Programnotes Shostakovich C
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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 Wednesday, February 24, 2016, at 6:30 Afterwork Masterworks Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Beethoven Overture to King Stephen, Op. 117 Lutosławski Symphony No. 3 (In two movements, played without pause) Salonen Foreign Bodies Body Language— Language— Dance First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance There will be no intermission. The performance of Symphony No. 3 by Witold Lutosławski is generously supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music program. This work is part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective, which is generously sponsored by the Sargent Family Foundation. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9 FM for its generous support of the Afterworks Masterworks series. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 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 Thursday, February 25, 2016, at 8:00 Friday, February 26, 2016, at 1:30 Saturday, February 27, 2016, at 8:00 Tuesday, March 1, 2016, at 7:30 Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Yo-Yo Ma Cello Beethoven Overture to King Stephen, Op. 117 Lutosławski Symphony No. 3 (In two movements, played without pause) INTERMISSION Salonen Foreign Bodies Body Language— Language— Dance First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 107 Allegretto Moderato— Cadenza— Allegro con moto YO-YO MA Friday’s performance has been underwritten by a generous gift from Kay Bucksbaum. The performance of Symphony No. 3 by Witold Lutosławski is generously supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music program. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. This work is part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective, which is generously sponsored by the Sargent Family Foundation. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 2 COMMENTS by Daniel Jaffé Phillip Huscher Ludwig van Beethoven Born December 16, 1770, Bonn, Germany. Died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria. Overture to King Stephen, Op. 117 In a fit of temper, created for the opening of the new Hungarian Beethoven famously told Theater in Pest (the city later, in 1873, united one of his patrons, Prince with Buda to become Hungary’s capital), built Lichnowsky, “There are at the behest of the Habsburg monarch, Francis many princes and there I, ruler over Austria and Hungary. After the will continue to be major defeat of his army by Napoleon at the thousands more, but there Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Francis I saw the is only one Beethoven.” value of stirring Hungarian national sentiment There also is the story, in order to bolster support for his rule and what first published by remained of his empire. To that end, both Ruins Beethoven’s self-appointed muse, Bettina von of Athens and King Stephen were written by the Arnim—in the form of a letter allegedly from conservative German playwright, August von the composer to herself—about how he and Kotzebue. The historic King Stephen, who Germany’s great man of letters, Goethe, encoun- reigned ca. 1001–1038, was a warrior who had tered the imperial family: while Goethe stood to used fairly brutal means to impose his religion on one side, hat off and bowing deeply, Beethoven his subjects. None of this, of course, was reflected pulled his hat the more firmly upon his head and in the play intended to glorify Hungary’s past strode through the crowd, forcing princes and and—by extension—her present monarch who officials to make way for him. was supposedly continuing a glorious tradition Notwithstanding his reputation, Beethoven established by King Stephen. was rather more pragmatic when it came to Beethoven received the commission to com- politics. When faced with the material hardship pose King Stephen and The Ruins of Athens in caused by the Napoleonic wars, he drew closer August 1811, just as he was about to board a car- to his aristocratic patrons, and was not above riage to the spa in Teplitz, Bohemia. Then suffer- making his living by composing such hackwork ing from various ailments, Beethoven was strictly as Wellington’s Victory and The Ruins of Athens. instructed by his doctor not to work: but “after Clearly not all such work was distasteful; he spending three weeks in Teplitz I felt fairly well. seems to have taken innocent pleasure in com- So . I sat down to do something for those posing the overture and incidental music for the moustachios who are genuinely fond of me.” companion piece to Ruins, König Stephan (King Beethoven subsequently sent some thirty-five Stephen), a drama celebrating Hungary’s first minutes of music to Pest on September 13, Christian monarch. Both works were specially in good time for the performance originally COMPOSED July 14, 1962, Ravinia Festival. William INSTRUMENTATION 1811 Steinberg conducting two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, FIRST PERFORMANCE MOST RECENT four horns, two trumpets, February 10, 1812; Pest (now CSO PERFORMANCES timpani, strings Budapest), Hungary December 11, 1988, Orchestra Hall. Kenneth Jean conducting APPROXIMATE FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME August 5, 1989, Ravinia Festival. December 18 & 19, 1896, 8 minutes Dennis Russell Davies conducting Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting 3 scheduled for October 1. The festivities, however, Magyar character is intensified by its second were postponed to February 9–11, 1812 (it has appearance—played by clarinet—being accom- been suggested, as a grand prelude to a celebra- panied by an exotic-sounding countermelody tion of Francis I’s birthday on February 12). played by horn and oboe. A faster episode, marked presto, introduces another Magyar-type he overture starts with stark unisons— theme, its national character particularly evident trumpets, succeeded by horns, then in its syncopations. A third idea—a simple rising strings, then a nearly-full orchestral and falling theme first presented by woodwinds, tutti.T There immediately follows a charming then by strings—complements the two main theme on flute, its fleeting grace note on the themes, and together with the opening flute opening beat recognizable by Beethoven’s theme becomes itself a main ingredient of the contemporaries as characteristic of Magyar overture’s development and elaboration. music. The strings’ occasional tremolo flutter adds to the pastoral atmosphere, and the theme’s Daniel Jaffé Witold Lutosławski Born January 25, 1913, Warsaw, Poland. Died February 7, 1994, Warsaw, Poland. Symphony No. 3 Performed as part of the CSO Premiere Retrospective In September 1985, Grawemeyer Award has gone on to achieve its Witold Lutosławski founder’s aim—it is often now referred to as traveled to Louisville, music’s Nobel—and today Lutosławski’s Third Kentucky, to accept the Symphony is recognized as a true masterpiece of first-ever Grawemeyer late twentieth-century music—one of the rare Award for his Symphony scores that can stand up to the great classics. “I no. 3. Commissioned by have never understood why [Lutosławski’s] Third the Chicago Symphony Symphony, of 1983, isn’t heard as often as Orchestra and premiered Beethoven’s,” New Yorker critic Alex Ross wrote in Chicago two years recently. “It packs the same heroic wallop.” earlier, the work was chosen from 204 entries to Lutosławski was first approached about writing launch one of the most important cultural awards a work for the Chicago orchestra in 1972. When of our time—the dream project of a retired he came to Chicago in June of 1974, to receive an engineer and businessman who wanted to create honorary degree from Northwestern University, an honor to rival, in its prestige and monetary he spoke openly to the Chicago Tribune about value, the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. The his work in general—“Unlike others today, COMPOSED MOST RECENT clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass 1972–1983 CSO PERFORMANCES clarinet, three bassoons and contra- October 1, 2 & 3, 1992, Orchestra Hall. bassoon, four horns, four trumpets, FIRST PERFORMANCE Daniel Barenboim conducting four trombones and tuba, timpani, September 29, 1983, the Chicago xylophone, glockenspiel, marimba, Symphony Orchestra. Sir Georg CSO RECORDINGS vibraphone, bells, tom-toms, bongs, Solti conducting. 1983. Sir Georg Solti conducting. CSO bass drum, side drum, tenor drum, (Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The First cymbals, tam-tam, gong, tambourine, FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES 100 Years) two harps, piano (four-hands), September 29, 30 & October 1, celesta, strings 1992. Daniel Barenboim. Erato 1983, Orchestra Hall. Sir Georg Solti conducting (world premiere) APPROXIMATE INSTRUMENTATION PERFORMANCE TIME three flutes and two piccolos, three 32 minutes oboes and english horn, three 4 I write music with a sense of plot”—but was immersed in studying the Lutosławski score and reluctant to say anything specific about the new full of enthusiasm for the work. score for Chicago—only that he was thinking of a “large scale piece in closed form—not a utosławski started composing shortly after symphony in the classical sense—for a rather big he began to study piano as a boy. His idols orchestra.” He also talked about “the weight of then were those of his father: Beethoven responsibility when writing a work for such an Land Chopin. He later became “intoxicated” by extraordinary ensemble”—an orchestra that he Scriabin and by Szymanowki’s Third Symphony, then knew only from recordings and broadcasts. the most “modern” music he would hear for many But that sound alone—particularly the “inten- years in restrictive Communist Poland.