Program ONe HuNDReD TWeNTy-FiRST 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, December 1, 2011, at 8:00 Friday, December 2, 2011, at 8:00 Saturday, December 3, 2011, at 8:00 Jaap van Zweden conductor David mcgill bassoon Stucky Rhapsodies for Orchestra First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances mozart Bassoon Concerto in B-flat Major, K. 191 Allegro Andante ma adagio Rondo: Tempo di menuetto DAviD McGill IntermISSIon mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major Slow. Dragging. like a sound of nature—At the beginning, very leisurely With strong movement, but not too fast Solemn and measured, without dragging Stormily Performed to commemorate the centenary of Mahler’s death in 1911 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 Steven Stucky Born November 7, 1949, Hutchinson, Kansas. rhapsodies for orchestra n September 18, 2008, the as the author of a program note Oday Rhapsodies for Orchestra on the Piano Concerto by Witold was performed for the first time Lutosławski, the late Polish com- in this country, Steven Stucky was poser whose music Stucky has stud- in Dallas for the world premiere ied, with the rigor of a true scholar, of another new work, his concert throughout his career. (Stucky’s drama, August 4, 1964. Such popu- 1981 book, Witold Lutosławski and larity is rare for a composer at any His Music, won the ASCAP Deems time, but Stucky has always been Taylor Prize; Stucky was given a highly regarded, frequently com- the Lutosławski Society medal in missioned—he wrote his Picturas de 2005.) Not surprisingly, Stucky has Tamayo for the Chicago Symphony named Lutosławski, along with in 1995—and often honored figure. Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartók, His Second Concerto for Orchestra and Ligeti, as important influences won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize on his own music. in Music. Stucky grew up in Kansas and Chicago Symphony audiences Texas, and studied at Baylor were first introduced to Stucky in and Cornell universities. He 1992, when the Orchestra per- taught composition at Lawrence formed his Impromptus. That same University in Appleton, Wisconsin, year, Stucky’s name appeared again and, since 1980, he has served on in CSO program books, this time the faculty of Cornell University, ComPoSeD InStrumentatIon aPProxImate 2008 three flutes and piccolo, two PerFormanCe tIme oboes and english horn, 10 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe three clarinets and bass August 28, 2008, london clarinet, two bassoons, These are the first four horns, three trumpets, CSO performances three trombones and tuba, vibraphone, woodblock, glockenspiel, marimba, suspended cymbal, crotales, chimes, tam-tam, bass drum, harp, strings 2 where he is the Given Foundation rhapsodic—words I would never Professor of Composition. From have chosen to describe my music— 1988 until 1992, Stucky was the more I realized that boundaries composer-in-residence of the Los are meant to be pushed, and that an Angeles Philharmonic; he cur- external, even foreign stimulus like rently is the orchestra’s Consulting “rhapsodic” could be just the ticket Composer for New Music. He to push mine. also has served as host of the New The resulting work is rhapsodic in York Philharmonic’s Hear & Now two senses. It has a freely develop- concert series. ing form, as if improvised, and it Stucky’s music has long been trades in ecstatic, fervent forms of singled out for the directness and expression. Although it is in one honesty of its style and language. continuous movement, Rhapsodies As Stucky himself wrote, in is titled in the plural because it “New Music and the Masterpiece unrolls as a series of rhapsodic Syndrome,” about the relationship episodes, usually triggered by a between listeners and composers: single player whose ardent phrases “Our task is not to predict the hab- gradually “infect” his neighbors its of posterity but to respond to the until soon a whole section of the here and now. Genuine composers orchestra is sounding ecstatic. A will somehow make themselves solo flute (appassionato) draws other understood. Their works are com- high woodwind voices in one by muniqués addressed from human one, until they create a riotous beings to other human beings.” mass of sound. A solo english horn (cantando, fervente) recruits clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and more, Steven Stucky on until its whole neighborhood has rhapsodies for orchestra broken into song, too. Solo horn and trumpet (nobile) launch still another outbreak, now among the hen the New York brasses. Meanwhile, behind each WPhilharmonic invited me of these episodes of rhapsodizing to compose a short work for flows calmer, supporting music its European tour of August– elsewhere in the orchestra, serving September 2008, the invitation as a backdrop. Unrelenting fervor came with a suggestion from music can only be borne for so long. director Lorin Maazel: Would Eventually, the orchestra lapses, I consider writing “something spent, into a quiet coda, where rhapsodic”? I ran to the diction- the intense experiences that have ary for help. The more I thought come before can be recollected about the words rhapsody and in tranquility. 3 Wolfgang mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria. Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major, K. 191 lthough Mozart may have Even though the bassoon was not Awritten as many as five bas- a common solo instrument at the soon concertos, this is the only one time, the main thematic material of that has survived. It is the earliest this concerto was carefully designed of all Mozart’s concertos for wind expressly for the instrument, instruments, and, despite the fact showcasing its unique qualities and that it is the work of an adolescent, disguising its limitations in power this is a little masterpiece. The score and range. In this piece, Mozart has is contemporary with Mozart’s first already moved beyond mastering the piano concerto, in D major, and his general demands of concerto form first violin concertos—all products to deal, in very specific and creative of the mid-1770s. These are works ways, with the individual needs that show Mozart fully engaged in of his client. Mozart often wrote putting his own stamp on tradi- music for performer-friends, but tional forms and procedures; he is we cannot be certain for whom this no longer an apprentice—even one concerto was intended. There are with the most astonishing gifts— several possible candidates, includ- but a man establishing his own ing two bassoonists employed by the practice. Mozart would never quit archbishop of Salzburg at the time, learning, borrowing, and assimilat- as well as Thaddäus von Dürnitz, an ing what he picked up in the musi- amateur bassoonist from Munich cal world at large, but the process of who apparently had commissioned transforming and personalizing had bassoon works from several compos- already begun. ers, including Mozart. ComPoSeD moSt reCent aPProxImate 1774 CSo PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme March 28, 2000, Orchestra 18 minutes FIrSt PerFormanCe Hall. David McGill, bassoon; unknown Mark elder conducting CSo reCorDIng 1984. Willard elliot, bassoon; FIrSt CSo InStrumentatIon Claudio Abbado conducting. PerFormanCe solo bassoon, two oboes, two Deutsche Grammophon November 13, 1956, horns, strings Orchestra Hall. leonard Sharrow, bassoon; Fritz Reiner conducting 4 The first movement highlights with its supporting cast. The second the bassoon’s many virtues, includ- movement is a dreamy aria, with ing its extraordinary agility and an elaborately embroidered melody the ability to trill, leap (nearly two over muted strings—an early essay octaves in this case), repeat notes in the mood of the Countess’s rapid-fire, sing lyrically, and sit “Porgi amor” from The Marriage of comfortably on prominent low Figaro. The finale is a minuet—not notes. The interaction with the music designed for the ballroom, orchestra is lively and conversa- but based on the lilting rhythms of tional, not that of a star performer the standard courtly dance. gustav mahler Born July 7, 1860, Kalischt, Bohemia. Died May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria. Symphony no. 1 in D major hen Alma Schindler first keep their ears and their hearts if Wmet Gustav Mahler, whom they can’t hear that!” she later married, she could only But as Alma knew, people didn’t remember how much she had always feel what Mahler felt. For disliked his First Symphony. She years the First Symphony led an wasn’t alone. The history of this unhappy existence, greeted by symphony, even into relatively chilly receptions whenever it was recent times, is one of misunder- played and plagued by the com- standing and rejection. The first poser’s continual fussing, both over performance, in Budapest in 1889, details and the big picture. No was greeted with indifference, other symphony gave him so much bewilderment, and, in the words trouble. He couldn’t even decide of the local critic, “a small, but, for if this music was a symphonic all that, audible element of opposi- poem, a program symphony, or a tion.” Mahler seldom understood symphony plain and simple—or the animosity his music aroused. whether it should contain four or A few years later, after Alma had five movements. Figuring all that taken his name and converted to out was not an act of indecisiveness, the cause, Mahler wrote to her after but of exploration. And by the time conducting the First Symphony: Mahler published this music as “Sometimes it sent shivers down my his Symphony no. 1 some fifteen spine. Damn it all, where do people years after he began it, he had not 5 only discovered for himself what the process as much as the com- a symphony could be, but he had poser himself that gives Mahler’s changed the way we have defined symphonies their unconventional that familiar word ever since.