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Home , Artur Schnabel, Siegfried Wagner

Please note that pianist has withdrawn from these concerts. The CSO welcomes Rudolf Buchbinder, who has graciously agreed to perform. The program remains unchanged.

PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SECOND SEASON Chicago Orchestra Music Director Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, June 13, 2013, at 8:00 Friday, June 14, 2013, at 1:30 Saturday, June 15, 2013, at 8:00 Riccardo Muti Conductor Rudolf Buchbinder Piano ’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March FROM Götterdämmerung Beethoven No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 Allegro moderato Andante con moto— Rondo: Vivace RUDOLF BUCHBINDER

INTERMISSION Bruckner Symphony No. 1 in C Minor Allegro Adagio—Andante Scherzo: Lively Finale: Agitated and fiery

These performances have been enabled by the Juli Grainger Fund. Support of the music director and related programs is made possible in part by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. COMMENTS BY PHILLIP HUSCHER

Richard Wagner Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Germany. Died February 13, 1883, Venice, .

Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March FROM Götterdämmerung

iegfried’s Death was the original then e Young Siegfried, and finally Stitle of the prose sketch for an e Valkyrie each demanded yet that grew, over the span of another opera before it to provide twenty-eight years, into the most background and to set all the nec- monumental undertaking in the essary narrative strands in motion. history of music—the four-opera (e final installment in this set of cycle e Ring of the Nibelungen. prequels is e Rhine Gold, techni- e murder of the young hero cally a prologue to the three music Siegfried was Wagner’s starting dramas.) e entire libretto was point, and it remains the climax of privately printed in 1853, the same the full seventeen-hour work. year Wagner began to compose e genesis of e Ring is a tale the music for the four , in of Wagnerian length and complex- order. Work progressed steadily ity. Wagner first wrote the text for until 1857, when, midway through the four operas, beginning in the the third work (now simply called autumn of 1848 with the story of Siegfried), Wagner took a twelve- Siegfried’s death. He expanded the year break—long enough not only tale backwards as Siegfried’s Death, to renew his creative juices, but,

COMPOSED July 9, 2011, Ravinia Festival trumpets and bass trumpet, 1869–1876 (Rhine Journey). Christoph three trombones and Eschenbach conducting contrabass trombone, tuba, FIRST PERFORMANCE timpani, six harps, triangle, June 2, 2006, Orchestra Hall August 7, 1876; , cymbals, tenor drum, strings (Funeral March). Daniel Germany Barenboim conducting APPROXIMATE FIRST CSO June 30, 2010, Ravinia PERFORMANCE TIME PERFORMANCE Festival (Funeral March). 22 minutes April 1, 1892, Auditorium James Conlon conducting Theatre. Theodore CSO RECORDINGS Thomas conducting INSTRUMENTATION 1959. conduct- three flutes and piccolo, ing. RCA MOST RECENT CSO three oboes and english 1991. PERFORMANCES horn, three clarinets conducting. Erato October 12, 2001, Orchestra and bass clarinet, three Hall (Rhine Journey). Daniel bassoons, four horns and Barenboim conducting four Wagner tubas, three

2 in the process, to write two other Isolde—helped pay for a series of monumental works, Tristan and concerts in Zurich in May 1853, Isolde and Die Meistersinger. In with Wagner conducting excerpts 1869, Wagner returned to Siegfried; from four operas. Over the years, later that year, he finally began the there were many other similar cycle’s last music drama, now called Götterdämmerung (e twilight of the gods).

he Chicago Symphony played Tmusic from Götterdämmerung its very first season—just fifteen years after the premiere of the Ring in Bayreuth. eodore omas, the orchestra’s founder, was one of Wagner’s greatest champions in the United States. He had already introduced some of Wagner’s most important music to the New World—he led the U.S. premiere of the Overture to e Flying Dutchman on the very first orches- tral concert he ever conducted, in 1862!—and he had commissioned Wagner’s one “American” work, the Centennial March written to honor the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In 1871, before the The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Sir perform act 3 of Ring was even finished, omas Götterdämmerung; Orchestra Hall, April 1973 had asked Wagner’s permission to perform orchestral excerpts from the cycle. (Wagner turned him programs, funded in various ways down, no doubt realizing that but always conducted by Wagner American copyright laws didn’t himself, in London, Paris, , protect foreign composers.) , , Saint Petersburg, and Moscow. Concerts in London he idea of performing excerpts in 1855 gave Wagner his first Tfrom Wagner’s operas and chance to hear crucial sections music dramas originated with of before tackling the the composer himself. e first music of the Ring. In Paris in 1860, of Otto Wesendonk’s many gifts Wagner conducted an evening of and loans—even before Wagner orchestral highlights for an audience borrowed Otto’s wife Mathilde that included Gounod, Meyerbeer, as inspiration for Tristan and and Berlioz, who went home to

3 write a famous, uncomprehend- vigorous music that moves rapidly ing review of the Tristan prelude. across great vistas. Wagner programmed selections Siegfried is killed in the third from the Ring as early as 1862, at act of Götterdämmerung and his the series of concerts in Vienna for body carried back to the hall of the which Brahms assisted in copy- Gibichungs, which is destroyed in ing the music. In later years, both Brünnhilde’s great pyrotechnical before and after the premiere of the finale that immediately follows. Ring in Bayreuth in 1876, Wagner Siegfried’s funeral march begins conducted orchestral excerpts from from a point of complete stasis— the cycle, first to raise money for signaled by the hesitant beating of the premiere and then to help erase the timpani—and grows steadily Bayreuth’s first deficit—but also to to a formidable climax. “e moon let people hear passages from the breaks through the clouds,” Wagner music dramas outside the opera writes in his stage directions, “and house, since, as he admitted, he had lights up the funeral procession written nothing for the concert hall. ever more brightly as it reaches the heights.” e combination of great he music from Götterdämmerung darkness and blinding brilliance Tperformed this week begins creates music of an enormous inten- at daybreak, at the moment when sity and force. en, as mists rising Brünnhilde sends Siegfried off into from the Rhine envelop the scene, the world to seek deeds of glory. In the procession disappears into the Siegfried’s Rhine Journey, we hear distance, and the music returns his horn calls from afar, and then to silence.

4 Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany. Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

n December 17, 1808, a by the generous standards of the OViennese paper announced a nineteenth century—were three concert to be given by Ludwig van movements from the Mass in C, Beethoven at the eater an der the concert aria Ah! perfido, and Wien five days later: “All the pieces improvisations at the keyboard by are of his own composition, entirely the composer. new, and not yet heard in public.” “ere we sat from 6:30 Although Beethoven’s publicist till 10:30,” the composer J. F. fudged that last detail ever so Reichardt later recalled, “in the slightly, the list of world premieres most bitter cold, and found by lined up for one evening is aston- experience that one might have too ishing: both the Fifth and Sixth much even of a good thing.” What ; the Choral Fantasy; should have been the greatest night and this work, Beethoven’s fourth of Beethoven’s career was ruined by piano concerto. (ose who didn’t too much music and too little heat. like too much new and unfamiliar e performances were no doubt music at one sitting surely stayed wretched, for rehearsals had gone home that night.) To round out this badly. For one thing, Beethoven substantial program—long even had so annoyed the members of

COMPOSED MOST RECENT CSO CSO RECORDINGS 1805–1806 PERFORMANCE 1942. Artur Schnabel, piano; November 23, 2010, conducting. FIRST PERFORMANCES Orchestra Hall. Vladimir RCA March 1807 (private); Vienna, Feltsman, piano; Sir Andrew 1963. Van Cliburn, piano; Austria. The composer Davis conducting Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA as soloist INSTRUMENTATION 1972. , December 22, 1808; Vienna, solo piano, one flute, two piano; Sir Georg Solti Austria. The composer oboes, two clarinets, two conducting. London as soloist bassoons, two horns, two 1983. , piano; trumpets, timpani, strings FIRST CSO conducting. PERFORMANCE Philips CADENZAS November 4, 1892, tbd Auditorium Theatre. , APPROXIMATE piano; Theodore PERFORMANCE TIME Thomas conducting 34 minutes

5 the eater an der Wien orchestra most members of the audience were the previous month that they now surprised that he went straight to insisted that he sit in the anteroom the keyboard and started to play. whenever he wasn’t needed at the Anyone who troubled to buy a keyboard and wait for the concert- ticket to this concert would have master to check with him between known that a concerto begins with movements. Beethoven was so a long orchestral exposition that desperate to see this concert take gives you all the tunes before the place that he agreed. (It promised soloist begins. But Beethoven had him both wide exposure and a begun to examine every conven- nice profit.) tion he inherited, to rethink every Not surprisingly, there wasn’t choice a composer could make. enough time for the orchestra to He realized that the only way learn so much challenging new to call greater attention to the music. Reichardt remembered that soloist’s first line was to do some- “it had been found impossible to thing unexpected. In his Violin get a single full rehearsal for all the Concerto, first performed several pieces to be performed, every one of months before, he had made the them filled with the greatest diffi- wait almost interminable and then culties.” e Choral Fantasy, which sneaked the violinist in, so that if Beethoven composed at the very you weren’t paying attention you last moment (inexplicably thinking missed it altogether. And here, he the concert lacked a blockbuster caught his audience completely finish), was scarcely rehearsed at off guard again by starting with all. When it broke down completely the piano. It’s a brilliant trick—so during the performance, Beethoven perfectly handled that it has hardly started it over again from the ever been imitated—and Beethoven beginning, making a very long quickly follows one masterstroke evening even longer. with another—the orchestra enters six bars later in the unexpected key y all reports, Beethoven was of B major. Ba terrifically exciting pia- e most remarkable thing about nist. He played with spectacular this bold and original opening technical facility and tremendous is the sustained quiet dynamics emotional expression. According (beginning piano and then falling to his student Ferdinand Ries, he off to pianissimo), as if Beethoven cared less about missed notes than were sharing confidences. A tone character and expression: “Mistakes of moderation and nobility per- of the other kind, he said, were due sists throughout the first move- to chance, but these last resulted ment, even in the most vigorous from want of knowledge, feeling, or and brilliant passages; this, too, attention.” When Beethoven first was unexpected. e movement stepped out onstage the night of is dominated throughout by a December 22, 1808, it was to play gentle version of the same four- this concerto in G major, and surely note rhythm with which Fate

6 aggressively knocks on the door of the Waldstein , written two the Fifth Symphony. (e German years before.) theorist Heinrich Schenker, who e finale itself doesn’t behave always doubted that Beethoven had like one at first: it’s the only one in that image in mind when he wrote all of Beethoven’s concertos that the symphony, wanted to know doesn’t begin with the soloist stat- if the concerto depicted “another ing the main theme, followed by door on which Fate knocked or vigorous confirmation from the full was someone else knocking at the orchestra. Here Beethoven opens same door?”) softly with the strings, in the wrong e slow movement has inspired key. e piano takes the situation many interpretations (Orpheus in hand with a brilliant, virtuosic taming the Furies is the most new theme, and the rest of the familiar one), although Beethoven movement is swift and thrilling. evidently was thinking of noth- e orchestral sound is enriched by ing more dramatic than the music the introduction of trumpets and itself when he wrote it. is is a drums, and the solo part effectively conversation between the strings combines lyricism with bravura and and the piano. e strings, playing elegance with wit. in staccato octaves, begin assert- After the concert, Beethoven ively. e piano responds with boasted that “in spite of the fact rich, quiet chords—an answer that that various mistakes were made, raises questions of its own. On it which I could not prevent, the goes, back and forth—the piano public nevertheless applauded the steadfast, the strings gradually whole performance with enthu- weakening. Sensing victory, the siasm.” Reichardt particularly piano unleashes a brief, rhapsodic remembered the “new pianoforte cadenza. Finally everyone plays concerto of immense difficulty, together, sharing the same chords which Beethoven executed aston- and the same rhythm. Over the ishingly well in the most rapid last chord, the piano poses a brand tempos.” ere’s no record of how new question, to which Beethoven much money Beethoven made responds by launching into the that night. His days as a celebrity finale without a pause. Our sense of performer, however, were over. His boundaries is vague: in retrospect, hearing had recently gotten much the entire slow movement sounds worse, and it turned out that this like a long introduction to the was the last time he would appear finale. (at’s exactly the case in in public as a soloist.

7 Born September 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Upper Austria. Died October 11, 1896, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No. 1 in C Minor

hen he began his first First Symphony, he remodeled his Wsymphony in 1865, Bruckner kitchen, at some expense, to make was already in his forties and firmly for a more presentable package. settled, if not stuck, in a decent job (His own appearance was in fact as the cathedral organist in Linz. his greatest liability, and, when He had begun to make a modest Josefina Lang, the object of his name for himself as a composer affection for many years, eventu- of small sacred choral pieces, for ally rebuffed him, she complained which he seemed destined from in particular that he was “always birth (which was quite literally idiotically dressed.”) in the shadow of the neighbor- hood church). His D minor f all the major composers, mass made a stronger impression OBruckner took the longest when it was performed in Linz in to find his voice. As Wilhelm November 1864; it gave local music Furtwängler wrote, “Mozart and lovers their first hint that their Schubert had already completed regular Sunday organist was a man their life’s work at an age when of bold and original ideas as well Bruckner was still writing counter- as unsuspected ambition. At the point exercises.” Coming into his time, however, Bruckner wanted a own so late in life gave a certain wife more than anything else, and urgency to Bruckner’s work—an in 1866, the year he finished his impatience to make up for lost

COMPOSED MOST RECENT CSO APPROXIMATE January 1865–April 14, 1866; PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE TIME revised 1868–1891 February 18, 1995, 48 minutes Orchestra Hall. Sir Georg The original 1866 Linz Solti conducting CSO RECORDINGS version is performed at 1980. Daniel these concerts. INSTRUMENTATION Barenboim conducting. two flutes (with a third Deutsche Grammophon FIRST PERFORMANCE flute in the Adagio), two May 9, 1868; Linz, Austria. 1995. Sir Georg Solti oboes, two clarinets, two The composer conducting conducting. London bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, FIRST CSO timpani, strings PERFORMANCE February 1, 1940; Orchestra Hall. Frederick Stock conducting

8 time, and to prove himself where he composers, recognized that the had always been taken for granted symphony was to be his ideal form, or overlooked. In 1861, after com- despite his almost total lack of pleting six years of harmony and experience in writing for orches- counterpoint studies with Simon tra; from that point on it was his Sechter, a highly regarded teacher main interest. at the Vienna Conservatory, he said For fifteen months, beginning he felt like a watchdog that had early in 1865, Bruckner worked snapped its chain. steadily on his First Symphony; Bruckner wrote his first instru- he had never before spent so much mental music at thirty-seven. time on a single piece. Ideas did His earliest large-scale orchestral not always come easily to him, and, work was a symphony in F minor although the finale was rapidly that dates from 1863, a piece conceived, Bruckner started the that by his own admission was scherzo over from the top when he a Studiensymphonie—one last decided he didn’t like his first effort student exercise, composed at the and made two stabs at the Adagio. age of thirty-nine. at same year With work on all four movements he began a second symphony, in underway, he traveled to Munich D minor, which he eventually for the world premiere of Wagner’s put aside to write the work he Tristan and Isolde under the highly would acknowledge as his First regarded German conductor Hans Symphony. (Bruckner finished the von Bülow on June 10, 1865. D minor symphony three years after the First, and later allowed it ruckner’s discovery of to be published as no. 0.) BWagner’s music in 1863, when Tannhäuser was staged in Linz for ruckner’s sudden and unlikely the first time, was the most decisive Bdecision to begin writing sym- event in his creative life. Although phonies is one of music’s miracles. Bruckner had no interest in opera e mid-nineteenth century was (and, apparently, no sense for the the time of Wagner and Liszt, the stage—years later, when he saw heyday of the music drama and Die Walküre, he is said to have the . e classical asked why they set Brünnhilde symphony was no longer of concern on fire), he found the orchestral to serious, forward-thinking grandeur, measured pace, and composers. Schumann, the last harmonic complexity of Wagner’s master of the form, died nearly a music overwhelming. He fell under decade before Bruckner began his Wagner’s spell at once, but right first symphony, and no one knew from the beginning he was more that Brahms was already working than a disciple. His encounter with on one (his first, which he would Tannhäuser unlocked something not finish until 1876). Yet sometime inside Bruckner, and, as a result, around 1863 or 1864, Bruckner, he discovered the boldness and the most famously insecure of individuality of his own ideas.

9 Once he tackled the symphony, thought of Bruckner as an impor- form and content came together, tant composer. and Bruckner became the first Bruckner’s first is the only one of composer to translate the essence of his ten published symphonies that Wagnerian language to instrumen- was not influenced by the opening tal music. of Beethoven’s Ninth. Although Bruckner carried the manuscript he had seen Beethoven’s score of his unfinished C minor sym- before composing this symphony, phony with him to Munich in 1865; he did not actually hear the Ninth he proudly showed it to Anton performed until late in 1866, and Rubinstein, who was staying at his he was stunned by the aural impact hotel, and to Bülow, who claimed of those first mysterious measures that he was greatly impressed— with one brilliant theme gradually although in the coming years he emerging from a great cloud. at often enjoyed pulling Bruckner’s leg would be the model to which he (he once sent a telegram notifying would return again and again to Bruckner, who was notoriously open his own symphonies (even gullible, that he had been elected no. 0, completed in 1869, pays to the Bulgarian throne). But homage to Beethoven’s method). when Bruckner was introduced Bruckner’s First, however, begins to Wagner, his old insecurities straightaway with a compact, returned—he could think of little dogged marching tune. (It is to say, and did not even mention the sort of opening Mahler later his own music. Bruckner returned favored, but it was unheard of at to Linz, exhilarated by hearing this time.) e music quickly flares Tristan, and went back to work. up in a brassy climax, but it makes e entire score was completed by long-range progress slowly, and April 14, 1866. sometimes seems to enjoy stasis e first performance two years more than movement itself. ese later in Linz, under the composer’s are all hallmarks of the Bruckner baton, was far from ideal, though style, along with highly repeti- Bruckner, who was conducting a tive passages and jarring shifts symphony of his own for the first in dynamics. time, apparently did not mind. e When Bruckner showed this orchestra was a motley assortment movement to Hans von Bülow of local theater musicians, members in Munich, the conductor was of two regimental bands stationed particularly struck by a majestic in Linz, and a number of rank theme near the end of the exposi- amateurs; there were twelve violins tion that is scored for trombones and just three each of violas, , over cascading violins. Bülow did and basses. e audience also was not point out the resemblance to small, partly because the bridge the famous Pilgrims’ Chorus from over the Danube had collapsed Tannhäuser, perhaps out of tact, but the day before, hampering travel, the similarity in scoring, melodic and largely because no one in 1868 and rhythmic contour, and key

10 (both are in E-flat) is remarkable. in its nervous energy—all charac- It is not surprising to find Wagner’s teristics of the mature Bruckner fingerprints on music that Bruckner scherzo. e trio is unusually calm, composed so soon after he discov- not just by contrast with its sur- ered Tannhäuser—they are evidence roundings, and delicately scored. of nothing more serious than the e finale is the only one in admiration of an impressionable Bruckner’s output to begin fortis- newcomer for his great colleague. simo, and the composer later said e balance of the movement is he found the effect comic, like a filled with original ideas, which man bursting unexpectedly through are boldly and unconventionally a door. ere are other surprises— scored—the sound of Bruckner’s midway through, the music hits a music is always distinctive—and wall of silence and takes a while it is constructed according to an to regain its momentum—and a idiosyncratic but convincing plan. number of abrupt changes of pace Despite Bruckner’s stodgy dress and dynamic. e last pages have and his provincial background, his tremendous energy and thrust, and musical taste was decidedly avant- the final conquest of C major is garde—while he was writing this brief but emphatic. symphony he made special trips to hear music by Berlioz, Liszt, ost conductors have accepted and Wagner. e Adagio, the first Mthe original version of the First of Bruckner’s extraordinary slow Symphony as Bruckner’s earliest movements, is remarkably mod- orchestral masterwork, and that is ern in its chromaticism and tonal what Riccardo Muti conducts this ambiguity. For the first twenty week. However, Bruckner charac- measures the music wanders freely, teristically began to have second without giving a clue, aside from thoughts about it. In later years he the key signature printed in the called the symphony “das kecke score, that it will settle in A-flat Beserl,” an Austrian idiom for a major. Bruckner introduces a fresh young fellow, and he could warm and soaring melody of great not resist tampering with it from beauty and moves forward calmly time to time. Finally, in 1890 and and deliberately, and with surpass- 1891, during one of his most severe ing confidence. ere is nothing bouts of self-doubt, he substantially in orchestral music at the time, rewrote the piece, ironing out many aside from the slow movements in of its irregularities, softening much Bruckner’s subsequent sympho- of its rugged beauty, and dulling its nies, to compare with the solemn brilliance with the nervous fussing grandeur of this music. of old age. e third movement is in the key of G minor—a bracing sound after the A-flat cadences of the Adagio. It is brusque and noisy, thrilling in Phillip Huscher is the program annota- its brassy climaxes and exhilarating tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2013 Chicago

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