2019 SEPT CARMINA BURANA 2019-20 HAL & JEANETTE SEGERSTROM FAMILY FOUNDATION CLASSICAL SERIES Carl St.Clair, conductor Beethoven “EGMONT” OVERTURE Benjamin Pasternack, piano Celena Shafer, soprano Beethoven “CHORAL” FANTASY Christopher Pfund, tenor Benjamin Pasternack Hugh Russell, baritone Chelsea Chaves Chelsea Chaves, soprano I-Chin “Betty” Lee I-Chin “Betty” Lee, soprano Jane Hyun-Jung Shim Jane Hyun-Jung Shim, mezzo soprano Nicholas Preston Nicholas Preston, tenor Matthew Kellaway Ryan Thomas Antal Matthew Kellaway, baritone Pacific Chorale Ryan Thomas Antal, bass Pacific Chorale—Robert Istad, artistic director Southern California Children’s Chorus— Orff “CARMINA BURANA” Lori Loftus, founding director Celena Shafer Pacific Symphony Christopher Pfund Hugh Russell Pacific Chorale Southern California Children’s Chorus Thursday, Sept. 26 2019 @ 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, 2019 @ 8 p.m. OFFICIAL Hotel OFFICIAL TV Station OFFICIAL MUSIC Station Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019 @ 8 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall 4 SEPT 2019 PacificSymphony.org 2019 SEPT O FORTUNA! 2019-20 SUNDAY MATINÉES SERIES “EGMONT” OVERTURE Carl St.Clair, conductor Orff “CARMINA BURANA” Benjamin Pasternack, piano Celena Shafer Celena Shafer, soprano Christopher Pfund Hugh Russell “CHORAL” FANTASY Christopher Pfund, tenor Benjamin Pasternack Pacific Chorale Chelsea Chaves Hugh Russell, baritone Southern California Children’s Chorus I-Chin “Betty” Lee Pacific Chorale—Robert Istad, artistic director Jane Hyun-Jung Shim Southern California Children’s Chorus— Nicholas Preston Lori Loftus, founding director Matthew Kellaway Pacific Symphony Ryan Thomas Antal Pacific Chorale “CARMINA BURANA” Celena Shafer Christopher Pfund Hugh Russell Pacific Chorale Southern California Children’s Chorus OFFICIAL Hotel OFFICIAL TV Station OFFICIAL MUSIC Station Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019 @ 3 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall PacificSymphony.org SEPT 2019 5 far too much in the court atmosphere,” PROGRAM NOTES he wrote—“far more than is becoming in a Ludwig van Beethoven: poet.” It should be noted that Beethoven himself was not above the occasional Fantasia in C Minor Ludwig van Beethoven: attempt to ingratiate himself in the for Piano, Chorus and “court atmosphere,” and even considered Orchestra, Op. 80 Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 rededicating the Eroica to Napoleon when In 1809, when he received inquiries regarding its possible (“Choral Fantasy”) Beethoven performance in Paris. Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy” sounded received the Composed for a style of dramatic new and strange to the first listeners commission to presentation that is no longer familiar to who heard it. That conclusion is based compose a us, the original Egmont suite is comprised on more than just its novel form and complete suite of of nine dramatic soprano arias, spoken unconventional scoring; we know it from incidental music verses for male narrator, and the orchestral the documented reactions of critics and for historical overture that has remained popular, known others at the premiere concert, which also play Egmont, he as the Egmont Overture—the most admired introduced his fifth and sixth symphonies. was drawn into a movement of the full suite, on a par with the The symphonies were enthusiastically correspondence Coriolan Overture. The full suite is suited to received. Listeners’ reaction to the with the play’s author, Johann Wolfgang performance alongside the original play or Fantasy is typically described as von Goethe, who had written it in 1787. The alone, with or without the male narrator. But “lukewarm.” subject was a natural for Beethoven: set in the modern repertory, we usually hear the Even those of us who have never in 16th-century Brussels, it depicts the overture performed on its own. heard the “Choral Fantasy” before cannot heroic deaths of the Dutch Count Egmont The Egmont Overture is often cited experience how bizarre it must have and his wife while the Netherlands lay as the final work of Beethoven’s “middle” seemed to those early listeners. That’s under repressive Belgian rule. Egmont’s period, and it has much in common with the because the melodic ideas and the textual wife’s death, a suicide, inspired him to Coriolan Overture: the heroic themes, the subjects are so closely related to those in die as a symbol in the Dutch struggle for dramatic contrasts, the ratcheting tension. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the “Choral,” freedom. But in contrast with Coriolan, it opens with which has become a touchstone of world The correspondence went well: Goethe a slow, dark sound, funereal rather than culture. To us, everything about the Choral was by far the dominant German-language martial. This overture is to some degree a Fantasy sounds familiar yet fascinatingly literary figure of his day, and the mutual compressed version of the entire drama, different from music that is second nature admiration he shared with Beethoven was and in it, Beethoven faced the challenge of to us. Yet the Ninth we all know came 16 congenial from afar. But what happens conflating the sadness of Count Egmont’s years later than the “Choral Fantasy.” when towering geniuses actually meet? It’s death with its glory as an inspiration to his By 1808, Beethoven had already been not always pretty. Goethe’s descriptions of people. Opening in F Minor, the overture incubating these ideas for years. In the his encounters with Beethoven describe moves to F Major as it closes, introducing a Fantasy we hear abundant, spontaneous an artist resembling a cross between two dramatic new theme to convey the victory and highly emotional outpouring of Charles Schulz characters, Schroeder and embodied in Egmont’s defiant march to musical inspiration that he would continue Pig Pen, and the humor is mixed with real the scaffold. Rather than death, we hear to develop as he pondered the ideas of annoyance. “Beethoven’s talent amazed the promise of renewal and of the people freedom, brotherhood and peace that me,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, he is an prevailing over tyranny, in accordance with preoccupied him for his entire adult life. utterly untamed personality; he is not Goethe’s express wishes that Egmont’s final The text, probably by the poet Christopher altogether wrong in holding the world moments be heard as triumphant rather Kuffner, is strikingly similar to the verses detestable, but surely does not make it than elegiac. that Beethoven would later adapt from more enjoyable for himself or others by his Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” attitude.” Beethoven, for his part, seemed The Fantasy is loosely structured, to hold Goethe’s very worldliness and beginning with a showy piano solo social skills against him: “Goethe delights that serves to introduce and to exalt Ludwig van Beethoven Fantasia in C Minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80 Born: 1770. Bonn, Germany (“Choral Fantasy”) Died: 1827. Vienna, Austria Composed: 1808 Overture to Egmont, Op. 84 World premiere: Dec. 22, 1808 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Composed: 1809-10 with Beethoven conducting World premiere: June 15, 1810 Most recent Pacific Symphony performance: Feb. 9, 2014, with Most recent Pacific Symphony performance: Oct. 21, 2017, with Carl St.Clair conducting Roger Kalia conducting Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 2 horns, Instrumentation: 2 flutes including piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings; 2 solo sopranos, solo alto, 2 solo tenors, 4 horns, 2 trumpets; timpani; strings solo bass; solo piano; chorus Estimated duration: 9 minutes Estimated duration: 19 minutes 6 SEPT 2019 PacificSymphony.org the themes to come. (The published later achieve popularity throughout the was about as far from academic dryness performing edition probably embodies world—he suffered the misfortune of being as you can get: these were lusty verses Beethoven’s after-the-fact version of his popular with Nazi bureaucrats, a fact that that celebrate the pleasures of loving and improvised performance.) What follows— cast a shadow over his reputation here drinking, and that comment with ribald the choral-and-instrumental part of the until American investigators found no frankness on the vicissitudes of everyday Fantasy—is structured as a grand theme reason to believe he held Nazi sympathies. life. Orff selected 24 of them for Carmina with 16-bar variations. There is a sense of Born in Munich to a distinguished Burana. Their humor can seem startlingly grandeur here, yet also a feeling of wonder, Bavarian military family in 1895, Orff modern today. discovery and sheer delight. The effect has grew up steeped in German cultural Often startlingly explicit, the lyrics of been described as a resembling a series of traditions and demonstrated his musical Carmina Burana have at various times been encores. talent early; at a young age he learned strategically condensed and expurgated. After its formidable piano introduction, to play the piano, organ and cello and Sexy descriptions, such as one lover’s the Fantasy cycles through variations composed songs. He graduated from the removal of another’s underwear, share time for solo flute; oboes in two parts; and Munich Academy of Music when he was with raunchy double entendres, such as clarinets and bassoon in three parts. 18 with a portfolio of early compositions the description of a knight’s lance rising at Finally, a string quartet variation gives that showed the influence of Debussy’s the sight of his lady. As is so often the case, rise to a full orchestral variation. As in the innovations. He then turned to the more censorship has accomplished less than Ninth Symphony, the entry of vocal forces Viennese experiments of Schoenberg, nothing to desensitize these passages, only marks the consummation of the Fantasy, Strauss and Pfitzner. But the year of adding to their fascination. The music, for summarizing everything we have heard his graduation was 1914, and Orff was its part, is not just brazen in shoving the before: a hymn in praise of piece, love and coming of age in the shadow of World poetry’s sensuality in our faces; it does so the joy of music.