PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, May 7, 2015, at 8:00 French Friday, May 8, 2015, at 8:00 Saturday, May 9, 2015, at 8:00 & Friday, May 15, 2015, at 1:30 Festival Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Chloé Briot Soprano Marie-Eve Munger Soprano Kate Royal Soprano Marianne Crebassa Mezzo-soprano Elodie Méchain Contralto Manuel Nuñez Camelino Tenor Stéphane Degout Baritone Eric Owens Bass-baritone Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe Director Anima—Young Singers of Greater Chicago Emily Ellsworth Artistic Director Ravel Mother Goose Suite Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty Tom Thumb Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodas Conversations of Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Garden Debussy La damoiselle élue KATE ROYAL ELODIE MÉCHAIN WOMEN OF THE CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS INTERMISSION Ravel L’enfant et les sortilèges Music by Maurice Ravel Poem by Colette Chloé Briot soprano ..........................................................................................................................................The Child Marie-Eve Munger soprano ................................................................ The Fire, The Princess, The Nightingale Kate Royal soprano..............................................................................................A Shepherdess, The Bat, The Owl Marianne Crebassa mezzo-soprano ....The Louis XV Chair, A Shepherd, The Squirrel, The Female Cat Elodie Méchain contralto .................................................................. Mother, The Chinese Cup, The Dragonfly Manuel Nuñez Camelino tenor ..................The Black Wedgwood Teapot, The Little Old Man, The Frog Stéphane Degout baritone .........................................................................The Grandfather Clock, The Tomcat Eric Owens bass-baritone ..........................................................................................................The Armchair, A Tree Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe director Shepherds, shepherdesses, frogs, animals, trees Animal soloists: Sarah van der Ploeg, soprano; Sarah Ponder, contralto; Thomas E. Dymit, tenor; Mathew Lake, bass-baritone Anima—Young Singers of Greater Chicago Emily Ellsworth artistic director Bench, sofa, ottoman, wicker chair, numerical figures Mike Tutaj Projection design English surtitles by Kenneth Chalmers The setting is an old-fashioned country house and its garden First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances The CSO thanks Julie and Roger Baskes, lead sponsors of the Reveries & Passions Festival concert programming. The appearance of the Chicago Symphony Chorus is made possible by a generous gift from Jim and Kay Mabie. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional sponsorship support for the Reveries & Passions Festival has been provided by: The Jacob and Rosaline Cohn Foundation, Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Franke, The Gilchrist Foundation, and Burton X. and Sheli Rosenberg. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBEZ 91.5FM for its generous support as a media sponsor of the French Reveries & Passions Festival. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. 2 COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher Maurice Ravel Born March 7, 1875, Ciboure, France. Died December 28, 1937, Paris, France. Mother Goose Suite Although he had none of dedicated the score to Mimie and Jean in the his own, Ravel loved hope that they would give the first performance, children. Throughout his but, although they were unusually accomplished life, he kept his ability to pianists for children, they happily accepted the see the world through a gift but declined the premiere. “To us,” Jean later child’s eyes, and he never recalled, “it mainly meant a lot of work.” outgrew his passion for Two more precocious children, Geneviève creating elaborate toys Durony and Jeanne Leleu, then only six and reading fairy tales and seven years old, premiered the suite in aloud. The adult com- April 1910. Ravel was so enchanted by Jeanne’s poser, little taller himself than most children, performance in particular that he wrote to her: particularly enjoyed the company of Mimie and Jean Godebski, the daughter and son of his When you are a great virtuosa and I either friends Cipa and Ida Godebski, a young Polish an old fogey, covered with honors, or else couple whose Paris apartment was a gathering completely forgotten, you will perhaps have place for some of the greatest artists of the day, pleasant memories of having given an artist including André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, the very rare joy of hearing a work of his, one and, from time to time, Igor Stravinsky. Ravel of a rather special nature, interpreted exactly was a regular visitor to the Godebskis’ salon, and as it should be. it’s possible that he was drawn as much by the enchanting games and conversation he shared other Goose is one of Ravel’s most with Mimie and Jean as he was by the more exquisite creations. “The idea of rarefied discussion among the grown-ups. evoking the poetry of childhood Ravel often made up stories to tell the Min these pieces,” Ravel later explained, “nat- Godebski children, and, when they were apart, urally led me to simplify my style and to he sent them funny postcards. But the greatest refine my means of expression.” Even when treasure among his many gifts to Mimie and he orchestrated and enlarged the suite into a Jean is a suite of pieces inspired by the Mother ballet score in 1911, he managed to heighten Goose tales, originally written for piano duet the music’s sense of fantasy and adventure and intended to be played by children. Ravel without taking away its grace and innocence. COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1908–1910, as piano duet; orches- CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME trated as ballet score in 1911 August 6, 1981, Ravinia Festival. Edo 16 minutes de Waart conducting FIRST PERFORMANCE CSO RECORDINGS May 23, 2012, Orchestra Hall. David January 28, 1912; Paris, France 1961. André Kostelanetz. Video Images Robertson conducting (video) FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES INSTRUMENTATION 1968. Jean Martinon. RCA December 27 & 28, 1912, Orchestra two flutes and piccolo, two oboes Hall. Frederick Stock conducting and english horn, two clarinets, two July 8, 1937, Ravinia Festival. Ernest bassoons and contrabassoon, two Ansermet conducting horns, timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, xylophone, glockenspiel, celesta, harp, strings 3 Ravel borrowed his title and two tales xylophone, glockenspiel, celesta, harp, and (Sleeping Beauty and Tom Thumb) from the ceremonial striking of the tam-tam— Charles Perrault, the recalling the Javanese gamelan ensemble the seventeenth-century fourteen-year-old composer had watched in French writer who wonder at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. is responsible for Ravel took the Conversations of Beauty and preserving a number the Beast from the Moral Tales of Marie Leprince of well-known de Beaumont: stories, including those of Little Red “When I think of your good heart you no Riding Hood and longer seem so ugly to me.” “Oh yes, good Bluebeard. (It’s lady! I have a good heart, but I am a mon- Perrault’s 1607 ster.” “Many a man is more a monster than volume, Histoires ou you.” “If I had the wit, I should pay you a contes du temps passé great compliment, but I am only a beast.” French author avec des moralitez— Charles Perrault Stories or tales of “Beauty, will you be my wife?” “No, Beast.” olden times, with morals—that became “I die happy, for I have the joy of seeing known in France as “Mother Goose.”) you once more.” “No, my dear Beast, you The Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty is as simple will not die: You will live to become my as the briefest of fairy tales—just twenty mea- husband!” . The Beast had disappeared, sures of limpid melody over plain, magically and she saw at her feet only a prince more colored harmonies. beautiful than the god of love, who thanked Ravel prefaces Tom Thumb with a quote from her for having put an end to his spell. Perrault: “He thought he would easily find his way, thanks to the bread he had scattered wherever Ravel gives the dialogue to the clarinet, he had passed, but he was quite surprised when he playing Beauty, and the contrabassoon as Beast. couldn’t see even a single crumb of it. Birds had She dances to a gentle waltz, and they talk. come along and eaten every bit.” Ravel shows us Finally, with a sweeping harp glissando, he is Tom Thumb’s meanderings—the meter changes transformed into a princely violin. often and unpredictably—and also, unforgettably, The Enchanted Garden is Ravel’s own private the birds making off with the crumbs. place—the world of his own childhood memories Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas is an viewed with the wisdom and affection of a grown oriental tale by the countess d’Aulnoy, a Perrault man who has learned that only in fairy tales does contemporary and imitator. The empress is one live happily ever after. serenaded at her bath by her subjects: “At once Without children of his own, or even any mandarins and mandarinettes set to singing and important students or disciples, Ravel grew, in to the playing of instruments: some had lutes his final years, to lament that no one would carry made of nutshells, some had viols made from the on his name or continue his work. “I have left shells of almonds, for their instruments had to be