Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO
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PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Friday, February 5, 2016, at 8:00 Saturday, February 6, 2016, at 8:00 Gennady Rozhdestvensky Conductor Music by Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10 Allegretto—Allegro non troppo Allegro Lento—Largo—Lento Allegro molto—Lento INTERMISSION Symphony No. 15 in A Major, Op. 141 Allegretto Adagio Allegretto Adagio—Allegretto Saturday’s concert is sponsored by ITW. 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 Dmitri Shostakovich Born September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia. Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10 In our amazement at a keen ear, a sharp musical memory, and great those rare talents who discipline—all the essential tools (except, per- mature early and die haps, for self-confidence and political savvy) for a young—Mozart, major career in the music world. His Symphony Schubert, and no. 1 is the first indication of the direction his Mendelssohn immedi- career would take. Written as a graduation thesis ately come to mind—we at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, it brought often undervalue the less him international attention. In the years imme- spectacular accomplish- diately following its first performance in May ments of those who burst 1926, it made the rounds of the major orchestras, on the scene at a young age and go on to live beginning in this country with the Philadelphia long, full, musically rich lives. Dmitri Orchestra in November 1928 and coming to Shostakovich’s First Symphony, written when he the Chicago Symphony on December 28, 1928. was eighteen—scarcely a less impressive achieve- (The program note begins, “The name of Dimitri ment than the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Szostakowicz will vainly be searched for in the Dream, finished when Mendelssohn was just dictionaries of musical biography.” Who at that seventeen—inaugurated a symphonic career that time could have predicted that Shostakovich—to spanned nearly half a century—ending with the use the transliteration that quickly became Fifteenth Symphony of 1971 that concludes this standard—would become a household name?) program—and the entirety of Shostakovich’s Although his development would be governed creative life. (The equally significant string by nonmusical forces reflecting some of the quartets, also fifteen in number, are concentrated most dramatic social and political events of our in the later part of his career.) century, the issues in the First Symphony are Shostakovich wasn’t a child prodigy, but he purely musical. It’s a technical exercise, evidence grew up in an unusually musical home and of a well-earned diploma. (That other matricula- revealed from an early age exceptional talent, tion symphony, Haydn’s Oxford, was performed COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1925 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME July 16, 1993, Ravinia Festival. 33 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Lawrence Foster conducting May 12, 1926; Leningrad, Russia CSO RECORDINGS November 29, 30 & December 1, 1977. Sir Georg Solti conducting. 2012, Orchestra Hall. Sir Mark FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES C Major (video) Elder conducting December 28 & 29, 1928, Orchestra 1988. Leonard Bernstein conducting. Hall. Frederick Stock conducting INSTRUMENTATION Deutsche Grammophon July 10, 1937, Ravinia Festival. Ernest three flutes and two piccolos, two Ansermet conducting oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, bells, and strings, with an important role for solo piano 2 when Haydn, at fifty-six, was given an honorary he distinctive quality of the first move- doctorate from Oxford University.) ment is its crystalline texture, delicate What’s most remarkable about Shostakovich’s yet razor sharp. From the opening First Symphony isn’t the appearance of so many measures,T where a solo bassoon converses with hallmarks of the composer’s mature style—biting a single trumpet, individual instruments shine. sarcasm, unabashed romanticism, dry musical Important ideas are often introduced simply, by humor, and moments of public rhetoric alongside one voice against a spare accompaniment. At deeply personal statements—but that every- the climax, Shostakovich unexpectedly throws a thing is handled with mastery and assurance. number of ideas together, to tremendous effect. It’s easy to tell which composers Shostakovich The scherzo is an early example of the compos- most admired as a young man—there are er’s humor, refined during his days as a pianist passing references in particular to his fellow in local movie houses, when he often laughed countrymen Prokofiev, Scriabin, Stravinsky, and so uncontrollably during his favorite scenes Tchaikovsky—but the final, lasting image is of that he had to stop playing. This movement is Shostakovich himself. It’s the same Shostakovich filled with high spirits; the ghostly trio, with its who appears in photographs at the time— persistent triangle and snare drum rolls, is oddly pokerfaced (with tongue in cheek?), intense, mysterious. Still, before the movement is over, diffident, and—despite the reserve in his eyes, Shostakovich manages to combine these two shaded by the spectacles that would be his mask elements into a thrilling climax. for life—determined to succeed. The Lento begins with a plaintive oboe tune, The First Symphony begins as chamber music distantly related to the main theme of the first and ends with the kind of orchestral bombast movement, and continues in a richly lyrical we now know from the Leningrad and his other vein—music that refutes all the later comments symphonies designed to address public issues. It about Shostakovich’s lesser melodic talent. The has four thematically related movements, with finale, which brings together many previous the scherzo placed before the slow one, which themes, is more intricate, with wide mood leads without pause into the finale. A solo piano swings, abrupt tempo changes, bold contrasts has a significant role in the symphony. (At the (a full orchestral climax answered by a timpani conservatory, Shostakovich had been undecided solo, for example), and a general emotional com- whether to concentrate on composition or piano; plexity that is inevitable at any reunion. But most years later he said, “If the truth be told, I should of all, it confirms the arrival on the music scene have done both.”) of an exciting and enduring new voice. Second music director Frederick Stock led Shostakovich’s First Symphony on December 28, 1928, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first performance of the young composer’s work. The following day in the Chicago Tribune, Edward Moore commented: Up to yesterday afternoon the name of Dimitri Szostakowicz—choose your own pronunciation—was new to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra program and probably to the great majority of those who go to the concerts. There is a fair chance that in the next few years it will be considerably better known. He was introduced yesterday afternoon as the composer of a symphony. More than that, it turned out to be a humorous symphony. At first glance there would seem to be about as much chance to be humorous with a symphony as with the Encyclopedia Britannica. That is apparently the province of composers who, like Szostakowicz, are twenty-two years old. He Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1928 has written a symphony that seems to be without a theme, though with a lot of ideas at that, and in its course he sounds as though he were growing derisive partly at modernistic music, partly at the whole subject of music. 3 Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 15 in A Major, Op. 141 Death dominates the symphony in April 1971. According to his Shostakovich’s last works. longtime friend Veniamin Basner, Shostakovich It is explored fearlessly arrived at the Composers’ Union Retreat in and openly in the pieces Repino in July with three movements already with text—the songs on finished. But for many days the finale eluded poems by Michelangelo him. Each morning he and Basner worked sep- and the Fourteenth arately and then met for a short walk, followed Symphony—and its by lunch, a shot of vodka, and the BBC news specter hangs over broadcast. (Shostakovich, accustomed to a life of Shostakovich’s last taking risks, large and small, was always careful symphony, no. 15, and his final score, the to turn the dial back to Radio Moscow.) One viola sonata. day Shostakovich begged off from lunch, locked Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony has some- himself in his house, and began to write around times been called a cradle-to-the-grave work, the clock, day and night. Finally he told Basner, since it begins playfully (“in a toy shop, with a “I think we can go for our walk today.” The last cloudless sky above,” as the composer once put page of the finale is dated July 29. it), quoting Rossini’s William Tell Overture—one At first, this work appears to be a throwback of the first pieces Shostakovich remembered to the classical ideal of a symphony, scored for a hearing as a child—and ends with ruminations conventional orchestra, with four “traditional,” on the funeral music from Wagner’s Ring cycle. purely instrumental movements: a spirited But this is perhaps the composer’s most enig- allegretto; a slow movement, here reminiscent of matic work, filled with many other references, a funeral march; a prankish scherzo; and a finale some of them not so conveniently explained, that gathers together many disparate threads and encompassing music of an almost incom- (including, like Brahms’s Fourth, a passacaglia).