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Home , Anton Bruckner

Toronto Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 at 8:00pm Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 8:00pm

Günther Herbig, conductor

Franz Schubert Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 “Unfinished” I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto

Intermission

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in I. Feierlich, Misterioso II. : Bewegt, lebhaft III. Adagio: Langsam feierlich

Günther Herbig’s appearance is generously supported by Allan Kimberley and Pam Spackman.

The March 27 performance is generously supported by Peter Hinman and Kristi Stangeland.

As a courtesy to musicians, guest artists, and fellow concertgoers, please put your phone away and on silent during the performance.

MARCH 27 & 28, 2019 23 ABOUT THE WORKS

Franz Schubert Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 “Unfinished”

Born: Himmelpfortgrund, , January 31, 1797 22 Died: , Austria, November 19, 1828 min Composed: 1822

Precisely why Schubert abandoned his twenty bars of the scherzo he abandoned the B-minor symphony, one of the great torsos movement. No trace of a fourth movement of Western art, remains a mystery; for that survives; the notion that the big Entr’acte in matter, precisely why he began it remains a B minor from Schubert’s incidental music to mystery, too. What is known is that when he the play Rosamunde, composed in the fall took it up, in the fall of 1822, he was seeking of 1823, served originally as the finale of this eagerly to stake a claim as a symphonist symphony is not generally accepted. worthy of the mantle of Beethoven, who was Schubert’s health may have played a part still alive and whose cast an in the fate of the B-minor symphony, for intimidating shadow over younger composers. around the end of 1822 or the start of 1823 Schubert once listed symphonies among he contracted syphilis, which was then rife in “my strivings after the highest in art,” but Vienna. By the spring of 1823 he was gravely he struggled to find his mature voice as a ill, and would continue to suffer the effects of symphonist. Between May 1818 and August syphilis until it finally killed him, in 1828, yet 1821, he sketched no less than ten symphonic he remained prolific throughout his last years. movements but abandoned them all, unable His manuscript of the completed movements to bring them satisfactorily to fruition. The of the B-minor symphony is dated October 30, B-minor symphony, a particularly radical 1822, so it was likely not illness that made him experiment, was probably also abandoned for lay the work aside, but perhaps his first battle purely musical reasons: presumably he could with syphilis kept him from recapturing, at a not think of an ending worthy of following the later date, the creative spark that had initially two astonishingly original movements he did inspired him. manage to complete. Sometime in 1823, he gave the manuscript There is no reason to believe that Schubert as a gift to a friend, the composer and pianist considered the B-minor symphony complete Anselm Hüttenbrenner, and apparently never as some have argued: after finishing the first spoke of it again. He did not give away the and second movements, he made detailed and sketches for the third movement, however; promising piano sketches for a dark, 112-bar he may have held out some hope for the scherzo in B minor, and for a charming 16-bar piece after all. Hüttenbrenner then kept the that was to form the basis of a rustic, manuscript to himself for some 40 years! The idyllic trio in G major. But after scoring the first completed movements were first performed

24 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA only on December 17, 1865, by the orchestra of more troubled music that swells up as though the , in Vienna. from an abyss. Though incomplete, and the work of a The poetic, exquisitely scored second composer just 25 years old, the B-minor movement, set in the radiant (and surprising) symphony is one of the great monuments of key of , also turns out to be darker early . The music’s pervasive and more emotionally complex than its lyricism, its range and depth of expression and initial lyricism suggests. The gracious first unabashed subjectivity, its rich orchestration, theme (violins), a slow waltz—the , favouring instruments like clarinet, , and Andante con moto, is not much different from , all reveal a powerful Romantic that of the first movement—gives way to a temperament. No one before Schubert had sort of noble march (woodwinds and brass written orchestral work in B minor, blaring over a pompous walking ), which Beethoven dubbed a “black key” and which disappears as suddenly as it had (like everyone else) largely avoided. But appeared. And the heartbreaking second Schubert needed this rare key, in the first theme (clarinet, then oboe) is no sooner movement, in order to explore feelings of introduced, in a quiet, idyllic setting, than melancholy and desolation and tragedy it explodes with fearsome power in the full that had few precedents among earlier orchestra—stentorian particularly symphonies. (The one B-minor symphony in prominent. Throughout the movement, the standard repertory after Schubert is also Schubert’s trademark harmonic sideslips despairing and inward-looking: Tchaikovsky’s have profound emotional and psychological “Pathétique.”) Schubert was prone to periods implications. In the middle of the movement, of depression, as can be heard in the first the modulation back to E major, for the movement, the tone of which is personal to recapitulation, is sudden and strange, marked the point of confessional. triple-piano (a then rare dynamic marking that Schubert pointedly uses several times in this Here, like Mozart before him, Schubert offers movement); as the first theme reenters, clouds a lyrical take on Classical . The seem to part, letting in the sun. Shortly before tempo is leisurely rather than fast, and the end, where we expect to remain solidly in there are two great, spacious , of E major, Schubert interpolates a brief, moving contrasting character: the first, in B minor, is parenthetical phrase (also marked triple- profoundly melancholy (oboe and clarinet over piano) in the far-distant key of A-flat major— churning violins); the second, which follows a as though opening a little window just long startlingly abrupt shift to the unexpected key enough to give us to a poignant glimpse into of G major, is elegant, luscious, like something another world that lies out of reach—a distant out of ballet (cellos, then violins, against point on an unfinished journey. throbbing syncopated chords). Yet the music’s lyricism is undermined again and again by Program note by Kevin Bazzana

MARCH 27 & 28, 2019 25 ABOUT THE WORKS

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in D minor

Born: , Austria, September 4, 1824 50 Died: Vienna, Austria, October 11, 1896 min Composed: 1891–1894

Bruckner began sketching his Ninth Symphony scale and tragic ambience comes a sense of in the summer of 1887, right after completing monumentality, of cosmic power, of religious his Eighth. However, criticism of the Eighth by a awe, especially in the first and third movements. trusted friend left him racked with self-doubt, Bruckner had dedicated his previous two sidetracked into revising not only the Eighth but symphonies to a king and an emperor; this one other of his symphonies, so he did not take up he planned to dedicate to God. the Ninth in earnest again until 1891. By 1892, The massive first movement, which unfolds his health began to fail, and his last years were at a leisurely pace, prolonged by frequent marred by depression and the frustration of repetition and sequences, typifies Bruckner’s waning creativity. He completed the first three idiosyncratic treatment of Classical symphonic movements of the Ninth by November of 1894, forms. The conventional vocabulary of sonata and the following May began work on the finale, form (exposition, development, recapitulation) over which he laboured until the very morning scarcely applies; instead, the movement falls of his death. He never finished it, though he into three great blocks that Simpson plausibly made many sketches, and his failure tormented labels Statement, Counterstatement, and him. The three completed movements were first Coda. The Statement comprises three large performed in 1903, grossly cut, rewritten, and sections, each rich with thematic ideas, shifts re-orchestrated by the conductor Ferdinand of mood and texture, and modulations from Löwe, a former Bruckner pupil, and were not key to key. The first section alone offers no performed and published in their original form fewer than eight motifs that unfold over almost until the early 1930s. a hundred bars, opening with a hushed, In scale and tone, the Ninth was new in mysterious trembling in the strings and Bruckner’s output. It would have been his longest building to an apocalyptic triple-forte blast of symphony; even without its finale it can take D minor in the full orchestra. The Statement well over an hour to play (depending on the continues with a flowing, contemplative conductor). All three movements bear the weight lyrical theme in A major (luxuriantly scored of tragedy. Robert Simpson, in The Essence of for strings), and at length, after yet more Bruckner, writes that the music is “often dark themes, quietly subsides in with a to the pitch of blackness, and rent with such horn call accompanied only by a high flute anguish as he had until now almost succeeded and a roll. And then, the whole long in keeping out of his music.” From the broad sequence of events is repeated, now varied

26 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and expanded and intensified. The movement serene last pages. Two large blocks of thematic closes concisely with what Michael Steinberg activity at the beginning expose a generous calls “one of Bruckner’s characteristic fund of ideas, developed at great length suspense-to-glory codas.” throughout. We sense again the tragic tone of the first movement, but now what is expressed The second movement is brilliantly original, seems more personal: it is difficult not to without precedent in Bruckner’s output—one hear the pain of Bruckner’s last years in the of those “diabolical” common in searing dissonances and anguished chromatic nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. lines, the wayward and undulating Driven, dissonant, menacing, intensively . Near the end there is a terrifying, developed, the music has a parodistic discordant climax that comes to rest, triple- bite that looks ahead to Prokofiev and forte, on an astonishing chord that includes all Shostakovich. Relief, in the form of an seven notes of a C-sharp-. amiable waltz introduced by an oboe, is short-lived. The Trio, in distant F-sharp major, Given the power and drama of these three makes a startling contrast: it is (unusually) movements, it is no surprise that the faster and more light-footed than the scherzo, dying Bruckner had trouble completing a sweeter, airier—remarkably, like something transcendent finale. Yet, research in the out of ballet. Afterward, the scherzo is 1980s has revealed that he made much more repeated without variation. progress than had previously been suspected. He had almost completely drafted the The Adagio, too, sounds strikingly modern movement, which was to have a sonata-form at times. Listen to the opening bars: violins skeleton and feature grandiose episodes of alone, forte, high on the G-string for maximum and , and he had even sketched expressive fervour, play a tense, harmonically a plan for the all-important climactic coda. ambiguous phrase that would have been at Speculative completion of the work has home in Mahler, even Schoenberg. Dissonance become something of an industry, some of it and harmonic instability, already potent earlier with viable results, which have been recorded in the Ninth, are used to especially powerful and published, evidence of how the work in effect in the Adagio. The main key, E major—far its unfinished state leaves the listener, as it left from D minor—proves elusive for most of the Bruckner, hungering for more. movement; it is solidly confirmed only in the Program note by Kevin Bazzana

MORE GLORIOUS SYMPHONIES AHEAD APRIL 17, 18 & 20 Mahler Symphony No. 2 in “Resurrection”: Joélle Harvey and Marie-Nicole Lemieux join Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena for this luminous choral symphony. MAY 11 & 12 Beethoven Symphony No. 5: The electrifying British conductor Nicholas Collon makes his TSO début leading the Orchestra in TSO.CA Beethoven’s most explosive and celebrated symphony. 416.593.1285

MARCH 27 & 28, 2019 27 THE ARTISTS

Günther Herbig conductor Günther Herbig made his TSO début in February 1982, and was the Orchestra’s Music Director from 1989 to 1994.

Günther Herbig left behind the challenging political environment of East Germany and moved to the United States in 1984, where he has since conducted all of the top-tier , including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco symphony orchestras. Posts Herbig has held include Music Director of the Detroit Symphony and the Toronto Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of both the Dallas Symphony and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, and general music director of both the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Former Artistic Advisor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, he is now their Conductor Laureate. He is Principal Guest Conductor of Las Palmas in the Grand Canaries, Spain. Herbig has toured America several times with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and received high praise for the many performances they gave in New York’s Carnegie Hall. In January 1989, he toured Europe with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Gidon Kremer as soloist to critical acclaim. In 1990, he toured the Far East with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and in the spring of 1991, he toured Europe with them in his 37th international orchestra tour. He has also conducted most of the major European orchestras and has also toured Japan, South America, and Australia many times. He has recorded more than 100 works, some of which were with the East German orchestras with whom he was associated prior to moving to the West in 1984. Since then he has made recordings with several of the London orchestras, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, the Saarbrücken RSO, and others. Key figures in his musical training include , Hermann Scherchen, and . England’s Manchester Evening News calls Herbig “one of the greats,” adding “Herbig…brings life and distinction to everything he touches.”

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