PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Orchestra Zell Music Director Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Wednesday, January 7, 2015, at 6:30 (Afterwork Masterworks, performed without intermission)

Vasily Petrenko Conductor Paul Lewis Piano Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor) Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9FM for its generous support as a media sponsor of the Afterwork Masterworks series.

Thursday, January 8, 2015, at 8:00 Friday, January 9, 2015, at 8:00 Saturday, January 10, 2015, at 8:00

Vasily Petrenko Conductor Paul Lewis Piano Elgar (Alassio), Op. 50 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor) Allegro Adagio un poco mosso— Rondo: Allegro PAUL LEWIS

INTERMISSION

Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 Non allegro Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) Lento assai—Allegro vivace

This evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Margot and Josef Lakonishok. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

Edward Elgar Born June 2, 1857, Broadheath, near Worcester, England. Died February 23, 1934, Worcester, England. In the South (Alassio), Op. 50

When Henry James to begin his first symphony. He failed on all three toured Italy in the 1870s, counts. Several days into their stay in Alassio, he encountered hordes of his wife Alice wrote in her diary, “Still cold & “grave English people grey & windy—E. and A. much depressed at who looked respectable these conditions & wondering if they will not and bored.” Three decades pack up & go home. E. feeling no inspiration for later, when writing.” Edward himself wrote to his dear friend went to the Italian Alfred Jaeger (immortalized in the magnificent Riviera, craving sunshine and moving “Nimrod” music in the Enigma and relaxation, he Variations): “This visit has been, is, artistically a discovered the roads “full of English nursery complete failure & I can do nothing. The sym- maids and old English women and children.” He phony will not be written in this sunny (?) land.” quickly abandoned his first stop, in tourist- But the essence of Italian life affected Elgar, clogged Bordighera, just across the French despite the cold and the gales and swarms of border, finding it “lovely but too cockney for me,” mosquitoes as annoying as the tourist crowds. and moved on to Alassio, farther along the coast In Alassio, he began a concert overture, in place in the direction of Genoa. “This place is jolly,” he of the promised symphony, that is perhaps his wrote, “real Italian & no nursemaids calling out sunniest and most energized work. It depicts the ‘Now Master Johnny!’ ” Although Alassio did Italian holiday that largely eluded him, and it not provide the cloudless skies Elgar sought, he is music that Elgar never would have written at discovered the true Italy that has long intoxicated home in England, for even a dispiriting stay in travelers. “What matter the Mediterranean being Italy offered glimpses of life’s greatest pleasures. rough & grey? Who cares for gales? . . . We have In his manuscript, he wrote this passage from such meals! Such wine! Gosh! We are at last Tennyson’s The Daisy: living a life.” Elgar had gone to Italy in December 1903 not What hours were thine and mine to escape the damp and cold of an English winter, In lands of palm and southern pine but to regain his strength and inspiration In lands of palm, of orange-blossom the exhausting work of finishing and Of olive, aloe, and maise and vine

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1903–February 21, 1904 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME January 20 & 21, 2011, Orchestra Hall. 17 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Leonard Slatkin conducting March 16, 1904; London. The composer conducting INSTRUMENTATION three and piccolo, two FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES and english horn, two and November 4 & 5, 1904, Auditorium bass , two and con- Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting trabassoon, four horns, three , (U.S. premiere) three , , , , , , triangle, , two harps, strings

2 And from Byron’s Childe Harold: initial theme “Joy of Life (wine & macaroni),” but, in fact, it’s an idea he had sketched several . . . a land years before, depicting Dan, a friend’s bulldog, Which was the mightiest in its old command “triumphant (after a fight).” (Dan is officially And is the loveliest . . . memorialized in the eleventh of the Enigma Wherein were cast . . . Variations, when he falls into the river Wye, . . . the men of Rome! paddles upstream, and reaches the shore with a Thou art the garden of the world. victorious bark.) The rest of In the South, how- ever, leaves England far behind, beginning with Although Elgar called In the South a concert the reflective shepherd’s music that soon fol- overture, it’s really a tone poem—his largest lows, with, as the composer told Pitt, “romance orchestral movement at the time—of weighty creeping into the picture.” Elgar lingers in this dimensions and electric colors. Elgar may have relaxed and genial mood for some time until sidestepped that term to avoid comparison with the music moves into a forceful and determined the new tone poems by (at the passage marked grandioso. There he writes two time of the premiere he asked that the program more lines from Tennyson into his manuscript: notes not mention Strauss’s name), for much about Elgar’s overture recalls the style, substance, What Roman strength Turbia show’d and sheer orchestral splendor of Strauss. These In ruin, by the mountain road two composers were kindred spirits in many ways, and their artistic outlooks were never more Here, and in the uncharacteristically dissonant closely aligned than in the early years of the pages that follow, Elgar recalls “the strife and twentieth century. When Strauss heard a perfor- wars, the ‘drums and tramplings’ of a later time.” mance of Elgar’s in 1902, This gives way to a delicate canto populare first he proposed a toast to “the first English progres- sung by the solo —an unidentified popular sivist, Meister Edward Elgar,” and remained song that Elgar eventually confessed he had Elgar’s friend for life. In the South begins with a written himself. He later turned this lovely music rapid unfurling of a large orchestral chord, very into a real song, taking words from a poem by like the opening of Strauss’s Don Juan (which Shelley, “An Ariette for Music” (he begins at Elgar admired), followed by the kind of dancing the line, “As the moon’s soft splendour”). With horns Strauss had already made famous. this little song—titled “”—Elgar returns to the shores of the Mediterranean, for he precise idea for In the South came to it was there, on the curving coast not far from Elgar during an afternoon stroll near Alassio, that Shelley spent the last months of Alassio. “I was by the side of an old his short life. When Henry James made his RomanT way. A peasant stood by an old ruin, pilgrimage to Shelley’s house, he wrote, “I can and in a flash it all came to me—the conflict of fancy a great lyric poet sitting on the terrace armies in that very spot long ago, where now I of a warm evening and feeling very far from stood—the contrast of the ruin and the shep- England.” Elgar’s own final pages say the herd.” In a letter to Percy Pitt, who wrote the same thing, in music of warmly melodic and program note for the premiere, Elgar marked his life-loving exuberance.

3 Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany. Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor)

It’s hard for today’s Beethoven begins with a single majestic E-flat audiences to appreciate major chord from the full orchestra—one of the audacities of those sounds so commanding and individual Beethoven’s final piano that today, without hearing another note, we concerto, the one we call know what is sure to follow. The 1811 audience, the Emperor. For those of course, didn’t know what to expect, and they who are familiar not only surely wouldn’t have predicted the sudden, with this great work, but cadenza-like eruption from the soloist that with any of the later Beethoven gives them. Hearing from the soloist concertos that took their so early in a concerto is bold and unconventional, cues from Beethoven’s example, the grand piano but it’s not without precedent. Mozart tried it flourishes with which the score begins have little once, early in his career, and Beethoven himself shock value. Nor does the size and complexity of had begun his previous concerto—the fourth, the first movement trouble those who not only in G major—with the piano alone. But here have traveled its many paths before, but also have Beethoven isn’t striving for novelty; he’s prepar- come to accept the vast landscapes of Mahler. ing us for what lies ahead—a musical argument But to those who packed the Leipzig of unprecedented breadth and scale between two Gewandhaus in November 1811, this was new protagonists of equal stature. music, full of revelations and surprises. To begin Only after Beethoven commands our attention with, Beethoven wasn’t at the keyboard—this with three emphatic chords, each followed by was the only one of his five piano concertos that long-winded outbursts from the piano, does he didn’t personally introduce to the public. he settle down to his first theme, a heroic tune Although it wasn’t common knowledge at the in E-flat major. The piano falls silent and the time, by 1811 his deafness was so advanced (he orchestral exposition sweeps forward with great began to notice symptoms as early as 1796) that energy. This is an enormous movement, lasting he may have turned this work over to other hands some twenty minutes, and it’s longer than the rather than admit the difficulties of playing for following two movements combined. But for all an audience. (In 1815, he abandoned work on the time and space it occupies, it’s not hard to sketches for a sixth concerto, in D, certain that follow. Beethoven alone among composers of his performing days were over.) his generation knew how to expand the classical

COMPOSED MOST RECENT CSO RECORDINGS 1809 CSO PERFORMANCES 1940. Josef Hofmann as soloist, Hans May 24, 25 & 26, 2012, Orchestra Lange conducting. CSO (Chicago FIRST PERFORMANCE Hall. Emanuel Ax as soloist, David Symphony Orchestra: The First 100 Years) November 28, 1811; Leipzig, Germany Robertson conducting 1942. as soloist, July 12, 2013, Ravinia Festival. Frederick Stock conducting. RCA FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES Emanuel Ax as soloist, Christoph von February 10, 1900 (twice, in 1961. as soloist, Fritz Dohnányi conducting the afternoon and again that Reiner conducting. RCA evening), Auditorium Theatre. Ignace INSTRUMENTATION 1966. Emil Gilels as soloist, Jean Paderewski as soloist, Theodore two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, Martinon conducting. CSO (From the Thomas conducting two bassoons, two horns, two Archives, vol. 17: Beethoven) July 1, 1939, Ravinia Festival. Josef trumpets, timpani, strings 1971. as soloist, Hofmann as soloist, Sir Adrian conducting. London Boult conducting APPROXIMATE PERFORMANCE TIME 1983. as soloist, James 38 minutes Levine conducting. Philips 4 structures he inherited without upsetting their new theme, which it suddenly unleashes with- delicate proportions or abandoning their out pause to open the rondo finale. This robust inner logic. and seemingly tireless music dashes headlong The slow movement is in B major—a remote through a generous sampling of keys until it col- key, but one which is familiar from the earliest lapses just before the end, leaving only the piano digressions of the opening Allegro. The strings and the timpani to reach the final bars. begin with a noble theme, to eethoven’s brilliance wasn’t lost on the which the piano Leipzig audience, who took it all in and responds with an applauded enthusiastically. The critic for eloquent can- Bthe prestigious Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung tilena. Midway reported that this was “undoubtedly one of the through, the most original, imaginative, effective—but also piano has a chain most difficult—of all existing concertos”—words of trills that rises that still hold true today. Beethoven withheld the more than an important Vienna premiere until February 1812, octave by half perhaps still vainly hoping that he might be Carl Czerny steps, while the able to take his place at the keyboard. It was orchestra plays his student, the young Carl Czerny, however, broken chords, who played that night. The response this time as if stunned by this daring high-wire act. was poor, perhaps because this grand and noble Finally, there is the celebrated moment when work was tacked on to a charity event which the strings drop from B to B-flat and the piano consisted largely of Viennese society ladies begins to putter with the makings of a dazzling in living tableaux of famous paintings.

5 Sergei Rachmaninov Born April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, . Died March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills, California. Symphonic Dances, Op. 45

After finishing his Third tour—he regularly practiced every day from early Symphony in 1936, morning until eleven at night—and, for the first Rachmaninov quit time in years, he found that he couldn’t resist composing, discouraged the urge to compose. On August 21, he wrote by the lukewarm recep- to , who had conducted some tion several of his recent of Rachmaninov’s greatest successes with the scores had met. (Only the , “Last week I finished Rhapsody on a Theme by a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want Paganini had been well to give first to you and your orchestra. It is received; both the Fourth called Fantastic Dances. I shall now begin the Piano Concerto and the Variations on a Theme orchestration.” Even with his impending tour, by Corelli were public failures, and the Third Rachmaninov managed to complete the scoring Symphony was only a modest success). that October. By then, the dances had become Rachmaninov was tired of trying to juggle his symphonic rather than fantastic, and he also had careers as a composer, conductor, and pianist— given up his original idea to identify the three and in recent years it seemed that he was only movements as midday, , and midnight. guaranteed success in his role as pianist (he was, (“It should have been called just Dances,” he told after all, one of the greatest of all time). Perhaps a newspaper reporter, “but I was afraid people he also had grown weary of having his music would think I had written dance music for dismissed as old-fashioned and irrelevant— jazz orchestra.”) invariably pitted against the radical work of Before Ormandy even had a chance to see the Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the two giants of score, Rachmaninov played through parts of it at the day. the piano for Fokine, hoping that he would want With the outbreak of war in 1939, to collaborate on another ballet—this was a set Rachmaninov and his wife Natalya left of dances, after all—and repeat the international for the last time and settled in Orchard Point, success of their Paganini project. Fokine was an estate he had rented on Long Island, near enthusiastic—“it seemed to me appropriate and his friends Vladimir and Wanda Horowitz; his beautiful,” he wrote to Rachmaninov, after hear- former secretary, Evgeny Somov; and choreog- ing the music—but his death, in August 1942, rapher Michel Fokine, who recently had made robbed the composer of both a friend and a popular ballet of the Paganini Variations. another hit ballet. Throughout the summer of 1940, Rachmaninov The Philadelphia premiere was well received, was busy preparing for his upcoming concert but a subsequent performance in New York was

COMPOSED MOST RECENT trumpets, three trombones, tuba, 1940 CSO PERFORMANCES timpani, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, May 24, 25 & 26, 2012, Orchestra Hall. bass drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, FIRST PERFORMANCE David Robertson conducting xylophone, snare drum, chimes, harp, January 3, 1941; Philadelphia, piano, strings August 2, 2012, Ravinia Festival. Pennsylvania Gianandrea Noseda conducting APPROXIMATE FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME INSTRUMENTATION December 11 & 12, 1941, Orchestra 36 minutes two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and Hall. Frederick Stock conducting english horn, two clarinets and bass July 19, 1949, Ravinia Festival. Dimitri clarinet, alto saxophone, two bassoons Mitropoulos conducting and , four horns, three

6 panned. Rachmaninov was hurt that Ormandy score for him, “he sang, whistled, stamped, didn’t appear interested in recording the new rolled his chords, and otherwise conducted work, even though he had made best-selling himself not as one would expect of so great records of practically all his previous orchestral and impeccable a piano virtuoso.”) He also pieces. The got advice on string bowings from no less an Symphonic artist than . (At the first rehearsal, Dances when Ormandy remarked on their difficulty, turned out Rachmaninov said, “Fritz did those for me,” to be his last knowing he need say no more.) In the coda of score, and the first dance, Rachmaninov privately quotes Rachmaninov the opening theme of his First Symphony, died believing which was the greatest failure of his career (after that it would its disastrous premiere in 1897, Rachmaninov never find wrote nothing for three years). Rachmaninov the kind of knew that only he would catch the reference, popularity because he had long since destroyed the score, his earlier hoping to erase painful memories along with the music had so music itself. But shortly after his death a copy easily won. of a two-piano arrangement, and then a set of (Although orchestra parts, turned up in Leningrad, bring- Rachmaninov ing Rachmaninov’s secret quotation to light. had spent The second movement is a melancholy waltz The composer with his wife Natalya, long periods (in 6/8 time) that only turns more anxious and 1922 of time in wistful as it progresses. The finale quotes the the United chant of the Russian Orthodox liturgy as well as States since the Gregorian melody of the Dies irae from the 1918, the Symphonic Dances is the only score he Mass for the Dead. It also recycles part of his composed in this country—earlier, he regularly All-Night Vigil, an a cappella choral work dating wrote, on breaks from concert tours, in his villa from 1915, but this is no secret quotation, for near Lucerne.) But in recent years, the score has Rachmaninov writes the original text, “Alliluya,” become a favorite of orchestras and audiences in the score at that point. Perhaps guessing alike—Rachmaninov’s star is once again on that this would be his final work—“It must the rise. have been my last spark,” he said at the time— Rachmaninov wrote at the end of his manuscript, he first dance has an extended solo for “I thank thee, Lord.” saxophone, an instrument for which Rachmaninov had never written before. (He consulted with his friend, the Broadway T Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, who was amazed that, when the composer played the Symphony Orchestra.

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