Toronto Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis, Interim Artistic Director Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 8:00pm Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8:00pm Han-Na Chang, conductor Javier Perianes, piano Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major I. Allegramente II. Adagio assai III. Presto Intermission Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor Part I 1. Trauermarsch (Funeral march): In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt. (At a measured pace. Strict. Like a funeral procession.) 2. Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz (Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence) Part II 3. Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong and not too fast) Part III 4. Adagietto: Sehr langsam (Very slow) 5. Rondo – Finale: Allegro – Allegro giocoso. Frisch (Fresh) Han-Na Chang’s appearance with the TSO is generously supported by Sharon Groom and Robert Polese. OCTOBER 3 & 4, 2018 9 ABOUT THE WORKS Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major Born: Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875 23 Died: Paris, France, December 28, 1937 min Composed: 1929–1931 Commenced in 1929, the composition fantasy, wit, and colour—all are in perfect of this work was interrupted by another balance; the music never sounds overwrought commission—the brilliant Concerto for the left or heavy-handed. hand, written for Paul Wittgenstein, a Viennese This is a remarkably eclectic concerto. The first pianist who had lost his right arm in the First movement, for instance, offers themes in three World War. Ravel worked on both pieces at styles: the opening theme mimics Basque the same time, completing the commission folk music; the second sounds Spanish; and for Wittgenstein in 1930, and the G Major the bluesy, syncopated themes that follow all the following year. Ravel intended to appear but quote from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. as soloist in the première of this work, and (There are more jazz licks in the propulsive, then take it on a world tour, but his health, sarcastic finale, including trombone glissandi.) always delicate, was poor and worsening; There are still other stylistic allusions—to instead, he conducted the première, in Paris, polytonality, to Satie, Stravinsky, and on January 14, 1932, with Marguerite Long at Prokofiev, and even to a novelty instrument, the piano. (The two later toured Europe for the musical saw (in the long, “sliding” chain of several months, to great acclaim.) This was piano trills near the end of the first movement). Ravel’s last major work; he completed only The slow movement is heartbreakingly some songs before his death, in 1937. beautiful—written, Ravel said, under the spell “My only wish was to write a genuine of Mozart’s gorgeous Clarinet Quintet. It begins concerto—that is, a brilliant work, clearly like a lullaby, with a melody Ravel later brings highlighting the soloist’s virtuosity, without back, movingly, on an English horn, with the seeking to show profundity,” Ravel told the piano contributing delicate, dreamy filigree in press. “As a model I took two musicians who, the upper register. in my opinion, best illustrated this type of The piano writing in this concerto is not as composition: Mozart and Saint-Saëns.” This is difficult as that of, say, the Rachmaninoff obvious in the Classical three-movement form, Third, for Ravel was not much interested in the accessible and attractively harmonized bravura, and was tired of Romantic concertos melodies, the tight rhythmic structure, and the that consisted of heady battles between transparent, articulated textures. The music is soloist and orchestra. He did not demand quintessentially French in its orderliness and mass, power, and fireworks from the pianist fine craftsmanship. Lyricism, grace, passion, 10 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA as much as poise, concentration, immaculate colourful sonorities. (Listen, for instance, control, and a refined palette of tone colours. to his astonishing recasting of themes in The orchestration is delicious: the concerto the recapitulation of the first movement.) A positively shines. Ravel called for a reduced, percussion battery is discreetly but tellingly neo-Classical orchestra—just 32 strings, employed in the outer movements; thanks to a one each of most woodwind and brass slapstick and a bass drum, the concerto begins instruments, and a harp—to help create lean, with a snap and ends with a thump. often chamber-music-like, but fantastically Program note by Kevin Bazzana Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor Born: Kalischt, Bohemia (now Austria), July 7, 1860 70 Died: Vienna, Austria, May 18, 1911 min Composed: 1901–1903 In his Fifth Symphony, Mahler returned to Part II, the Scherzo, is transitional, hinting at “absolute” symphonic music that did not both the anguish of Part I’s Trauermarsch and rely on vocal parts, descriptive titles, or the resolution of the finale. tone-painting. Still, one senses some “inner” The Trauermarsch is based on two ideas both program or poetic idea behind it, for it featuring the dotted rhythms traditionally describes a dramatic trajectory from tragedy associated with funeral marches. Grim, to triumph. In February 1901, Mahler suffered ceremonial fanfares (trumpet) lead to a a sudden illness that almost killed him, and it long, mournful melody (strings) that has is tempting to infer that his trauma darkened been dubbed a “song of sorrow.” Both ideas his musical thoughts during the summer that are developed at length, and, along the followed, when he composed the opening way, Mahler interpolates two long episodes Trauermarsch (funeral march) of the Fifth. in which the atmosphere of mourning is The five movements are arranged greatly intensified. The second movement symmetrically: two slow-fast pairs frame (“violently agitated, with greatest vehemence”) a central Scherzo. (Mahler requests a “long revisits the life-and-death struggles of the pause” before the Scherzo, and links the fourth Trauermarsch in a turbulent new setting. The and fifth movements without a break.) The music is unstable, forever being wrenched in paired movements are intimately related: the new directions, surging up furiously only to second is effectively a development of the collapse in frustration and exhaustion, and the first, and the finale draws a theme from the despairing coda peters away into ghostly sighs Adagietto. But the framing parts are polar and a quiet final tap of the timpani. opposites: Part I is a profound two-act tragedy The astonishingly novel Scherzo is explicitly in which every effort to dispel the prevailing Austrian in character, though without Mahler’s grief and torment fails, while Part III is so genial usual unmistakable whiff of parody or that it can seem contrived or incongruous. caricature. Mahler offers dances both rustic OCTOBER 3 & 4, 2018 11 ABOUT THE WORKS and urbane: the opening theme is a homely of contents—a handful of motifs that will Ländler, to which a little fugato is appended; subsequently be developed. The main later, the violins introduce a slower, gentler theme (horns) is pastoral and Brahmsian, Viennese waltz. As the movement unfolds, all the secondary theme a gracious, dancing three ideas crop up unpredictably, invading variant of a motif from the Adagietto. each other’s territory, ceaselessly varied, Throughout, these themes alternate with fragmented, and distorted, often in dense, dense, fugue-like episodes (Mahler happened harmonically unstable counterpoint. A series to be studying the music of Bach around this of innocent dances eventually becomes a time). The ostentatious displays of academic savage Dance of Death—and the movement counterpoint in these episodes seem almost may indeed have been inspired by a Goethe tongue-in-cheek, and, in fact, the finale opens poem dealing with the approach of death. with a joke: the bassoon motif in bars 4–6 is quoted from Mahler’s satirical song “Lob The tender Adagietto has long been des hohen Verstandes” (“In Praise of Lofty misconstrued as funereal or valedictory. In Intellect”, 1896), suggesting that he was fact, it is a kind of “song without words” having some fun at the expense of those apparently conceived as a token of love: lofty professors who had once questioned in the fall of 1901, Mahler sent the score to his command of counterpoint. Near the end Alma Schindler, with whom he had recently of this good-natured movement, a chorale fallen in love (they married in March 1902). melody that had been hinted at in the second Contemplative and yearning, the Adagietto movement reappears in a blaze of brass— introduces a new “tone of voice” into the the affirmation to which the symphony has symphony, the effect of which is underscored aspired. This accomplished, the work comes by Mahler’s discreet scoring for strings and quickly to a close with a final display of harp. The finale, though episodic, is far more contrapuntal ingenuity and a few bars of what ambitious and powerful than its modest title, sounds suspiciously like raucous laughter. Rondo, suggests. It opens with a table Program note by Kevin Bazzana 12 TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA THE ARTISTS Han-Na Chang conductor These performances mark Han-Na Chang’s TSO conducting début. Han-Na Chang is the Artistic Leader and Chief Conductor of the Trondheim Symfoniorkester in Norway. Having concluded a hugely successful inaugural season with monumental performances of Beethoven Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” and Mahler Symphony No.7, the 2018/19 season sees her continue her work expanding the orchestra’s core repertoire. Mahler and Beethoven maintain an important part in her programming there (as well as in guest engagements this season with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Gothenburg Symphony) alongside pillars of 19th- and 20th-century repertoire by Brahms, Dvořák, Bruckner, Strauss, and Shostakovich. Other upcoming dates include the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre national de Lyon, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and Naples Philharmonic, in repertoire ranging from Dvořák and Ravel to Gubaidulina and Sean Shepherd.