ORANGE COUNTY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL Thursday –Saturday, June 3 –5, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. PRESENTS 2009–2010 HAL AND JEANETTE SEGERSTROM FAMILY FOUNDATION CLASSICAL SERIES CARL ST.C LAIR , CONDUCTOR LEILA JOSEFOWICZ , VIOLIN RAVEL Suite from Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose ) (1875 –1937) Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty) Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb) Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas) Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) Le Jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden) ADAMS Violin Concerto (b. 1947) Quarter note = 78 Chaconne: Body Through Which the Dream Flows Toccare LEILA JOSEFOWICZ —INTERMISSION— MOZART Symphony No. 32 in G Major, K. 318 (1756 –1791) Allegro spiritoso Andante Tempo primo STRAVINSKY Suite from The Firebird (L’oiseau de feu ) (1919 version) (1882 –1971) Introduction L’Oiseau de feu et sa danse & Variation de l’oiseau de feu (The Firebird and its Dance & Variation of the Firebird) Ronde des princesses (Round of the Princesses) Danse infernale du roi Kastcheï (Infernal Dance of King Kastcheï) Berceuse – Final The Thursday, June 3, concert is generously sponsored by Anoosheh and Alan Oskouian The Saturday, June 5, concert is generously sponsored by the A. Gary Anderson Foundation Pacific Symphony proudly recognizes its Official Partners: Official Airline Official Hotel Official Television Station The Saturday, June 5, performance is broadcast live on , the official classical radio station of Pacific Symphony. The simultaneous streaming of this broadcast over the internet at kusc.org is made possible by the generosity of the Musicians of Pacific Symphony. The Pacific Symphony broadcasts are made possible by a generous grant from Pacific Symphony P- 1 SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS PROGRAM NOTES BY PETER LAKI , Program annotator for the Cleveland Orchestra and Pacific Symphony 1. Pavane de la Belle au Bois dormant almond shells; for the instruments (“Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty”). The had to be of a size appropriate to pavane is a slow dance of Spanish origin their own. to which Ravel had first turned in his early Pavane for a Dead Princess . This new The music is a study in turn-of-the- Pavane is rather brief, consisting of a century Orientalism, with a lively penta - single motif, soft and delicate, repeated tonic melody (playable on the black keys by various instruments of the orchestra. of the piano), colorfully orchestrated. In a more serious middle section, Little 2. Petit Poucet (“Tom Thumb”). The score Homely dances with the Green Serpent is preceded by a short excerpt from (who will turn out to be Prince Perrault’s story: Charming, also disguised by an evil spell). The dance of the “pagodes” then He thought he would be able to returns. find the path easily by means of the bread he had strewn wherever 4. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête he had walked. But he was quite (“Conversations of Beauty and the surprised when he couldn't find a Beast”). This story is very well known, Mother Goose Suite (1908-1911) single crumb; the birds had come but few actually remember the name of BY MAURICE RAVEL and eaten them all. its author, Marie Leprince de Beaumont (CIBOURE, BASSES-PYRÉNÉES, 1875 - PARIS, 1937) (1757). Again, the words that are relevant Tom Thumb’s wanderings are depicted to the music are reprinted in the score: Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English here by a steady motion in eighth-notes horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 in the strings, over which the woodwind “When I think of your good horns, timpani, percussion, celesta, harp, and strings. play a quiet “walking” melody. The birds heart, you don't seem so ugly.” Performance time: 17 minutes. referred to in the story are indicated by a “Oh, I should say so! I have a solo violin playing harmonic glissandos good heart, but I am a monster.” aurice Ravel’s Mother Goose has against a twittering flute and piccolo. “There are many men who are Mnothing to do with the famous more monstrous than you.” collection of English nursery rhymes. 3. Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes “If I were witty I would pay This Mother Goose (or Ma Mère l’Oye ) (Little Homely, Empress of the Pagodes). you a great compliment to thank is French, and has been known for her The story on which this movement was you, but I am only a beast.” fairy tales since the late 17th century. In based was written by the Countess ... 1697, Charles Perrault (1628-1703) d’Aulnoy, a contemporary of Perrault. “Beauty, would you like to be collected some old and new tales in a The heroine is a beautiful princess who my wife?” book that became known popularly as was made ugly by a wicked witch. She “No, Beast!” “Mother Goose”; his collection con - travels to a distant country inhabited by ... tained, among others, the stories of tiny, munchkin-like people called “I die happy because I have the Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding “pagodes.” (Eventually, as one might pleasure of seeing you once again.” Hood. expect, she is restored to her original “No, my dear Beast, you shall Ravel was inspired by Perrault’s col - beauty and finds her Prince Charming.) not die. You shall live to become lection and other fairy tales when, in As in the previous movement, Ravel my husband.” 1908, he decided to write a short suite concentrated on a single image from the ... The Beast had disappeared, for piano duet, intended as a gift for story, and he wrote it down at the head and she beheld at her feet a prince Mimi and Jean Godebski, the children of the score: more handsome than Amor, who of his friends Cipa and Ida Godebski. was thanking her for having lifted He orchestrated the suite in 1911, and She undressed and got into the his spell. expanded it into a ballet score. However, bath. Immediately the pagodes and the work is more often performed in the pagodesses began to sing and to The movement is in the tempo of a original suite form, consisting of the play instruments. Some had theor - slow waltz. The Beauty is represented by orchestrations of the five movements for bos [large lutes] made from walnut the clarinet, the Beast by the contrabas - piano duet. shells; some had viols made from soon. The two instruments take turns at first, and then join in a duet that P- 2 Pacific Symphony becomes more and more impassioned. the syncopations and polymeters grow After a fortissimo climax and a measure more and more complex. After a short of silence, an expressive violin solo (with but enormously challenging unaccompa - harmonics) brings the movement back to nied cadenza, the movement continues its original tempo as the Beast is trans - without a break into the second-move - formed into a handsome prince. ment chaconne. The latter’s subtitle (“Body through which the dream 5. Le jardin féerique (“The Fairy Garden”). flows”) comes from a poem by Robert This movement does not seem to be Hass, who like Adams lives in the San based on any particular fairy tale. It is a Francisco area and who, after the pre - celebration of the splendor of this mirac - miere of the Violin Concerto, would go ulous garden, where the sun never goes on to become the Poet Laureate of the down and everyone lives a blessed and United States. happy life. The music is a single crescen - A chaconne is a set of variations writ - do from a soft and low string sonority to ten on a ground bass; Adams chose a a veritable feast of sound, resplendent very well-known classical bass pattern with harp, celesta and glockenspiel. known from Pachelbel’s Canon, among other works. The composer superim - formances became a model for (1993) posed many complex harmonic layers on Violin Concerto how a serious new instrumental BY JOHN ADAMS this simple bass that is easy to lose sight work could indeed achieve reper - (B. WORCESTER, MASS., 1947) of as the violin begins to weave its sinu - toire status through the deter - ous melodic liners and the orchestral mined advocacy of an exceptional - Instrumentation: solo violin, 2 flutes (both doubling strings add their eerie harmonics, some - ly talented artist. piccolos), 2 oboes (second doubling English horn), times in quarter-tones. A second stage in 2 clarinets (second doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, the evolution of the chaconne is reached WHAT TO LISTEN FOR 2 horns, trumpet, percussion, 2 keyboard synthesiz - when the woodwinds begin to play a The Violin Concerto is perhaps the ers, and strings. series of exciting, rapid figurations over first work in which Adams severed all Performance time: 33 minutes. the bass line that, finally, begins to connections of his minimalist past. This change as well under the influence of all music is no longer built on the repetition uring the decade and a half of its the complex voice-leading going on of single rhythmic harmonic patterns but existence, John Adams’ Violin above it. In her last solo passage in the D instead based on progressions and Concerto has firmly established itself in movement, the soloist completely frees motivic development. (There are long the repertoire as one of the most frequent - herself from the orchestra in terms of stretches of even eighth- or sixteenth- ly performed new concertos. Originally rhythmic coordination. After a few quiet note motion, but those are present in the written for Jorja Fleezanis, concertmaster measures to conclude the chaconne, the music of J.