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Home , Anatol Ugorski, Coriolan Overture, Kirill Gerstein, Kirill Kondrashin, The Gambler (Prokofiev), The Poem of Ecstasy

PROGRAM

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

Thursday, December 3, 2015, at 8:00 Friday, December 4, 2015, at 1:30 Saturday, December 5, 2015, at 8:00

Riccardo Muti Conductor Kirill Gerstein Piano Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe Director Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 (Classical) Allegro con brio Larghetto Gavotte: Non troppo allegro Finale: Molto vivace Scriabin Prometheus, The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 KIRILL GERSTEIN CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS

INTERMISSION

Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 Allegro vivace con brio Allegretto scherzando Tempo di menuetto Allegro vivace

This evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Margot and Josef Lakonishok. This work is part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective, which is generously sponsored by the Sargent Family Foundation. 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

Sergei Prokofi ev Born April 23, 1891, Sontsovska, Ukraine. Died March 5, 1953, , . Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 (Classical)

Hector Berlioz was textures, textbook forms, and straightforward unusual among great harmonic procedures, made it easier to work composers because he without his familiar crutch. couldn’t play the piano Prokofi ev had studied Haydn’s music with and therefore didn’t Nikolai Tcherepnin, and he felt there was still compose at the keyboard. something left to be done in the style: Igor Stravinsky, on the other hand, said that It seemed to me that if Haydn had lived every single note he wrote to our day he would have retained his own was fi rst tested at the style of writing while absorbing something piano. During Stravinsky’s lifetime, music began of the new. Th at was the kind of symphony to explore sonic worlds that the piano couldn’t I wanted to write. And when I saw that it begin to suggest, and composers increasingly was beginning to jell, I called it Classical turned to the instrument only for occasional Symphony—fi rst because it was simpler, reference, like an old, out-of-print book. and second just for fun, “to tease the geese,” Sergei Prokofi ev composed this Classical and with the secret hope that eventually the Symphony to try his ability in writing away from symphony would become a classic. the keyboard. Like most composers who also are virtuoso pianists, Prokofi ev regularly worked rokofi ev begins with familiar materials. at the piano. When he decided to spend the In fact, the opening bars—scored for summer of 1917 in a small village near Petrograd pairs of winds, , and horns, (now ), removed from the Pwith and strings; launched fi rmly in advances of war, he intentionally rented a place D major; and marked allegro—could almost be with no piano, suspecting that “thematic material from Haydn’s own pen. But in measure seven, composed without a piano was often better.” the violins begin to play fi ve notes to the beat. Th e surprising decision to write a symphony And when, two bars later, a repetition of the in the style of Haydn was, perhaps, suggested opening phrase slips down into C major, we by the simple fact that Prokofi ev didn’t regularly are unmistakably jolted from the eighteenth play the piano works by Haydn or Mozart—their century to the twentieth. From that point on, music was, therefore, in his head, not in his Prokofi ev continues to throw in harmonic twists fi ngers. And the classical style, with its lucid and extra beats where we least expect them.

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1916–17 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME August 14, 1998, Ravinia Festival. 15 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Christoph Eschenbach conducting April 21, 1918; Leningrad, Russia. The CSO RECORDINGS May 6, 7 & 8, 2004, Orchestra Hall. composer conducting 1976. Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. Christoph von Dohnányi conducting FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES INSTRUMENTATION 1977. Sir Georg Solti conducting. December 16 & 17, 1921, Orchestra two fl utes, two , two , C Major (video) Hall. The composer conducting two , two horns, two 1982. Sir Georg Solti. London July 7, 1938, Ravinia Festival. Artur trumpets, timpani, strings Rodzinski conducting 1992. James Levine conducting. Deutsche Grammophon 2 The Larghetto is a perfectly lovely slow move- the United States. He made his first appearance ment, with its melody born in the stratosphere, in this country in November 1918, playing a where many of Prokofiev’s (and none of Haydn’s) solo recital in . The following themes dwell. The pointedly brief third move- month he came to Chicago to play his First ment is pure Prokofiev (for one thing, Haydn with Frederick Stock and the wrote minuets, not gavottes), with its entire Chicago Symphony and to lead the Orchestra in middle section grounded over one unchang- the first American performances of his Scythian ing harmony. Haydn surely would have loved Suite (which Riccardo Muti and the Orchestra Prokofiev’s finale, with its high spirits and good played here in October). His success encouraged humor. (The way the recapitulation arrives out of the directors of the Chicago to offer to the blue is one of Haydn’s oldest tricks.) produce his new Love for Three Oranges, which he had begun on the boat while crossing the rokofiev’s first symphony was consider- Atlantic. Two weeks before the world premiere of ably successful, and, as time proved, he the opera, in December 1921 at the Auditorium had created a classic. A month after the Theatre, Prokofiev returned to Orchestra first performance of the Classical Symphony, Hall to conduct the Chicago Symphony’s first P Prokofiev was granted permission to come to performances of his Classical Symphony.

Composers in Chicago

Sergei Prokofiev appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra numerous times between 1918 and 1937, both as piano soloist and guest conductor. He was soloist in the U.S. premiere of his First Piano Concerto in 1918 as well as the world premiere of his Third Piano Concerto in 1921, and he also appeared in his Second and Fifth concertos. As conductor, Prokofiev led the Orchestra in the U.S. premieres of his (1918), Divertimento (1930), and the first suite from the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1937). He also conducted his First Symphony (Classical), and suites from his ballets Le pas d’acier and and his opera .

Frank Villella is the director of Program biography for ’s debut appearances with the the Rosenthal Archives. For more Chicago Symphony Orchestra in December 1918 information regarding the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s anniversary season, please visit cso.org/125moments. 3 Born December 25, 1871, Moscow, Russia. Died April 27, 1915, Moscow, Russia. Prometheus, The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 Performed as part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective

From his youth, when he After Scriabin left the conservatory, he began interpreted the signifi- a career as a concert pianist. While his recital cance of his birth on programs often included music by Schumann and Christmas Day as a sign Liszt, two composers who also started out as pia- that he should do great nists, Scriabin’s particular favorite was Chopin. things, Scriabin believed That influence is reflected not only in his reper- he would play a decisive toire, but in the titles and nature of the music he role in the history of wrote at the time—sets of preludes, impromptus, music. But his early death etudes, and even Polish mazurkas. To study the at the age of forty-three first nineteen opus numbers in Scriabin’s catalog, cut short his career just as he was venturing into all pieces for piano solo, one would never predict pioneer territory with works such as Prometheus the important orchestral music that would and the unfinished . Like many quickly follow. composers of a less revolutionary bent, Scriabin The move away from writing solo piano started his musical life as a pianist and his music was a tough and decisive step for all the composing career writing only piano pieces. In pianist-composers of the nineteenth century, 1884, he began to study piano with Nicolai but Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms Zverev, who had already accepted Sergei were already mature artists with individual and Rachmaninov as a pupil. The two students recognizable styles when they stopped composing became good friends—Scriabin was older by just exclusively for the piano. But when Scriabin one year—though they were sometimes later wrote a piano concerto in 1896—the first of portrayed as rivals once their musical ambitions his works to call for orchestra—he had not yet ventured in different directions. At the time they discovered the voice that would ultimately make met, both Scriabin and Rachmaninov were his music unique. The Chopinesque concerto beginning to compose piano pieces for them- scarcely hints at the direction Scriabin’s career selves to play. In 1888, Scriabin entered the would take. Then, three years later, he began , where he excelled equally his first symphony, and a new world of complex as a pianist and composer. When he graduated in sounds and philosophical ideas open up before 1892, he was awarded the second gold medal in him. He was now on the path to becoming, as composition (Rachmaninov took first place, for the novelist Boris Pasternak later said of him, his opera Aleko). “more than just a composer.” Within a year after

COMPOSED MOST RECENT tam-tam, , celesta, organ, two 1908 to 1910 CSO PERFORMANCES harps, strings, an extensive solo piano December 5, 6, 7 & 10, 1996, Orchestra part, chorus of mixed voices FIRST PERFORMANCE Hall. Anatol Ugorski as soloist, Chicago March 2, 1911; Moscow, Russia Symphony Chorus (Duain Wolfe, APPROXIMATE director), Pierre Boulez conducting PERFORMANCE TIME FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES 21 minutes United States premiere INSTRUMENTATION March 5 & 6, 1915, Orchestra Hall. three and piccolo, three oboes CSO RECORDING Frederick Stock conducting and english horn, three clarinets 1996. Anatol Ugorski as soloist, and bass , three bassoons Chicago Symphony Chorus (Duain and , eight horns, five Wolfe, director), Pierre Boulez trumpets, three , , conducting. Deutsche Grammophon timpani, triangle, cymbals, ,

4 he completed his signature— first symphony, Scriabin broke he eagerly began with tonality. and quickly Prometheus, the finished a second, one-movement as if he had found work for orches- his true calling tra and solo piano at last. But the he began the traditional form following year, is of the symphony written according would only briefly to a new system satisfy Scriabin’s based on a single musical ambi- harmony, the tions. All three so-called mystic of the works he chord. (It is called symphony sometimes also were composed Zverev’s students in the late 1880s. Scriabin, with military attire, is referred to as within a five-year the second on the left. Rachmaninov is the fourth from the right. the Prometheus period, and, chord, since it already with the initially appeared third, finished in 1904, Scriabin felt the need for prominently in this work; Scriabin first used a descriptive subtitle, The Divine Poem, recog- it fleetingly in his Fifth Piano , but nizing that his ideas were beginning to outgrow the chord is all-pervasive in Prometheus.) This the symphonic model. He did not even bother one chord is the pitch source for all melodic to label the two grand orchestral pieces he wrote and harmonic material in the piece. Scriabin afterward, The Poem of Ecstasy, completed in remarked, “The melody is dissolved harmony; the 1908, and Prometheus, which he began that same harmony is a vertically compressed melody.” This year, as . Both of those works are gives Prometheus an unusually tight construction. single-movement tone poems, if any conventional “There is not a wasted note,” Scriabin said. “Not title can do justice to their extraordinary form a wedge where a mosquito could get in and and substance, although Prometheus, with its bite!” It is this very uniformity of Prometheus’s significant and virtuosic solo piano part, is partly harmonic language that makes the final, unex- indebted to the model of the piano concerto pected F-sharp major triad so unexpected—like as well. a sound from another world. After 1908, Scriabin was single-minded in his devotion to round the turn of the century, the implications of the —it provides Scriabin fell under the spell of phil- the foundation for all of his final compositions, osophical and mystical ideas which including Prometheus and the last five of his ten dominatedA his thoughts for the rest of his piano . Scriabin in effect had created life and completely changed the music he a new system of tonal organization to replace wrote. Scriabin’s mature style is adventurous traditional harmony. (he and Schoenberg both abandoned tonal- While composing Prometheus, Scriabin grew ity by 1910), idiosyncratic, and visionary. In ever more fascinated with synesthesia—especially his very last works, including Prometheus and the link between color and music, which was the projected Mysterium, he seems to be ven- very much in the air at the time. In 1909, while turing into the great unknown, where music Scriabin was working on Prometheus, the Russian and color are closely linked, and where “art painter Wassily Kandinsky wrote a play titled The must unite with philosophy and religion in an Yellow Sound, which was published in The Blue indivisible whole to form a new gospel . . . .” Rider in 1912, alongside an analysis of Scriabin’s After completing his Fifth Piano Sonata work. (Kandinsky translated the article himself, in 1907—one of his last pieces to carry a key although, fearing he did not understand all the

5 musical terminology, he asked Schoenberg to visionary. When the Chicago Symphony gave look it over.) In 1910, Schoenberg began Die the U.S. premiere in 1915, the fact that the piece glückliche Hand, a music drama that calls for an was hissed by the respectable Friday afternoon intricate play of colored lighting synchronized audience only proved, according to one critic, with the action. “the dynamic vitality of the composer.” Scriabin was introduced to the idea of a In classical mythology, Prometheus is the correspondence between music and color as titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to early as 1902 by Rimsky-Korsakov. The two humans, providing them with the sacred flame composers shared many opinions on the subject, of wisdom. For his defiance, Prometheus was including their dismay with Wagner’s Magic chained to a rock, where an eagle plucked out Fire Music from The Ring. “He uses the wrong his liver. Scriabin was strongly attracted to this tonality,” Scriabin said, “and repeats the music great rebellious figure whose fire made man’s in different keys!” (They both thought it should vision possible and equal to that of the gods, be in G.) Scriabin eventually developed his own and it inspired some of his finest and most music-color wheel—he and Rimsky ultimately impassioned music. agreed only on the identity of yellow and D— Scriabin’s final years after Prometheus were and conceived Prometheus with a part for an consumed with drafting Mysterium, a vast and imaginary instrument, a color keyboard which visionary work intended for performance in an would shower the stage in colors, changing as Indian temple and synthesizing all the arts and often as every measure. Alexander Mozer, a senses—sound, color, scent, singing, and dancing professor of electrical engineering in Moscow, all joined in the ultimate expression of Wagner’s built a color organ to suit Scriabin’s specifi- Gesamptkunstwerke, the complete artwork. He cations, but it was not used until 1915, after finished the text for part one, and at his death left the composer’s death, and then with highly copious musical sketches that include the use of unsatisfactory results. Prometheus also calls for a chords containing all twelve pitches of the chro- wordless chorus in the final measures, singing a matic scale. Scriabin wanted no audience, only sequence of color-coordinated vowels. But even participants, in Mysterium, and he envisioned without Scriabin’s projected colors, the work that a performance could transform humanity was immediately recognized as provocative and and provide “the celebration of a collective joy.”

6 Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany. Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria. Coriolan Overture, Op. 62

Richard Wagner was The Coriolan Overture is terse and strongly right to point out that knit; it is as compact as anything Beethoven Beethoven might as well had written at the time. Beethoven finds enor- have written this overture mous power in C minor, his favorite minor key. for Shakespeare’s tragedy (Sketches for his Fifth Symphony, in the same Coriolanus as for the play key, were already well advanced at the time.) As by Heinrich von Collin. in his Leonore Overture no. 3, finished the year Unlike Wagner and most before, he understood how to manipulate the concertgoers today, outlines of sonata form to accommodate human Beethoven knew both drama. (Here, only the second theme appears in plays. He admired and loved Shakespeare the recapitulation.) enormously. But Collin was a friend of his, and Wagner described Beethoven’s overture as his Coriolan had enjoyed considerable popularity a musical counterpart to the turning point in in the years immediately following its first Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Many listeners have performance in 1802. Beethoven was inspired, heard, in its tightly worded argument, the either by friendship or theater, to put something conflict between Coriolanus, the exiled leader of the story into music. who marches against his own people, and his Beethoven didn’t write his overture for a mother Volumnia, who pleads for mercy until theatrical performance; he was writing for an her son finally yields. The main themes readily audience that probably knew Collin’s play but lend themselves to this reading—the first fierce was not attending an actual production. The first and determined, the second earnest and implor- performance was given at one of two concerts ing. In the play, Coriolanus commits suicide; at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz, where it Beethoven’s music disintegrates at the end. was overshadowed by the premieres of the Beethoven surely identified with Coriolanus’s more genial Fourth Symphony and the Fourth lonely pride, for it marked every day of his own Piano Concerto. The overture and the play were life. And, although his tough public image and united just once in Beethoven’s lifetime, in April brilliantly triumphant music argue otherwise, 1807, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, apparently we now know that he, too, fought recurring without success. suicidal tendencies.

COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1807 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME July 14, 1979, Ravinia Festival. James 8 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Levine conducting March 1807; Vienna, Austria CSO RECORDINGS May 10, 11, 12 & 15, 2007, Orchestra 1958. conducting. CSO Hall. Bernard Haitink conducting FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES (From the Archives, vol. 17: Beethoven) February 12 & 13, 1892, INSTRUMENTATION 1959. Fritz Reiner conducting. RCA Auditorium Theatre. Theodore two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, Thomas conducting 1974. Sir Georg Solti conducting. two bassoons, two horns, two London July 4, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Ernest trumpets, timpani, strings Ansermet conducting

7 Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93

In a life characterized by he sought romance and domestic harmony, but difficulties—with people, it’s the most painful case we have record of, and work, romance, and it certainly helped to convince him that he would more—1812 may well remain alone—and lonely—for life. The diary he have been the most began in late 1812 finds him despondent at the difficult year Beethoven failure of his relationships and more determined ever had. In any case, the than ever in his single-minded dedication to toll was great: in October, music. It also admits thoughts of suicide. shortly after he finished his Eighth Symphony, eethoven’s Eighth Symphony quickly Beethoven sank into a serious depression, finding followed his Seventh, and, particularly creativity a tiresome effort. Over the next two in light of its predecessors, it was mis- years, he wrote only the two cello sonatas, Bunderstood from the start. When Beethoven op. 102 and a handful of occasional pieces. was reminded that the Eighth was less suc- The main problem of 1812 involved an cessful than his Seventh, he is said to have unknown woman, who has come to be known as replied: “That’s because it is so much better.” the “.” Conjecture about her Contemporary audiences are seldom the best identity is one of the favorite games of Beethoven judges of new music, but Beethoven’s latest scholarship. (In his watershed Beethoven symphony must have seemed a letdown at biography, Maynard Solomon suggests Amalie the time, for, after symphonies of unexpected Brentano, who is the most plausible.) The power and unprecedented length, with move- evidence is slight—essentially little more than ments that include thunder and lightning the astonishing letter Beethoven wrote on July 6 and that lead directly from one to another, and 7, which was discovered among his papers the Eighth is a throwback to an easier time. after his death. It’s Beethoven’s only letter to a The novelty of this symphony, however, is woman that uses the informal German du, and, that it manages to do new and unusual things in its impassioned, unsparing tone, it tells us without ever waving the flag of controversy. much about the composer, if nothing at all about The first movement, for example, is of modest the woman in question. This wasn’t the last time dimensions, with a compact first theme—its first Beethoven would find misery and longing where two quick phrases like a textbook definition of

COMPOSED MOST RECENT CSO RECORDINGS 1811–12 CSO PERFORMANCES 1958. Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO August 2, 2002, Ravinia Festival. (From the Archives, vol. 11: The Reiner FIRST PERFORMANCE Christoph Eschenbach conducting Era II) February 17, 1814; Vienna, Austria June 2 & 3, 2010, Orchestra Hall. 1961. Pierre Monteux conducting. VAI Bernard Haitink conducting (video) FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES March 25 & 26, 1892, 1966. Kirill Kondrashin conducting. INSTRUMENTATION Auditorium Theatre. Theodore CSO (From the Archives, vol. 17: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, Thomas conducting Beethoven) two bassoons, two horns, two July 5, 1936, Ravinia Festival. Rudolph trumpets, timpani, strings 1966. Leopold Stokowski conducting. Ganz conducting CSO (From the Archives, vol. 5: Guests in APPROXIMATE the House) PERFORMANCE TIME 1973. Sir Georg Solti conducting. 27 minutes London 1988. Sir Georg Solti conducting. London

8 own, nothing like the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which had been an instant and tremendous hit. The incred- ible nineteenth-century practice of inserting that beloved slow movement into the Eighth Symphony says more about the tastes of earlier generations than about any supposed deficien- cies in Beethoven’s Allegretto. The scherzo that follows isn’t a scherzo at all, but a leisurely, old-world minuet, giving us all the room and relaxation we missed in the Allegretto. As always, there’s method in Beethoven’s madness, though it was often only the madness that got noticed. In the context of the composer’s personal sorrows of 1812, it’s either astonishing or per- fectly predictable—depending on your outlook on human nature—that the finale is one of the funniest pieces of music Beethoven ever wrote. The tone is jovial from the start—a light, ram- bunctious theme—and the first real joke comes at the very end of that theme, when Beethoven tosses out a loud unison C-sharp—an odd Beethoven’s study in the Schwarzspanierhaus, where exclamation point for an F major sentence. Many he died; colored lithograph from a sepia drawing by moments of wit follow: tiny whispers that answer J.N. Noechle, ca. 1827 bold declarations; gaping pauses when you can’t help but question what will happen next; places antecedent-consequent (question-and-answer) where Beethoven seems to enjoy tugging on the structure. The next subject comes upon us rug beneath our feet. But he saves his best punch without warning—unless two quiet measures line for last, and he has been working up to it all of expectant chords have tipped us off. The along. When that inappropriate C-sharp returns whole moves like lightning, and when we hit one last time—as it was destined to do, given the recapitulation—amid thundering fff tim- the incontestable logic of Beethoven’s wildest pani, with a new singing theme high above the schemes—it’s no longer a stumbling block in original tune, we can hardly believe we’re already an F major world, but a gateway to the unlikely home. But just when Beethoven seems about to key of F-sharp minor. It takes some doing to wrap things up, he launches into a giant epilogue pull us back to terra firma: the trumpets begin that proves, in no uncertain terms, just how far by defiantly hammering away on F-natural, and we’ve come from the predictable, four-square Beethoven spends the last pages endlessly turn- proportions of the works by Haydn and Mozart. ing somersaults through F major, until memories For early nineteenth-century audiences who of any other sounds are banished for good. were just getting used to Beethoven’s spacious slow movements, the second movement of the Eighth was a puzzle, for it’s neither slow Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the nor long. It is also, through no fault of its Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987.

© 2015 Chicago Symphony Orchestra 9