Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director
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Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 8:00pm Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 8:00pm Thomas Dausgaard, conductor Alisa Weilerstein, cello Rued Langgaard Prelude to Antikrist (original version 1921–1922, rev. 1926–1930) Dmitri Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126 I. Largo II. Allegretto III. Allegretto Intermission Béla Bartók REV. 1945 Concerto for Orchestra I. Introduzione: Andante non troppo – Allegro vivace II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando III. Elegia: Andante non troppo IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto V. Finale: Pesante – Presto The February 21 performance of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Fekete. Thomas Dausgaard’s appearance is generously supported by Dr. Thomas Beechy. Alisa Weilerstein’s appearance is generously supported by Blake and Belinda Goldring. As a courtesy to musicians, guest artists, and fellow concertgoers, please put your phone away and on silent during the performance. FEBRUARY 20 & 21, 2019 33 ABOUT THE WORKS Rued Langgaard Prelude to Antikrist Born: Copenhagen, Denmark, July 18, 1893 10 Died: Ribe, Denmark, July 10, 1952 min Composed: 1921–1923; rev. 1926–1930 Although he was a very prolific composer dynamic range and contrasts—including works (he wrote over 400 works), Rued Langgaard by Wagner (Parsifal), Richard Strauss (Salome), created only one opera: Antikrist. Its subject and Schoenberg (Gurrelieder). However, none of is the spiritual decline of civilization, depicted these aspects appear in the Prelude, which, in allegorically in the work as due to the presence the concert version you hear tonight, combines and negative influence of the New Testament the serene, “celestial” music that opens Antikrist figure of the Antichrist in this world, which with that of its concluding chorale. humankind can only overcome through divine The Prelude begins with a majestic power and insight. Based on P.E. Benzon’s 1907 orchestral unison. The cellos then introduce dramatic poem, Antichrist, the libretto was a mysterious, melancholy theme, tinged fashioned by Langgaard himself into a series of with piquant dissonances; it is then taken tableau-like scenes consisting of monologues, up more assertively by the oboe, trumpet, akin to a medieval mystery play. In the revised and first violins, strikingly accompanied by a (and final) version, an orchestral Prelude combination of plucked strings, harp, a tenor opens this “mystery opera,” and is followed drum, timpani, bells, and organ. After a pause, by a Prologue that introduces the Antichrist. music marked “angelico” follows: violins Five scenes follow, each featuring figures present a lyrical melody, variants of which personifying the destructive forces of apathy, are added, in turn, by the various sections of superficial faith in progress and development, the strings. Ominous-sounding timpani rolls despair, lust, and hate. In the sixth and final briefly interrupt the tranquil progress of the scene, the Antichrist is destroyed by God, and a counterpoint, which is then resumed by the chorus sings the concluding moral message. woodwinds. The timpani quietly interjects The composer once said that he wanted his once more, signalling the end of the opera’s opera “to express the catastrophic, anti- Prelude. From here, the concert Prelude Christian moods of damnation, culminating continues with the return of the “angelic” through time with the end of the world.” music in the opera’s finale. This time, the full Musically, he achieves this apocalyptic vision orchestra joins in the celestial counterpoint. using stylistic elements that characterize It is perhaps helpful to also include the words music of the late-Romantic period—large sung (here in English translation) by the orchestration, lush textures, expressionistic use chorus, which, in the opera, joins the orchestra of dissonances and chromaticism, and wide in this musical celebration of heavenly peace: 34 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Only when God’s Ephphatha finds Its path, like lightning, to our minds, To shine on Nature’s treasure, Shall streams of life refresh our souls, While unrestrained our voice extols That heavenly joy and pleasure, That joy. Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley Dmitri Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126 Born: St. Petersburg, Russia, September 25, 1906 33 Died: Moscow, Russia, August 9, 1975 min Composed: 1966 Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Second the piece as “a darkly lit work with flashes Cello Concerto in less than two months in the of light...a dark and ominous work with a early spring of 1966; the première took place long and introspective opening Largo and a in Moscow on September 25 of that year, counter-balancing Allegretto finale, which is a at a concert celebrating his 60th birthday. sort of dusky barcarolle.” Indeed, it opens in an His close friend and musical colleague, atmosphere of deep meditation, a mood that Mstislav Rostropovich, was the soloist, and even the usually consoling participation of a Yevgeny Svetlanov conducted the USSR State harp can do little to soothe. Even the entrance Symphony Orchestra. It was his last major of the xylophone, announcing an animated work before Shostakovich’s first heart attack— central panel, provides only brief relief from an event that would herald the beginning of the dark atmosphere. the last decade of his life. Yet the work is not all gloomy: the central Like the First Cello Concerto, he composed it movement, also an Allegretto, is based in part for, and dedicated it to, Rostropovich. Unlike on a popular song of the ’20s, “Ubliki, kupitye, Concerto No. 1, which is an unfailingly vibrant, bubliki” (“Pretzels, Who’ll Buy My Pretzels?”). often humorous virtuoso display piece, No. 2 Apparently, at a New Year’s party just months is deeply introspective and subdued in nature, before he composed the work—Rostropovich and gives the orchestra a role virtually equal was also present at the party—Shostakovich in importance to that of the solo instrument. and friends had been “playing a game of Name There is, in fact, evidence that it started life That Tune and Shostakovich played that as what Shostakovich described in a letter to one which he said was one of his favourites.” his friend Isaak Glikman as his “Fourteenth Perhaps it reminded him of the innocent days Symphony with a solo cello part.” of his youth, although here, filtered through the prism of experience, it has a definite edge to it. In his introduction to the filmed broadcast of the work’s première performance, as posted Horn fanfares then usher in the finale, the most on YouTube, Gia Mezirides aptly describes enigmatic and daring section of the concerto, FEBRUARY 20 & 21, 2019 35 ABOUT THE WORKS which follows on without a pause. The fanfares Two cracks of a whip are heard during the are, in turn, interrupted by a solo cadenza climax, first unexpectedly, and then ending the accompanied by the tambourine, followed tutti, after which the cello revisits the dance- by a series of dialogues between the soloist like statement from earlier in the movement. and several orchestral principals—passages Paradoxically, of Shostakovich’s six concertos, that alternate between manic violence and this is the only one to end quietly; an exchange an unsuccessful pursuit of repose. It builds between cello (replete with almost jazz-like in intensity, rising with an exchange of cello pizzicato) and woodblock draws this great, and bursts countered by the snare drum, eventually perennially underappreciated, work to a low developing into a furious climax, first restating and eerie close. the fanfare theme, and then reverting to a grotesque variation of the “Pretzel” theme. Program note by Don Anderson Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra Born: Nagyszentmiklos, Hungary, March 25, 1881 35 min Died: New York, New York, USA, September 26, 1945 Composed: 1944 In his American exile, Bartók was plagued by studying, but is also a veritable catalogue of financial troubles, anxiety, and failing health, early modernism, including neoclassicism— but was energized by a commission, in 1943, witness, say, the Classical forms and outbursts from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. He of Baroque-like fugue in the outer movements. composed the Concerto for Orchestra quickly, The overall structure is that of an arch: the between August and October, at a private first and fifth movements are in sonata form; sanatorium in the Adirondacks, and, at its the second and fourth are lighter, intermezzo- première in Boston, on December 1, 1944, like; and the third, which Bartók called a it won considerable acclaim. “lugubrious death-song,” is the emotional Though accessible and popular, the concerto core. Throughout, the scoring updates the is by no means reactionary or domesticated. 18th-century concerto grosso or symphonie Balancing tradition and experiment, tonality concertante: pervasive interplay of temporarily and atonality, art music and folk music, order deputized soloists (or small groups of soloists) and chaos, this pluralistic music summarizes with fuller orchestral textures. Bartók’s whole creative development. It is In the middle movements, Bartók plays with shot through with the sounds and practices episodic forms. The ironic second movement of the folk music (not just Hungarian, or even (“Game of Couples”) offers a “chain” of five European) that Bartók had spent 40 years dances, each featuring a pair of instruments 36 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, and band, and may be a rare example of Bartókian trumpets). After a short brass chorale, the program music—note the braying trombones, “chain” is reprised, more elaborately scored. and the caustic parody of a tune from The dour Elegia (based on the opening of the Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony. Introduzione) is another “chain,” this time of The finale, with its horn calls, wild Rumanian emotionally troubled—at its climax, profoundly dances, and bagpipe-like drones is sometimes anguished—themes, the whole bracketed by delirious and comic but ultimately rousing.