PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTy-THIRD SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Wednesday, March 5, 2014, at 5:30 Thursday, March 6, 2014, at 7:00 Friday, March 7, 2014, at 12:15 Saturday, March 8, 2014, at 7:00 Preconcert Recital THE ORGAN MUSIC OF PARIS Paul Jacobs Organ Paul Jacobs introduces and performs a selection of late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century French works by Paris-based composers. Louis Vierne (1870–1937) Final FROM Symphony No. 1, Op. 14 Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986) Sicilienne FROM Suite, Op. 5 Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) Prière après la communion FROM Livre du Saint-Sacrement Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911) Final FROM Sonata in D Minor, Op. 42 PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTy-THIRD SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Wednesday, March 5, 2014, at 6:30 Afterwork Masterworks Charles Dutoit Conductor Mathieu Dufour Flute Paul Jacobs Organ Connesson Pour sortir au jour, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra Danse processionnelle— Entrée dans la Douat— Danse de la Justification— La Balance des Dieux— Danse dans les champs de Ialou MATHIEU DUFOUR CSO Co-commission World premiere Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 78 (Organ) Adagio—Allegro moderato—Poco adagio Allegro moderato—Presto—Maestoso—Allegro PAUL JAcobs There will be no intermission. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9FM for its generous support of the Afterwork Masterwork series. 2 PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTy-THIRD SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, March 6, 2014, at 8:00 Friday, March 7, 2014, at 1:30 Saturday, March 8, 2014, at 8:00 Charles Dutoit Conductor Mathieu Dufour Flute Paul Jacobs Organ Dukas La Péri Connesson Pour sortir au jour, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra Danse processionnelle— Entrée dans la Douat— Danse de la Justification— La Balance des Dieux— Danse dans les champs de Ialou MATHIEU DUFOUR CSO Co-commission World premiere INTERMISSION Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 78 (Organ) Adagio—Allegro moderato—Poco adagio Allegro moderato—Presto—Maestoso—Allegro PAUL JAcobs Saturday’s concert is sponsored by DLA Piper. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to 93XRT, RedEye, and Metromix for their generous support as media sponsors of the Classic Encounter series. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 3 COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher Paul Dukas Born October 1, 1865, Paris, France. Died May 17, 1935, Paris, France. La Péri, Fanfare and poème dansé Paul Dukas is known an adventuresome musical thinker. Despite primarily as the composer the brevity of his career and the paucity of his of Th e Sorcerer’s Apprentice, compositions, he managed to wield a certain an orchestral scherzo infl uence. Although the Technicolor theatrics based on a poem by of a work like Th e Sorcerer’s Apprentice can seem Goethe (today it is more passé today, both Stravinsky and Debussy were often identifi ed with quite taken with the piece at the time of its Mickey Mouse, who premiere in 1897, and admired his later music starred in Walt Disney’s as well. Debussy wrote an eff usive review of movie version). Although Dukas’s piano sonata when it appeared in 1901, he lived a long life in good health, Dukas left and later said it was worthy of standing along- only seven major compositions, each a single side Beethoven’s—it was the only one that was example in a diff erent genre—an overture “representative of our time.” Stravinsky dropped (Polyeucte, his fi rst published work), a symphony, an almost literal quotation of Th e Sorcerer’s a piano sonata, a set of piano variations, one Apprentice in his 1908 orchestral piece, Fireworks. opera (Ariane et Barbe-Bleu), the tone poem Th e (Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique, written the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the ballet score per- previous year, also is indebted to Dukas.) formed at these concerts—La Péri. Dukas composed La Péri in 1910. Although Th ose works span just two decades of Dukas’s he lived until the mid-1930s and witnessed nearly seventy years. La Péri is the last of Schoenberg’s breakthrough with the twelve-tone them; although he lived nearly another quarter system, Stravinsky’s romance with neoclassicism, century, Dukas composed very little during and Bartók’s adventures in non-Western music, those years and destroyed virtually everything Dukas remained aloof from these developments; he wrote. (Not even Brahms, who threw out apparently he was no sympathizer. “Where are his unfi nished fi fth symphony, saved so little: we going?” he is said to have asked his com- among Dukas’s projected and discarded works position students at the Paris Conservatory in are three operas, including a Tempest drawn 1912. “Everything has been done,” he declared, from Shakespeare.) although, in a few years, one of his own stu- Dukas was a fi ercely self-critical and fastidi- dents, Olivier Messiaen, would prove otherwise. ous craftsman, an exemplary orchestrator, and (Dukas was not unsupportive, however: in 1929, COMPOSED October 31 & November 1, 1968, INSTRUMENTATION 1910 Orchestra Hall. Jean Martinon three fl utes and piccolo, two oboes conducting (Fanfare) and english horn, two clarinets and FIRST PERFORMANCE bass clarinet, three bassoons, four April 22, 1912; Paris, France. The MOST RECENT horns, three trumpets, three trom- composer conducting CSO PERFORMANCES bones and tuba, timpani, side drum, December 7, 8, 9 & 12, 1995, Orchestra bass drum, tambourine, cymbals, FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES Hall. Pierre Boulez conducting (Fanfare triangle, xylophone, celesta, two April 9 & 10, 1920, Orchestra and poème dansé) harps, strings Hall. Frederick Stock conducting December 9 & 20, 2007, Orchestra Hall. (Poème dansé) APPROXIMATE Mark Ridenour conducting (Fanfare) PERFORMANCE TIME July 23, 1960, Ravinia Festival. Jean [SCP CSO Brass Ensemble concert] 21 minutes Martinon conducting (Fanfare) 4 he used his name to get Messiaen’s eight piano her jeweled robe. A star sparkled above her head; preludes published.) her lute rested on her breast; in her hand shone the flower. a Péri, Dukas’s last published work, was And it was a lotus like unto an emerald, radi- composed to pay off a bet he had lost, ant like the sea in the morning sun. and he might have destroyed this, too, Iskender noiselessly leaned over the sleeper had his friends not intervened and insisted on its and, without wakening her, snatched the flower. Lmerit. Dukas dedicated his score to the Russian Which suddenly became, between his fingers, ballerina Natalie Trouhanova, who danced the like the noonday sun over the forests of Ghilan. title role at the Paris premiere in 1912, on a The Peri, opening her eyes, clapped the palms stage decorated with golden mountains, crim- of her hands together and uttered a loud cry. son valleys, and trees laden with silver fruit. For she could not now ascend toward the light (The evening, which featured the premieres of Ormuzd. of three other ballets, by Vincent d’Indy, Iskender, regarding her, wondered at her face, Florent Schmitt, and Maurice Ravel—each which surpassed in deliciousness even the face of conducted by its composer—was unsurpassed Gurda-ferrid. in excitement and news value until Stravinsky In his heart he coveted her. unleashed his Rite of Spring the following year.) The Peri knew the thought of the king; For his only ballet, Dukas chose the designa- For in the right hand of Iskender, the lotus tion poème dansé (danced poem)—which Debussy grew purple and became as the face of longing. would later borrow for Jeux. The music is an opu- Thus the servant of the pure knew that this lent tapestry of delicate, atmospheric effects and flower of life was not for him. rich, sumptuous colors, with two themes, like the To recover it, she darted forward like a bee. two characters of the story, engaged in a drama The invincible lord bore away from her the of confrontation. Much of the score depicts the lotus, torn between his thirst for immortality and passionate dance of the Peri. The opening brass the delights he beheld. fanfare, which was added as an afterthought and But the Peri danced the dance of the Peris. bears no thematic relationship to the ballet, is Always approaching him until her face often performed on its own. touched the face of Iskender. Here, in Dukas’s own words, is the story of And at the end he gave back the flower with- La Péri: out regret. It happened at the end of his youthful days; the Then the lotus was like unto snow and gold, as Seers having observed that his star was dimming, the summit of Elbourz at sunset. Iskender went about Iran seeking the flower The form of the Peri seemed to melt in the of immortality. light coming from the calix, and soon noth- The sun sojourned thrice in its dozen dwellings ing more was to be seen than a hand raising without Iskender finding the flower. At last he the flower of flame, which faded into the arrived at the end of the earth, at the point where realm above. it becomes one with the sea and the clouds. Iskender saw it disappear. There, on the steps that lead to the hall of And knowing from this that his end drew near.