Program Notes

VICTORIA BORISOVA-OLLAS

born: December 21, 1969 in Vladivostok, Russia

Angelus (2008)

premiere: June 8, 2008 in Munich

The Charlotte Symphony is honored to present the US premiere of Angelus with these performances.

The city where no birds are singing and no bells are ringing is a dead city. If measured by the intensity of its daily bell-ringing Munich would undoubtedly prove to be the most vivid city in modern Europe.

Upon receiving a request from Munich Philharmonic Orchestra to write a composition dedicated to the 850th anniversary of their home town, I decided to visit Munich for the first time in my life. It was a weekend at the end of September 2006. On Sunday morning, at the first tolling of the bells of the Peterskirche, I started a long walk around the city, armed with a thick guide book and a MiniDisc recorder. The first bell ringing on my disc was of course the one from Peterskirche. At noon the sounds of the wonderful Rathaus glockenspiel were also recorded. At 5.45 p.m. I was standing in front of the Frauenkirche waiting with a great impatience for the ringing of the bells announcing the Angelus service. Afterwards I joined the crowd attending the “Gottesdienst der Nationen,” quite a remarkable evening service held in 5 different languages. By the end of that memorable day the title and the structure of the future composition was clear to me.

Angelus starts with a hint of a Celtic chant, as a very vague greeting from ancient times. Out of the mists of the very remote past the first tolls of the church bell emerge. It is an imitation of the early morning bell of the Peterskirche. Bells of the nearby churches join in. They are accompanied by the sounds of singing birds (woodwinds). The persistent energy of time rapidly and vigorously passing by is reflected in the next episode followed by the one minute short stop at Marienplatz. The Glockenspiel of the Rathaus is playing the 3 Höfelein melody by Friedrich Silcher. Afterwards we gradually slide into the Angelus tolling of the Frauenkirche and into the evening church service itself. At the end of the piece there is the last bell-ringing of the day to be heard from Peterskirche again. As I was walking to my hotel along the streets of Munich on that Sunday evening the following words were echoing in my mind: “However often we lose faith in Our Lord, He never loses His faith in us”.

For 850 years ago the church bell sounded in the very heart of the future city of Munich for the first time, struck by the hand of a lonely monk. It has never since stopped ringing. —Victoria Borisova-Ollas

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

born: September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg, Russia

died: August 9, 1975 in Moscow, Russia

Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor

Opus 99 (1948, rev. 1955)

premiere: October 29, 1955 in St. Petersburg

In January of 1948, Communist leader Andrei Zhdanov summoned members of the Union of Soviet Composers for a conference. There, Zhdanov censured such prominent Russian composers as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Khachaturian for writing music that displayed “formalist deviations, subjectivism, and the rejection of Socialist Realism.” At the conference, Shostakovich’s compositions were characterized as favored listening “of nobody except foreign bandits and imperialists.” A month later, Zhdanov issued an official decree that included a condemnation of Shostakovich’s music.

Shostakovich completed his First Violin Concerto on March 24, 1948, the month after the Zhdanov decree. He dedicated the work to his dear friend, the brilliant Russian violinist David Oistrakh. Shostakovich well understood, given the existing political climate, that a performance of this complex, enigmatic score was out of the question. In fact, it was not until after Stalin’s death in 1953 that even a modicum of artistic freedom became possible in Soviet Russia. The premiere of the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto took place seven years after its original composition, with Oistrakh, the work’s dedicatee, as the soloist. Oistrakh, an immensely popular Soviet artist, championed the work in an article that appeared at the time of the premiere. His defense of the Concerto was not only eloquent but courageous, given the fact that his assessment came in advance of any “official” verdict by the Soviet Composers’ Union:

We have prepared this premiere with the very greatest care—we have insisted on about ten rehearsals in the presence of the composer...The Concerto poses exceedingly interesting problems for the performer, who plays, as it were, a pithy “Shakespearean” role, which demands from him complete emotional and intellectual involvement, and gives him ample opportunities not only to demonstrate his virtuosity but above all to reveal his deepest feelings, thoughts and moods.

The premiere was a great success, and Oistrakh’s continued advocacy of the work helped to assure its status as one of the premier 20th-century Violin Concertos.

The First Violin Concerto is in four movements. The first is an extended, mysterious Nocturne. The second movement Scherzo is a danse macabre. The slow-tempo third movement is a Passacaglia, a series of variations over a repeated figure introduced by the cellos, bass, and timpani. A lengthy solo Cadenza leads without pause to the closing movement (Burlesque) in the spirit of a trepak, a vigorous Russian dance.

JEAN SIBELIUS

born: December 8, 1865 in Tavastehus, Finland

died: September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland

Symphony No. 2 in D Major

Opus 43 (1902)

premiere: March 8, 1902 in Helsinki, Finland

In the fall of 1900, Jean Sibelius and his family departed their native Finland for Italy, stopping first in Berlin. In February 1901, they finally reached their destination— Rapallo. In that Northern Italian town, Sibelius began his Symphony No. 2.

In May, Sibelius and his family returned to Finland. There, Sibelius continued to work on the Symphony No. 2. In November of 1901, Sibelius informed his friend Alex Carpelan that he had almost completed the Symphony. However, Sibelius continued to revise it, necessitating the postponement until March of the planned January 1902 premiere.

Sibelius conducted the premiere of his Second Symphony in Helsinki on March 8, 1902. It was a rousing success, and Sibelius repeated the program on March 10, 14, and 16, each time to a capacity audience.

At the time, Finland was suffering under the yoke of Russian oppression. It’s not surprising that Finnish patriotic emotions were at a fever pitch. In an article that appeared the day after the premiere of the Symphony No. 2, Finnish conductor Robert Kajanus ascribed the following program to the last three movements of the Second Symphony:

The Andante strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent...The scherzo gives a picture of frenetic preparation. Everyone piles his straw on the haystack, all fibres are strained and every second seems to last an hour. One senses in the contrasting trio section with its oboe motive in G flat major what is at stake. The finale develops toward a triumphant conclusion intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future.

Years later, conductor Georg Schnéevoigt, a close friend of Sibelius, wrote that the opening movement depicts the untroubled pastoral life of the Finnish people before the onslaught of foreign oppression.

Throughout his life, Sibelius emphatically denied that the Second Symphony was based upon any such programs. Still, it is not at all surprising that the Finnish people continued to find a personal message of hope in a fiercely dramatic (and in the end, triumphant) work by their greatest composer. The Sibelius Symphony No. 2 remains a source of inspiration and pride for the Finnish people, as well as a mainstay of the international symphonic repertoire.

Symposium, an 1894 group portrait by the great Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865 – 1931). From left: the artist, composer OskarMerikanto, conductor Robert Kajanus, and composer Jean Sibelius.

The Second Symphony is in four movements. The first (Allegretto) opens with a repeated ascending figure in the strings, based upon a three-pitch motif that will form the nucleus for several themes throughout the Symphony. The slow-tempo second movement (Tempo, Andante, ma rubato) incorporates music Sibelius first associated with an encounter between Don Juan and Death.

The third movement is a quicksilver scherzo (Vivacissimo) and pastoral trio. The concluding movement (Finale. Allegro moderato) follows without pause. The Symphony’s opening three-note motif is now presented in an heroic transformation. In the stunning climax the motif achieves an eloquent and radiant apotheosis.