Colorado Symphony 2016/17 Season Presenting Sponsor:
MASTERWORKS • 2016/2017 SYMPHONIC FIRSTS CONDUCTED BY MARK WIGGLESWORTH COLORADO SYMPHONY MARK WIGGLESWORTH, conductor
Friday’s Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Mr. Paul E. Goodspeed and Ms. Mary Poole Saturday's Concert is Gratefully Dedicated to Drs. Sarah and Harold Nelson / Craig N. Johnson and Alicia J. McCommons
Friday, January 20, 2017, at 7:30pm Saturday, January 21, 2017, at 7:30pm Boettcher Concert Hall
MOZART Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 Molto allegro Andante Presto SCHUBERT Symphony No. 1 in D major, D. 82 Adagio – Allegro vivace Andante Allegro Allegro vivace — INTERMISSION — BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 Un poco sostenuto – Allegro Andante sostenuto Un poco allegretto e grazioso Adagio – Piú andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 1
MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHY
BEN EALOVEGA
MARK WIGGLESWORTH, CONDUCTOR Recognized internationally as a masterly interpreter, Mark Wigglesworth creates performances of great sophistication and rare beauty. His highly detailed readings always possess a controlled pacing and a finely considered architectural structure. He has forged enduring relationships with many top-level orchestras and opera houses across the world in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Tippett. Born in Sussex, England, Mark Wigglesworth studied music at Manchester University and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London. While still a student, he formed the Premiere Ensemble, an orchestra committed to performing a new piece in every programme. A few weeks after leaving the Academy, he won the Kondrashin International Conducting Competition in the Netherlands, and since then has worked with many of the leading orchestras and opera companies of the world. In 1992, he became Associate Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and further appointments included Principal Guest Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Highlights of his time with BBC NOW included several visits to the BBC Proms, a performance of Mahler's tenth symphony at the prestigious Amsterdam Mahler Festival in 1995, and a six-part television series for the BBC entitled Everything To Play For. In addition to working with most of the UK's orchestras, Mark Wigglesworth has guest conducted many of Europe's finest ensembles, including the Berliner Philharmoniker; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam; La Scala Filarmonica, Milan; Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Rome; Stockholm Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Salzburg Camerata, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. He has been just as busy in North America, having been invited to the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, the Toronto Symphony, and the Boston Symphony. He regularly visits the Minnesota Orchestra and has an on-going relationship with the New World Symphony. In Australia, he has worked regularly with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and enjoys a special relationship with the Adelaide Symphony. Equally at home in the opera house, Mark Wigglesworth started his operatic career with a period as Music Director of Opera Factory, London. Since then he has worked regularly at Glyndebourne (Peter Grimes, La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro); Welsh National Opera (Elektra, The Rake's Progress, Tristan und Isolde, Così fan tutte); and English National Opera (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Così fan tutte, Falstaff, Katya Kabanova, Parsifal). He has conducted at the Netherlands Opera (Peter Grimes); La Monnaie in Brussels (Mitridate, Wozzeck, Pelléas et Mélisande); the Sydney Opera House (Peter Grimes); the Metropolitan Opera, New York (Le nozze di Figaro); and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg). In the studio, Wigglesworth's recordings have centred around a project with BIS Records to record all the symphonies of Shostakovich. This cycle has received critical acclaim throughout the world. Other recordings include live performances of Mahler's sixth and tenth symphonies issued by the Melbourne Symphony on the MSO Live label, Peter Grimes from the Glyndebourne Festival, Don Giovanni from the Sydney Opera House, a disc of English music with the Sydney Symphony, and most recently the two Brahms Piano Concertos, played by Stephen Hough and the Mozarteum Orchestra, Salzburg.
PROGRAM 2 SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG
MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791): Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 (1764) Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg and died on December 5, 1791, in Vienna. He composed the Symphony No. 1 in 1764; it was first heard on February 21, 1765, in London. The score calls for two oboes, bassoon, two horns and strings. Duration is about 12 minutes. This weekend's performances are the first by the Colorado Symphony. On April 23, 1764, Leopold Mozart of Salzburg descended upon London for the purpose of displaying the astounding musical gifts of his precocious daughter, Maria Anna (“Nannerl,” age twelve), and son, “the miracle that God permitted to be born in Salzburg,” Wolfgang Amadeus (eight, though Leopold claimed him to be a year younger for publicity purposes). Just four days later, the Mozarts appeared before the German-speaking King George III and Queen Charlotte at court, where they won the enthusiastic advocacy of Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian, one of London’s most successful composers and impresarios, and Master of the Queen’s Music. On August 5th, Leopold got sick. London was too promising for them to abandon just then, however, so, Nannerl explained, “we rented a country house in Chelsea, outside the city of London, so that father could recover from his dangerous throat ailment, which brought him almost to death’s door.... Since our father lay dangerously ill, we were forbidden to touch the keyboard, and therefore, in order to occupy himself, Wolfgang composed his first symphony.... At last, after two months, when father had completely recovered, we returned to London.” On February 21, 1765, Leopold produced a concert at the Haymarket Theatre that probably included the Chelsea symphony, and perhaps movements from four others that Wolfgang is thought to have written during the intervening months (K. 16a, K. 19, K. 19a, and K. 19b; K. 16a and 19b are lost); another orchestral concert followed on May 13th. By the end of July, Leopold was ready to return to the Continent, and, as a memento of their residency in London, he deposited in the British Museum the manuscript of God Is Our Refuge (K. 20), Mozart’s only English-language composition. It is uncertain whether the Chelsea symphony, whose genesis Nannerl so charmingly described, is actually the Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 (placed first in Breitkopf und Härtel’s complete edition of Mozart’s works, begun in the 1870s). Even if the E-flat Symphony and the Chelsea symphony are not the same work, the E-flat Symphony certainly dates from the months in London, and cogently represents the musical personality of the eight-year-old Mozart. The work consists of a pleasant opening movement in sonata form, a somber Andante in two-part form, and a dashing sonata-rondo for the finale.
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828): Symphony No. 1 in D major, D. 82 (1813) Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797, in Vienna and died on November 19, 1828, in Vienna. His Symphony No. 1 was composed in September-October 1813 but not performed publicly until January 30, 1880, in London. The score calls for flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Duration is about 30 minutes. This is the first performances by the orchestra. “Although Schubert had already reached great artistic heights, he was very modest, and the last to recognize the important position he occupied. Simple and unpretentious, goodnatured, somewhat neglectful of his outward appearance and the enemy of affectation, he was SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 3
MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES happiest in the company of his friends.” Thus was the young musician described by his friend Albert Stadler in 1813, Schubert’s last term at the School of the Court Chapel in Vienna, where he had begun his studies in 1808 at the age of eleven. Though he undertook a general course of liberal education, Schubert excelled in music (“He has already learned everything from God,” exclaimed one of his teachers), and he was given instruction in the fundamentals of the art while participating as a chorister in the Chapel — thus becoming one of the most distinguished alumni of the ensemble now known as the Vienna Boys Choir. While at the Viennese Court Chapel School, Schubert joined the student orchestra as a violinist. They rehearsed every evening after dinner, usually reading through an overture or two and a symphony by Mozart (the second one in G minor, No. 40, was Schubert’s favorite), Haydn, or such lesser masters as Krommer, Kozeluch, Méhul, Salieri, and Weigl. Schubert entered the group as a second violinist, but moved up to the position of concertmaster within a short time. It was only natural that he contribute some of his own works to the repertory of the orchestra, and one friend mentioned some sketches for symphonies from as early as 1811, though, with the exception of one thirty-measure fragment (D. 2B), Schubert destroyed them, saying they were only preliminary attempts. During the next two years, he did complete five overtures for the orchestra, and continued to revel in the daily orchestral practices, gaining valuable experience as a player and observer of the workings of the ensemble. In the autumn of 1813, Schubert had to face a decision about his future. He had been tendered a scholarship to continue as a senior chorister at the Chapel School after his voice broke (“Franz Schubert crowed for the last time on July 26, 1812,” he scribbled into his stillpreserved part of a Mass by Peter Winter), but his schoolmaster-father coerced him into matriculating at the St. Anna Normal School to undertake training as a teacher. As one of his last projects at the Chapel School, Franz undertook a symphony that may originally have been intended to honor the birthday (June 28) or the name day (October 4) of Innozenz Lang, the school’s music-loving headmaster, but it was not completed until October 28, 1813, a little late for either celebration. (Schubert dedicated his Second Symphony to Lang instead). The piece was probably played by the school orchestra soon after it was completed, but was not performed in public during the composer’s lifetime. The manuscript score lay virtually forgotten in various Schubert family attics for years until the Englishmen George Grove (of music dictionary fame) and Arthur Sullivan (of, later, Gilbert & Sullivan fame) unearthed it in 1868 in Vienna. Also discovered was the music of the Second, Third, Fourth and Sixth Symphonies and Rosamunde in the swell of interest following performances of the recently discovered “Unfinished” and C major Symphonies. They brought it to the attention of August Manns, who “premiered” it in London in January 1880, nearly seven decades after it was written. A pompous introduction in slow tempo opens the proceedings, after which the main theme is launched by a loud chord from the full orchestra and a nimble run up the scale by the violins. The contrasting theme, smoother in shape and sweeter in character, is given by the strings and then repeated by the woodwinds. The remainder of the exposition and the development section are occupied with a skillful but lengthy discussion of the thematic materials. (Prolixity, it seems, was one of the things Schubert also learned without much training.) Standing as structural bulwark between development and recapitulation is another traversal of the motive from the introduction. The recall of the earlier themes proceeds apace in the recapitulation. In the Andante, Schubert combines the graceful expression of the Classical stil gallant with his wonderful melodic invention. The movement grows, like an extended song, from the motives presented in its opening measures, and exhibits some of the characteristic expressive touches that he developed in the slow movements of his later symphonies. The Minuet is filled PROGRAM 4 SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG
MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES with a pleasant bumptiousness that marks it as a successor to Haydn’s music in that form. A bubbling, youthful joyousness informs the finale, which bounds along with clever extensions of the chipper opening motives buoyed by an almost incessant rhythmic motion.
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (1855-1876) Brahms was born on May 7, 1833, in Hamburg and died on April 3, 1897, in Vienna. He completed his First Symphony in September 1876 after many years of gestation. The premiere was given on November 4, 1876, by Felix Otto Dessoff and the orchestra of the Grand Duke of Baden in Karlsruhe. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds plus contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Duration is about 44 minutes. The symphony was last performed on February 15-17, 2013, with Olari Elts conducting the orchestra. Brahms, while not as breathtakingly precocious as Mozart, Mendelssohn, or Schubert, got a reasonably early start on his musical career: he had produced several piano works (including two large sonatas) and a goodly number of songs by the age of nineteen. In 1853, when Brahms was only twenty, Robert Schumann wrote an article for the widely distributed Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (“New Journal for Music”), his first contribution to that publication in a decade, hailing his young colleague as the savior of German music and the rightful heir to the mantle of Beethoven. Brahms was extremely proud of Schumann’s advocacy and he displayed the journal with great joy to his friends and family when he returned to his humble Hamburg neighborhood after visiting Schumann in Düsseldorf, but there was the other side of Schumann’s assessment as well — that which placed an immense burden on Brahms’ shoulders. Brahms was acutely aware of the deeply rooted traditions of German music extending back not just to Beethoven, but beyond him to Bach and Schütz and Lassus. He knew that, having been heralded in a widely publicized article by Schumann, his compositions, especially a symphony, would have to measure up to the standards set by his forebears. At first, he doubted that he was even able to write a symphony, feeling that Beethoven had nearly expended all the potential of that form, leaving nothing for future generations. “You have no idea,” Brahms lamented, “how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant like Beethoven.” Encouraged by Schumann to undertake a symphony, Brahms made some attempts in 1854, but he was unsatisfied with the symphonic potential of the sketches, and diverted them into the First Piano Concerto and the German Requiem. He began again a year later, perhaps influenced by a performance of Schumann’s Manfred, and set down a first movement, but that music he kept to himself. Seven years passed before he sent that movement to Clara, Schumann’s widow, to seek her opinion. She was pleased with the sketch and encouraged him to finish the rest so that it could be performed. Brahms, however, was not to be rushed. Eager inquiries from conductors in 1863, 1864 and 1866 went unanswered. It was not until 1870 that he hinted about any progress at all beyond the first movement. The success of the superb Haydn Variations for orchestra of 1873 seemed to convince Brahms that he could complete his initial symphony, and in the summer of 1874, he began two years of labor — revising, correcting, perfecting — before he signed and dated the score of the First Symphony in September 1876. The first movement begins with a slow introduction energized by the heartbeat of the timpani. The violins announce the upward-bounding main theme in the faster tempo that
SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG PROGRAM 5
MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES launches a magnificent, seamless sonata form. The second movement starts with a placid, melancholy song led by the violins. After a mildly syncopated middle section, the bittersweet melody returns. The brief third movement, with its prevailing woodwind colors, is reminiscent of the pastoral serenity of Brahms’ halcyon earlier Serenades. The finale begins with an extended slow introduction based on several pregnant thematic ideas, and concludes with a noble chorale intoned by trombones and bassoons. The finale proper begins with a new tempo and a broad hymnal theme, and progresses in sonata form, but without a development section. The work closes with a majestic coda in the brilliant key of C major featuring the trombone chorale of the introduction in its full splendor. Š2016 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
SATURDAY . APRIL 29 . 2017
6 pm :: Fillmore Auditorium :: Denver, Colorado presenting sponsor
save the date
PROGRAM 6 SOUNDINGS 2016/2017 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG
info: coloradosymphony.org
Colorado Symphony 2016/17 Season Presenting Sponsor:
INSIDE THE SCORE • 2016/2017 INSIDE THE SCORE: INSIDE SYMPHONIC BEGINNINGS COLORADO SYMPHONY CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductor
Sunday, January 22, 2017, at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall
MOZART Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K. 16 I. Molto allegro II. Andante III. Presto SCHUBERT Symphony No. 1 in D major, D. 82 I. Adagio – Allegro vivace III. Allegro BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro IV. Un poco allegretto e grazioso
INSIDE THE SCORE BIOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductor Australian conductor Christopher Dragon is in his second season as the Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony and commences his position as Principal Guest Conductor with the Denver Young Artists Orchestra. For three years, Christopher previously held the position of Assistant Conductor with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, which gave him the opportunity to work closely with Principal Conductor Asher Fisch. Christopher works regularly in Australia and has conducted the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. His 2015 debut performance at the Sydney Opera House with Josh Pyke and the Sydney Symphony has been released on CD by ABC Music. In 2017, Christopher returns to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra for a subscription concert. In 2016, he made his Brazilian conducting debut with the Orquestra Sinfônica de Porto Alegre. He has also conducted at numerous festivals including the Breckenridge and Bangalow Music Festivals, both resulting with invitations to return. At the beginning of 2016, Christopher conducted Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony as part of the Perth International Arts Festival alongside Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra. In 2014, Christopher was selected from 100 international applicants to conduct the Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra in Thailand and earlier that year participated in the Jarvi Winter Academy in Estonia where he was awarded the Orchestra’s Favourite Conductor Prize. Christopher began his conducting studies in 2011 and was a member of the prestigious Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program under the guidance of course director Christopher Seaman. He has also studied with numerous distinguished conductors including Leonid Grin, Paavo and Neeme Jarvi at the Jarvi Summer Festival, Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival, and conducting pedagogue Jorma Panula.