San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas
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SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR ALEXANDER KERR, VIOLIN Wednesday, March 27, 2019, at 7:30pm Foellinger Great Hall PROGRAM SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY Michael Tilson Thomas, music director and conductor Alexander Kerr, violin Michael Tilson Thomas Agnegram (b. 1944) Felix Mendelssohn Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64 (1809-1847) Allegro molto appassionato Andante Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace Alexander Kerr, violin 20-minute intermission Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Marcia funebre: Adagio assai Scherzo: Allegro vivace Finale: Allegro molto San Francisco Symphony tours are supported by the Frannie and Mort Fleishhacker Endowed Touring Fund, the Halfmann-Yee Fund for Touring, the Fay and Ada Tom Family Fund for Touring, and the Brayton Wilbur, Jr. Endowed Fund for Touring. 2 THE ACT OF GIVING OF ACT THE THANK YOU FOR SPONSORING THIS PERFORMANCE With deep gratitude, Krannert Center thanks all 2018-19 Patron Sponsors and Corporate and Community Sponsors, and all those who have invested in Krannert Center. 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BECOME A KRANNERT CENTER SPONSOR BY CONTACTING OUR ADVANCEMENT TEAM TODAY: KrannertCenter.com/Give • [email protected] • 217.333.1629 5 PROGRAM NOTES MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS jazzy 6/8 tune reappears now in canon and the Born December 21, 1944, in Los Angeles, piece progresses to a jubilant and noisy ending. California Agnegram Michael Tilson Thomas offers the following on his 2016 revision of Agnegram (the version played at Agnegram was written to celebrate the 90th this performance): birthday of the San Francisco Symphony’s extraordinary patron and friend Agnes Albert and Agnegram was originally written around the musical is a portrait of her sophisticated and indefatigably letters/notes that are a part of Agnes Albert's name. enthusiastic spirit. It is entirely composed of There are seven of them, which makes the piece themes derived from the spelling of her name. septatonic. Perhaps the fact that a septatonic scale contains a pentatonic scale—the most commonly A—G—E are obviously the notes that they name. used scale in Asian music—prompted me to think B is B-flat (as this note is called in German). S about exploring more of those possibilities before is E-flat, also a German musical term. T is used we took the piece on our 2016 Asia Tour. to represent one note, B-natural, the “ti” of the solfège scale. From these arcane but not This piece is still in the form of a march. But unprecedented manipulations (Bach, Schumann, now the middle section, a kind of John Philip and Brahms among others often did this kind of Sousa-like trio, explores a musical joke that I had thing), a basic “scale” of eight unusually arranged planned, but not finished in time, for the premiere notes emerges, from which all the themes are performance. The trio recalls many famous tunes drawn. The piece itself is a march for large that amused Agnes. There are surreal references orchestra. The first part of the march is in 6/8 and to Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Irish is almost a mini-concerto for orchestra, giving brief, lullabies, but they appear only to the degree that sound-bite opportunities for the different sections the notes that they have in common with her to settle into a jazzy and hyper-rangy tune. name will allow. The middle section of the march, or trio, is in 2/4 I think she would have enjoyed discovering them and settles into a kind of sly circus atmosphere. and chuckling over them. Different groups of instruments in different keys —Michael Tilson Thomas make their appearance in an aural procession. First, the winds in C play a new march tune saying “Agnes Albert.” Then, the instruments FELIX MENDELSSOHN in F are heard playing the same tune. But as Born February 3, 1809, in Hamburg, Germany these instruments are transposing instruments, Died November 4, 1847, in Leipzig, Germany although the notes they play read A—G—N— Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, E—S etc., the notes that are heard are completely Op. 64 different. They are followed by instruments Ferdinand David was more than the first violinist in E-flat and B-flat until quite a jungle-like to play the Mendelssohn Concerto; the work was cacophony is built up—punctuated by alternately intended for him from the beginning. David and elegant and goofball percussion entrances. The Mendelssohn had been friends since 1825, and after the peregrinations of the development. the violinist was held in the highest regard as He prepares this homecoming subtly, allowing soloist, as a model concertmaster, as quartet himself some delicate anticipations of what it leader, and teacher. Mendelssohn’s Concerto is will be like to be in E minor again, managing this in fact the first in the distinguished series of violin maneuver as a gradual subsidence of wonderful concertos written by pianist-composers with the breadth and serenity. On the doorstep of home, assistance of eminent violinists. the orchestra stops and defers to the soloist. Across a backdrop of quietly pulsating drums and A couple of years earlier, in his Scottish plucked basses, the violin sings a famous melody. Symphony, Mendelssohn experimented with The first extended passage for the orchestra is the idea of going from movement to movement dramatically introduced by the boldly upward- without a break. Here he takes the plan a step thrusting octaves of the violin. It also gives way further, not merely eliminating the pauses but quickly to the next solo, a new melody full of actually constructing links. The Andante emerges verve and barely begun by the orchestra before mysteriously from the close of the first movement. the soloist makes it his own. The violin dazzles This could be one of Mendelssohn’s songs (with us with brilliant passage work, and that is what or without words). It is a lovely and sweet melody Mendelssohn really means us to pay attention to, of surprising extension, beautifully harmonized but at almost any moment in which you choose and scored. Listen to the effect, for example, of to listen to what is going on “behind,” you will the woodwinds in the few measures in which they be rewarded by real activity, not just mechanical participate. The middle section brings an upsurge strumming. It is as though solo and tutti both of passion and a return to the minor mode. Then, managed to be foreground and background at the first melody returns, still more beautifully set the same time. than before, with the accompanying instruments unable to forget the emotional tremors of the The theme that brings the first big change of movement’s central section. character is deliciously scored. The violin has made a graceful landing on its lowest G after Between the Andante and the finale Mendelssohn a descent of more than three octaves, and it is places another kind of bridge, a tiny and wistful over that quiet, sustained, and solitary sound intermezzo. Strings only accompany the violin, of the G that the clarinet (with another clarinet which sets off nicely the touch of fanfare that and a pair of flutes) introduces the new tune. starts the finale. It is sparkling and busy music The presentation is immediately reversed with whose gait allows room for swinging, broad the violin playing the melody and the four winds tunes, and for the dazzling sixteenth notes of the accompanying. Either way, the combination of solo part. Here, too, Mendelssohn delights in the wind quartet with a single, stringed instrument is witty play of foreground and background, and wonderfully fresh. so he steers the concerto to its close in a feast of high spirits and with a wonderful sense of “go.” The first movement cadenza is famous. In Classical practice, the cadenza occurs at the joint —Michael Steinberg of recapitulation and coda. Mendelssohn uses it instead at the other crucial harmonic juncture, the recapitulation, the return to the home key 7 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN has already reached the home chord of E-flat Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany while the violins are still preparing its arrival with Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria a dissonance), and with procedures so radical as Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, Eroica the disintegration of the theme at the end of the monumental Funeral March. In May 1804, Napoleon, who had been acceptable to Beethoven as a military dictator as long as he Another newness in the Eroica is the shift of the called himself First Consul, had himself crowned center of gravity from the first movement to Emperor, and the disappointed and angry the Finale.