Thursday, March 1, 2018, at 7:30 pm m a Art of the Song r g o Simon Keenlyside , Baritone r P Malcolm Martineau , Piano e h SIBELIUS Kaiutar (“The Echo Nymph”) (1915) T Illalle (“To Evening”) (1898) Romeo (1910) Im Feld ein Mädchen singt (1906) Die stille Stadt (1906) SCHUBERT Selections from Schwanengesang , D.957 (1828) Liebesbotschaft Kriegers Ahnung Ständchen Die Stadt Der Wanderer, D.649 (1819) Selections from Schwanengesang Das Fischermädchen Abschied Intermission Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Steinway Piano Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater Adrienne Arsht Stage Great Performers Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman’s Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund. Endowment support is also provided by UBS. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Lincoln Center UPCOMING GREAT PERFORMERS EVENTS: Wednesday, March 28 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Christian Tetzlaff, solo violin ALL-BACH PROGRAM Sonata No. 2 in A minor Partita No. 2 in D minor Sonata No. 3 in C major Partita No. 3 in E major Tuesday, April 17 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Richard Goode, piano BYRD: Two Pavans and Galliards BACH: English Suite No. 6 in D minor BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 28 in A major DEBUSSY: Préludes, Book 2 Thursday, April 19 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Mark Padmore, tenor Paul Lewis, piano SCHUMANN: Liederkreis BRAHMS: Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze BRAHMS: Sommerabend BRAHMS: Mondenschein BRAHMS: Es schauen die Blumen BRAHMS: Meerfahrt BRAHMS: Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht SCHUMANN: Dichterliebe For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit LCGreatPerformers.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about program cancellations or to request a Great Performers brochure. Visit LCGreatPerformers.org for more information relating to this season’s programs. Join the conversation: @LincolnCenter We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. Great Performers I The Program VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Selections from Songs of Travel (1901–04) The Vagabond Youth and Love The Infinite Shining Heavens SOMERVELL There Pass the Careless People (1904) WARLOCK My Own Country, from Three Belloc Songs (1927) Piggesnie (1922) The Night, from Three Belloc Songs (1927) GRAINGER The Sprig of Thyme (1907) FAURÉ Rêve d’amour (1864) Spleen (1888) Poème d’un jour (1878) Rencontre Toujours Adieu Great Performers I Snapshot By Susan Youens t Timeframe o Say “Sibelius” and many will think automati - ARTS h cally of tone poems and symphonies—but this 1828 s composer also wrote over 100 songs to Schubert’s poems in Swedish, Finnish, German, and even Schwanengesang p French. Only a few have become part of the First publication of Noah a Webster’s American Dictionary standard repertoire, so it is a rare treat to hear n five less-known songs by this master. In his 1878 youth, Sibelius studied in Berlin and Vienna, S Fauré’s Poème d’un jour hence the two German lieder, but the foremost Thomas Hardy publishes his champion of Finnish musical nationalism is novel The Return of the Native . also represented here by songs in Finnish and Swedish. 1915 Sibelius’s “Kaiutar” Franz Kafka publishes his short We follow Sibelius’s songs with six lieder from story The Metamorphosis . Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang (“Swan Song”), a posthumously published collection SCIENCE of 14 works, all but the last to poetry by Ludwig Rellstab (a prominent music journalist) 1828 and Heinrich Heine (one of Germany’s greatest Delaware and Hudson Canal are completed. poets). In the middle, our two artists inter - sperse another Schubert song, one of many on 1878 the quintessential Romantic theme of wander - Thomas Edison invents the ing. Heine’s verse—pared to the bone, phonograph and the electric drenched in irony—elicited from Schubert filament lamp. nothing less than the future of music. 1915 First transcontinental tele- Eight songs in English follow, with more wan - phone link established in the dering songs (a recurring theme of this pro - U.S., between New York City gram, along with serenades), also love songs, and San Francisco a bitter anti-love song, and a folk song. From Ralph Vaughan Williams’s cycle Songs of IN NEW YORK Travel , we hear the first, fourth, and sixth 1828 songs (wandering in three different moods). Broadway extends north to The best song from Arthur Somervell’s set - 10th Street. tings of A.E. Housman, three songs by the composer and student of the occult Peter 1878 Warlock, and a folk song round out the group. The Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, the first telephone exchange ser - At the end comes a Gallic marvel: five songs, vice, opens its central switch - including a mini-cycle of three mélodies , by ing office in Manhattan. Gabriel Fauré, among the greatest of French song composers. 1915 The New York Yankees wear —Copyright © 2018 by Lincoln Center for the legendary pinstripes for the Performing Arts, Inc. first time. Great Performers I Notes on the Program By Susan Youens m Kaiutar (“The Echo Nymph”), Op. 72, No. 4 (1915) a Illalle (“To Evening”), Op. 17, No. 6 (1898) r Romeo, Op. 61, No. 4 (1910) g Im Feld ein Mädchen singt, Op. 50, No. 3 (1906) Die stille Stadt, Op. 50, No. 5 (1906) o r JEAN SIBELIUS Born December 8, 1865, in Hämeenlinna, Finland P Died September 20, 1957, in Järvenpää, Finland e Approximate length: 14 minutes h t “Kaiutar” dates from the First World War—a period of financial hardship for Sibelius and his family. The Finnish poet Larin-Kyösti came from the n same birthplace (Hämeenlinna) as the composer and was often inspired by o fairies, elves, and mythical visions of yore. In his version of the myth of Echo, a betrayed nymph resolves to mock and deceive others as she was s deceived. At the start, we hear what sounds like a modern variant of e ancient runic singing, while near the end, echoes already begin to sound t between the voice and the right hand of the piano part. “Illalle” sets to o music a sonnet to evening and to “Ilta” (the poet’s wife); the vocal part consists of variations on a single phrase, while the accompanying treble N chords alternating between the two hands sound like some sort of folk instrument, descending into the bass at the end. Arnold Bax once said that Sibelius “gave one the notion that he had never laughed in his life and never could,” but “Romeo” gives the lie to that state - ment, even if the song still has the dark side characteristic of this composer. The strumming in the piano is punctuated by emphatic rolled chords; one imagines the would-be lover striking a pose each time as he envisions dif - ferent outcomes for his serenade (one of several on this program). In “Im Feld ein Mädchen singt,” the singer wonders what has impelled the song he hears in the meadow; surely he and the singer are kindred souls, linked by sadness. Once again alternating chords, floating as if ungrounded, sound beneath a lyrical, melancholy melody. Many early 19th- century composers were drawn to the poetry of Richard Dehmel, including the words for “Die stille Stadt.” Here, night falls in stages of gathering darkness, until the fearful wanderer (wandering is another recurring strand in this program) hears children singing a holy song. Rising-and-falling arcs of delicate treble harmony in the piano sound throughout. Great Performers I Notes on the Program Selections from Schwanengesang , D.957 (1828) Der Wanderer, D.649 (1819) FRANZ SCHUBERT Born January 31, 1797, in Vienna Died November 19, 1828, in Vienna Approximate length: 23 minutes In 1829, the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger brought forth a collection he named Schwanengesang (“Swan Song”), Schubert’s final musical testa - ment. To Schubert’s original manuscript of 13 songs on seven poems by the Berlin music journalist Ludwig Rellstab and six by the great Heinrich Heine, Haslinger added the composer’s last lied, “Die Taubenpost.” In “Liebesbotschaft,” the first of the Rellstab songs, a lover bids the little brook to convey greetings to his sweetheart. A rippling, undulating right hand part flows over a bedrock of open fifths in the left hand and then cradles a vocal line remarkable for its melodic beauty and incessant dactylic rhythms. Water music gives way to an unknown warrior’s firelight memories of love in “Kriegers Ahnung.” Schubert draws a stark contrast between the dark chords that bespeak the death-haunted present and the warm, fluid passages in major mode remembering a past beautified by love. In the famous “Ständchen,” an ardent wooer attempts to lure the maiden he desires out of her bedchamber in order “to make me happy,” a euphemism that only the most naive, convent-bred miss could mistake.