Diana Cohen in Concert

Friday 31 March / 7:30PM

Saturday 1 April / 7:30PM

Jack Singer Concert Hall

Curated Series 1

Supported by Guest Artist Supporter: Naomi + John Lacey Virtuoso Program Program

Yue Bao, conductor Diana Cohen, violin

Felix Mendelssohn The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), 10' Op. 26

Mieczysław Weinberg Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 67 26'

I. Allegro molto

II. Allegretto

III. Adagio

IV. Allegro risoluto

Intermission 20'

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 26'

I. Allegro vivace e con brio

II. Allegretto scherzando

III. Tempo di menuetto

IV. Allegro vivace

The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), Op. 26 Felix Mendelssohn (1809 to 1847)

In 1829, Felix Mendelssohn and a friend visited Scotland. They journeyed to the Hebrides, the widely scattered group of islands off the northwest coast. On 7 August, they travelled by steamboat to the fishing port of Tobermory.

According to Mendelssohn scholar R Larry Todd, “That evening, Felix wrote to his sister, Fanny, ‘In order to make you understand how extraordinarily the Hebrides affected me, the following came to my mind there.’ ‘The following’ was a draft opening of the Hebrides Overture, complete with orchestral cues and dynamics and in nearly final form.” Reaching the island of Staffa the following day, the travellers paid a visit by rowboat to its most famous attraction: the flooded grotto known as Fingal’s Cave, named after a hero of Gaelic mythology. Mendelssohn turned his impressions of the Hebrides into this concert overture. It is one of his most Romantic and atmospheric works, one that draws close to the colourful fantasy world of such contemporaries of his as Berlioz and Liszt.

Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 67

Mieczysław Weinberg

(1919 to 1996)

Like his close friend, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mieczysław Weinberg suffered greatly under the repressive regime of dictator Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union for what the authorities labelled 'progressive' tendencies. Previously, when he was living in Poland, his Jewish faith earned him and his relatives further repression. His parents and his sister died in a Nazi concentration camp. He composed a large amount of music, including 26 symphonies, 17 string quartets and seven operas. In 1948, several of his compositions were banned during the same Soviet government purge that brought Shostakovich into potentially lethal disrepute. Weinberg was saved from what might have been a dire end by Stalin’s death in 1953. Within a few years, his music began to be 'rehabilitated.' It was taken up first by prominent Soviet musicians and later by international ones as well. Recordings and live performances solidified his reputation. Musicologist Lyudmila Nikitina wrote, “Weinberg’s works sometimes have a strong element of commemoration, with reference to his formative years in Warsaw and to the war that ended that earlier life. His style can be described as modern yet accessible. His earlier works exhibit Neo-romantic tendencies and draw significantly on folk music, while his later works are more complex and austere. However, even in those later, more experimental works, he retains a keen sense of tradition that variously maintains itself in using classical forms or lyrical melodic lines. Always masterfully crafted, many of his instrumental works contain highly virtuosic writing and make significant technical demands on performers.” He composed the propulsive and deeply expressive Violin Concerto in 1959.

Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 to 1827)

Like Ludwig van Beethoven’s other even-numbered symphonies (except for No. 6, the ever-popular ‘Pastoral’), Symphony No. 8 has suffered relative neglect. Its subtlety and lack of spectacular elements appearing throughout the odd-numbered symphonies make it unlikely to deliver the same impact. Nevertheless, a close listen, hand-in-hand with a readjustment of expectations, reveals much worth celebrating. He composed the fifth and sixth symphonies in close succession, premiering at the same concert in 1808, and he later repeated this pattern, completing symphonies No. 7 and No. 8 in 1812. His eighth symphony is a light-hearted work but far from a light-headed one. It glances backward toward the Classical style of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Joseph Haydn, with touches of Beethoven’s characteristically brusque sense of humour added in. It premiered in February 1814, during one of the outrageously long concerts Beethoven regularly staged to introduce new works. This program included two other compositions that had already earned great favour: the gloriously invigorating Symphony No. 7 and the ludicrous ‘battle symphony,’ Wellington’s Victory. The eighth symphony’s positioning at that event, and the comparisons it invited, worked against its success, resulting in a lukewarm reaction.

Program notes by Don Anderson © 2023

Yue Bao Conductor

Conductor Yue Bao serves as the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony. Bao made her subscription debut with the Houston Symphony on their opening night concert of the 2020/2021 Season and led the orchestra at their Summer concert series at the Miller Theater in 2021 and 2022. She made her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut at the 2021 Ravinia Festival and has since debuted with the San Francisco Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra. This season, Bao debuts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, and the Calgary Philharmonic. Bao was the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Conducting Fellow at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. In 2018, she served as the David Effron Conducting Fellow at the Chautauqua Music Festival, where she returned as a guest conductor in the 2022 Season. She has worked extensively in the United States and abroad. Equally at home with both symphonic and operatic repertoire, she has conducted Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny: Ein Songspiel, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium Along with her Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, where she was the Rita E Hauser Conducting Fellow and studied with Yannick Nezet-Sèguin, Bao holds Bachelor of Music degrees in orchestral conducting and opera accompanying from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from the Mannes School of Music.

Violin

Diana Cohen has a multifaceted career as a concertmaster, chamber musician, and soloist. She is the Concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic and Founder and Artistic Director of the acclaimed music festival ChamberFest Cleveland. Last July, Diana and her husband, pianist Roman Rabinovich launched ChamberFest West (chamberfestwest. com), an annual international summer chamber music festival bringing the most exciting musicians from around the globe to Calgary. Cohen has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras, has performed at some of the most prestigious festivals, and collaborated with renowned artists, including Garrick Ohlsson, Mitsuko Uchida, Jonathan Biss, and members of the Juilliard, Dover, Miro, and Parker string quartets. Cohen has toured and recorded with the Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and performed with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. A Cleveland Institute of Music graduate, she studied with Donald Weilerstein and received the Jerome Gross Prize. In 2022, Diana received the prestigious Alumni Achievement Award from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Cohen’s father, Franklin, was longtime Principal Clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra, and her brother Alexander is Principal Timpani for the Calgary Phil. Her late mother, Lynette Diers Cohen, was an esteemed bassoonist. Cohen lives in Calgary with her husband and her three-year-old, Noa Lynette, who sings and dances all day long.