San Diego Symphony Orchestra a Jacobs Masterworks Concert
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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT October 9 and 11, 2015 JOHANN STRAUSS , JR. Overture to Die Fledermaus W.A. MOZART Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K.271 Allegro Andantino Rondeau: Presto; Minuetto: Cantabile Yuja Wang, piano INTERMISSION SERGE PROKOFIEV Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (compiled by Jahja Ling) The Montagues and the Capulets Young Juliet Minuet Masques Romeo and Juliet Death of Tybalt Aubade Romeo and Juliet before Parting Dance of the Maids from the Antilles Romeo at the Tomb of Juliet Death of Juliet Overture to Die Fledermaus JOHANN STRAUSS, JR. Born October 25, 1825, Vienna Died June 3, 1899, Vienna From the moment of its premiere on April 5, 1874, Die Fledermaus has been a symbol of a city – Vienna – devoted to the good life, but this quintessentially Viennese story actually had a multinational lineage. It began as a German play called Das Gefängnis (“The Prison”), was adapted by two French playwrights as Le révéillon (“Midnight Supper”), and only then was it turned into a libretto by two Austrian writers. But Johann Strauss II transformed this complex heritage into a Viennese operetta as intoxicating as the champagne that flows so freely throughout, and Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”) did much to cheer up a Viennese public still reeling from the effects of a recent financial crash. As with most operettas, the plot is so complicated that it defies summary. The wealthy Gabriel Eisenstein is on his way to a five-day stay in prison for a minor infraction at just the moment that his wife Rosalinde has encountered Alfred, an old flame. Her husband contrives to delay his stay in prison to attend the masked ball at Prince Orlovsky’s, where – disguised – he flirts with his wife’s maid Adele, also disguised. Meanwhile Rosalinde, disguised as a Hungarian princess, arrives to catch her husband in the act. The disguises, complications and intrigues continue until – well-fortified with large amounts of champagne – the principals sort it all out. The sparkling overture, energetic and fun, sets the mood for what will follow; it is episodic in structure, and for its themes Strauss draws on arias from throughout Die Fledermaus. One of his most effective touches is to include the terrific waltz that brings Act II to its climax, and this appears several times. Like the tale it introduces, the overture to Die Fledermaus is full of snap, sizzle and champagne bubbles, and Strauss drives it to a sudden, surprising close. Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K.271 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna In January 1777 a pianist from Paris visited Salzburg. Her name was Mademoiselle Jeunehomme, and Mozart must have been impressed by her playing, because for her visit he composed a piano concerto far beyond anything imagined before. Earlier keyboard concertos, including Mozart’s own, had descended from the baroque concerto, in which the solo instrument was essentially absorbed into the orchestral texture and allowed only brief moments when it broke free from that ensemble. With this concerto Mozart transforms – transcends! – that entire tradition: now soloist and orchestra are equals, they share the presentation and development of ideas, and the concerto suddenly evolves from a simple display piece into a form suited to the most serious musical expression. But what is equally remarkable is the new depth evident here. From a young man who had spent the previous year writing church music, serenades and choral canons that – while technically accomplished – are unremarkable, suddenly comes music full of contrast, a sense of space and scope, and – in the slow movement – a new intensity of feeling. Alfred Einstein has called this concerto “Mozart’s Eroica,” suggesting that just as Beethoven suddenly expanded the whole conception of the symphony in the Eroica, Mozart here did the same for the piano concerto. Mozart shatters precedent in the first moments of the Allegro. The orchestra opens with a one-measure figure, and the piano leaps in to complete the phrase itself. The orchestra repeats its opening gesture, and once again the piano takes over to complete the phrase. This opening establishes the most unusual feature of the first movement: the equality of piano and orchestra and their mutual development of ideas. When the piano later makes its main entrance, it further declares its independence by introducing completely new material. But first the orchestra lays out a wealth of ideas, and when the piano eventually makes its main entrance, it arrives imaginatively on a long trill. Mozart’s development, largely motivic, is focused and brief, and the recapitulation is enlivened by the new sonorities he generates as familiar themes return in new instrumental colors. The Andantino, in C minor, is the first movement in any Mozart concerto in a minor key. Often compared to an aria from a tragic opera because of its intense and expressive lyric lines, this movement opens with a pulsing, dark theme from muted violins in their lowest register, a theme that sets the mood for the entire movement (and it is a mark of the new sophistication of this concerto that the two violin sections are in canon here). Though the Andantino later moves into radiant E-flat Major, it remains deeply affecting throughout, prefiguring the great slow movements of Mozart’s late piano concertos. The concluding movement is a propulsive rondo, though even here Mozart introduces an original touch. Midway through, he brings the music to a halt and inserts a lengthy minuet (marked Cantabile), which he then treats to four elaborate variations. If the dark expressiveness of the slow movement suggested opera seria, the decorative elegance of these variations takes us into the world of opera buffa. This extended interlude stands in pleasing contrast to the energy of the rondo theme, and Mozart makes the transition back to the rondo with great skill; when that Allegro finally arrives, we feel that we have suddenly stepped back onto a speeding train. The Concerto in E-flat Major is in all ways an original piece of music, one of those rare works that in one stroke expand the possibilities of a form. Mozart must have felt a continuing affection for this music, because he performed it in Vienna after his move from Salzburg in 1781. Coming from the month of the composer’s twenty-first birthday, the Concerto in E-flat Major marks Mozart’s coming of age in more ways than one. Mademoiselle Jeunehomme, meanwhile, has passed into the shadows of history. Even her first name has not survived, and she is remembered today only as the inspiration for this impressive music. Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (compiled by Jahja Ling) SERGE PROKOFIEV Born April 23, 1891, Sontsovka Died March 5, 1953, Moscow Late in 1934 the Kirov Theater in Leningrad approached Serge Prokofiev with the proposal that they collaborate on a ballet based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev agreed, and he completed the massive score by the end of the summer of 1935, but the project came to seem nearly as star-crossed as Shakespeare’s young lovers. The Kirov Ballet backed out, and the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow took over the project. Prokofiev’s first plan had been to give the story a happy ending in which Romeo would rescue Juliet before her suicide, and he actually composed that version, explaining that “The reasons for this piece of barbarism were purely choreographic: living people can dance, the dying cannot.” Fortunately, this idea was scrapped, but when the Bolshoi finally saw Prokofiev’s score, they called it “undanceable” and refused to produce it. While Romeo and Juliet languished in limbo, Prokofiev transformed excerpts from the ballet’s 52 numbers into a series of instrumental suites. He made a suite for piano of Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet and assembled two orchestral suites of seven movements each (a third orchestral suite followed in 1946). Prokofiev took some movements for these suites directly from the ballet, but others he created by combining excerpts from different scenes. The first two suites were premiered in 1936 and 1937 (and Prokofiev himself conducted their American premieres in Boston and Chicago); wide performances of these suites meant that the music from the ballet was familiar to audiences long before it was produced on the stage. The premiere of the ballet itself took place not in Russia but in Brno in 1938, without Prokofiev’s participation. Preparations for the Russian premiere brought more trouble, including a fight between Prokofiev and the choreographer, disputes with the dancers (who at first found the music alien), and a threatened walk-out by the orchestra. When the premiere finally took place in Leningrad on January 11, 1940, it was a triumph for all involved, though Soviet ballerina Galina Ulanova, who danced the part of Juliet, touched on the ballet’s difficult birth when she paraphrased the play’s final lines in her toast to the composer after the opening performance: Never was a tale of greater woe, Than Prokofiev’s music to Romeo. The irony, of course, is that Romeo and Juliet has become Prokofiev’s most famous stage work and one of the most popular creations of his Soviet period: both Ulanova and Dame Margot Fonteyn achieved particular success with the role of Juliet. The movements in Prokofiev’s orchestral suites from Romeo and Juliet are not in chronological sequence – that is, he created them by arranging movements in sequences he felt would be effective in the concert hall, without regard to their order in the ballet.