Summer Cyber Symphonies 1 Charles Ives the Unanswered Question Mozart Oboe Concerto in C, K314 Mozart Symphony No
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Summer Cyber Symphonies 1 Charles Ives The Unanswered Question Mozart Oboe Concerto in C, K314 Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C, K551, “Jupiter” Conductor Jeremy Silver Soloist Lisa White (oboe) Concertmaster Farida Bacharova Recorded at the Cape Town City Hall on February 7, 2021 Streaming March 25 – 29, 2021 This concert is generously supported by 1 JEREMY SILVER Conductor Jeremy Silver is Director of the Opera School at the University of Cape Town, and has worked extensively in South Africa with all the country’s major symphony orchestras, as well as conducting La bohème and Le nozze di Figaro for Cape Town Opera and Lucia di Lammermoor with Gauteng Opera. As principal conductor of Opera Africa (2004-2007), he conducted productions of I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La traviata and Rigoletto at the State Theatre, Pretoria, as well as the South African opera Princess Magogo at Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam. A selection of other productions includes Rinaldo, Serse, Alcina, Orfeo ed Euridice, L’incoronazione di Poppea and the Mozart Da Ponte operas (Longborough Festival Opera); Pelléas et Mélisande (Glyndebourne Touring Opera); Madama Butterfly (English National Opera); Ariadne auf Naxos (English Touring Opera); Aida, Carmen (Royal Albert Hall); La Rondine, Lucia di Lammermoor, Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Holland Park); Les Huguenots, Tosca (Opéra-Théâtre de Metz), Turandot (National Theatre, Malaysia) and Die Fledermaus (Yale Opera). For English Touring Opera he also conducted two exciting Donizetti rediscoveries, L’assedio di Calais and Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo in performing editions resulting from his considerable editorial work on both scores. Jeremy served on the resident music staffs of English National Opera and Scottish Opera, as well as working with Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opera North. He has also given concerts with many UK orchestras and Sinfonia Varsovia. 2 LISA WHITE Soloist Lisa White joined the Cape Town Philharmonic at the end of January 2018 as principal oboe. She studied with Ioanna Matei at the South African College of Music before attending the University of New Mexico to study with Dr Kevin Vigneau (who may be remembered as principal oboe of the CTSO perhaps 30 years ago). Her Master of Music studies in New Mexico were generously funded by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies. Since joining the Cape Town Philharmonic, she has also been an active chamber musician, performing in the chamber music series The Other Side of the Orchestra, organized by Louise Howlett and the Friends of Orchestral Music, and in concerts with the Cape Town Philharmonic Wind Quintet. She also performed in the CPO’s Symphonic Masterpieces in Miniature chamber music series. Music isn’t her only creative outlet, though. She enjoys embroidery and crochet, as well as spending time outdoors in Cape Town’s amazing natural heritage. 3 Charles Ives (1874 – 1954) The Unanswered Question Charles Ives graduated from Yale University in 1898. While still a boy, he played in the orchestra of his father, a student of acoustics and teacher of theory, piano and violin. Ives studied the organ and in 1893-1902 served successively as organist in churches in New Haven, Bloomfield (New Jersey) and New York. Ives pursued a dual career as composer and businessman – he was a senior member of the insurance firm of Ives and Myrick from 1916 – 1930, His major works are written in the ten years prior to that. Ives was already an experimentalist in music as early as 1895. As Paul Le Flem pointed out, “Ives seems to have created, before ‘Sacre de Printemps’, a style which by its adventurousness, places its author among the pioneers.” Ives became extremely experimental in each successive work, his enterprise being apparent harmonically, rhythmically and with regard to tonality and atonality, for his music is often of such complex chromatism as to be without tonal centre. The Unanswered Question (1906) with its companion of the same year, Central Park in the Dark, seems to have been Ives’s first composition for groups that co-operate without synchronizing – the floating curves and textures of the background being organized so that at any moment they may appropriately accompany any moment in the foreground. In The Unanswered Question, the background strings repeat a long, slow pandiatonic phrase suggesting orbits within orbits. The foreground trumpet reiterates the question (“why”?), and the flutes react – wondering, curious, intrigued, cocky, scornful, exasperated, nonplussed, mocking – the last question answered only by the long-held background chord, as if by silence. NOTE FROM THE CTSO PROGRAMME BANK 4 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) Oboe Concerto in C, K314 1) Allergro aperto 2) Rondo (marked allegro) 3) Finale In 1777, at the age of 21, Mozart was ready to secure a permanent position at one of the musical centres of Europe. Accordingly, he set out on a lengthy tour of the continent, which included visits to Munich, Mannheim and Paris. Unfortunately, these centres failed to produce the hoped-for appointments. However, Mozart did stay for some months in Mannheim, impressed by the standard of orchestral playing, and there he made some good friends amongst the musicians and their families. One of these musicians was the Mannheim oboist Friederich Ramm, who was enthusiastic about a concerto Mozart had written previously for the Salzburg oboist, Giuseppi Ferlendis. In a letter to his father dated December 1777, Mozart wrote: “Then Mr Ramm played, for a change, my Oboe Concerto for the 5th time. It has caused a sensation here, and is now Mr Ramm’s party piece!” This concerto is in every respect the same work as the Flute Concerto in D, but there is little doubt that this was first written for the oboe. However, in 1778, much against his will, Mozart had to write some flute pieces in a hurry to fulfil a commission from the Dutch merchant and amateur flautist, De Jean, and this was one of two flute concertos included. The whole work is written in Mozart’s fully-fledged style and reflects the gallant manner of his Court audiences. The version for oboe offers technical challenges which all oboists appreciate. NOTE FROM THE CTSO PROGRAMME BANK 5 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) Symphony No. 41 in C, K551, “Jupiter” 1) Allegro vivace 2) Andante cantabile 3) Menuetto: Allegro 4) Molto allegro 1788 was not a good year for Mozart. Yet Mozart unexpectedly and without any apparent commission, set about writing three new symphonies. He composed them in an astonishing burst of creative energy between June and August of 1788, a record time even for Mozart. The musicologists know very little more about the early days of these three masterpieces. The scores were published and there is the possibility that the G minor, no.40, was heard in Mozart’s lifetime. However, sources seem confident that Mozart was never to hear the E flat and C major symphonies. The nickname that has been attached to the C major symphony, Jupiter, is not Mozart’s idea at all. There are a few theories about how this name came about, perhaps the most logical of which is that it was the idea of the London-based impresario Johann Peter Salomon who is most famous for having persuaded Haydn to visit London. The English publisher Vincent Novello seems to confirm this when he wrote in his diary some 38 years after Mozart’s death that, during a visit to Mozart’s son, “I was interested to hear him refer to the finale of the C major symphony – which Salomon had christened the Jupiter – to be the highest triumph of instrumental composition.” The symphony is launched with a flurry of orchestral activity and this turns out to be the all- important first subject, the opening contrasted with a gentler idea. Trumpets and drums explore the theme before the strings introduce the second idea. Mozart discusses and develops his material in music that is elegant and formal but grandly eventful. In the second movement, Mozart asks his strings to be muted and the music takes on an almost private air. In fact, the writer Michael Steinberg talks of Mozart “becoming more overtly personal, writing music saturated with pathos and offering one rhythmic surprise after another”. The third movement has a resigned serenity about it, a kind of world weariness but, in the central trio section, we hear the important four-note phrase that will dominate the complex finale. 6 When the finale arrives, Mozart whips the music into action and presents a discussion so contrapuntal that Bach would have been proud. Of course, Mozart knew Bach’s music and here he takes the four-note motto we heard in the trio of the third movement and combines it with three or four other short motto-like ideas to create both textural complexity and a swift tempo. It is a fascinating exercise to try and follow Mozart’s train of thought, but, as with all truly great composers, even though we may get lost from an academic point of view, we are never left out in the wilderness. The music is so compelling, so engaging and so filled with incident that we are left marvelling at the genius which was Mozart. CTSO PROGRAMME BANK / RODNEY TRUDGEON The CPO is grateful to Grinaker-LTA for facilities supplied to the CPO when the rehearsals and filming took place while the City Hall was under renovation. 7 CAPE TOWN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Principal Guest Conductor: Bernhard Gueller Resident Conductor: Brandon Phillips supported by RMB Starlight Classics Guest Concertmasters: Farida Bacharova; Suzanne Martens Deputy Concertmaster: Philip