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Home , Ignaz von Seyfried, Orchestra Victoria, Sinfonietta (Korngold)

From

Viennato Hollywood MASTER 11

FRIDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 7.30PM FEDERATION CONCERT HALL

Giordano Bellincampi conductor INTERVAL Jun Yi Ma violin Duration 20 mins SUPPÉ Light Cavalry – BRAHMS No 3 Duration 8 mins Allegro con brio Andante MAHLER Poco allegretto Blumine Allegro Duration 8 mins Duration 33 mins

KORNGOLD This concert will end at approximately Violin Concerto 9.30pm. Moderato nobile Romance (Andante) Finale (Allegro assai vivace) Duration 24 mins

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. 37 FRANZ VON SUPPÉ (1819-1895)

Light Cavalry – Overture section of a Hungarian dance (Hungary would have been on the minds of many Possibly the first piece of classical music I Viennese just prior to the formation of the heard was this overture in a Combined Brass Austro-Hungarian Empire). Then the canter Bands concert in the Town Hall in returns and finally the fanfares, with thrilling the 1960s. At the time, the music of Suppé drum-roll accompaniment. This is real “sit was popularly thought of as “classical”. But GIORDANO BELLINCAMPI JUN YI MA up and take notice” music, fulfilling perfectly was he too lightweight? It is still fairly safe the function of an overture. to say that Suppé’s music is rarely found Giordano Bellincampi is General Music Shanghai-born Jun Yi Ma began violin in major subscriptions programs, as it is tonight. AS A CONDUCTOR, SUPPÉ WAS FAMOUS Director of the Duisburg Philharmonic studies at the age of six, gave his first IN FOR A GIMMICK IN WHICH HE and Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand televised performance three years later and But maybe Suppé is worthy of more serious TOOK SNUFF BEFORE CONDUCTING EACH consideration. He was one of those brilliant Symphony Orchestra. Previously he was the was soloist with the Shanghai and Beijing OF HIS FAMOUS SO THEY’D Principal Conductor of I Pomeriggi Musicali, musicians often to be found in theatres in BEGIN WITH A BIG SNEEZE! Symphony Orchestras at the age of ten. In General Music Director of the Danish the German-speaking world in the 19th 1989 he was appointed Concertmaster of century. Born to Austrian parents of Belgian, National , Music Director of the But “overtures to what?” asks Richard the Asian Youth Orchestra. He studied at Italian and Czech descent in Split on the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra and Traubner in his book, Operetta: A Theatrical Dalmatian coast, Suppé was raised as an the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music History. Should Suppé’s operettas be better Chief Conductor of the Denmark’s leading Italian. He studied law at Padua University with Jan Sedivka, and at the Sydney known? Perhaps Traubner is right. Suppé’s avant-garde ensemble, Athelas Sinfonietta but after his father’s death, moved with his Die schöne Galathée (a setting of the Copenhagen. He is a regular guest to many Conservatorium with Charmian Gadd and family to Vienna where he studied music Pygmalion story) still has some currency on orchestras around the world including John Harding. He has performed before with, among others, Ignaz von Seyfried, the German-language stage, and Fatinitza who claimed (spuriously, it seems) to have the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, three US presidents: Ronald Reagan, and Boccacio have entries in Gänzl’s Book been a former pupil of Mozart. Suppé was Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, George H W Bush and Bill Clinton. He of the Musical Theatre. Suppé was more an all-rounder. Even after his first conducting Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Malmö than a musical lightweight or, rather, no less became Concertmaster of the Tasmanian appointment (at the Josefstadt Theater in Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony important for being entertaining. As one of Symphony Orchestra in 2002 and has Vienna in 1840), he sang in The Elixir of Love Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, the who achieved a successful been a regular Guest Concertmaster with in Ödenburg in 1842. And as a conductor, Viennese response to the operettas of Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Suppé was famous in Vienna for a gimmick the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra Offenbach and ended up composing Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra, Saint in which he took snuff before conducting (AOBO), Melbourne Symphony, Adelaide operettas that often rivalled those of Johann Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the each of his famous overtures so they’d begin Strauss II, Suppé could rightly be called, as Orchestra della Toscana. Highlights of this Symphony, Orchestra and the San with a big sneeze! But it is as a he is by Traubner, “the father of Viennese Antonio Symphony. He appears regularly that he is best remembered. season include return visits to the Toledo operetta”. Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony as a soloist with the TSO and was co- And as a composer of superb, attention- Gordon Kalton Williams © 2015 Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia soloist in 2006 alongside Nigel Kennedy. getting overtures. The introduction to Orchestra. He has excelled in the field In 2009 he was soloist with the Hong Kong Light Cavalry, an operetta composed in of opera since making his debut with the Sinfonietta and played in the Worldwide 1866, is a case in point. It is an example of the sort of overture often classified as Royal Danish Opera with La bohème, and Chinese Festival Orchestra in Beijing. In pot-pourri, a collection of distinct themes as Music Director of the Danish National 2010 he was Assistant Concertmaster of bridged by short connecting passages. Opera he conducted works such as Der the Asia-Pacific United Orchestra in New The different ideas occur one after the other: Rosenkavalier, The Flying Dutchman, Tristan York. In 2011 he was appointed Professor a sequence of stirring fanfares in military und Isolde, Don Giovanni and The Magic of Violin at the Tasmanian Conservatorium band orchestration is followed by a dramatic . Giordano Bellincampi was born in whirling dance-like segment, before the Italy and moved to Copenhagen at a young and is Music Advisor to the Australian overture’s most famous “quote” – the age, beginning his career as a trombonist International Symphony Orchestra Institute. cantering theme announced by . with the Royal Danish Orchestra before More recently, he has been appointed This canter is developed slightly and leads making his professional conducting debut Artistic Advisor of and to a brief cadenza, after which is heard a more doleful segment, like the slow in 1994. Concertmaster of the AOBO.

38 39 GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) (1897-1957)

Blumine: Symphonic movement Violin Concerto in D major, Op 35 (originally Andante from Symphony No 1) Moderato nobile The première of Mahler’s First Symphony, Romance (Andante) conducted by the composer in Budapest Finale (Allegro assai vivace) in 1889, was a mixed success. This was partly the result of a fraught political As a child, Austrian composer Erich situation in the Hungarian capital, where Wolfgang Korngold was mentored by the performing arts provided an arena for Gustav Mahler and took lessons from the conflict between Hungarian nationalists Alexander Zemlinsky. He was only 13 and those more oriented towards German- years old when his Trio received its speaking parts of the Empire. Partisans first Vienna performance by an eminent of the two conductors, Mahler and Erkel, group that included Bruno Walter on volubly expressed their differences, and piano. Mature success came with the reviews ranged from damning to perplexed. (1916) and, above all, Mahler didn’t help things by calling his the psychodrama (1920) First Symphony a “Symphonic Poem in which, within a year of its simultaneous Two Parts”. This signalled that this was première in Hamburg and Cologne, had not “absolute music” but had some been performed at the Vienna State Opera literary pretensions, and peppering it with and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, quotations from his Songs of a Wayfarer, GUSTAV MAHLER winning the admiration of two notable bird calls and rustic dances attracted composer colleagues, Puccini and Berg. accusations of “colour without design”. Scheffel’s play The Trumpeter of Säkkingen. Largely due to Die tote Stadt, by the early The original score has been lost, so it is 1930s, Korngold was being described as Friends persuaded Mahler to give the ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD impossible to know how much of it was the “Viennese Puccini”, and by some as a work a program “to make it easier to recomposed, but it seems clear that the “great hope of German music”. understand”, so in its second and third melody represents the play’s hero, Almost inevitably, his American movie outings he gave the movements explicit But Korngold was Jewish, and Die tote Werner, serenading his beloved, Margareta, scores did little to further Korngold’s titles, and nicknamed it the Titan in Stadt, along with the rest of his music, from across the Rhine. One Budapest critic reputation as a serious German composer reference to a sprawling Romantic novel would be banned by the Nazi regime. instinctively noted that in the alternation and conductor, a point of particular conflict by the philosopher Jean-Paul Richter. Perhaps unwittingly, Korngold’s personal of trumpet and “it is not hard to with his father, Julius (a high profile and The work, originally in five movements, salvation came early on when, in 1934, recognise the lovers exchanging their somewhat irascible Viennese music critic), became a narrative of “Endless Spring”, director Max Reinhardt lured him to tender feelings in the silence of night”. who nagged Erich relentlessly to return to “Blumine” (with a sense of “flowering”) Hollywood to arrange a score out of Mendelssohn’s famous incidental music for the opera and concert stage. And sadly, and “In full sail”, and, in the second part Conductor Bruno Walter recounts how he his Warner Brothers film of A Midsummer on one occasion when Korngold did so, (Commedia humana), “Funeral March” saved the score of Blumine when Mahler Night’s Dream. For the next four years, until producing this Violin Concerto for first and “Dall’inferno”. It thus conformed to a was burning a lot of old manuscripts, but Hitler’s annexation of forced him performance early in 1945, the New York prevailing notion of the work as the story it remained unperformed for 70 years until into permanent exile, Korngold commuted reviewer, Irving Kolodin, could not pass up of a Romantic hero, whom we can identify Benjamin Britten conducted it in 1967 with between Warner’s Hollywood studios and the opportunity for an easy dig, describing with Mahler himself. The original second the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Why his home in Vienna, remaking himself the result as “more corn than gold”. movement, entitled Blumine for the second Mahler chose to discard it is a mystery, as arguably the most acclaimed movie Curiously, according to one version of the performance in Hamburg, was discarded though it may be that in the context of the composer of the 1930s. He won his first story, it was Korngold’s anti-Hollywood by Mahler after its third, at which point he work’s overall mood – which is frequently Oscar for the score of Anthony Adverse father who suggested that his beautiful made a number of substantial revisions to ironic and angst-ridden – Blumine is simply (1936), and his second for The Adventures title music for a forgotten Errol Flynn the other movements. too beautiful. of Robin Hood (1938), presented to him adventure, Another Dawn (1937), might Written over a period of four years, the Gordon Kerry © Symphony Australia 2002 at the award ceremony by Jerome Kern. make a good opening theme for a violin symphony as a whole contains much Probably his most famous and characteristic concerto. Having long ago promised such “recycled” material, and Blumine appears The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s first a work to violinist Bronislaw Huberman, performances of this work were in Hobart and score of all was that for the swashbuckling to have been lifted from some incidental Launceston on 18 and 19 November 2005 with romance The Sea Hawk (1940), starring Korngold began sketching the concerto music that Mahler had written in 1884 for conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing. Errol Flynn. on a trip back to Vienna in summer 1937.

40 41 After the arching opening from Another remained faithful to his aim “that music JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Dawn, the first movement moves on to should be melodic”, “wohllautend” a second idea borrowed from the love (well-sounding), and “conceived in theme for his 1937 score for the film the heart”. Symphony No 3 in F, Op 90 F, while the inner movements focus on its polar opposite C. This simple architecture Juarez, based on a novel by Franz Werfel Abridged from a note by Graeme Skinner Allegro con brio (fittingly, the Violin Concerto is dedicated is decorated at the more local level by © 2010 Andante to Franz Werfel’s wife, Alma, widow of much more surprising key relations. Poco allegretto Gustav Mahler). With this second theme, The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra has The F major/A flat opening is a case in the movement first comes fully into the performed this work once before, with conductor Allegro point; the first subject, or thematic group, “nobile” of its initial tempo direction, Kirill Karabits and soloist Boris Brovtsyn in Hobart is a surging music in F major, but the Brahms spent the summer of 1883 in before continuing through a closely worked on 14 July 2007. second, a serene tune sounded by the German spa-town of Wiesbaden. development towards its fullest realisation clarinet and , is in the distant There he produced his Third Symphony in the virtuosic coda. key of A major. A short development in a mere four months. It is the shortest leads to the expected recapitulation of Korngold’s Oscar-winning score to Anthony of Brahms’ , but for this the opening material; more important, Adverse supplies the main melody for the obsessively self-critical composer that though, is Brahms’ gradual lowering of the luminously scored second movement, was almost miraculous. Hans Richter, who temperature to conclude the movement – though the central section, marked conducted the first performance in Vienna, as he does with all four in this work – softly “misterioso” was new and remained was perhaps a little excessive in calling it and calmly. unique to the concerto. “Brahms’ Eroica”, and yet it is a work that essays many emotional states in a highly The Andante takes up the pastoral sounds of clarinet and bassoon, alternating wind KORNGOLD COMMUTED BETWEEN dramatic fashion, and leads to a conclusion textures with quiet lower-string passages WARNER’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND of great peace. at first, and such textures moderate HIS HOME IN VIENNA, REMAKING HIMSELF Thirty years earlier, Brahms had contributed any impassioned outbursts. The third AS ARGUABLY THE MOST ACCLAIMED the “F-A-E Sonata”, a work jointly MOVIE COMPOSER OF THE 1930S. movement is effectively a minuet. Its main composed with Albert Dietrich and Robert theme, characterised by gentle dissonance Schumann in honour of violinist Joseph on the downbeats, is sung first by the The virtuosic third movement is based Joachim. The letters stand for Joachim’s cellos. After a contrasting central section, on the puckishly athletic jig theme from personal motto “frei aber einsam” (free but the opening material is recapitulated but Korngold’s 1937 score for The Prince and lonely) and provide a musical motif that in completely different instrumentation. the Pauper, the skittering 6/8 melody also unites the work. Brahms responded that his The dramatic focus of the symphony, transformed in several briefly intervening own motto was “frei aber froh” (free but however, is the finale, where assertive, brass-laden orchestral tuttis into a happy). The musical version of this, F-A-F, often terse rhythmic ideas contend with rambunctious 2/4 American hoedown, that dominates the Third Symphony, which was athletic, long-breathed melodies. After momentarily seems to naturalise Korngold written partly as a “proffered hand” or boisterous heroics, the music reaches a into the musical world of his new fellow gesture of reconciliation by Brahms, who state of repose where, against rippling countrymen, Aaron Copland and Roy Harris. had fallen out with Joachim over the latter’s strings, the winds restate the opening F-A divorce some years earlier. Almost a decade on from its inception, flat-F moment, now purged of any angst. Korngold was still saving the first The motif provides the assertive opening © Gordon Kerry 2014 performance of the concerto for Huberman. gesture, where it is “spelled” F-A flat-F: But the violinist was repeatedly unable to in F major, the A flat is chromatic, thus The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra first commit to a suitable date and a new friend, providing a dramatic dissonance at the performed this work with conductor Enrique Jorda Jascha Heifetz, gave the première, to warm work’s outset. This pattern – the first, third in Hobart and Launceston on 8 and 10 June 1954 and eighth degrees of the scale – can and, most recently, with Sebastian Lang-Lessing in response, in St Louis in February 1947, with Hobart on 8 September 2011. subsequent performances in Chicago and be found throughout the whole work, as New York. In his own original program note, melodic feature, accompanying figure, or Korngold wrote the following: “In spite of seemingly inconsequential detail. But the its demands for virtuosity in the finale, the major-minor tension pervades the work, work with its many melodic episodes was giving it its moments of “heroic” drama. contemplated rather for a Caruso of the The work’s dramatic unity is also effected by violin than for a Paganini.” In the concerto, its overall tonal plan: the outer movements as he testified elsewhere, Korngold are, naturally, centred on the home key of

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