SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 Piano Concerto No. 4 Emanuel Ax, piano | 1 | | 1 | San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor Emanuel Ax, piano Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67 33:57 I. Allegro con brio 8:11 II. Andante con moto 9:38 III. Allegro 4:42 IV. Allegro 11:25 Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 34:20 I. Allegro moderato 19:30 II. Andante con moto 4:45 III. Rondo: Vivace 10:04 Recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, December 9–12, 2009. Producer: Jack Vad Post Production Support: Marie Ebbing, Electronic Media Manager: Edie Cheng Jonathon Stevens Engineering Support: Mark Donahue, Art Direction and Design: Alan Trugman Dirk Sobotka, Roni Jules, Cover photo: “Along the Redwood Trail”, Uwe Willenbacher, Rolf Lee Mt. Tamalpais, CA by Ursula Esser All editorial materials © 2011 San Francisco Symphony, Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 552-8000 | 2 | | 2 | Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67 Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 No work in the orchestral canon has been analyzed when we hear his Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral, and discussed more exhaustively than Beethoven’s which was roughly coeval to the Fifth. We are not Fifth Symphony, but familiarity has not made it necessarily wrong to suppose that biographical any less potent. Wrote Robert Schumann about overtones reside in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, this masterwork, “No matter how frequently but we shouldn’t be blind to the sheer breadth of heard, whether at home or in the concert hall, this character they cover. When all is said and done, symphony invariably wields its power over people this is a unique work, just as all of Beethoven’s of every age like those great phenomena of nature masterpieces are, a vehicle in which the composer that fill us with fear and admiration at all times, no explores and works out strictly aesthetic challenges matter how frequently we may experience them.” that he has set for himself. In metaphorical terms, the music traces a path from the darkness and In this music we may imagine Beethoven’s state struggle of the opening movement to the sunlight of mind during the four-year period in which he and triumph of the conclusion. Beethoven’s plan, wrote this piece. He was losing his hearing—a executed so perfectly here, became a model for great adversity for anyone, but a catastrophe for future generations of symphonists. a musician. In March1808, about when he finished this work, a raging infection threatened the loss of Beethoven unveiled his Fourth Piano Concerto at a a finger, which would have spelled further disaster private concert in the mansion of his patron Prince for a composer greatly attached to the keyboard. Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz in March 1807. Then He was surrounded by a nervous political climate he put it away for nearly two years and performed it as Vienna bent beneath Napoleon’s occupation only one more time—in his last public appearance beginning in November 1805. In late 1807, he found as a pianist—at a concert at Vienna’s Theater an himself rejected in love, and his personal life was der Wien on December 22, 1808. That all-Beethoven generally chaotic: In 1808 alone he moved to no marathon has gone into the annals as one of the fewer than four apartments. But there was also a most extraordinary events in all of music history. calmer side to his being. He frequently escaped to In addition to this concerto, the concert included the suburban parks and countryside surrounding the world premieres of the Symphonies Nos. 5 Vienna; that’s where we imagine the composer and 6 as well as of the C minor Choral Fantasy, | 3 | | 3 | the Vienna premieres of three movements from the C major Mass and the concert scena “Ah! perfido,” and a solo keyboard improvisation by the composer. To encounter all of these revolutionary pieces at one sitting must have been overwhelming, and to many listeners the Fourth Piano Concerto must have sounded like just more of the same madness—and who knows what the all-but-deaf Beethoven actually accomplished at the piano. His pupil Carl Czerny termed Beethoven’s performance on that occasion as “playful,” so odd a descriptive that you might wonder if it should be read as a euphemism. Informed members of that audience would have expected a concerto to begin with a long introduction during which the orchestra staunchly presented some of the first movement’s principal themes. But this concerto emerges with unexpected gentleness, played softly by the solo piano, after which the featured instrument withdraws, not to be heard again for another sixty-nine measures. The second movement, too, is extraordinary, and later commentators proclaimed that it—and maybe even the whole concerto—was meant to depict the Greek myth of Orpheus charming the demons at the gates of hell. The concluding movement is a rondo— energetic and, as Czerny might say, playful. —James M. Keller | 4 | | 4 | The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY gave its first survey of Ives’s music, and a Gershwin collection concerts in 1911 and has grown in acclaim under including works they performed at Carnegie Hall’s a succession of music directors: Henry Hadley, 1998 opening gala, telecast nationally on PBS’s Great Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, Issay Dobrowen, Pierre Performances. A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein Monteux, Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, (their Carnegie Hall 2008 opening gala concert) was Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt (now Conductor also telecast nationwide and is available on DVD. Laureate), and, since 1995, Michael Tilson Thomas. The San Francisco Symphony performs regularly In recent seasons the San Francisco Symphony has throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, and won some of the world’s most prestigious recording in 1990 made stunning debuts at the Salzburg and awards, among them France’s Grand Prix du Lucerne festivals. In 1980, the Orchestra moved into Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award, and a series the newly built Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. of Grammy®s for recordings of music by Brahms, 1980 also saw the founding of the San Francisco Orff, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky. The initial release in Symphony Youth Orchestra. The San Francisco the Mahler cycle, of the Symphony No. 6, received Symphony Chorus has been heard around the world the Grammy for Best Orchestral Recording of 2002, on recordings and on the soundtracks of three major and the recording of the Mahler Third was awarded films: Amadeus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the Grammy for Best Classical Album of 2003. The and Godfather III. Through its radio broadcasts, the recording of Mahler’s Seventh received Grammys first in America to feature symphonic music when for Best Orchestral Recording and Best Classical they began in 1926, the San Francisco Symphony Album of 2006, and the recording of Mahler’s is heard throughout the US, confirming an artistic Eighth Symphony has been honored with three vitality whose impact extends throughout American 2009 Grammy awards, for Best Classical Album, musical life. Best Choral Performance, and Best Engineered Classical Album. 2004 saw the launch of Keeping Score, a multimedia educational project on TV, DVD, radio, and the Web site keepingscore.org. For RCA Red Seal, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony have also recorded Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, two Copland collections, a | 5 | | 5 | BSO’s Associate Conductor, then Principal Guest Conductor. He has also served as Director of the Ojai Festival, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Principal Conductor of the Great Woods Festival. He became Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and now serves as Principal Guest Conductor. For a decade he served as co-Artistic Director of Japan’s Pacific Music Festival, which he and Leonard Bernstein inaugurated in 1990, and he continues as Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1988. Michael Tilson Thomas’s recorded repertory reflects interests arising from work as conductor, composer, and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS first conducted the San People’s Concerts, and in 2004 he and the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and has been Music Francisco Symphony launched Keeping Score on Director since 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied PBS-TV. Among his honors are Columbia University’s with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University Ditson Award for services to American music and of Southern California, becoming Music Director of Musical America’s 1995 Conductor of the Year the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra award. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of at nineteen and working with Stravinsky, Boulez, France, was selected as Gramophone 2005 Artist of Stockhausen, and Copland at the famed Monday the Year, was named one of America’s Best Leaders Evening Concerts. In 1969, Mr. Tilson Thomas won by U.S. News & World Report, has been elected to the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Conductor of the Boston Symphony. Ten days later in 2010 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by he came to international recognition, replacing President Obama. Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the | 6 | | 6 | Emanuel Ax appears courtesy of Sony Classical. Recent releases include R. Strauss’s Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart and two-piano works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman; and a disc of Mendelssohn trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman.