SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA a JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT May 20-22, 2016 RICHARD WAGNER Siegfried Idyll FRANZ SCHUBERT Symphony
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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT May 20-22, 2016 RICHARD WAGNER Siegfried Idyll FRANZ SCHUBERT Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759: Unfinished Allegro moderato Andante con moto INTERMISSION RICHARD STRAUSS Don Quixote (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character), Op. 35 Chi-Yuan Chen, viola Johannes Moser, cello Introduction Theme: Don Quixote, the Knight of the Woeful Countenance Variation 1: The Adventure of the Windmills Variation 2: Battle with the Sheep Variation 3: Dialogue of Knight and Squire Variation 4: The Adventure with the Penitents Variation 5: The Knight’s Vigil Variation 6: The False Dulcinea Variation 7: The Ride through the Air Variation 8: The Adventure of the Enchanted Boat Variation 9: The Combat with the Two Magicians Variation 10: The Joust with the Knight of the White Moon Finale: The Death of Don Quixote Siegfried Idyll RICHARD WAGNER Born May 22, 1813, Leipzig Died February 13, 1883, Venice An understanding of Wagner’s lovely Siegried Idyll requires some knowledge of the details of that composer’s irregular personal life. In 1864, at the age of 51, Wagner began an affair with 27-year-old Cosima von Bülow, daughter of Franz Liszt and wife of pianist-conductor Hans von Bülow. Wagner and Cosima’s daughter Isolde was born the following April, on the same day von Bülow conducted the first rehearsal of Tristan und Isolde. All concerned agreed to keep details of the situation a secret, and the infant’s birth certificate listed von Bülow as the father, Wagner as the godfather. Cosima bore Wagner two more children, a daughter Eva in 1867 and a son Siegfried in 1869, and moved in with him in 1868. Finally, in 1870 – after a six-year relationship and three children – the couple was married. That fall, Cosima became aware that Wagner was working on a project he would not describe to her, and for good reason – it was to be one of the best surprises in the history of music. On Christmas morning, Cosima – asleep with eighteen-month-old Siegfried – awoke to the sound of music. Her husband had secretly composed and rehearsed a piece for small orchestra, and now that orchestra – arranged on the staircase leading to Cosima’s bedroom – gave this music its most unusual premiere. This music was not just a token of love and a Christmas present, but also a birthday present: Cosima had turned 33 a few weeks earlier. She treasured this music, which is full of private meanings for the couple: it is based on themes from Wagner’s (as yet unperformed) opera Siegfried, but it also uses a child’s cradlesong and other themes with personal meaning for Wagner and Cosima. Their private title for the piece was Tribschen Idyll: they were living at Tribschen on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland at the time, and Cosima felt that the music was an embodiment of their life and love in these years. When in 1878, pressed for cash, Wagner had the music published (under the now-familiar title Siegfried Idyll), Cosima confessed in her diary: “My secret treasure is becoming common property; may the joy it will give mankind be commensurate with the sacrifice I am making.” As good love music should be, Siegfried Idyll is gentle, warm and melodic. Listeners familiar with the opera Siegfried will recognize some of the themes, all associated with the young hero Siegfried: his horn call, the bird call from the Forest Murmurs sequence and others. Wagner also quotes, in the oboe near the beginning, the old cradlesong “Sleep, Little Child, Sleep.” At its premiere, this music was performed on Cosima’s staircase by an orchestra of fifteen players, though the double bass was around a corner and could not see Wagner conduct. Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759: Unfinished FRANZ SCHUBERT Born January 31, 1797, Vienna Died November 19, 1828, Vienna In the fall of 1822, Schubert began a new symphony. He quickly completed two movements and began a third, a scherzo. He sketched out 129 measures of this scherzo and took the time to orchestrate the first nine. And then he stopped. The following year Schubert sent the manuscript to his friend Anselm Huttenbrenner, probably as a gesture of appreciation for Schubert’s having been awarded a “diploma of honor” by the Styrian Music Society of Graz, of which Huttenbrenner was a member. And at that point Schubert apparently forgot about this symphony. He never mentioned it again. He never heard it performed. The manuscript sat on dusty shelves for four decades. In 1865 conductor Johann Herbeck visited the aged Huttenbrenner in Graz and inquired about the existence of any Schubert manuscripts, Huttenbrenner showed him the symphony, and Herbeck led the premiere in Vienna on December 17, 1865. It was an instant triumph, yet mystery continues to swirl around this music. Why did Schubert stop? Did he stop? (Some have suggested that Schubert actually completed this symphony and later used its finale in his incidental music to Rosamunde). And why should an “unfinished” (and forgotten) symphony have become one of the best-loved pieces ever composed? Despite its odd form – two moderately-paced movements instead of the customary four at different tempi – the Symphony in B minor is a fully satisfying musical and emotional experience. The Unfinished is built on some of the most singable tunes in classical music, yet Schubert can transform those melodies into dramatic music full of craggy attacks, epic monumentality and eerie silences. Schubert’s control of orchestral color is remarkable here, as well: three trombones give this music unusual weight, but even more impressive are the many shades of instrumental color he achieves through his subtle handling of solo winds. Also striking is the ease of Schubert’s harmonic language: this music glides effortlessly between keys, sometimes with the effect of delicately shifting patterns of light. And through both movements runs a haunting, somber beauty. All alone, cellos and double basses lay out the ominous opening of the Allegro moderato, marked pianissimo. But this turns out to be only an introduction; the movement proper begins as winds offer the long opening melody over skittering, nervous strings. Cellos sing the famous second subject, and then comes a complete surprise: Schubert ignores both these themes and builds the development on that dark introductory melody. That music explodes with unexpected fury, and what had seemed a “lyric” symphony suddenly becomes a very dramatic one. Then another surprise: Schubert recalls the themes of the exposition and closes on a subdued memory of the introduction. This movement is powerful, lyric, dramatic, beautiful – and utterly original. The second movement also proceeds at a moderate pace: Andante con moto. Once again, there are two principal themes – the violins’ sweet opening phrase and a poised woodwind melody over syncopated accompaniment. And once again, this movement combines a granitic monumentality with the most haunting lyricism. A short development leads to a full recapitulation, and a beautifully extended coda draws this symphony to its calm conclusion. Such a summary may describe the Unfinished Symphony, but it cannot begin to explain its appeal. We may never know why Schubert did not complete more than these two movements, but the symphony’s unusual form has not kept it from becoming one of the most famous ever written, and few of the millions who have loved this music have ever considered it “unfinished.” Don Quixote (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character), Op. 35 RICHARD STRAUSS Born June 11, 1864, Munich Died September 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen In 1896, just after finishing Also Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss set to work on a new project, one that would take him in entirely new directions. Strauss at first planned to write a tone poem based on events from Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. But rather than writing a straightforward tone poem, Strauss made his task more complicated by casting his new work as a set of variations based on a collection of themes associated with Don Quixote, his sidekick Sancho Panza and his idealized love Dulcinea. And then – to bring yet one more dimension to this music – Strauss conceived it as a virtuoso work for cello and orchestra, with the solo cellist cast in the role of Don Quixote. Strauss completed the score in December 1897, and the premiere took place on March 6, 1898, in Cologne, with Friedrich Grützmacher as soloist and Franz Wüllner conducting. Strauss had originally thought of Don Quixote as tone poem rather than a cello concerto, and he intended that the solo cello part would be played by an orchestra’s principal cellist seated in his or her normal position at the front of the cello section. But the solo part is so spectacular that the piece soon became a favorite of the great cellists, who naturally preferred to be positioned in front of the orchestra, like a soloist in a concerto; Strauss himself eventually came to conduct Don Quixote with the cellist placed in front of the orchestra. But though Don Quixote has become one of the greatest works in the cello literature, we should not overlook the other players to whom Strauss assigns important solo roles in this music. The part of Sancho Panza is first announced by bass clarinet and tenor tuba and thereafter undertaken mostly by the solo viola, which plays a very important (and very difficult) part as the Don’s long-suffering squire; at key moments the solo violin contributes to the portrait of Don Quixote. Don Quixote consists of an introduction, a statement of the principal themes, ten variations and a finale.