PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON Chicago 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 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 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 , two , two and , FIRST PERFORMANCE MOST RECENT four horns, two , February 10, 1812; Pest (now CSO PERFORMANCES , strings ), 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 Theatre. Theodore 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 —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 . 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. , four horns, four trumpets, FIRST PERFORMANCE Daniel Barenboim conducting four and , 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, (four-hands), September 29, 30 & October 1, , 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. One of sity, warmth, precision, and riotous colors” of its his own first works, Symphonic Variations, had playing—was enough to provide what he called a successful premiere in 1939. That same year, a “tremendous stimulus.” after the Nazi invasion of Poland, he joined the Over the next several years, Lutosławski said Polish army; he was later arrested by the Nazis, little publicly or privately about the work that but escaped and returned to Warsaw, where he would become his third symphony, except that he organized underground concerts of music banned had piles of sketches and that it was still too early by the Nazis. After the war, he wrote functional to set a deadline. The piece eventually was all but music—children’s music, easy piano pieces, and forgotten. When Lutosławski was introduced small ensemble works—rather than concert to CSO music director Sir Georg Solti back- music. “I did it with pleasure,” he explained years stage after a concert in London early in 1982, later, “because Poland was devastated after the he realized that Solti did not even recall that a war and this educational music was necessary.” new score for Chicago was supposedly in the When his own First Symphony of 1947 was works. In July 1982, Lutosławski wrote to John banned as “formalist” (and not performed for Edwards, then general manager of the CSO, to ten years), he turned to composing music based say that he had just completed the rough copy on Polish folk material, culminating in the still of his new symphony and was now working on popular Concerto for Orchestra of 1954 that was the full score, which a homage to Bartók. he would deliver the As he later said, “I follow year. “The fate wrote as I was able, of this work has been since I could not yet rather dramatic,” he write as I wished.” told Edwards, “as in In 1960, Witold one moment I had to Lutosławski hap- discard and shelve the pened to hear part whole main movement of a radio broadcast of the piece. I had of John Cage’s Piano then to begin from Concerto, a work that scratch and that is leaves much to chance why it is already ten and is, therefore, years that have passed different at every per- from your proposal.” Sir Georg Solti and the Orchestra acknowledge formance. Lutosławski In February 1983, Witold Lutosławski onstage following the world later said that “those Lutosławski went to premiere of the composer’s Symphony no. 3 on few minutes were to London to deliver the September 29, 1983. change my life deci- full score to Solti. The sively. It was a strange premiere was scheduled for the opening of the moment . . . I suddenly realized that I could next season in Chicago. When Edwards attended compose music differently from that of my past.” Solti’s Ring cycle performances in Bayreuth that Lutosławski did not become a Cage disciple, August—the only summer Solti appeared at the and his subsequent scores sound nothing like famed Wagner festival—he found the conductor Cage’s. But slowly, in his own way, Lutosławski

5 began to introduce the idea of chance—through utosławski begins with four rapid-fire ham- freely notated, “improvisational” passages—into mer blows on the note E, a Beethoven-like his developing personal language. The Venetian motto that surfaces again and again Games of 1961 was the breakthrough piece, and Lthroughout the opening “preparatory” movement, it made Lutosławski a leader of the avant-garde, like calls to order, and returns to end the piece. In from which he had once been excluded. His between each of these interruptions, Lutosławski major works of the next decades, including the writes extraordinarily inventive episodes that Third Symphony that occupied him throughout wander off in various directions, seemingly in the 1970s, all benefited from the use of various search of entire new worlds of sound. Some are kinds of ad lib music alternating with conven- free, ad lib excursions, others are like snapshots of tionally notated passages. Lutosławski always meticulously composed miniatures. (Sometimes pointed out that there is no actual improvisation these two kinds of music, the free and the strict, in his music: “Everything that is to be played overlap.) “The music here is never set in motion is notated in full detail and must be precisely for a very long time,” Lutosławski writes. “Many realized by the performers.” But, as he also said, pauses interrupt the musical course.” in those ad lib passages each performer plays The main movement, for which all of these without worrying about whether he is ahead fleeting clouds of sound are mere teasers, and or behind his neighbor. Such freedom, even in which is reached without pause, is a large and elaborate and demanding material, “restores a fiercely driven paragraph with contrasting pleasure of music making which was neglected themes, like the -form movements of ear- when music got very complicated.” lier . (Lutosławski calls it “an allusion to sonata-allegro.”) It begins with a furiously he form Lutosławski finally settled on repetitive hammering of its signature Es, to for his Third Symphony grew out of his announce a new direction in the music. If the experience as a listener. Although for first movement was anticipatory, even fragmen- him,T Beethoven provided the supreme lesson tary, this one is a fully developed narrative, rich in musical architecture, his ideal model of a in content, thrillingly coherent, and seemingly perfectly balanced big form was the Haydn sym- inevitable in its forward momentum—“music phony. “I am still a lover of Brahms’s large-scale with a sense of plot.” Near the end, Lutosławski works,” he wrote in advance of the Chicago writes a grand epilogue of slowly rising sound— premiere, “but I confess I always feel exhausted one of the most powerful passages in music after a performance of a Brahms symphony, composed in the last fifty years. The symphony concerto, or even a sonata, probably because ends as it began, with four hammered Es, which of there being two main movements (first and at last sound decisive, final. last) in each of them.” The solution that finally A footnote. When the Los Angeles satisfied Lutosławski was two large movements, Philharmonic asked Lutosławski to compose a fourth symphony, he demurred, claiming he . . . where the first movement is but a prepa- never accepted deadlines or advance fees, but ration for the main one that follows. The that he would let them know if some ideas for first is meant barely to interest, to attract, a new piece came to him. Knowing that he had to involve, but never entirely to satisfy the kept the Chicago Symphony waiting eleven years listener. In the course of the first movement for the Third Symphony, Esa-Pekka Salonen, the listener is supposed to expect something then L.A. music director, was stunned to run more important to happen; he may even into Lutosławski three years later and learn get impatient. This is exactly the situation that the symphony was finished—without so when the second movement appears and much as a signed contract or an agreed-upon presents the main idea of the work. This way fee. The Fourth Symphony, premiered in 1993, of distributing the musical substance in time turned out to be another landmark, not just in seems to me natural and is in conformity Lutosławski’s output, but in the history of the with the psychology of perception of music. twentieth-century symphony. Phillip Huscher

6 Esa-Pekka Salonen Born June 30, 1958, , Finland. Foreign Bodies

In 2014, Esa-Pekka the was commissioned by two Salonen was awarded the —the Los Angeles Philharmonic, prestigious Nemmers where Salonen was music director from 1992 to Prize in Music 2009; and the Chicago Symphony—and a dance Composition by the company, the Ballet. The first Bienen School of Music at performance was given in Walt Disney Concert Northwestern University, Hall in April 2009, on the next-to-last program a biennial award given to Salonen led as the L.A. orchestra’s music direc- the most accomplished tor. In April 2014, a month after being awarded names in music today the Nemmers Prize, Salonen led the Chicago (previous winners include , Kaija Symphony in his 2010 score . A big and for- Saariaho, and John Luther Adams). The honor midable piece, Nyx evolved from a challenge that has brought him into contact with Northwestern Salonen the composer set for himself—“complex students and faculty—he holds a master class counterpoint for almost one hundred musicians here this week—and has deepened his relation- playing tutti at full throttle without losing clarity ship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of the different layers and lines”—which Salonen which, as Salonen pointed out in his acceptance the conductor then had to face as well. remarks, “has long been a musical home away Although today Salonen is one of the few from home for me.” major musical figures who is known as both a Although Salonen first appeared as a conductor composer and a conductor of distinction, when with the Chicago Symphony in 1988, he led a he entered the in Helsinki in work of his own in Chicago for the first time in the 1970s, it was to study horn and composition. April 2003, when he gave the U.S. premiere of He enrolled in Jorma Panula’s conducting class , a dark and turbulent nocturne he had because he felt that young composers should composed the year before. (The CSO had been learn to lead their own works. Composing introduced to Salonen’s music when it played his remained Salonen’s focus: in Helsinki, he studied LA Variations under Christoph Eschenbach at with the visionary Einojuhani Rautavaara; and Ravinia the previous summer. In Orchestra Hall, in the early 1980s, he worked with Niccolò the Orchestra played this pivotal work under Castiglioni in Milan and in the Finnish Alan Gilbert in 2006.) In recent years, Salonen Broadcasting Company studios. His earliest has conducted his two large-scale in large-scale orchestral works date from this time Chicago—both of them played here by their (as does Floof, a setting for soprano and small original performers, Yefim Bronfman, who ensemble of texts by Polish science fiction writer performed the with the CSO in Stanisław Lem, which was the first of Salonen’s April 2008; and Leila Josefowicz, the soloist in compositions performed here in Symphony the Violin Concerto in February 2011. Unusually, Center, on a MusicNOW concert in 2001).

COMPOSED INSTRUMENTATION tam-tams, log drums, gong, crotales, 2000, revised 2002 three flutes and two piccolos, alto tubular bells, thai gongs, bass drum, flute and bass flute, three oboes and glockenspiel, claves, hi-hat, sizzle FIRST PERFORMANCE english horn, three clarinets, E-flat cymbal, two harps, piano, celesta, August 12, 2001, Schleswig-Holstein clarinet and , three bass guitar, strings Festival. Kiel, Germany bassoons and contrabassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trom- APPROXIMATE FIRST CSO PERFORMANCE bones and tuba, timpani, marimba, PERFORMANCE TIME These are the first Chicago Symphony maracas, temple blocks, wood 21 minutes Orchestra performances. blocks, vibraphone, guiro, tom-toms,

7 After leading an acclaimed performance of Esa-Pekka Salonen on Foreign Bodies Mahler’s Third Symphony on short notice in London in 1983, Salonen quickly became an s the title Foreign Bodies suggests internationally known conductor for whom (it actually suggests lots of things), composing was a sideline. Nearly a decade passed the music is very physical in expres- before he found the time to complete another sion,A almost like an imaginary scène de ballet. major work. It was with the successful premiere The title also refers to the fact that I am less of the LA Variations in 1997, written to showcase concerned about the purely cerebral aspects the Los Angeles Philharmonic, that Salonen at of music and more interested in the physi- last entered a new and highly productive phase in cal reality of the music, i.e., the sound itself, his composing career. Ultimately, his decision to than before. Also, more than two decades step down as music director of the Los Angeles of conducting have helped me to think in Philharmonic at the end of the 2008–09 season a simpler, more direct way than before. was motivated largely by the desire to dedicate Foreign Bodies consists of three movements: himself more fully to composition. Body Language, Language, and Dance. Salonen continues to negotiate balancing the The first movement is essentially a study two sides of his musical life. It is a battle that of mechanical motion. The music is often has been famously fought before—by figures as machine-like in its relentless movement. These different in their solutions and in the music they machines are not watchmaker’s precision instru- wrote as , Leonard Bernstein, ments, but huge and extremely massive things and . After Salonen took a year’s that consume enormous amounts of energy. In sabbatical from conducting in 2000 in order the process of “Body Language,” the machines to devote himself full time to writing music, sometime become other machines through he admitted that he felt it impossible to “work gradual transformation. Sometimes the motion on both sides simultaneously. There will have changes suddenly and drastically, but mostly to be times when I’m not conducting because the new machines start growing inside the old I’m composing. I haven’t solved that problem, one unnoticeably, not unlike a virus or another and perhaps I never will.” The current solution, foreign body within a host organism. The first apparently satisfactory to him at both ends, is a movement ends peacefully however: a hymn-like balance of five months of conducting to seven theme is heard under gently pulsating strings. of composing. The second movement, “Language,” is based Foreign Bodies was the major product of 2000, on a choral song I wrote to a poem by the Salonen’s year of composing. It shares some Swedish poet Ann Jäderlund, “Deep Within material with a contemporary piano piece, the Chamber.” Mécanisme, and Djupt I rummet (Deep within the chamber) for chorus. “In addition,” Salonen Rosy pink eye flower wrote at the time, “is some completely new mate- Shoulder skin gentle flower rial, but basically the piece is a synthesis of all Gentle eye shoulder skin the thinking and new ideas I developed during The sun enters on a flower my sabbatical year from conducting in 2000.” Yellow pink in islands skin Inevitably, Salonen is primarily an orchestral Red in mouth yellow gentle composer—the orchestra is his “instrument,” Eye red shoulder skin after all, and he knows it inside out, in a way Deep within the chamber flower that only a conductor can—and Foreign Bodies is scored for a very large orchestra (calling for (Translation by Ann Jäderlund) quadruple woodwinds and six horns), the biggest he had used at the time. “For fairly obvious The words are well hidden in the music, but reasons,” he said of Foreign Bodies, “my thinking always present. In this movement, I ask double tends to be orchestral even when writing music bass players and cellists to de-tune their instru- for another medium, which makes it very natural ments (scordatura) in order to produce unusual to expand ideas in an orchestral context.” natural harmonics.

8 The third movement, “Dance,” is precisely cause the entire rhythm to collapse, and the what the title suggests: a monotonous, shaman- music shifts to a lower gear rather dramatically. istic dance. Even this short movement contains At the end, I bring back the ritornello-theme a virus: the persistent triplet figures in the horns from the first movement in the brass.

Dmitri Shostakovich Born September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia. No. 1, Op. 107

Dmitri Shostakovich playing. Over the next six years, Shostakovich made three trips to the wrote a second cello concerto (also dedicated United States. On the to Rostropovich) and reorchestrated the cello first, in 1949, he was concerto by Robert Schumann. asked to play the scherzo Aside from an early, lightweight piano from his famous Fifth concerto which he wrote when he was in his Symphony on an upright twenties, Shostakovich became interested in piano in Madison Square the concerto form relatively late in his life and Garden for a crowd of as a direct result of his contact with important 30,000 curious spectators. performers like Rostropovich, or, in the case The last, in 1973, just two years before his death, of the two violin concertos, David Oistrakh. A brought him to Evanston to accept an honorary second piano concerto was written for his son doctorate from Northwestern University. In Maxim (who played it for the first time on his between came a month-long stay in 1959, nineteenth birthday). The small number of con- arranged as part of a cultural exchange allowed certos in his vast output is surprising considering by the new Khrushchev regime. Shostakovich that Shostakovich produced fifteen symphonies and several other Russian musicians traveled and fifteen string quartets; three dozen film from New York to a number of major American scores; several and ballet scores; and a cities, including Philadelphia, where Mstislav great many songs, choral works, piano pieces, Rostropovich played the American premiere of and arrangements of other music (including, Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. of all things, “Tea for Two,” which became the Rostropovich had given the world premiere Tahiti Trot). of this new concerto only a month before in Leningrad. Composed early in 1959, the con- he First Cello Concerto begins with the certo marked the beginning of Shostakovich’s solo cello playing a four-note motive brief but intense fascination with the solo cello, (G, E, B, B-flat) that will surface which was inspired by Rostropovich’s exceptional againT and again throughout the work. At one COMPOSED September 26, 27 & 28, 1985, INSTRUMENTATION 1959 Orchestra Hall. Lynn Harrell as soloist, solo cello, two flutes and piccolo, two Sir Georg Solti conducting oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons FIRST PERFORMANCE and contrabassoon, one horn, October 4, 1959; Leningrad, Russia MOST RECENT timpani, celesta, strings CSO PERFORMANCES FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES July 18, 2004, Ravinia Festival. Dmitri APPROXIMATE August 4, 1968, Ravinia Festival. Maslennikov as soloist, Christoph PERFORMANCE TIME Frank Miller as soloist, Seiji Eschenbach conducting 28 minutes Ozawa conducting December 10, 2013, Orchestra Hall. Gabriel Cabezas as soloist, Stéphane Denève conducting

9 SHOSTAKOVICH’S MUSICAL MONOGRAM

In several compositions, beginning name, D. SCHostakowitsch. In German with the First Violin Concerto of 1948, notation, E-flat is called “es” and Shostakovich spells out his initials B-natural is H. Thus, DSCH is D, E-flat, in musical notation. This four-note C, B. The tradition for this kind of motive is derived from the German musical signature dates back at least transliteration of the composer’s own to the time of Bach.

point, the motive is transposed and its intervals cadenza’s historical definition as brilliant, unac- tightened to produce C, B, E-flat, D, a variant companied virtuosic display music for the soloist, of the composer’s personal musical motto D, he has now elevated it in size and function to its E-flat, C, B (see sidebar). The music is lightly own movement—moving even beyond its role in scored, with important solos for the horn, the his earlier First Violin Concerto, where it linked only member of the brass section Shostakovich the slow movement and the finale. Here, too, included in the orchestra. The tone throughout the cadenza leads without pause into the last is lively and energetic, but not lighthearted. movement, a tight, brief, ferocious allegro that The following movement, although not slow concludes by recalling the concerto’s opening (marked moderato), suggests repose and intro- four-note theme. spection and is crowned by a long, singing line from the cello. Lyrical solos for the horn are Phillip Huscher prominent, and, near the end, the celesta and the solo cello engage in dialogue. The soloist then begins an extended cadenza, which Shostakovich Daniel Jaffe is a regular contributor to BBC Music indicates as a separate movement, placing a Magazine and a specialist in English and Russian music. roman numeral III above the word “cadenza.” Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the Although Shostakovich still maintains the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987.

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