Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Season 128, 2008-2009
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BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Sunday, March 22, 2009, at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Malcolm Lowe, violin John Ferrillo, oboe Haldan Martinson, violin William R. Hudgins, clarinet Steven Ansell, viola Richard Svoboda, bassoon Jules Eskin, cello James Sommerville, horn Elizabeth Rowe, flute with Andre Previn, piano and assisting BSO members Ann Hobson Pilot, harp Cathy Basrak, viola PREVIN Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano Lively Slow Jaunty Messrs. FERRILLO, SVOBODA, and PREVIN DEBUSSY Sonata for flute, viola, and harp Pastorale: Lento, dolce rubato Interlude: Tempo di Minuetto Finale: Allegro moderato ma risoluto Ms. ROWE, Mr. ANSELL, and Ms. HOBSON PILOT POULENC Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn Allegro vivace Divertissement: Andantino Finale: Prestissimo Mr. PREVIN; Ms. ROWE; Messrs. FERRILLO, HUDGINS, SVOBODA, and SOMMERVILLE INTERMISSION BRAHMS String Quintet No. 2 in G, Opus 111 Allegro non troppo, ma con brio Adagio Un poco Allegretto Vivace ma non troppo presto Messrs. LOWE and MARTINSON, Mr. ANSELL, Ms. BASRAK, and Mr. ESKIN BSO Classics, Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, RCA, and New World records NOTES ON THE PROGRAM Andre Previn (b.1930) iJTjfMMrf''^ Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano "One of the truly unusual careers in music" is how one writer has summed up Andre Previn's amazingly versatile list of credits. He remains active as conductor, composer, and pianist in the realms of orchestral music, chamber music, and jazz. His diverse m H credits encompass work on more than forty films as composer, arranger, and orches- trator in the Hollywood studios between 1949 and 1973; theater projects for New York and London—e.g., his work with Alan Jay Lerner on the 1969 Broadway musical Coco, and his 1974 music-theater collaboration with Tom Stoppard, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, commissioned by Queen Elizabeth II for her Silver Jubilee—and, in recent decades, a series of concert works that have resulted from his ongoing collabo- rations with many of the world's foremost artists and ensembles (including, among others, the Boston Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic, sopranos Barbara Bonney and Renee Fleming, pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and the Emerson String Quartet). Previn has held chief artistic posts with the Houston Symphony, London Sym- phony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic. His recent orchestral work, Owls, was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra this past fall; a new work for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players is scheduled for a Tanglewood premiere this summer. Previn's current "big" project is his second opera, Brief Encounter (with a libretto by John Caird based on David Lean's film adaptation of the play by Noel Coward), commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and to be premiered there in May 2009. His first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire (on a libretto by Philip Littell based on Tennessee Williams's play), was premiered in 1998 at San Francisco Opera with Previn conducting and has since had some twenty productions on both sides of the Atlantic. Next month, to mark his eightieth birthday, Carnegie Hall will present three concerts featuring him as conductor, composer, and pianist, including the world premiere of a new piano trio. The following program note was written originally for the world premiere perform- ance of Previn's Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano in 1996: The Trio for Piano, Oboe, and Bassoon was commissioned by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charita- ble Trust. Mr. Previn completed his Trio in Bedford Hills, New York, in 1994, and BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS 2008-2009 REMAINING CONCERT AT JORDAN HALL Sunday, April 26, 2009, 3 p.m. KNUSSEN Alleluya Nativitas (Perotin) , for flute, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, and horn • PERLE Monody II, for double bass • BOLCOM Serenata notturna, for oboe and strings • BRAHMS String Sextet No. 2 in G, Op. 36 Single tickets at $32, $23, and $18 can be purchased at the Symphony Hall box office, by calling SymphonyCharge at (617) 266-1200, or at bso.org. On the day of the concert, tickets are available only at the Jordan Hall box office. — world premiere performance was has dedicated the work to Dr. Jeffrey Gold. The Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) composer as pianist with Stephen Taylor, oboe, and Dennis Godburn, given by the Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn bassoon, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, on January 31, 1996. The combination of piano, oboe, and bassoon summons up a sound especially Critic Claude Rostand once wrote of Francis Poulenc that he was "part monk, part gut- tersnipe," a neat characterization specific to 20th-century France—thanks to the trio written for these forces by of the two strikingly different aspects of his musical personality. Much of his work from the early 1920s, was associated with Francis Poulenc. It is curious that the repertoire for this ensemble is not extensive; when he the highly publicized "Groupe des Six," is lighthearted, even frivolous, there is a pervasive logic to combining the two principal double-reed instruments sometimes bawdy, and thoroughly Parisian. musical into a chamber grouping with piano. An opposing strain appeared in his character in the middle '30s, when the death of a close friend the composition of sacred The first movement of Mr. Previn's new Trio ("Lively") initially pits the oboe prompted a choral Thereafter sacred equally and bassoon as a team "versus" the piano in a section whose opening motif bristles work. and secular mingled almost in his output, and with a rocket of sixteenth-notes; but soon the bassoon introduces a more lyrical he could shift even within the context of a single phrase from melancholy or somber lyricism to nose-thumbing impertinence. said in a memorial tribute, melody, rather Mozartean in its contours. The material of both sections is devel- As Ned Rorem sacred oped in some detail, requiring perpetual shifts of meter throughout the movement. Poulenc was "a whole man always interlocking soul and flesh, and profane." The piano opens the second movement ("Slow") with a lament of far-reaching Possessing the least formal musical education of any noted 20th-century composer, Poulenc learned from the music that he liked. His own comment is the best summary: contours. When the oboe enters, it does so with the instruction "lonely," as the composer makes use of the more doleful propensities of the instalment's tone. The The music of Roussel, more cerebral than Satie's, seems to me to have opened a subdued mood maintains throughout, with the winds only once allowing their door on the future. I admire it profoundly; it is disciplined, orderly, and yet full sorrow to break forth to fortissimo—and then withdrawing to let the piano pursue of feeling. I love Chabrier: Espafia is a marvelous thing and the Marche joyeuse is its pensive thoughts solo. Spirits are restored, however, for the finale ("Jaunty"); as a chef-d'oeuvre.... I consider [the Massenet operas] Manon and Werther as part in the opening movement, the players are somewhat segregated at the outset of French national folklore. And I enjoy the quadrilles of Offenbach. Finally my piano vs. winds—and the bassoon introduces a slower section in counterpoint gods are Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Stravinsky, and Mussorgsky. You may say, to a spacious line in the piano. The moods alternate with some suddenness, but what a concoction! But that's how I like music: taking my models everywhere, the three players unite in the final pages for a high-energy conclusion. from what pleases me. —James Keller Poulenc originally composed his Sextuor for piano and winds in 1932, but he was dissatisfied with the work and rewrote it entirely in 1939. It is a composition of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) enormous charm, hardly profound, but brilliantly written for the participating instru- Sonata for flute, viola, and harp ments. The piano—Poulenc's own instrument—is without doubt the leader, with scarcely a measure of rest in the entire work. The winds carry on a cheeky dialogue Late in his life Claude Debussy planned a large chamber music project to consist of six throughout. The work is essentially a divertissement; though sudden turns of mood and sonatas, of which only the first three were actually composed—No. 1 for cello and feeling recall the serious side of the composer, the overall spirit remains fundamen- piano, No. 2 for flute, viola, and harp, and No. 3 for violin and piano. The manuscript tally lighthearted. of this last work contained a brief note looking forward to the next item in the series: "The fourth will be for oboe, horn and harpsichord," but no fourth sonata was ever completed. The projected fifth sonata would have been for trumpet, clarinet, and bas- soon, while the sixth was to have been the largest of all, combining all the instalments previously employed plus a double bass for a large concerted piece. The Sonata for flute, viola, and harp was completed in the fall of 1915. It had a private first performance at the home of the publisher Durand on December 10, 1916, THE BSO ONLINE and a first public performance at a charity concert on March 9, 1917. Debussy had originally planned to write this sonata for flute, oboe, and harp, but a stroke of inspi- ration suggested the viola instead of the oboe as a way of mediating between woodwind v tti listen 4)) explore and plucked strings. Melodic ideas are stated in the various instruments in a free- watch # sounding form and recur in a different order, sometimes with, sometimes without much • • • LISTINGS variation.