NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Victor Yampolsky, conductor Sihao He, cello Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. MUSIC FOR THE HOLIDAYS Northwestern University Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 JOHANN STRAUSS, JR. (1825–1899) Henry and Leigh Till Eulenspiegels Iustige Streiche, Op. 28, TrV 181 RICHARD STRAUSS Bienen School of Music (1864–1949) intermission MUSIC FOR THE HOLIDAYS NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, B. 191 ANTONÍN DVOřÁK Allegro (1841–1904) YMPHONY RCHESTRA S O Adagio ma non troppo Victor Yampolsky, conductor Finale: Allegro moderato Sihao He, cello Sihao He, cello Pick-Staiger Concert Hall 2018–19 season Please silence all electronic devices, including pagers, cellular telephones, and wristwatch alarms. PROFILES including Meadowmount School of Music, PyeongChang Music Festival, Music@ Menlo Chamber Music Festival and the Rutesheim Cello Academy amongst Born in Shanghai, China, Sihao He began playing cello at the age of ten with others. He is also a recipient of the Eckstein Scholarship, Cultural Art Talent Shihong Ni. The following year, he was accepted to the Middle School affiliated Scholarship and Chengxian Fu Scholarship. with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music as a student of Professor Meijuan Liu’s. program notes He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University where he studied with Hans Jørgen Jensen and Julie Albers, and Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437 Strauss Master’s Degree from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. Johann Strauss Jr. was one of three musical sons born to the Viennese composer, He is currently attending the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University Johann Strauss Sr. Together, the four men comprise a kind of dynasty of Viennese for his D.M.A. degree under the tutelage of Hans Jørgen Jensen. dance music, having composed hundreds of waltzes and polkas combined. Today, their music readily evokes--and indeed, is practically synonymous with--the He has had many successes in numerous competitions over the years, including charm, beauty, and sparkle of 19th-century Vienna. the title of laureate at the inaugural Queen Elisabeth Competition for Cello in Brussels, Grand Prizes at the 3rd Gaspar Cassado International Violoncello One of the most well-known of all Strauss waltzes, these Kaiser-Walzer were Competition in Hachioji, ASTA National Solo Competition in New York, originally entitled “Hand in Hand.” The piece was intended as a “toast” to Concerto Competition at the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School (2011), the recently reaffirmed friendship between the Austrian emperor Franz Josef of National Cello Competition for Young Cellists in China, the International Austria and King Wilhelm II of Prussia. By keeping the dedication more vague- Antonio Janigro Cello Competition in Croatia, and placed fourth in the -the German word kaiser can be singular or plural--Strauss managed to satisfy International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. and honor both leaders. As a soloist, He has performed with many orchestras all around the world with First performed in Berlin in October 1889, the Kaiser-Walzer makes a festive trib- highlights including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, ute, bridging the musical gap between these neighboring musical cultures. One Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, Orquestra Sinfônica de Piracicaba, and the reviewer who attended the premiere wrote: “The Emperor Waltz begins in a bel- Xiamen Philharmonic, under world-renowned conductors such as Stéphane licose Prussian vein in which one can almost see and hear Old Fritz’s guardsmen Denève, Frank Braley and Kazufumi Yamashita. He has performed in chamber marching past, but then everything becomes again echt wienerish (authentically groups with Joseph Silverstein, Pinchas Zuckerman, Wu Han, Donald Viennese), full of dash and verve.” Weilerstein, Hsin-Yun Huang, Robert McDuffie, and Calidore Quartet. In June 2015, he performed for the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society along with Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28, TrV 181 Strauss violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, and in 2017, he performed at the Metropolitan Born in 1864, composer Richard Strauss was the son of the principal French horn Museum of Art. player in the Munich Opera. As such, he had the opportunity to take in many operatic performances—but he was particularly influenced by the Wagner operas He is a member of Simply Quartet, coached by Jensen Hornsi Lam. The quartet he heard as a young man. While Strauss’s father was more musically conservative attended the ECMA (European Chamber Music Academy) in Austria for master and discouraged his son’s Wagnerian streak, Strauss eventually bloomed into an classes and public performances in 2009, was placed first in the Haydn Invitational adventurous symphonic writer. Today he is best known for his many tone poems, Chamber Music Competition in Shanghai, China in 2009, and was awarded including Death and Transfiguration, Don Juan, Don Quixote, and Also Sprach “The Most Promising Young String Quartet” at the 4th Beijing International Zarathustra, among others. Music Competition – String Quartet in 2011. Composed in 1895, the tone poem heard tonight chronicles the “merry pranks” He has played master classes for Yo Yo Ma, Laurence Lesser, Gary Hoffman, and misadventures of the lovable peasant trickster, Till Eulenspiegel. The figure Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Frans Helmerson, Myung-Wha Chung, Jian Wang, of Till Eulenspiegel is a beloved and mysterious one in German folklore: his life Andres Diaz, Enrico Dindo, Richard Aaron, Robert deMaine, Desmond Hoebig, was first memorialized in a 16th-century collection of stories by a semi-anony- Liwei Qin, Haiyan Ni, the Alban Berg Quartet, Hatto Beyerle, the Tokyo mous author called N. It is unclear whether Till Eulenspiegel ever actually lived; Quartet, and Peter Oundjian. the folk tales claim that he died around the year 1350, but many scholars have been unable to correlate this reference to any historical man. He’s last few summers have been spent at various festivals, all on full scholarship, chamber music. The work overflows with a seemingly endless supply of duos, Richard Strauss had originally hoped to create an opera from the life story of trios, and quartets between the soloist and various members of the orchestra. Till Eulenspiegel, but soon realized that this impish jester figure would not make From the cello’s soaring first statement, to the tender lullaby of the second move- an ideal operatic hero. He wrote in a letter: “The book of fairytales only out- ment, to the march-like finale and its surprising conclusion, listeners experience lines a rogue with too superficial a dramatic personality—the developing of his the deep sense of nostalgia and longing that characterize so many of Dvořák’s character on more profound lines after his trait of contempt for humanity also mature works. presents considerable difficulty.” Strauss then turned his attention to depicting Till Eulenspiegel’s adventures in instrumental form. The result is a delightful, humorous, and magic-filled musical romp which shows off Strauss’s genius for bringing out the myriad colorful characters of the orchestra. Strauss declined to provide a narrative, play-by-play “program” for this particular work, saying only that “It is impossible for me to furnish a program for Till Eulenspiegel ... were I to put into words the thoughts which its several incidents suggest to me, they would not suffice for the listener and might even give offense. Let me therefore leave it to my hearers to crack the nut the rogue has presented them.” Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B.191 Dvořák The beloved Cello Concerto of Czech composer Antonin Dvořák was com- posed near the end of his tenure at the National Conservatory of Music in New York. This is one of several seminal works that Dvořák composed during his time in America, including a string quartet and string quintet (both sub- titled ‘American’) and his New World symphony. In March of 1894, Dvořák heard the cellist Victor Herbert--then chair of the cello department at the National Conservatory—give the premiere of his own second cello concerto. While Herbert’s piece is little-known today, it made a sig- nificant impression on Dvořák, and he soon began work on his own contribution to the genre. By February of 1895, the work was complete; Dvořák had added a lamenting coda to memorialize the death of his sister-in-law, Josefina. While Dvořák’s other “American” works are peppered with spirituals and other obvious American folk elements, the cello concerto has a more subtle relation- ship to Dvořák’s adopted home. Some have seen this as a sign of the composer’s homesickness; it was with some reluctance that he had extended his contract at the National Conservatory. The Cello Concerto is Dvořák’s last major symphonic work, and holds a sacred place in the cello concerto repertoire. It is not simply a virtuoso showpiece, but a work of deep feeling, composed by a master at the height of his powers. Notably, Dvořák resolves a frequent complaint regarding the cello as a solo instrument- -its low pitch can make it difficult to hear over the orchestra--by making use of NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ORCHESTRA PROGRAM Victor Yampolsky, conductor Director of Orchestras Victor Yampolsky Violin I Bass Horn Carol F. and Arthur L. Rice Jr. University Professorship in Music Performance Weilu Zhang** Adam Maloney* Jonathan Chiou Associate Director of Orchestras Dr. Robert