifs and from the three suites. For this performance, richly satisfying . guest conductor JoAnn Falletta has selected nine numbers from Suites 1 and 2. The Romeo and Juliet Suite is scored for 2 flutes, The darkly ominous “Montagues and piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, tenor , 2 bassoons, contrabas- Capulets” (Suite 2, No. 1) centers on the soon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, cornet, 3 trombones, prideful strutting of the “Dance of the Knights” tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celesta from the first act; perhaps the score’s most and strings. famous number, this piece sets up the violent context in which this young love so improbably, — Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony’s program annotator. and yet so inevitably, blossoms. Prokofiev

INCONCERT 25 CLASSICAL ABOUT THE ARTISTS JO ANN YULIANNA FALLETTA AVDEEVA conductor piano

RAMMY®-winning ulianna Avdeeva Gconductor JoAnn Ygained international Falletta serves as music director of the Buff alo recognition when she won First Prize in the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Chopin Competition in 2010. Her artistic Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor integrity is rapidly ensuring her a place among of the Brevard Music Center and artistic adviser the most distinctive artists of her generation. of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. Following her Philharmonic Falletta has guest-conducted more than 100 debut with in May in North America and many of the 2019, she ventures on a dynamic 2019/20 most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, season that includes debuts with Orchestra South America and Africa. In 2019/20 she Philharmonique de Radio France under the guest-conducts orchestras in Ireland, Sweden, baton of Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Baltimore Germany, Mexico, Brazil and across the U.S. Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop, and Upon her appointment as music director a return to Symphony Orchestra of the Buff alo Philharmonic, Falletta became under Sir Mark Elder’s direction.Further the first woman to lead America highlights include collaborations with SWR ensemble. Celebrating her 20th anniversary Symphonieorchester, Gürzenich Orchestra this season, she has been credited with bringing Cologne, Dresden Philharmonic and Sinfonie the Philharmonic to an unprecedented level Orchester Basel. of national and international prominence. A regular performer throughout the Asia- Th e orchestra has become one of the leading Pacific region, Avdeeva makes her debut recording orchestras for Naxos and returned with BBC Scottish Symphony and Th omas twice to Carnegie Hall. Dausgaard, joining them for the inaugural With a discography of more than 115 BBC Proms Japan in 2019. Most recently, she titles, Falletta is a leading recording artist for debuted with Sydney and Melbourne symphony Naxos. In 2019, she won her fi rst individual orchestras and worked with New Japan GRAMMY® Award, as conductor of the London Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestra, Symphony, in the category of Best Classical as well as with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Compendium for Spiritualist, her fi ft h world Berlin and Bamberger Symphoniker, on tours premiere recording of music of Kenneth Fuchs. of Japan. Recent highlights have included Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Avdeeva’s debuts at the Salzburg Festival, Alte Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan Oper Frankfurt, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, received two GRAMMY® Awards in 2008. Boulez Saal and Lucerne Festival. Falletta is a member of the American Avdeeva’s Chopin performances have drawn Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served particular praise, marking her as one of the by presidential appointment as a member of composer’s foremost interpreters who brings the National Council on the Arts during the out the strength as well as the refi nement of Bush and Obama administrations. In March his music. In addition to her Chopin prize, 2019, she was named Performance Today’s Avdeeva has won honors at the Bremen Piano 2019 Classical Woman of the Year. Contest, the Concours de Genève and the Arthur Rubinstein Competition. 26 JANUARY 2020