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Home , E major, Hamlet (Tchaikovsky), Judith (Serov), Lied, Mily Balakirev, Overture

PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON Chicago Zell Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, April 14, 2016, at 8:00 Friday, April 15, 2016, at 8:00 Saturday, April 16, 2016, at 8:00 Friday, April 22, 2016, at 1:30 Sunday, April 24, 2016, at 3:00

Riccardo Muti Conductor Rosa Feola Soprano Tchaikovsky The Tempest, Op. 18 Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet

INTERMISSION

Mahler Symphony No. 4 in G Major Deliberately, without rushing In easy motion, without haste Serene (Poco adagio) Very leisurely ROSA FEOLA

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra thanks Julie and Roger Baskes, lead sponsors of the Shakespeare in Music Celebration concert programming. Additional sponsorship support is generously provided by Joyce Chelberg, Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Franke, the Gilchrist Foundation, Pam and Roger Hull, Jim and Kay Mabie, Judy and Scott McCue, and Burton X. and Sheli Rosenberg. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to 93XRT, WBEZ 91.5 FM, and RedEye for their generous support as media sponsors of the Classic Encounter series. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a stage agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is part of the citywide Shakespeare 400 Celebration. COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

Pyotr Tchaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Viatka, Russia. Died November 18, 1893, , Russia. The Tempest, Symphonic fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18

It was the power of whether there needed to be a tempest in The Shakespeare that helped Tempest (and if so, where should he put it—at Tchaikovsky to find his the start or in the middle?), and if not, should voice as a , first he call the work Miranda instead, after the play’s in Romeo and Juliet, the captivating heroine. “Is it essential to depict the fantasy- com- fury of elements in an overture written on a piece posed in 1869, and then where this incidental circumstance serves simply four years later in this as the point of departure for all the dramatic grand and sweep- action?” he asked. Stasov’s reply was swift and ing “symphonic fantasia” unequivocal: “Of course there must be,” he fired inspired by The Tempest. The idea for writing back, and he suggested representing the sea music based on The Tempest came from Vladimir twice—at the beginning and at the end. He also Stasov, the powerful but often prickly Russian recommended that itself should erupt critic. Stasov was with Tchaikovsky at the in a flash and at full strength, unlike storms in Rimsky-Korsakovs’ for Christmas in 1872, and nature, to show that it was created by supernat- he was so taken with Tchaikovsky’s ural forces. “Let your storm suddenly take hold rendition of his new Little Russian Symphony and howl,” he wrote. Still, Tchaikovsky hesitated, that he asked what the composer had planned for claiming, in the words of a true procrastinator, his next work. When Tchaikovsky vacillated, that he preferred to wait for exactly the right Stasov intervened, as he regularly did with artists moment to begin. But begin he finally did. He he favored. In a letter a few days later, he finished the rough draft in August—evidently suggested three subjects worthy of musical after two weeks of solid work in the peaceful treatment: Gogol’s novel , Scott’s countryside, “as if moved by some supernatural Ivanhoe, and The Tempest. Having succeeded with force.” The score was ready for performance by Shakespeare in the past, Tchaikovsky did not early December. hesitate to try again. Stasov outlined a Tempest scenario for s with Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest is a Tchaikovsky, but, although the composer agreed highly selective reading of Shakespeare’s to the blueprint, he put off starting work imme- drama. Stasov’s original outline diately. One of his first quandaries, in fact, was wasA succinct:

COMPOSED MOST RECENT INSTRUMENTATION 1873 CSO PERFORMANCES two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two September 30, 2014, Orchestra Hall. , two bassoons, four horns, FIRST PERFORMANCE Riccardo Muti two , three trombones, tuba, December 7, 1873; , Russia timpani, percussion, strings October 28, 2014; Grosser Musikvereinsaal, Vienna, Austria. FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES APPROXIMATE Riccardo Muti conducting November 23 & 24, 1894, PERFORMANCE TIME Auditorium Theatre. Theodore 26 minutes Thomas conducting CSO RECORDING 1984. Claudio Abbado conducting. CBS

2 varying weight and drama. He opens with the sea, placid and luminous at first, and then, with the roll of the timpani, surging with violence and unexpected power, as the magician Prospero raises the tempest. The emotional heart of the piece—although not the capstone of the arch—is the expansive and lyrical music for the Engraving by Pierre Simon II of The Enchanted Island: Before the Cell of Prospero, part of the lovers Miranda famous John Boydell Shakespeare print series, based on the painting by Henry Fuseli, 1797 and Ferdinand. Brilliantly colored short- The sea. Ariel, spirit of the air, raising a tem- hand portraits of the spirit Ariel, fleet and pest at the bidding of the magician Prospero. fantastic, and the monstrous Caliban, crude and Ferdinand’s ship sinks. The enchanted island. blundering, sit at the center of the score. But The first shy awakening of love between the love music returns as if it has never been Miranda and Ferdinand. Ariel. Caliban. The interrupted, and it is even more impassioned and young couple’s love grows to overwhelming yearning. (At the climax, Tchaikovsky writes passion. Prospero renounces his magic fffff for the first time in his music.) Prospero then powers and quits the island. The sea. renounces his magic powers, and we are left once again with the sounds of the sea, fading toward From this, Tchaikovsky crafted a piece silence, with “distant, happy ” just beyond in arch form—a series of linked episodes of the horizon.

3 Pyotr Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy-Overture after Shakespeare

No other play by although the composer originally wrote a happy Shakespeare has inspired ending because he couldn’t imagine how dying as many as lovers could dance. But none of these works Romeo and Juliet. has surpassed the popularity of Tchaikovsky’s Throughout the romantic fantasy-overture. era in particular, the The Russian composer Mily Balakirev appar- drama held an ently first suggested the play to Tchaikovsky enormous—and some- as early as the summer of 1869. He continued times nearly fatal— to push the subject and, when Tchaikovsky attraction. After Berlioz wavered, he prodded him. In a letter dated saw Romeo and Juliet in a Paris theater and fell October 6, 1869, he offered literary observations, desperately in love with Harriet Smithson, who suggested general guidelines for treating the played Juliet, he announced his intention to subject, and even dictated four measures of music marry the actress and to write a dramatic to open the work. Before Tchaikovsky’s Romeo symphony based on the play—and did both and Juliet was finished (and it was another ten within a decade. (Riccardo Muti led the CSO in years before it reached its final form), Balakirev Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet here last week.) The had approved and rejected a number of themes, marriage was a mistake, however, and they later recommended a new introduction in the style of separated, but the symphony is one of his a Lisztian , and presented his preferred greatest works. tonal scheme, based on a fondness for keys with More than twenty have been written on five flats or two sharps. Romeo and Juliet, including Bellini’s I Capuleti e Surprisingly, Tchaikovsky found his own i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Montagues), voice with this work; Romeo and Juliet, with a mezzo-soprano as Romeo (in the tradi- a “Fantasy-Overture after Shakespeare,” is his tion of trouser roles), and Gounod’s enduring first masterpiece. The original version, composed treatment, with the ending rewritten so that the in just six weeks, was performed in March 1870, lovers die at the same moment, in unison. with Nicolai Rubinstein conducting. A new Bernstein’s urban suggests that version, completed that summer, incorporated the fascination with this subject hasn’t waned Balakirev’s idea of a slow chorale at the begin- in our own time. And Prokofiev’s 1940 is ning. It was played in Saint Petersburg in early now recognized as a twentieth-century classic, 1872. Although Tchaikovsky and Balakirev had

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE October 7–November 27, 1869; revised CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME 1870, 1880 January 12, 13, 14, & 15, 2012, 21 minutes Orchestra Hall. Sir Mark FIRST PERFORMANCE Elder conducting CSO RECORDINGS March 16, 1879; Moscow, Russia 1954. Antal Doráti conducting. July 27, 2014, Ravinia Festival. James Mercury Conlon conducting FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES 1981. Daniel Barenboim conducting. February 3 & 4, 1893, INSTRUMENTATION Deutsche Grammophon Auditorium Theatre. Theodore two flutes and piccolo, two oboes Thomas conducting 1986. Sir Georg Solti conducting. and english horn, two clarinets, two London July 4, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Ernest bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, Ansermet conducting three trombones and tuba, timpani, 1988. Claudio Abbado conducting. CBS drum, cymbals, harp, strings 1995. Daniel Barenboim conducting. Teldec

4 In 1878, while he was recuperating from his failed marriage at his brother Modest’s house, Tchaikovsky turned to Romeo and Juliet and was struck by its potential as a great operatic subject. (One night that May, when Modest and Sasha went to the theater to see Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky stayed home, put his nieces and nephews to bed, and then read the Shakespeare play for himself.) “Of course I’ll compose Romeo and Juliet,” he wrote to Modest from Brailov in June, excited by the prospect of writing a new . “It will be my most monumental work. It now seems to me absurd that I couldn’t see earlier that I was predestined, as it were, to set this drama to music.” But instead of writing an opera, Tchaikovsky put the finishing touches on the fantasy-overture two years later. (It’s this last version that is now regularly played.) The idea of composing the opera cropped up in 1881 and again in 1893, and on one of those occasions he sketched a duet for the lovers based on material from the fantasy-overture. But he never orches- trated it and ultimately gave up on the project, perhaps realizing how difficult it would be to surpass his orchestral work on the same subject.

eldom in Tchaikovsky’s music are form and content as well matched as in Romeo The title page of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from and Juliet. The contrast between family the First Folio, printed in 1623 Sstrife and the lovers’ passion ideally lends itself to , with two dramatically contrasted themes; the conflict assures a fierce and combat- a falling out that year, Tchaikovsky continued ive development section. Tchaikovsky begins as to turn to Shakespeare for inspiration: in 1873, Balakirev recommended, with solemn and fateful he fashioned the symphonic fantasy from The chords that suggest the calm, knowing voice of Tempest that opens this week’s program, and Friar Lawrence. The street music is noisy and late in 1876 he complained of losing sleep over action-packed. The famous love theme begins Othello, which he was determined to turn into innocently in the english horn and violas; it was an opera. He dropped the project early in the one of Tchaikovsky’s boldest moves to save the new year—two years before Verdi and Boito big statement of this great , fully orches- first conceived their Otello. ( was the last trated and greatly extended—the way most listen- Shakespearean subject to interest Tchaikovsky: ers remember it—for much later, at the climax of he composed a fantasy-overture on it in 1888 and the recapitulation. The lovers’ music returns once three years later contributed to a again in the coda, signaled by the timpani’s dying staging of the play in Saint Petersburg.) heartbeat, but there it sounds cold and lifeless.

5 Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria. Symphony No. 4 in G Major

The worlds of song and Clemens Brentano, who, in the early years of symphony are regularly the nineteenth century, published an anthology intertwined in the work of 700 traditional German poems known as Des of Gustav Mahler. We are Knaben Wunderhorn (The youth’s magic horn). not surprised when his was one of the first break into composers to see the musical potential of this song, and we know that collection, and, by coincidence, it was his copy certain purely instrumen- of the Wunderhorn poems that Mahler picked tal movements are up one day in 1887, while he was visiting the of earlier home of the composer’s grandson. Although songs. One of his last works, Das Lied von der it was the grandson’s lovely wife Marion who Erde, is indeed both song and symphony—the captured Mahler’s attention that year, this book inevitable climax of a career that continually of old folk poetry had the more lasting impact. shuffled and blended genres in its search for the He picked a few poems and set them to music at ideal form to say what Mahler alone had to once. For the next fourteen years, Mahler used tell us. as the source for all but Still, it is hard to understand how one small one of his song texts. On February 10, 1892, he song—“Das himmlische Leben” (Heavenly completed a setting for voice and piano of the life), the one that serves as the finale for this poem “Der Himmel hängt voll Geigen” (Heaven symphony—can have inspired, influenced, and is hung with violins), a child’s naive picture of shaped so much important music. At one point, celestial bliss. Mahler wrote his own title, “Das Mahler remarked that “Das himmlische Leben” himmlische Leben,” at the top of the page. A had given birth to five different symphonic month later, he finished the orchestral version, movements, but even that statement doesn’t sug- colored by the sounds of a harp and the tinkling gest the central role the song played in his output of bells. Mahler had a special affection for the over the span of a decade. song, and he often included it in concerts of his Although it is the last music we hear in this music. But when it came time to publish his symphony, the song was Mahler’s starting point. Wunderhorn settings, “Das himmlische Leben” We must first turn to Achim von Arnim and was held back.

COMPOSED MOST RECENT four horns, three trumpets, timpani, June 1899–April 1901 CSO PERFORMANCES bass drum, triangle, sleigh bells, July 21, 2006, Ravinia Festival. glockenspiel, cymbals, tam-tam, harp, FIRST PERFORMANCE Anna Christy as soloist, James strings November 25, 1901; Munich, Germany. Conlon conducting The composer conducting APPROXIMATE October 20, 21 & 22, 2011, Orchestra PERFORMANCE TIME Hall. Klara Ek as soloist, Bernard FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES 59 minutes Haitink conducting March 3 & 4, 1916, Orchestra Hall. Marcella Craft as soloist, Frederick CSO RECORDINGS INSTRUMENTATION Stock conducting 1958. as soloist, Fritz soprano solo (in the fourth move- Reiner conducting. RCA July 24, 1971, Ravinia Festival. ment) and an orchestra consisting of Elly Ameling as soloist, István four flutes and two piccolos, three 1974. Judith Blegen as soloist, James Kertész conducting oboes and english horn, three clari- Levine conducting. RCA nets, E-flat and bass clarinet, 1983. Kiri Te Kanawa as soloist, Sir three bassoons and contrabassoon, Georg Solti conducting. London

6 Mahler had decided to use the song as the With this goal in sight, he conceived a symphony finale of his Third Symphony instead. The rest that would explore the road from experience to of that symphony was conceived as a sequence innocence, from complexity to simplicity, and of answers to life’s questions, concluding from earthly life to heaven. This symphony, with “What the child tells me,” or “Das him- unlike his previous three, was never saddled with mlische Leben.” But as work neared completion, an explanatory text that the composer would Mahler lopped off the finale and carried it with later regret (and ultimately suppress); Mahler him to his next symphony; however, one can was already moving toward an inner drama that easily find music in the Third Symphony that could be expressed exclusively in musical terms. predicts and prepares us for the song that is no To convey the journey toward innocence, longer there. The fifth movement, for example— Mahler’s first three movements gradually another Wunderhorn text, scored for children’s diminish in complexity as they approach the voices—originally was intended as a companion pure and serene threshold of the finale. The key piece to “Das himmlische Leben,” and it comes scheme also supports the drama, beginning in from the same world of angels and bells. G major and then moving into the fresh world And so it became the role of the Fourth of E major for the finale, an unexpected—yet Symphony to finish the story of the Third. That preordained—destination. now meant placing “Das himmlische Leben” as the last chapter of the Fourth Symphony—the ahler suggests his goal with the finale not of one, but, in a sense, of two sym- symphony’s very opening bars, scored phonies. However, to think of the Fourth as a for the sleigh bells and piping flutes sequel to the Third is to limit our understanding Mthat will later greet us in heaven. In a work full of of two works related in complex ways. Mahler’s flashbacks and fast-forwards, this is a momentary Fourth Symphony, like all glance and no more. Mahler his major scores, reflects and quickly introduces a lovely draws on other music he was melody, “childishly simple writing around the same and quite unselfconscious,” time. The Fourth Symphony in his own words, that, like not only looks back at the many simple materials in Third, but glances ahead to music, will lead to the most the , the complex developments. Rückert songs, and movement is one of Mahler’s the opening of the Fifth most brilliant large-scale Symphony. These are all canvases, a perfect foil to the members of an extended naïveté of the ending. family, and each casts its Here Mahler is writing own shadow on the others. with a new-found clarity—a In planning his Fourth transparency that allows Symphony—much more so us to hear everything on than the Third—Mahler the page, even in the most relied on “Das himmlische complex polyphonic pas- Leben” as the governing sages. The climaxes are still material, both of the music dense and staggering (despite and of the overall idea—the the smallest orchestra of story behind the notes in any Mahler symphony), but the score. Mahler knew how The title page for Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the surrounding landscape his piece would end before Volume 1, 1806 is lean and exposed. At the he wrote his first page; he movement’s turning point, then had to work backwards events unfold almost too in a sense, so that his song would appear as the quickly to follow: there is a snatch of the song of logical destination of the three new movements. heavenly life, the suggests the march we

7 now know from the Fifth Symphony, the sym- on which was carved an image of the departed, phony’s opening melody returns unexpectedly, with folded arms, in eternal sleep.” There is one and the recapitulation begins before the develop- immense uproar near the end that would surely ment is even over. Mahler has compressed time raise the dead, however, and when this great in a way that is virtually new to music. The child- wave erupts from G major and plants us for ishly simple melody, left hanging by a thread, the first time squarely in E major, the gates of now continues as if undisturbed. heaven are within sight. But first we sink back Although Mahler left no titles for the move- into G major to await the song from which this ments in this symphony, fearing “their banal music sprang. misunderstandings,” we know that the second And then, with a few bucolic phrases from movement originally was inscribed “Friend Hein the winds and the gentle plucking of the harp Strikes Up,” after a character in German folklore, and strings, we hear the human voice for the a sinister pied piper who plays his violin and first time in this symphony. A soprano sings of leads his victims toward death. Mahler assigns an innocent pastoral world and Mahler’s pen the central role to the solo violin, instructs him to sketches cloudless blue skies and the eternity of tune his instrument up a whole tone (to give it a E major. Angels bake bread, the singer reports, harsher sound), and to play it “wie ein Fiedel”— Saint Peter fishes in a pond stocked daily by like the fiddle one knows from the street, not the God, and “there’s no music at all on the earth / concert hall. The two ländler-like trios hint at the Which can ever compare with ours.” music of “Das himmlische Leben” to come. Mahler once admitted that the slow move- ment, a spacious and magnificent set of varia- Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the tions, was inspired by “a vision of a tombstone Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987.

DAS HIMMLISCHE LEBEN HEAVENLY LIFE

Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden, We revel in heavenly pleasures, D’rum tun wir das Irdische meiden. Leaving all that is earthly behind us. Kein weltlich’ Getümmel No worldly turmoil Hört man nicht im Himmel! Is heard in heaven; Lebt alles in sanftester Ruh’! We all live in sweetest peace.

Wir führen ein englisches Leben! We lead an angelic existence, Sind dennoch ganz lustig daneben! And so we are perfectly happy. Wir tanzen und springen, We dance and leap, Wir hüpfen und singen! And skip and sing; Sankt Peter im Himmel sieht zu! Saint Peter in heaven looks on.

Johannes das Lämmlein auslasset, Saint John has let out his lambkin, Der Metzger Herodes d’rauf passet! And butcher Herod is lurking: Wie führen ein geduldig’s, We lead a patient, Unschuldig’s, geduldig’s, Guiltless, patient, Ein liebliches Lämmlein zu Tod! Darling lambkin to death.

8 Sankt Lukas den Ochsen tät schlachten Saint Luke is slaying the oxen, Ohn’ einig’s Bedenken und Achten; Without the least hesitation; Der Wein kost’ kein Heller Wine costs not a farthing Im himmlischen Keller; In the heavenly tavern; Die Englein, die backen das Brot. The angels bake the bread.

Gut’ Kräuter von allerhand Arten, Fine sprouts of every description, Die wachsen im himmlischen Garten! Are growing in heaven’s garden. Gut’ Spargel, Fisolen, Fine asparagus, fine herbs, Und was wir nur wollen, And all we desire, Ganze Schüsseln voll sind uns bereit! Huge platefuls for us are prepared.

Gut’ Äpfel, gut’ Birn’, und gut Trauben! Fine apples, fine pears, and fine grapes, Die Gärtner, die alles erlauben! The gardeners let us pick freely. Willst Rehbock, willst Hasen? You want venison, hare? Auf offener Strassen In the open streets Sie laufen herbei! They go running around.

Sollt’ ein Festtag etwa kommen, And when there’s a holiday near, Alle Fische gleich mit Freuden angeschwommen! All the fishes come joyfully swimming; Dort läuft schon Sankt Peter And off runs Saint Peter Mit Netz und mit Köder, With net and with bait, Zum himmlischen Weiher hinein. Towards the celestial pond: Sankt Martha die Köchin muss sein! Saint Martha will have to be cook!

Kein Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden, There’s no music at all on the earth Die uns’rer verglichen kann werden. Which can ever compare with ours. Elftausend Jungfrauen Eleven thousand virgins Zu tanzen sich trauen! Are set dancing. Sankt Ursula selbst dazu lacht! Saint Ursula herself laughs to see it! Cäcilia mit ihren Verwandten Saint Cecilia with her companions Sind treffliche Hofmusikanten! Are splendid court musicians. Die englischen Stimmen The angelic voices Ermuntern die Sinnen! Delight the senses, Dass alles für Freuden erwacht. For all things awake to joy.

From Des Knaben Wunderhorn Translation by Deryck Cooke Copyright © Mrs. Jacqueline Cooke, 1980, 1988

© 2016 Chicago Symphony Orchestra 9