Programnotes Mahler Sympho
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Please note that Jaap van Zweden has withdrawn from these concerts on the advice of his doctor. The CSO welcomes Donald Runnicles, who has graciously agreed to conduct. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto replaces Bartók’s two Rhapsodies for violin. PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, October 9, 2014, at 8:00 Friday, October 10, 2014, at 1:30 Sunday, October 12, 2014, at 3:00 Donald Runnicles Conductor Robert Chen Violin Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 Allegro molto appassionato— Andante— Allegretto non troppo—Allegro molto vivace ROBERT CHEN INTERMISSION Mahler Symphony No. 5 Part 1 Funeral March: With measured step. Strict. Like a cortege Stormily. With greatest vehemence Part 2 Scherzo: Vigorously, not too fast Part 3 Adagietto: Very slow Rondo-Finale: Allegro giocoso. Lively 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 Felix Mendelssohn Born February 3, 1809, Hamburg, Germany. Died November 4, 1847, Leipzig, Germany. Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64 On July 30, born only a year apart. They became 1838, Felix friends in 1825, the year Ferdinand Mendelssohn David, fifteen, gave his first concerts in wrote to his Berlin, and Felix Mendelssohn, sixteen, friend, the composed the magnificent Octet for distinguished strings. That summer, after Abraham German violinist Mendelssohn moved his family to Ferdinand 3 Leipziger Strasse in Berlin, the two David, “I’d like young men became regular chamber to write a violin music partners as well. concerto for you next winter; one in Ten years later, when Mendelssohn E minor sticks in my head, the begin- was named conductor of the Leipzig ning of which will not leave me in Gewandhaus Orchestra, he asked peace.” With those lines, Mendelssohn Ferdinand David to be his concertmas- began his last great work—a master- ter. In 1843, Mendelssohn founded the piece to refute claims of a career in Leipzig Conservatory; he appointed decline and a concerto that would prove David to head his violin staff. as popular as any ever written. Sketches Although Mendelssohn had written confirm that Mendelssohn knew very to David some five years earlier of his early on how this music would go, and intention to compose a concerto for him, an extensive correspondence with it wasn’t until 1844 that he found time to David, spanning six years, shows how work on it in earnest. The concerto was much care went into the details. completed on September 16, but as late as Mendelssohn was the architect, David December 17 he wrote to David one last his technical advisor. time, asking him to look at some changes David and Mendelssohn were kindred he had penciled in, even though he had spirits; both were celebrated prodigies, already sent the score off to his publisher, COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1844 CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME September 29, 2012, 27 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE Orchestra Hall. Anne-Sophie March 13, 1845; Leipzig, Mutter as soloist, Riccardo CSO RECORDINGS Germany Muti conducting 1947. Mischa Elman as soloist, Désiré Defauw conducting. RCA January 25, 2013, Chiang FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES Kai-Shek National Concert 1962. Nathan Milstein as soloist, August 4, 1893, Music Hall Hall, Taipei, Taiwan. Robert Walter Hendl conducting. VAI at the World’s Columbian Chen as soloist, Osmo (video) Exposition. Maud Powell Vänskä conducting as soloist, Theodore 1979. Kyung-Wha Chung Thomas conducting August 7, 2013, Ravinia Festival. as soloist, Sir Georg Solti Itzhak Perlman as soloist, Carlos conducting. London (video) February 7 & 8, 1896, Miguel Prieto conducting Auditorium Theatre. Emile 1980. Shlomo Mintz as soloist, Sauret as soloist, Theodore Claudio Abbado conducting. INSTRUMENTATION Thomas conducting Deutsche Grammophon solo violin, two flutes, two July 26, 1941, Ravinia Festival. oboes, two clarinets, two 1993. Itzhak Perlman as soloist, Yehudi Menuhin as soloist, bassoons, two horns, two Daniel Barenboim conducting. Carlos Chávez conducting trumpets, timpani, strings Erato Breitkopf & Härtel. “I very much section and the recapitulation. The solo- want to have your views on all this,” ist now takes the spotlight at the most he wrote, “before I turn it over to the dramatic moment in the movement—it’s printer.” David gave the world premiere a powerful and satisfying tactic. The on March 13, 1845, with the Leipzig cadenza concludes with a series of Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by arpeggios that continues even after the Danish composer Niels Gade. It was a orchestra bursts in with the main theme, great success. a reversal of their traditional roles. The concerto turned out to be Novelty shouldn’t overshadow the Mendelssohn’s last orchestral work, a music’s less historic moments. The first powerhouse finale to a career burdened movement is one of Mendelssohn’s by the promise of spectacular early greatest creations—there’s evidence accomplishment—even the Italian and of his fastidious craftsmanship and Scottish symphonies hadn’t surpassed the inspiration in every bar. Notice, in par- masterpieces of his teens—the Octet ticular, how he handles the important and the Overture to A Midsummer change of key and mode (from minor to Night’s Dream. In achievement and major): the solo violin quickly descends popularity, the violin concerto proved to three octaves to its lowest G, where it be their equal. becomes the bass line to a new melody in the clarinets and flutes. his violin concerto has long In his own Scottish Symphony, been too well known for an Mendelssohn had played with going easy appraisal of its real virtues from one movement to another without andT innovations. In 1921, Donald a break. He now conceives his entire Tovey wrote, “I rather envy the enjoy- concerto, in three movements, as one ment of anyone who should hear the continuous flow of music. The first Mendelssohn concerto for the first time bridge is accomplished by a single and find that, like Hamlet, it was full of note—a low B in the bassoon—that quotations.” Perhaps the most famous outlasts the final chord of the opening of the quotations in the concerto is the Allegro like a stuck key on a pipe organ. very opening, a wonderful, singing The sustained B finally rises the half step violin melody launched after just two to C, suggesting a new key—C major— measures of orchestral “curtain”—a and, in turn, a new movement. theme so effortlessly right that it The Andante is one of Mendelssohn’s comes as a surprise to learn that it gave loveliest songs without words, a full Mendelssohn considerable trouble. paragraph of sweet melody and sensitive Although Mendelssohn wasn’t the scoring. The mood darkens midway first composer to introduce his soloist at through, with the entrance of trumpets the start of a concerto, he seized on the and timpani. The bridge to the finale is happy idea of letting soloist and orches- accomplished by fourteen measures at tra explore the exposition together, a transitional tempo, in the character abandoning the traditional double expo- of a recitative before a showstopper sition (one for orchestra alone, a second aria. This is truly virtuosic material— led by the soloist). The idea was part of roulades, scales, and rapid passage Mendelssohn’s design from the begin- work in virtually every measure—cast ning, and it was followed by nearly every in Mendelssohn’s characteristic fleet nineteenth-century composer, except and dancing style. The scurrying main for Brahms and Dvořák. Equally novel theme carries the day at the expense (though less imitated) is Mendelssohn’s of a little march tune that passes for a decision to move the soloist’s cadenza second subject. There’s a fancy coda, from the end of the movement to the and, in the final bar, the soloist’s high E crucial juncture of the development pierces the stratosphere. Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Gustav Mahler Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria. Symphony No. 5 The lone trumpet call that direct link, in other words, with the world opens this symphony Mahler has left behind. And Mahler has hardly launches a whole new given up song for symphony. In fact, the new chapter in Mahler’s focus on purely instrumental symphonies seems music. Gone is the to have freed Mahler to produce, at the same picturesque world of the time, an extraordinary outpouring of songs, first four symphonies— including most of his finest. And, although music inspired by folk they are not sung—or even directly quoted—in tales and song, music that Symphonies nos. 5 through 7, their presence, and calls on the human voice their immense importance to Mahler, is contin- and is explained by the written word. With the ually felt. The great lumbering march that strides Fifth Symphony, as Bruno Walter put it, Mahler across the first movement of this symphony, for “is now aiming to write music as a musician.” example, shares much in spirit, contour, and Walter had nothing against the earlier works; in even detail with the first of the Kindertotenlieder fact, he was one of the first serious musicians to and the last of his Des Knaben Wunderhorn understand and to conduct those pieces long settings, “Der Tamboursg’sell” (The drummer before it was fashionable to champion the boy), both written while the symphony also was composer’s cause. Walter simply identified what taking shape. other writers since have reemphasized: the Mahler was a “summer composer,” as he put unforeseen switch to an exclusively instrumental it, compressing a year’s pent-up musical work symphonic style, producing music, in into the one holiday he enjoyed as a professional Symphonies nos.