Monday Evening, November 13, 2017, at 7:30 The Juilliard School presents Juilliard Orchestra Thomas Adès , Conductor Rachel Siu , Cello THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971) …but all shall be well , Op. 10 (1993) EDWARD ELGAR (1857–1934) Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 (1919) Adagio—Moderato Lento—Allegro molto Adagio Allegro—Moderato—Allegro, ma non-troppo RACHEL SIU , Cello Intermission ADÈS Three Studies From Couperin (2006) Les amusemens Les Tours de Passe-passe L’Âme-en-Peine IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971) Symphony in Three Movements (1942 –45) Overture—Allegro Andante—Interlude: L’istesso tempo Con moto Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes, including one 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 a “consolation,” which is indeed what the richly allusive Adès calls the piece by Thomas May (echoing the name Franz Liszt gave to his set of six piano Consolations ). The instru - …but all shall be well , Op. 10 mental layout pays homage to Benjamin THOMAS ADÈS Britten’s War Requiem . Brief in its span Born March 1, 1971, in London, England but emotionally dense, …but all shall be well is laid out in three sections, juxta - While The Exterminating Angel continues posing timbres and continually transform - to play this month at the Metropolitan ing the material’s stepwise gestures. Opera, tonight's concert by the Juilliard Dedicating it to the memory of his grand - Orchestra affords an opportunity to com - father, Adès has remarked “this 1993 pare and contrast instrumental music by composition is a piece about now, about Thomas Ad ès, likewise conducted by the our own fin-de-siècle .” composer. He looks back to the years when he was just starting out for this first Cello Concerto in E minor , Op. 85 selection, composed when Ad ès was only EDWARD ELGAR 22. Commissioned to mark the 150th Born June 2, 1857, in Broadheath, England anniversary of the Cambridge Music Died February 23, 1934, in Worcester, Society, …but all shall be well is his first score England calling for the resources of a large orchestra. The last major work for orchestra com - This backward glance is particularly fascinat - pleted by Edward Elgar, the Cello Concerto ing in that aspects of the Ad ès personality is imbued with an elegiac sensibility— can already be recognized: the confidently Romanticism at (or even after) its sunset. original use of the orchestral palette, the As the Great War was nearing its end, ear for telling details, and the uncanny Elgar retired from London to his beloved sense of “magnetism” between notes and countryside in Sussex, seeking to be harmonies (to use one of his favored closer to the healing powers of nature. He terms, which he defines as “the magnetic experienced a late-career burst of inspira - pull of the notes put in a given disposition, tion with a series of chamber music works their shifting relative weights”). and the Cello Concerto from the summer of 1919. These works manifest a relatively …but all shall be well takes its title from T.S. economical line of thinking. Eliot, a poet toward whom Adès has long gravitated. His first official opus, Five Eliot Elgar ’s brand of Romanticism owed much to Landscapes (1990), setting minor Eliot poems the wellspring of the Central European tradi - for soprano and piano, appeared when he tion. Although he didn’t necessarily intend it was 19. The source here is Little Gidding , the as a valedictory statement, the score is full final poem in Eliot’s (already highly musi - of backward glances—as if the composer cal) Four Quartets : “Sin is Behovely, but/ All were sifting for some meaning to hold on to shall be well, and /All manner of thing shall in the wake of the First World War, which be well. ” This, in turn, is Eliot quoting the had forever shattered the old certainties. medieval English mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich (1342 –1416). So the ellipses in The Concerto’s autumnal sensibility was Adès ’ title might be taken as the missing exploited to underscore the flashback “sin is Behovely” (i.e., “necessary,” “fit - technique used so prominently in Hilary ting”): the human condition that requires and Jackie , the 1998 musical biopic about the cellist Jacqueline du Pré , who “redis - piece). This is explicitly, intriguingly mani - covered” the piece—a fiasco at its 1919 fest in Three Studies From Couperin for premiere—and made it a signature , reclaim - chamber orchestra, which was c ommis - ing it for the contemporary repertoire. sioned by the Basel Chamber Orchestra and premiered in 2006. In addition to com - The cello enters the spotlight at the very posing and conducting, Adès is a superb beginning with a dramatic recitative. Elgar pianist and has stated: “My ideal day stages the interplay between orchestra would be staying home and playing harpsi - and soloist with finely judged details: vio - chord works of Couperin—new inspiration las , for example, first trace the elegiac on every page.” main theme—recognizable from its lilting, wavelike motion—before the cello elabo - François Couperin (1668 –1733) had already rates its deeper implications. Another kind inspired Adès to write his 1994 piece Les of melancholy emerges in the middle sec - Baricades mistérieuses , an arrangement of tion’s theme—as contrasting as the differ - the French Baroque master’s music for a ence between public and private grief. five-person ensemble. Three Studies brings the Adèsian perspective to selections from Pizzicato chords on the cello pull us directly the Pièces de clavecin , pieces for solo key - into the next movement, a lighthearted board originally published in four volumes scherzo pulsing with rapid-fire repeat in early-18th-century Paris. Couperin’s music notes. The Adagio ’s lengthy melody distills has found unexpected resonances in later a deeply tragic sens ibility—here is the real centuries: most famously, in the World leave-taking—serene in its resignation. War I –tinged homage of Maurice Ravel’s Elgar touches on the realm of experience Le tombeau de Couperin. Like Ravel, Adès in which the same memory can simultane - filters the source material he has chosen ously provide consolation and trigger pain. through his unique orchestral sensibility. The woodwinds and brass players are instructed Elgar’s unusual formal design is such that the to be seated in one line along the back of the finale is the longest of the four movements. orchestra, with the strings divided into two Once again a recitative-like solo cadenza orchestras and the percussionist placed in serves as a transition from the Adagio and at the center, behind the other players. the same time is a prelude to the finale proper. Springing to life with a lively main Adès retains the Frenchman’s characteristi - theme, this highly varied movement pro - cally quirky titles: Les Amusemens [sic], Les ceeds alternates between confident asser - Tours de Passe-passe (“Sleight of Hand”), tions and somber introspection. Towards the and L’Âme-en-Peine (“The Tormented Soul”). end a slower, graver theme calls forth the “New inspiration” does indeed emanate cellist’s fullest eloquence. Flashbacks to pre - from every page, each of these pieces evok - viously heard material cast a shadow against ing a separate little world of its own. Adès lav - the music’s dying glow before the tempo ishes loving attention on his treatment of quickens for Elgar’s impassioned adieu. Couperin’s ornamentation, clothing the mate - rial in slightly unexpected instrumental guises Three Studies From Couperin (alto and bass flute, bass marimba) that defa - THOMAS ADÈS miliarize slightly, without being mannered. A predilection for creative engagement In Full of Noises , his book of conversations with the past was already apparent early in with fellow Briton and music critic Tom Adès’ work (as we heard in the opening Service, Adès offers a memorable description of his creative process: “You sense this form But this “ Russian period ” took place during internally and have to find a way to realize Stravinsky’s American exile, when he was liv - it…. It may be like seeing the face in the ing in West Hollywood. Taking on a larger bur - fire, which isn’t actually there, but once den of conducting assignments to finance his you’ve written it down, it becomes real. expensive tastes, Stravinsky worked intermit - Just as if an artist draws a face they see in tently during the last three years of the war on the fire, then once it is drawn that face the Symphony in Three Movements, a com - becomes a real face. Writing music is like mission from the New York Philharmonic , trying to draw the face in the fire.” With which the composer led in the premiere, in Three Studies Adès draws a remarkable 1946. The score fuses material from widely orchestral doppelgänger of Couperin, real disparate projects into a powerful but con - enough to convince us it was always there. densed symphonic statement. Symphony in Three Movements Although the notion of program music was IGOR STRAVINSKY anathema to his artistic credo, Stravinsky Born June 17, 1882, in St. Petersburg, Russia himself described the Symphony as an Died April 6, 1971, in New York City outcome of “this our arduous time of sharp and shifting events, of despair and Despite having published a symphony as hope, of continual torments, of tension, his official Opus 1 (the youthful Symphony and at last cessation and relief.” He ner - in E-flat, composed while he was still heav - vously followed the course of the war from ily under the influence of his teacher Rimsky- his outpost in Los Angeles by pinning the Korsakov), Igor Stravinsky only returned to front lines on maps.