Program oNe HuNdred TweNTieTH SeASoN Chicago symphony orchestra Music director Helen regenstein Conductor emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, March 31, 2011, at 8:00 Saturday, April 2, 2011, at 8:00 Kurt masur Conductor Louis Lortie Piano mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 Allegro Adagio Allegro assai LouiS LorTie

IntermIssIon Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in e-flat Major (Romantic) Moving, not too fast Andante quasi allegretto Scherzo: Moving Finale: Moving, but not too fast

The Thursday performance, in memory of Roy I. Warshawsky, is sponsored by his family. 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 PHi LLiP HuSCHer

Wolfgang mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Concerto no. 23 in a major, K. 488

rom 1782, the year after he In the winter of 1785–86, Fmoved to Vienna, until 1786, Mozart wrote three piano con- Mozart wrote fifteen piano concer- certos while he also worked on tos. That’s an incredible outpouring The Marriage of Figaro. This was of important music, and it corre- the most productive period of sponds precisely to Mozart’s heyday his life, and the only reasonable as a performer. These concertos way to explain the enormous and were his main performing vehi- varied output of these six months cles—as well as his primary source is to assume that the intense work of income—and time has placed on the complicated musical and them among the crowning glories dramatic structures of Figaro set of all music. There’s little else in his mind racing with more ideas all Mozart’s output, aside from the than a single four-act opera could great operas, to compare with the contain. It has been suggested magnificence, subtlety, and consis- that the purely mechanical task of tent brilliance of these scores, and writing it all down would produce in no other works did Mozart so only six full pages per day. Neither ingeniously merge the symphonic, that challenge, nor the infinitely operatic, and chamber music styles greater one of conceiving so much into a uniquely personal language glorious music, appears to have of expression. inconvenienced Mozart in the least.

ComPosed most reCent InstrumentatIon entered in Mozart’s catalog Cso PerFormanCes one flute, two clarinets, two March 2, 1786 February 19, 2008, orchestra bassoons, two horns, strings Hall. Mitsuko uchida con- FIrst PerFormanCe ducting from the keyboard Cadenzas spring 1786, Vienna July 23, 2010, ravinia by Mozart Festival. Christoph FIrst Cso aPProxImate eschenbach, piano, John PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme Axelrod december 10, 1920, 26 minutes orchestra Hall. Harold bauer, piano, Frederick Stock conducting

2 Throughout the winter, he kept to result is the kind of risky—though his regular routine of teaching and not reckless—creation known only performing, while also maintain- to the very greatest chefs and com- ing a full social calendar. The only posers. The tone of the entire move- activity that seems to have suffered ment is generous and warmly lyri- was his correspondence, so we have cal, although, as in the duet in the only a sketchy account of his daily same key between the count and life at the time. Susanna in act 3 of Figaro, there’s Mozart entered the A major still room for mischief, doubt, and piano concerto (K. 488) in his the thrill of imminent danger. catalog on March 2, 1786, only Mozart marks the slow move- a month after the one-act comic ment adagio instead of the more opera, The Impresario; just three common andante—what he has to weeks before the famous C minor say can’t be rushed. This magnifi- concerto (K. 491); and less than cent and justly famous music stands two months before The Marriage alone among all Mozart concerto of Figaro. Although it’s not docu- movements, not only because mented, Mozart probably per- of its tempo or key (it’s his only formed the A major concerto at one work in F-sharp minor), but also of the Vienna Lenten concerts a few because it unlocks a tragic power days after finishing it. that won’t surface in music again This and the other two concertos until Beethoven. The wind writing of the Figaro winter are the first in is particularly expressive, and the Mozart’s output to call for clarinets. piano solo is as simple and haunting (Sketches show that Mozart started as any slow aria. Even in Figaro, writing this A major concerto as with its celebrated mixture of early as 1784 with oboes instead.) laughter and tears, there’s scarcely a Mozart begins as if he were follow- moment that plunges so deeply into ing the conventional recipe for a the heart. The finale, a buoyant and classical concerto (which is totally delightful rondo, brings us back to unlike him), but then, after a few A major, and, after the Adagio’s pages, he proceeds to ignore nearly revelations, it sounds like the hap- every subsequent instruction. The piest key on earth.

3 anton Bruckner Born September 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Upper Austria. Died October 11, 1896, Vienna, Austria.

symphony no. 4 in e-flat major (Romantic)

nton Bruckner was forty when but also to the trivial—though Ahe wrote his first significant deeply wounding—criticism of large-scale work—a mass in others. Well-meaning friends D minor—and forty-two before suggested pruning (Bruckner has he wrote the first symphony he always seemed long-winded to was willing to claim. After years the unsympathetic listener) and rec- as a diligent student, Bruckner ommended other changes, which had finally found his own voice, Bruckner dutifully considered and but he wasn’t confident enough often accepted. Franz Schalk and to trust it. The third and fourth Carl Löwe—two favorite, though symphonies were the toughest for unfaithful disciples—thought the him, and, in both cases, he needed scherzo of the Fourth Symphony three separate attempts before he ought to end pianissimo the first was satisfied. He began the Fourth time around, rather than in a blaze Symphony in 1874. Four years later, of brass as Bruckner conceived it. he wrote a new scherzo and finale. And so it does, in the first printed In 1880, he made further changes, edition that they prepared in 1890. reaching what was, for the time (However, when it came time to being, his final score. But in the late authorize that edition, Bruckner 1880s, he picked up his pencil and refused to sign the printer’s copy; returned to the E-flat symphony. it was published anyway. The Bruckner was responding not 1880 version is performed at just to his own second thoughts, these concerts.)

ComPosed most reCent aPProxImate 1874, revised 1878–80, Cso PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme late 1880s November 4, 1007, orchestra 66 minutes Hall. Christoph von FIrst PerFormanCe dohnányi conducting Cso reCordIngs February 20, 1881, Vienna. 1972. daniel barenboim Hans richter conducting InstrumentatIon conducting. deutsche two flutes, two oboes, two Grammophon FIrst Cso clarinets, two bassoons, 1981. Sir PerFormanCe four horns, three trumpets, conducting. London January 22, 1897, Auditorium three trombones and tuba, Theatre. Theodore timpani, strings Thomas conducting

4 Bruckner was certainly not the In the Fourth Symphony, it takes first composer to suffer at the hands us a surprisingly long time to of insensitive friends and col- figure out how quickly the music leagues. A tall, awkward man with is moving. A calm, clear horn call a severely cropped Prussian haircut beckons over string tremolos. But and a wardrobe of seriously mis- as the theme emerges, it brings shapen suits, his very appearance with it faster countermelodies and seemed to invite doubt and scorn, increasing activity. if not ridicule. (Beethoven, once From Beethoven’s Ninth, arrested as a vagrant, had already Bruckner also found his model proved that fashion plays no role in for a large-scale structure: a big musical greatness.) But Bruckner’s first movement, a spacious adagio, problem lay deeper. From his earli- a scherzo in sonata form, and a est days, he fought a devastating wide-ranging finale that gathers insecurity that frequently damaged many threads together in a new his dealings with people, made light. It is useless (though accurate) his life one of perpetual misery, to note that the first movement and almost denied him a career as of Bruckner’s Fourth is twice as a composer. long as any opening symphonic Yet, despite his doubts, the movement in Mozart or Haydn, failure of several important per- and comparable only to those of formances, the hostility of musi- Beethoven’s Eroica and Ninth cians (the Vienna Philharmonic symphonies, among its predeces- rejected his first three symphonies sors. For Bruckner is not Haydn, as unplayable), and the disloyalty of Mozart, or Beethoven—not in the his students, Bruckner managed to way he handles themes, plans his get something down on paper that harmonic structure, or conceives pleased himself, if no one else. In form—even if he is working with time, his unorthodox style, with its many of the same tools. leisurely pace, slowly unfolding har- It has taken music lovers some mony, obstinate repetition of simple time to understand him. Robert motives and chords, and apparent Simpson, who wrote one of the resistance to wrap things up, found first comprehensive studies of the other receptive listeners. symphonies, describes Bruckner’s Six of Bruckner’s symphonies technique as a manifestation of start with a vague rumble that patience. It is patience, certainly, Bruckner picked up from the which many listeners today do not opening of Beethoven’s Ninth and bring to Bruckner, and he will not then focus on an important theme divulge his greatness without it. as it breaks through. Sometimes Bruckner has never been known the effect is almost improvisational, to make a long story short, but as if Bruckner sat at the piano—or he is a masterful storyteller. The in the organ loft, for that was his slow movement of this symphony instrument—one hand waiting moves at a deliberate and relent- to see what the other would do. less gait, but it’s shrewdly paced

5 and lovingly told, and there are Bruckner takes time for any num- moments of almost unimaginable ber of detours to distant harmonic beauty. The grand climax is truly regions, enriching the itinerary impressive only if one has made the immeasurably. The shadow of the slow ascent. scherzo hovers. Near the end, after The scherzo, with its combina- a barrage from the full orchestra, tion of hunting calls and brass there is a great, unexpected pause, fanfares, is lively, exciting stuff. and then the last full paragraph. But the pace is still leisurely, and As Bruckner told the conductor the trio (marked “Not too quickly”) —in explanation of is delicately scored and even more one of his most common idiosyn- relaxed. When the scherzo returns, crasies—he liked to catch his breath it’s particularly noticeable how before saying something significant. Bruckner relies not on speed, but And the ending is important, for on sheer sonority—here the full it brings us back to the opening of brass band—to create excitement. the symphony, with its simple horn A Bruckner finale is always large call. There is both a sense of wrap- and complicated, and this one gave ping things up and the satisfaction him an especially hard time. As of reunion, as Bruckner gathers Donald Tovey rightly points out, together familiar themes, like tour- “the first thing to realize is that, ists who have gone their separate whatever Bruckner chooses to call ways and meet at the day’s end. it, it is really a slow movement, with all the positive qualities thereof.” It opens, like the symphony, with a serene horn call over low rumblings Phillip Huscher is the program annota- © 2011 Chicago Symphony Orchestra © 2011 Chicago that leads to increased commotion. tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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