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Concert Season at Peabody 2019–20 concert season at Peabody Peabody Symphony Orchestra Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Series Thursday, October 17, 2019 FROM THE DEAN Welcome to the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. We’re delighted you are here and I hope you enjoy this performance. Founded in 1857 as the first major arts and intellectual center in an American city, the Peabody Institute today trains a diverse cohort of musicians and dancers from 30 countries around the world, stages nearly 1,000 concerts and events each year, and extends artistic training and performance throughout the greater Baltimore community. Our faculty are among the finest performing artists and pedagogues anywhere, and our talented students represent the dynamic future of the performing arts. Excellence is at the core of everything we do. So is the commitment to training 21st century artists. With our new Breakthrough Curriculum, Peabody is at the forefront of training emerging artists for a world that is constantly changing, but still rooted in a tradition of great performance. Your attendance here demonstrates why this is important, and inspires us in our work. Thank you for being here. Fred Bronstein Thursday, October 17, 2019 • 7:30 pm Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall PEABODY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Miguel Harth-Bedoya, guest conductor Christian Paquette, flute Yale Gordon Competition winner Johannes Brahms (18331897) Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 Carl Nielsen (18651931) Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, FS 119 I. Allegro moderato II. Allegretto Christian Paquette, flute INTERMISSION Antonín Dvořák (18411904) Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 I. Allegro maestoso II. Poco adagio III. Scherzo: Vivace — Poco meno mosso IV. Finale: Allegro For your own safety, look for your nearest exit. In case of emergency, walk, do not run to that exit. PROGRAM NOTES Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 doctorate in 1876, he respectfully Johannes Brahms declined the honor. Three years Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany later, the University of Breslau Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria (now Wroclaw) in present-day Poland o¤ered the composer the This work was first performed on same degree. He accepted. After January 4, 1881, at the University of attending the solemn ceremony, Breslau in present-day Poland with Brahms penned a note of thanks the composer conducting. It is scored for woodwinds in pairs with added to the school. His sentiments were piccolo and contrabassoon, four horns, answered by the director of musical three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, studies in Breslau, Bernhard Scholz, timpani, percussion, and strings. who clarified for his old friend that the University expected a musical In 1853 Robert Schumann lauded work in exchange for the honor. The the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms following summer, in the resort town as the “young eagle” among of Bad Ischl, Brahms composed his composers. From that moment Academic Festival Overture. on, new opportunities presented themselves regularly as demand Brahms’ only experience with the grew for new works from this fresh world of academia had been gained new face on the musical scene. His from a two month stay with his pen flowed with chamber music, violinist friend Joseph Joachim in the piano pieces, choral works, and art University town of Göttingen nearly songs. However, it was not until 1858 30 years earlier. The two became that his first orchestral work, the acquainted with the beer halls, Serenade No. 1, appeared. During learning several student drinking the same period, he composed his songs in the process. It was the First Piano Concerto ¢ a flashy only university experience that the virtuosic work far removed from the composer knew. Brahms included brooding introspection of Brahms’ in his score what he remembered later masterpieces. Reception of the from Göttingen, causing the resulting First Concerto has been described work to be more of a boisterous as ranging from “indi¤erence to potpourri of student songs than revulsion.” The composer had simply a solemn work for a ceremonial not found his musical voice. occasion. Imagine the surprise of the university dignitaries and Twenty years later Brahms was at city o«cials when Brahms himself his creative peak and his music was conducted his celebratory score presented on concert programs in early 1881. Although the faculty worldwide. However, the composer and administrators were perplexed, had an extreme fear of sea travel and the students surely understood the a disdain for public adulation, so any esteemed composer’s wicked sense journeys, except for those carried of humor. out by land, were out of the question. Therefore, when Cambridge University ©2019 Orpheus Music Prose & Craig Doolin in England o¤ered Brahms an honorary www.orpheusnotes.com 2 Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, FS 119 Both works are widely considered Carl Nielsen to be among the most significant Born June 9, 1865, in Funen, Denmark concertos in the repertoire. Died October 3, 1931, in Copenhagen, Denmark Unfortunately, Nielsen died in 1931 before he could compose similar This work received its premiere with a works for oboe, bassoon, or horn. temporary ending on October 21, 1926, at Maison Gavern by the Orchestre de la Nielsen’s Flute Concerto was Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire composed in 1926 on a vacation with Holger Gilbert-Jesperson as soloist to Germany and Italy. Always a conducted by Nielsen’s son-in-law Emil very quick worker, he completed Telmányi. The complete premiere was the entire concerto in only a few on January 25, 1927, in Copenhagen, months from sketch to premiere. Denmark, by the Copenhagen Music The first movement, allegro Society with Gilbert-Jesperson as soloist. moderato, opens with a flourish It is scored for solo flute, two oboes, two of brass and strings, which passes clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, bass trombone, timpani, and strings. to a sustained trombone chord. Lively and dissonant the soloist Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Flute enters with a theme drawn from Concerto, Clarinet Concerto, and the opening string figure. After a Wind Quintet resulted from a visit he passage for flute and clarinet, the made during the autumn of 1921 to brass introduces a martial figure the home of his friend, the pianist that is developed at great length. Christian Christiansen. Nielsen The soloist plays a delicate new listened while Christiansen rehearsed theme, but the opening material Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with soon returns. A flute cadenza begins four-fifths of the Copenhagen Wind but is soon interrupted by the full Quintet (Mozart’s work does not call orchestra before finishing one of for a flute soloist) and decided to the most dazzling passages of the write a new work for the ensemble. first movement. When the orchestra He completed his own Wind Quintet returns, the soloist continues with the following April and had a private filigree work until the movement performance on April 30. The o«cial ends quietly. public premiere took place six months later. The second movement opens with a bucolic theme, which undergoes Even more pleased with the abilities considerable development. Soon the of the players after the premiere, music becomes more a scurrying Nielsen pledged to compose a solo march during which the flute concerto for each of the players. True launches into soaring flights of fancy. to his word, he composed a Flute Under this is an irresistible melody for Concerto in 1926 for Holger Gilbert- trombone that ends the work with a Jespersen who had since replaced touch of clownish humor. the original flautist Paul Hagemann. ©2019 Orpheus Music Prose & Craig Doolin Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto was www.orpheusnotes.com written for Aage Oxenvad in 1928. 3 Symphony No.7 in D Minor, Op. 70 This was only one of a number of Antonín Dvořák conflicts between Dvořák and Born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia Simrock. For a time the composer Died May 1, 1904, in Prague, Bohemia abandoned the firm entirely for another publisher, Novello, and This work was first performed on April ignored Simrock’s protests that their 22, 1885, by the London Philharmonic contract of 1879 was still valid. At Orchestra with the composer conducting. the root of this conflict ¢ which is It is scored for piccolo, pairs of flutes, interesting today because of the oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, aesthetic argument at its root ¢ was timpani, and strings. Simrock’s insistence that Dvořák’s larger works earned them little Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, like his money. They wanted him to turn out other compositions at the time, was more songs and piano pieces. published by the powerful firm of Simrock. His friend and inspiration, “I shall simply do what God imparts Johannes Brahms, had introduced me to do,” Dvořák replied, and him to the firm, a real aid to a young calmly went about his composing. composer trying to build a career. By the time Novello had published But, as that career progressed, the brilliant Fourth Symphony Dvořák became dissatisfied with (1892) and the greatly admired his monetary returns. Simrock paid Requiem, Simrock had learned his Brahms 40,000 marks for his Fourth lesson. Thereafter the firm published Symphony. But Simrock would o¤er everything from Dvořák’s pen, Dvořák only 3,000 marks for his including two symphonies that came Second Symphony. While Dvořák out posthumously. did not put himself in the class of The Seventh Symphony, one of his Brahms, musically or financially, he most adventurous works, has found did think he should get at least 6,000 an audience in every generation to marks for the new work. When, after come along since its composition. the London premiere, he informed The first movement, allegro Simrock that the symphony “had an maestoso, opens softly with a theme exceptionally brilliant success,” he for violas and cellos over a pedal was stating fact, and was making a point in basses, horns, and timpani.
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