Pierre Boulez Conductor Christine Brewer Soprano Nancy Maultsby
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Program One hunDreD TwenTIeTh SeASOn Chicago Symphony orchestra riccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, December 2, 2010, at 8:00 Friday, December 3, 2010, at 8:00 Saturday, December 4, 2010, at 8:00 Pierre Boulez Conductor Christine Brewer Soprano Nancy maultsby Mezzo-soprano Lance ryan Tenor mikhail Petrenko Bass Paul Jacobs Organ Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe Director Schoenberg Transfigured Night, Op. 4 INtermISSIoN Janá ˇcek Glagolitic Mass Intrada Úvod Gospodi pomiluj Slava V ˇeruju Svet Agne ˇce Božij Varhany (Organ Solo) Intrada ChrISTIne Brewer nAnCy MAulTSBy lAnCe ryAn MIkhAIl PeTrenkO PAul JACOBS ChICAGO SyMPhOny ChOruS These concerts are endowed in part by the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. Steinway is the official piano of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 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 arnold Schoenberg Born September 13, 1874, Vienna, Austria. Died July 13, 1951, Brentwood, California. Transfigured Night, op. 4 rnold Schoenberg finished chord that they couldn’t find in Athis music in December their textbooks. The sextet was 1899. Written on the eve of a new finally played in March 1902 by century and on the threshold of a group of Viennese musicians artistic revolution, Verklärte Nacht organized by Arnold Rosé, the (Transfigured night) marks a turn- composer’s brother-in-law. Like a ing point in the history of music. number of other works that have It’s one of the last great romantic proven seminal, at its premiere works, and, at the same time, points Transfigured Night provoked catcalls to the future. Schoenberg was only and fistfights and ended in a riot. twenty-five, and this music was his One critic compared it to “a calf calling card; even though it’s his with six feet, such as one sees most traditional work, it made him often at a fair.” (Many years later, few friends. Schoenberg pointed out that six As soon as he completed players actually possess twelve Transfigured Night (in its first ver- feet.) Another observer commented sion for string sextet), Schoenberg that “it sounds as if someone had submitted the score to the Vienna smeared the score of Tristan while Composers’ Guild, whose mem- it was still wet.” bers refused to perform the piece Despite the disastrous reception, because it included a dissonant Rosé decided to repeat Transfigured ComPoSeD FIrSt CSo aPProxImate 1899, as a sextet for two PerFormaNCe PerFormaNCe tIme violins, two violas, and February 24, 1922, Frederick 29 minutes two cellos Stock conducting CSo reCorDINgS arranged for string orchestra moSt reCeNt 1957, Fritz reiner conduct- in 1917, revised in 1943 CSo PerFormaNCe ing, From the Archives, vol. 1 September 27, 2003, Daniel FIrSt PerFormaNCe 1994, Daniel Barenboim Barenboim conducting March 18, 1902, Vienna, as conducting, Teldec a sextet CSo PerFormaNCeS, March 26, 1919, Vienna, arNoLD SChoeNBerg orchestral version CoNDuCtINg February 8 & 9, 1934 2 Night two years later. One day and World had shocked the liter- during a rehearsal, Gustav Mahler ary establishment when it was wandered in to listen; he was a published in 1896. Schoenberg was complete stranger to Schoenberg intoxicated by Dehmel’s ecstatic and had never heard a note of his verse and liberal ideas, and he music. Mahler was bowled over by set several of the poems as songs. the piece, and the two composers “Your poems have had a decisive struck up a friendship, even though influence on my development as Schoenberg didn’t care for Mahler’s a composer,” he wrote to Dehmel symphonies. (He had recently more than a decade later. “They heard the Fourth.) Schoenberg were what first made me try to find often visited the Mahlers’ apart- a new tone in the lyrical mode. Or ment for dinner and shop talk. rather I found it without even look- Alma Mahler later remembered ing, simply by reflecting in music terrible arguments at the piano and what your poems stirred up in me.” that some evenings ended abruptly, The poem that affected with Schoenberg storming out. Schoenberg most deeply and (Mahler once asked her never to inspired him to write Transfigured readmit “that conceited puppy.”) Night is “Zwei Menschen” (Two But Schoenberg earned the support people). A couple walks together and respect of Mahler, his senior through a cold, moonlit forest. by fourteen years; “He is young The woman speaks: she is carry- and perhaps he is right,” Gustav ing another man’s child. Longing told Alma. In time, Schoenberg for fulfillment as a woman, she changed his mind about Mahler’s gave herself to a stranger. Now, as music, too. In 1910, when Mahler life’s revenge, she is finally brought turned fifty, Schoenberg sent him a together with a man she loves long letter: “I cannot help remem- and who also loves her. The man bering, with much distress, that in tells her not to feel remorse—the earlier days I so often annoyed you strength of their love will include by being at variance with you,” he her child. They embrace and walk wrote. “Perhaps it was shortsighted- on in the brilliant moonlight. ness, perhaps contrariness? Perhaps Schoenberg sensed that the too it was love, for with all this I eroticism and rapture of Dehmel’s have always venerated you awfully.” poem would best be expressed Like Mahler, who regularly through music without words. It composed at top speed, Schoenberg was his masterstroke not to write wrote Transfigured Night in three an orchestral tone poem—like weeks. (Schoenberg never forgot those then all the rage by Richard Mahler’s comment that he com- Strauss—but a piece of chamber posed the entire Eighth Symphony music, normally the most abstract as if from dictation in just two of genres. The idea of writing pro- months.) Schoenberg drew his gram music for a string sextet was inspiration from a poem by Richard as novel as anything in the score Dehmel, whose collection Woman itself, though it was Schoenberg’s 3 music that caused all the con- compositions—was accepted into troversy. Schoenberg eventually the repertory. In 1937, Schoenberg conceded that Transfigured Night wrote of its singular success in gained in stature, without losing an essay entitled, “How One any of its intimacy, when played Becomes Lonely.” “My Transfigured by larger forces, and, in 1917, he Night . ,” he writes, “has made published the version for full string me a kind of reputation. From it I orchestra that is performed at can enjoy (even among opponents) these concerts. some appreciation which the works Schoenberg wasn’t interested in of my later periods would not have musically representing the events procured for me so soon. This work in Dehmel’s poem, but rather has been heard, especially in its in capturing its powerful emo- version for orchestra, a great many tions, the moonlit night, and an times. But certainly nobody has overwhelming sense of destiny. heard it as often as I have heard this Later, Schoenberg pointed out a complaint: ‘If only he had con- few correspondences between the tinued to compose in this style!’ ” verses and the score, but he always Schoenberg always protested that maintained that Transfigured Night he still did and that people didn’t worked equally well as pure music. listen carefully enough to recog- In fact, the first time Dehmel heard nize it, but, in fact, he knew that Schoenberg’s score he became so Transfigured Night would always be absorbed in the music that he forgot his most popular composition. to follow his own poem, which he Gustav Mahler remained an had open on his lap. ardent supporter of Schoenberg’s To our ears, Schoenberg’s music work; perhaps he also found logically extends the language of comfort in their shared understand- Brahms and Wagner (Schoenberg ing of public rejection. Mahler later confessed he was under their didn’t understand Schoenberg’s spell at the time), but at first audi- music himself, but he was a faithful ences only heard it as a distortion of and loyal friend. No doubt he saw a great tradition. Transfigured Night himself in Schoenberg’s willingness begins in D minor and progresses to risk everything for the music he circuitously, like the couple’s walk, felt compelled to write. “I was not toward the brilliance of D major. destined to continue in the manner Schoenberg’s sense of drama and of Transfigured Night,” Schoenberg evolving emotions is uncanny. At said nearly a half century later. “The the heart of the piece, just before Supreme Commander had ordered the man addresses the woman, there me on a harder road.” is a moment of total silence. The Mahler continued to attend ending—the “high, bright night” concerts of Schoenberg’s music; of Dehmel’s poem—is music of during a performance of the First incomparable delicacy and splendor. Chamber Symphony in 1907 he Ultimately Transfigured Night— attempted to silence the rowdy almost alone of all Schoenberg’s audience, and at the end he stood 4 at the front of his box, applauding, 1911, Schoenberg’s career was at a until everyone had left the hall. crossroads; recognizing that he had During the last year of his life, carried music to the edge of tonal- he lent Schoenberg 800 crowns, ity, he was uncertain how to go on. approximately one year’s rent. He For a while, he turned to painting. surely guessed that things would Most of the pictures are studies of only grow worse for his friend.