Autumn Cyber Symphonies Concert 1 Mahler Rückert-Lieder Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 Conductor Bernhard Gueller Soloist William Berger (baritone) Concertmaster Farida Bacharova Recorded at the Cape Town City Hall on April 15, 2021 Streaming May 20 –24, 2021 This concert is generously supported by 1 BERNHARD GUELLER Conductor Principal guest conductor of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of Symphony Nova Scotia in Canada, Bernhard Gueller continues to be acclaimed for his interpretations and phrasing, and the excitement he brings to the podium. “He is a favoured conductor, both of players and audiences, undoubtedly because of his carefully prepared but always musically rewarding performances” (WeekendSpecial.co.za). He is acclaimed by musicians, critics and audiences for his musical purity, and continually garners praise for the fresh approach he applies under his “amazingly suggestive baton”. Having stepped down in 2018 after 16 years as music director of Symphony Nova Scotia, Gueller took up a new role as Music Director Laureate and in the last two years, prior to the advent of Covid-19 returned to both SNS and British Columbia’s Victoria Symphony where he was also principal guest conductor. He also made his debut with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey in 2019 and returned to Halifax to conduct the Scotia Festival of Music again. He has conducted many other orchestras in Canada including the Edmonton and Calgary Philharmonic orchestras and is a frequent guest conductor with the KZN Philharmonic and the Johannesburg Philharmonic. Gueller has had many high-level collaborations with internationally acclaimed soloists, including Canadian violinist James Ehnes and pianists Jan Lisiecki, Janina Fialkowska, Anton Kuerti, Jon Kimura Parker and Marc Andre-Hamelin, along with pianist Lars Vogt, violinist Joshua Bell, and Metropolitan Opera singers Pretty Yende, Elza van den Heever and the late Johan Botha, as well as soprano Pumeza Matshikiza. Beginning his career as a cellist, Gueller won the United German Radios Conducting Competition in 1979 and for nearly 20 years ran tandem careers, deputing for the legendary conductor Sergiu Celibidache, who regarded Gueller as his best “pupil”. Gueller also attracted the attention of the renowned arts administrator Ernest Fleischman who "was deeply impressed by his extraordinary musicianship, his marvellous ability to communicate with the musicians, and his charismatic impact on the audience". He has also been music director in Nuremberg and his career has taken him to many top concert halls, from America and Australia to Canada, Russia, Japan, China (Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong), Korea, South Africa and Brazil, as well as countries in Europe such as Spain, Italy, France, Norway, Bulgaria, Italy and Sweden, and his native Germany where he, for instance, conducted the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and the Munich Philharmonic. 2 He has conducted in festivals internationally, including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra in the International Festival of the Canary Islands, the Schwetzinger Festival in Germany, the Scotia Festival in Halifax, and the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival and National Arts Festival in South Africa. Gueller has made many recordings for national and international broadcast and several acclaimed CDs including two with the CPO - with South African mezzo soprano Hanneli Rupert and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and the concerti of Vieuxtemps and Saint-Saëns with cellist Peter Martens. Others include two with contemporary Canadian composer, Christos Hatzis, one of contemporary Canadian works by Tim Brady which won an East Coast Music award, and a CD of orchestrated lieder by Schumann, all with Symphony Nova Scotia. His latest CD with Symphony Nova Scotia with songstress Sarah Slean was nominated for a Juno Award in 2021. He has also recorded CDs with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, German Brass and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Gueller was awarded a doctorate by Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for his service to music. 3 WILLIAM BERGER Soloist South African baritone William Berger was a member of the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir and the inaugural recipient of the Deon van der Walt UNISA/SAMRO bursary at age 17, before commencing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Award. Winner of the Lucerne Festival Prize at the Ernst Haefliger Competition in Switzerland, William has distinguished himself as an artist on the international stage, having made both his Royal Opera House London and Kennedy Center Washington D.C. debuts in 2019. Opera appearances include Marcello (La bohème) for Opera Vlaanderen, Opéra Rouen Normandie and Cape Town Opera, Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) for the Liceu Barcelona, Oreste (Iphigénie en Tauride) for the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos Lisbon, Escamillo (Carmen) for Cape Town Opera and Luzerner Theater, Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) for Opéra de Toulon and the title role of Imeneo for the Göttingen International Handel Festival, for which he was nominated Opernwelt Opera Singer of the Year in 2017. Concert appearances include Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Royal Albert Hall, Mozart's Requiem with the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem at deSingel Antwerp, Handel's Joshua with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra San Francisco, Mendelssohns' Die Erste Walpurgisnacht with the Orchestre de Chambre Fribourgeois in Switzerland, Durufle's Requiem with the Pacific Symphony California, Faure’s Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Handel’s Messiah with the Bournemouth, Seattle, St. Louis, Phoenix and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. His discography includes two solo albums “Insomnia: A Nocturnal Voyage in Song” and “Hommage à Trois” (Linn) with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Other selected recordings include Handel's Samson (Carus), Alexander's Feast and The Triumph of Time and Truth with Ludus Baroque (Delphian), and Admeto (Unitel Classics DVD). A former Principal Artist at English National Opera, William Berger was awarded the honour "Associate of the Royal Academy of Music" in 2009. 4 Gustav Mahler (1869-1911) Rückert-Lieder 1. Ich atmet' einen linden Duft 2. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder 3. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen 4. Liebst du um Schönheit 5. Um Mitternacht Gustav Mahler set a total of 10 poems by the German Romantic poet, Friedrich Rückert, to music as orchestral Lieder. A cycle of five of these poems is known as the Kindertotenlieder and the remaining five, known as the Rückert-Lieder, form part of the Sieben Lieder aus letzte Zeit. (The remaining two of the seven lieder are based on texts from a volume entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn.) Both cycles were composed from 1901-1904 in Vienna and published in 1905. The first performance of these orchestral Lieder, with Mahler conducting, took place at a concert of the Verein schaffender Tonkünstler in Vienna on January 29, 1905. Bruno Walter, who later came to own the Kindertotenlieder manuscript, was also a member of this association. In his review of the concert, Walter mentioned the high regard in which young composers such as Schoenberg and Zimlinsky held Mahler. Anton von Webern, who had been introduced to Mahler that evening, wrote with admiration in his diary of his conversation with Mahler. These two ethereal Lieder cycles, with their soulful Rückert texts, stand in stark contrast to the grandly orchestrated and expansive symphonies of the “realistic opera director and commander of mighty orchestral troops”, in the words of Kurt Blaukopf. They document the yearning to withdraw from the clamorous world. Escape from this world of love and grief is the underlying motif, as expressed in the song Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I became lost to the world), a motif that played an important role in Mahler’s earlier works. There is a melodic relationship between this song and the Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Indeed, as Constantin Floros points out, apart from the Adagietto, the Andante moderato of the Sixth Symphony and the Andante amoroso of the Seventh Symphony can in a sense be regarded as the symphonic equivalents of Mahler’s Rückert compositions. These orchestral Lieder freed themselves from the piano. Every nuance of the text is expressed through sensitive and individualized instrumental parts, and the voice at times is involved in remarkably fine contrapuntal textures. 5 1. Ich atmet' einen linden Duft Ich atmet' einen linden Duft Im Zimmer stand Ein Zweig der Linde, Ein Angebinde Von lieber Hand Wie lieblich war der Lindenduft! Wie lieblich ist der Lindenduft! Das Lindenreis Brachst du gelinde; Ich atme leis Im Duft der Linde Der Liebe linden Duft 1. I breathed a gentle fragrance I breathed a gentle fragrance in the room there was a branch of the lime tree, a gift of a dear hand How lovely was the lime fragrance! How lovely was the lime fragrance, the sprig of the lime tree you plucked gently; softly I breathed in the fragrance of the lime tree the gentle fragrance of love. 2. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder Meine Augen schlag’ ich nieder, Wie ertappt auf bõser Tat. Selber darf ich nicht getrauen, Ihrem Wachsen zuzuschauen: Deine Neugier ist Verrat! Bienen, wenn sie Zellen bauen, Lassen auch nicht zu sich schauen, Schauen selbst auch nicht zu. Wenn die reichen Honigwaben Sie zu Tag gefõrdert haben, Dann vor allen nasche du! 6 2. Do not look at my songs! Do not look at my songs! I lower my eyes as if I were caught in a crime. Even I do not dare to watch them as they grow – your curiosity is a betrayal. Bees, too, when they build their cells, let no-one watch, nor do they watch themselves. When they have carried the rich honeycombs to the light of day, then you shall taste them first! 3.