Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
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Chris Christodoulou Cheryl Mazak Sunday, January 26, 2020, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Pinchas Zukerman, conductor and violin PROGRAM Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, (1756–1791) K. 219, Turkish Allegro aperto Adagio Rondeau: Tempo di minuetto INTERMISSION Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 (1840–1893) Andante – Allegro con anima Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza Valse: Allegro moderato Andante maestoso – Allegro vivace This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Brian James and S. Shariq Yosufzai. Cal Performances’ 2019–20 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. 16 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, Ludwig van Beethoven Turkish Just how far Ludwig van Beethoven had trav- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart eled stylistically during the first decade of Despite the fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mo- the 19th century can be judged by comparing zart was taught to play the violin from a very the vivacious, post-Mozartian gestures of The early age by his expert teacher-father, Leop- Creatures of Prometheus to the galvanizing, old, the boy genius apparently hardly touched storm-tossed musical narrative of the Over- the instrument between lessons. Neverthe- ture to Egmont. Beethoven was no longer con- less, shortly after his seventh birthday, Mozart tent merely to delight and cajole his audiences; still went on to make his sensational concerto he pummeled them into submission according debut with the court orchestra in Salzburg. to his will. The rapid deterioration in his hear- It is a sign of his all-embracing creative gift that ing had not only forced him to retire from the in later life, Mozart’s prodigious talent for the concert stage as a pianist; it had profoundly af- violin and viola was reduced to little more than fected his whole way of thinking. an enjoyable pastime. Beethoven’s incidental music to Egmont The received wisdom for many years was was the result of a commission from the Burg- that Mozart’s five authenticated violin concer- theater in Vienna in 1809, and intended for tos—K. 207 in B-flat major, K. 211 in D major, a 20th-anniversary revival of Johann Wolfgang K. 216 in G major, K. 218 in D major, and von Goethe’s original play. The central plot, K. 219 in A major (Turkish) —were composed involving Count Egmont’s unsuccessful at- during an eight-month period between April tempts to free 16th-century Netherlands from and December 1775. Alan Tyson’s paper stud- its Spanish oppressors and his subsequent ex- ies and Wolfgang Plath’s detailed examination ecution, clearly struck a chord in the compos- of the original manuscripts now suggest, how- er’s psyche. Indeed, Beethoven wrote to Goethe ever, that K. 207 actually dates from two years personally, explaining how he had been moved earlier. by “that glorious Egmont on which I have again No one is exactly certain what compelled reflected through you, and which I have repro- Mozart to show such unprecedented enthusi- duced in music as intense as my feelings when asm for the genre at this time. It is therefore I read your play.” more than likely that he simply composed On the opening night of the new production the concertos for himself to play as an act of (May 24, 1810), the audience was somewhat ingratiation for his powerful employer, the perplexed by the lack of any preparatory music: archbishop of Salzburg. The concertos were Beethoven still hadn’t completed the overture! extremely well received, so much so that the It wasn’t until the fourth performance on June following year the newly appointed leader of 15th, that this symphonic masterpiece finally the archbishop’s orchestra, Antonio Brunetti, received its grand premiere. eagerly took them under his wing. The overture immediately contrasts the Finest of all is K. 219, whose opening Alle- forces of good and evil with a slow introduc- gro aperto is notable both for its exuberant me- tory section that sets massive brass and string lodic invention and the soloist’s very first entry, chords against soothing, plaintive cries from which opens with a six-bar adagio interlude the woodwinds. This is followed by a storm- as though it were the most natural thing in the swept allegro section, a gloomy landscape star- world. Another striking feature is the finale’s tlingly illuminated by nerve-shredding strikes “noisy” third episode in A minor, composed of musical lightning. A final reminiscence of in the then fashionable Janissary (“alla turca”) the woodwind motif sets up a coda of remark- style, with cellos and double basses instructed able force (this is recalled later in the incidental to play with the wood of their bows. Apparently music in the form of a “victory symphony,” as the audiences of the time found the intensity Egmont is sent to his execution). of feeling generated by the central Adagio so 17 PROGRAM NOTES perplexing that the following year, Brunetti to be forcibly torn away from his mother, and requested Mozart compose a substitute. The then clung onto the wheels of her carriage in result is the magical Adagio in E major, K. 261. an effort to prevent her leaving. He graduated in 1859 and immediately obtained a job with Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 the Ministry of Justice in Saint Petersburg, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky but after three years of inexorable tedium, the Composed the very same year as Richard 22-year-old wrote to his father informing him Strauss’ Don Juan, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s that he was going to make music his career. Fifth Symphony is the most popular of all his Enrolling at the Conservatory in 1863, works in the genre. Its string of unforgettable Tchaikovsky’s progress was fairly spectacular. melodies, breathtaking emotional power, and Having composed little more than a handful of sense of a glorious triumph won in the face piano pieces and songs up to this point, within of adversity has guaranteed it an immortal five years he had the remarkably assured First place in music history. Tchaikovsky initially Symphony (Winter Daydreams) under his belt. had severe doubts about the piece, convinced In addition, he had been taken on as a lecturer that it represented the start of a creative de- at the newly founded Moscow Conservatory, cline. Having witnessed the thunderous ap- and then in 1869 produced the first version of plause that greeted the work wherever it was his seminal Romantic masterpiece, the Romeo performed, however, he later confided to his and Juliet fantasy-overture. nephew, Lev Davidov: “I like it far better now.” Despite recurring fits of depression brought Tchaikovsky was blessed with one of the about by his homosexuality and natural inse- most profoundly instinctive of creative gifts. curity, this opened the floodgates to a stream Far from merely representing the self-indul- of compositions over the following seven years gent outpourings of an emotionally unstable that indisputably established Tchaikovsky as personality, the often painful immediacy of Russia’s greatest living composer, including his deeply introspective and volatile soundworld the Second (Little Russian) and Third (Polish) was to touch a whole generation of composers Symphonies, the First Piano Concerto, the bal- as disparate in technique as Puccini, Sibelius, let Swan Lake, and the Variations on a Rococo and Berg. Tormented throughout his life by Theme for cello and orchestra. That same year, feelings of guilt regarding his homosexuality Tchaikovsky began exchanging letters with a (referred to simply as ‘Z’ in his correspon- wealthy widower, Nadezhda von Meck, who dence), it is a bitter irony that as little as 20 offered to support him financially (and emo- years after the composer’s death, the great tionally) on the rather strange condition that impresario Serge Diaghilev could write from neither of them should ever meet. Overwhelmed the admittedly racy artistic circles of Paris: by her generosity, he responded with three ax- “Tchaikovsky thought of committing suicide iomatic, storm-tossed masterworks: the sym- for fear of being discovered a homosexual; but phonic fantasia Francesca da Rimini, the Fourth today, if you are a composer and not a homo- Symphony, and the opera Eugene Onegin. sexual, you might as well put a bullet through At the very height of his powers, your head.” Tchaikovsky’s early musical prog- Tchaikovsky then took the appallingly ill- ress was constantly hampered by his father’s advised step of marrying a psychologically blinkered desire to see him enter the legal pro- wayward admirer of his, Antonina Milyukova. fession. Despite composing his first song setting Tormented and repulsed, after only a few weeks at the age of four and subsequently showing he escaped to the Caucasus, where he suffered signs of exceptional talent (none of the local a nervous collapse, having made a bungled at- teachers could keep pace with him), six years tempt at suicide. It took him nearly 10 years to later, Tchaikovsky was packed off to the School recover fully artistically, for while a number of Jurisprudence. This caused him such deep of works he composed during the early/mid distress that on the day of his arrival he had 1880s are highly popular today (the Capriccio 18 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Italien, Serenade for Strings, and 1812 Overture, held that a private court of honor had met to in particular), the music of this period, despite decide the outcome of a potentially embar- many felicities and moments of burning inspi- rassing liaison that Tchaikovsky had formed ration, only occasionally manages to live up the with the nephew of a Russian nobleman— supreme promise of his earlier work.