Program One HunDReD TwenTieTH 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, February 10, 2011, at 8:00 Friday, February 11, 2011, at 1:30 Saturday, February 12, 2011, at 8:00 Tuesday, February 15, 2011, at 7:30 riccardo muti Conductor Vadim repin Violin Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 Allegro moderato Canzonetta: Andante Finale: Allegro vivacissimo VADiM Repin InTermIssIon Clyne «rewind« First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Hindemith Symphony in e-flat Very lively Very slow Lively— Moderately quick half-note Saturday evening’s performance is generously sponsored by Margot and Josef Lakonishok. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. Steinway is the official piano of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommenTs by pHi LLip HuSCHeR Piotr Tchaikovsky Born May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia. Died November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Violin Concerto in d major, op. 35 his violin concerto was the Milyukova for the first time; a day Tbest thing to come of a very or two later he proposed. bad marriage. In May 1877, The marriage lasted less than Tchaikovsky received a letter from three months, but it must have Antonina Milyukova, a former seemed a lifetime. Tchaikovsky student he couldn’t remember, who quickly learned to despise said she was madly in love with Antonina—he couldn’t even bring him. Earlier that year, Tchaikovsky himself to introduce her as his had entered into an extraordinary wife—and he was shocked to learn relationship, conducted entirely by that she knew not one note of correspondence, with Nadezhda music. In September, he botched a von Meck, and he found this com- pathetic suicide attempt (he waded bination of intellectual intimacy into the freezing Moscow River and physical distance ideal. In order hoping to contract a fatal chill) and to keep his homosexuality from the then fled to Saint Petersburg. On public, he impulsively seized on October 13, Anatoly, one of the the convenient, though unpromis- composer’s younger twin brothers, ing, idea of marriage to a woman took Tchaikovsky on an extended he didn’t even know. On June 1, trip to Europe. His thoughts Tchaikovsky visited Antonina quickly turned to composing, ComPosed mosT reCenT aPProxImaTe March–April 1878 Cso PerFormanCe PerFormanCe TIme May 8, 2010; Orchestra Hall; 34 minutes FIrsT PerFormanCe Robert Chen, violin; Ludovic December 4, 1881; Vienna Morlot, conductor Cso reCordIngs 1940; nathan Milstein, FIrsT Cso InsTrumenTaTIon violin; Frederick Stock, PerFormanCe solo violin, two flutes, two conductor; Columbia December 8, 1899; oboes, two clarinets, two 1945; erica Morini, Auditorium Theatre; bassoons, four horns, two violin; Désiré Defauw, Alexandre petschnikoff, trumpets, timpani, strings conductor; RCA violin; Theodore Thomas, conductor 1957; Jascha Heifetz, violin; Fritz Reiner, conductor; RCA 2 confirming what he wrote to observing established traditions, as Nadezhda von Meck during the do the Germans.” He plunged in very worst days: “My heart is at once, and full. It thirsts to pour itself out in found to his music.” He returned to composi- delight that tion cautiously, beginning with the music came works that had been interrupted to him easily. by the unfortunate encounter (Shortly after with Antonina: he completed the he arrived in Fourth Symphony in January 1878 Clarens, he and finished Eugene Onegin the had begun a next month. piano sonata, By March, he had recovered his but it didn’t old strength; he settled briefly in go well and he Clarens, Switzerland, and there, in quickly gave the span of eleven days, he sketched it up.) Each Tchaikovsky with his wife, Antonina Milyukova, 1877 a new work—a violin concerto in day, Kotek D major; he completed the scor- offered advice ing two weeks later. When he on violinistic returned to Russia in late April, matters, and he learned the score there were still lingering difficul- page by page as Tchaikovsky wrote ties—Antonina alternately accepted it. On April 1, when the work was and rejected the divorce papers, and completely sketched, they played even extracted the supreme revenge through the concerto for Anatoly’s of moving into the apartment above twin brother, Modest. Both Yosif his—but the worst year of his life and Modest thought the slow was over. movement was weak. Four days The Violin Concerto was later, Tchaikovsky wrote a new one launched by a visit to Clarens (the original Andante became the from Tchaikovsky’s student and Meditation from Souvenir d’un lieu friend—and possible lover—the cher), immediately began scoring violinist Yosif Kotek, who arrived the work, and unveiled the finished at Tchaikovsky’s door with a product on April 11. Clearly he was suitcase full of music. (Kotek had back on track. been a witness at Tchaikovsky’s New problems awaited wedding.) The next day they played Tchaikovsky, however. Although through Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, the concerto was dedicated to the and Tchaikovsky was immediately great violinist Leopold Auer and taken with the idea of writing a the premiere was already adver- large work for violin and orches- tised for the following March 22, tra. He liked the way that Lalo Auer stunned the composer by “does not strive after profundity, dismissing the piece as unplayable. but carefully avoids routine, seeks Tchaikovsky was deeply wounded, out new forms, and thinks more and the premiere was postponed about musical beauty than about indefinitely. “Coming from such 3 an authority,” Tchaikovsky said, and construction, not content; Auer’s rejection “had the effect of even the most casual listener may casting this unfortunate child of my find it disconcerting that—as with imagination into the limbo of the the popular “Tonight We Love” hopelessly forgotten.” tune in the B-flat piano con- Two years passed. Then one day, certo—the lovely theme with which Tchaikovsky’s publisher informed Tchaikovsky begins vanishes into him that Adolf Brodsky, a young thin air after a few seconds, never violinist, had learned the concerto to return. and persuaded Hans Richter and Hanslick also took offense at the the Vienna Philharmonic to play demanding, virtuosic solo part, it in concert. That performance, writing in terms that crop up in in December 1881, was no doubt reviews of new music to this day: horrible, as the orchestra, under- “The violin is no longer played; it rehearsed and reading from parts is pulled about, torn, beaten black chock full of mistakes, played and blue.” What Hanslick failed pianissimo throughout to avert to notice is the way Tchaikovsky disaster. Reviewing the concerto, has taken care to cushion even the the often ill-tempered critic Eduard most challenging, exhibitionistic Hanslick wrote that, for the first passages in music of unforced time, he realized that there was lyricism and restraint. Even music “whose stink one can hear.” Hanslick admitted that the lovely Tchaikovsky never got over that slow movement made progress in review, and, for the rest of his life, winning him over. But the brilliant it is said, he could quote it by heart. finale, with its driving, folklike Although Hanslick stood by his melodies and very “Russian” second opinion, Auer later admitted that theme over the low bagpipe drone the concerto was merely difficult, of open fifths, was too much for not unplayable, and he taught it him, and he concluded sputtering to his students, including Mischa about wretched Russian holidays Elman and Jascha Heifetz, who and the smell of vodka. Even Auer both played it in Chicago. had to admit that Hanslick’s com- Hanslick’s dislike is hard to ment “did credit neither to his good understand, for this is hardly an judgment nor to his reputation as a inflated, pretentious, and vulgar critic.” “The concerto has made its work, although those are the words way in the world,” he wrote years he used. In fact, Tchaikovsky’s lyric later, after it had, in fact, become gift has seldom seemed so natural, one of Tchaikovsky’s most beloved flowing effortlessly through all works, “and, after all, that is the three movements. If there is any most important thing. It is impos- deficiency here, it is one of form sible to please everybody.” 4 anna Clyne Born 1980, London, England. «rewind« ne of our new Mead of Clyne’s compositions, it was OComposers-in-Residence, Anna originally a collaborative project— Clyne has now settled into her in this case, a piece to be danced. apartment on Chicago’s Near North Clyne gravitates to collaboration Side, although she is still trying because, as she puts it, it forces you to figure out the best arrangement to break out of your shell—and of her work desk and piano by the she thrives on the kind of creative front window that overlooks the dialogue it opens. Although she is street. Regardless, this is a distinct known for working with artists in improvement over her previous other disciplines—choreographers, setup in Brooklyn, where she filmmakers, writers, painters—she composed in a gloomy, window- also loves to collaborate with musi- less room in a warehouse down cians in the process of working out the street because she couldn’t fit a the details of a new composition. piano in her apartment. At the moment, she is writing a “I could probably compose any- piece for the Chicago Symphony’s where,” Clyne says, thinking about MusicNOW series—titled Spangled a process that is so consuming that Unicorn, after an anthology of the outside world often disappears.