Program Notes - Mussorgsky Pictures At An Exhibition

MASTERWORKS • 2015-2016 MUSSORGSKY PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION COLORADO SYMPHONY JAYCE OGREN, conductor CLAUDE SIM, violin This weekend of concerts is gratefully dedicated to Schmitt Music Company Friday’s concert is gratefully dedicated to Dr. Christopher Ott and Mr. Jeremy Simons Saturday’s concert is gratefully dedicated to Suzanne Ryan and AMG National Trust

Friday, January 29, 2016 at 7:30 pm Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 7:30 pm Prelude to take place one hour before concert Boettcher Concert Hall SIBELIUS

“Valse Triste” from the Incidental Music to Arvid Järnefelt’s Kuolema, Op. 44

SIBELIUS

Romance for String Orchestra in C major, Op. 42

SIBELIUS

Finlandia, Op. 26, No. 7

KHACHATURIAN Violin Concerto Allegro con fermezza Andante sostenuto Allegro vivace — INTERMISSION — MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition arr. RAVEL Promenade — The Gnome Promenade — The Old Castle Promenade — Tuileries Bydlo Promenade — Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle The Marketplace at Limoges — Catacombs, Roman Tombs — Cum Mortuis in lingua mortua The Hut on Fowl’s Legs — The Great Gate of Kiev

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MASTERWORKS BIOGRAPHIES

REBECCA FAY

JAYCE OGREN, conductor With mounting success in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Jayce Ogren is building a reputation as one of the finest young conductors to emerge from the United States in recent seasons. He began the 2015/2016 season leading Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Music Academy of the West before heading to Paris to conduct the Ensemble Intercontemporain in a program of Stockhausen, Nono, and Andrew Norman. He conducts subscription weeks with the Edmonton, Victoria, and Colorado Symphonies and with Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia as well as special concerts with the Dallas and Pittsburgh Symphonies of the re-mastered film of West Side Story with orchestra. Last season he led performances of the Strauss Burleske with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Emanuel Ax; Basil Twist’s Rite of Spring with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival; the New York Philharmonic in their CONTACT! Series of contemporary music; and the recording of Rufus Wainright’s opera Prima Donna with the BBC Symphony for release on Deutsche Grammophon. A native of Washington State, Ogren received a Masters degree in Conducting from the New England Conservatory and, with a Fulbright Grant, completed a postgraduate diploma at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm where he studied with the legendary Jorma Panula. He was Assistant Conductor or the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst, then Music Director of New York City Opera where he led Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto, and the much acclaimed production of Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place. Ogren is an awardwinning triathlete, most recently completing the 2015 Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge, running the Boston Marathon and the Big Sur Marathon back to back. He makes his home in Brooklyn, NY.

JEFF GEREW

CLAUDE SIM, violin Chicago native Claude Sim enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician, orchestral principal, soloist, and multi-genre performing artist. He studied violin performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM ‘99) with Greg Fulkerson, Almita Vamos, and Roland Vamos. At age 21, he was appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony under music director Marin Alsop. He has since held an Associate Principal Violin position with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and has served in numerous guest artist capacities, including guest Concertmaster of the Kansas City Symphony, Principal Second of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, and Section First Violin with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Sim has collaborated with noted pianists Christopher O’Riley and Jeffrey Kahane, members of the Vermeer and Tokyo String Quartets, and has served as guest first violin and viola with the Miró Quartet and Pacifica Quartet, respectively.

For over a decade, he was the solo violinist of Extasis, the noted tango ensemble with a stunning studio CD to their credit. Claude Sim’s 2006 album, Time With You, featured a collection of popular jazz standards from the American Songbook. Critically acclaimed jazz trumpeter Greg Gisbert makes a guest appearance on the record. Known for his multi-genre interests, Claude Sim has shared the stage with fiddler Eileen Ivers, Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule), rock band Guster, and with the iconic Denver band Devotchka, both live and on their album 100 Lovers. He performed as a duo with banjo master Béla Fleck on a 2014 Colorado tour, culminating at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Sim’s current project is an improvisation-based jam band consisting of himself on acoustic and electric mandolin, along with guitarist Dan Schwindt (Kyle Hollingsworth Band) and master bassist Eduardo “Bijoux” Barbosa.

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MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957): Romance for String Orchestra in C major, Op. 42 Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865 in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and died on September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland. The Romance for Strings was composed in 1903 and premiered on March 26, 1904 in Turku, Finland, conducted by the composer. Duration is about 5 minutes. This is the first performance by the orchestra.

By the end of 1903, Jean Sibelius had won an international reputation with his Finlandia, Kullervo, En Saga, Karelia Suite, four Lemminkäinen Legends (including The Swan of Tuonela) and first two symphonies, and had just finished his Violin Concerto in anticipation of its premiere in February. He enjoyed the status of a national hero in Finland, and the demand for his appearances and his music across the country was steady and gratifying. For his conducting engagement with the Turku Symphony on March 26, 1904, six weeks after he led the first performance of the Violin Concerto in Helsinki, he wrote a brief, elegiac piece that he premiered under the title Andante for String Orchestra; he dedicated the score to the orchestra’s music director, José Eibenschütz. Sibelius gave the piece again the following month in Vaasa at a musicians’ pension fund benefit concert. Critics of those early performances remarked on the work’s reminiscence of the slow movement (Elégie) of Tchaikovsky’s popular Serenade for Strings, and suggested that a more descriptive title, Nocturne, perhaps, or Romance, would better suit the music. Sibelius settled on the latter when the score was published in 1909.

o JEAN SIBELIUS: Finlandia, Op. 26, No. 7 Finlandia was composed in 1899, and premiered on November 4, 1899 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings. Duration is about 9 minutes. Last performed on March 5-7, 2010, with Jeffrey Kahane conducting the orchestra.

In 1809, after more than five centuries of Swedish rule, Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. The country existed for most of the 19th century under the surprisingly benign rule of the Alexanders, but when Nicholas II ascended the Russian throne in 1894, he saw in Finland a potential enemy and subjected the country to an increasingly harsher governance. Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov, who had earned a reputation for ruthlessness during his administration of the Baltics, arrived in Helsinki in 1898 as the Tsar’s chief representative. A few months later, Bobrikov issued the so-called “February Manifesto,” which greatly curtailed the rights of the Finns by restricting their freedom of speech and assembly, conscripting them into the Tsar’s army, forcing them to learn Russian as a second language, replacing them in the civil service with Russian appointees, and stifling the press. During the following months, the Finns responded to these outrages by staging “Press Celebrations,” ostensibly benefit events to aid the pension fund of the country’s hard-hit newspapers, but really thinly veiled displays of patriotic ferment.

For the “Press Celebration” of November 4, 1899, a series of elaborate tableaux vivants depicting episodes and heroes from Finnish history was planned for the Swedish Theater in Helsinki. Jean Sibelius, a young composer recently returned from study in Germany and Vienna and already established as one of the country’s leading musicians, was enlisted to supply the music: an opening prelude followed by an introduction and incidental music for each of the six tableaux. According to one press report, in the closing tableau (titled “Finland Awakes”), “The PROGRAM 4 SOUNDINGS 2015-2016 | COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG

MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES Grand Duchy faces a bright future under the enlightened rule of Tsar Alexander II during the 19th century.” The opening lines of the scene’s text, however, speak not of halcyon colonialism but of incipient revolution: “The powers of darkness menacing Finland have not succeeded in their terrible threat. Finland awakes ...” The orchestral movement that Sibelius provided as preface for this tableau, which he called “Suomi” (the Finns’ name for their country), matched its subject in patriotic fervor. Finlandia was the music that solidified Sibelius’ international reputation, and it became a focus for world-wide sympathy with the plight of the Finns. In 1905, a year after Bobrikov had been assassinated, Caesar-like, in the halls of the Finnish Senate, Nicholas II granted sweeping concessions to the Finns (the country became independent of Russia as a result of the First World War), and Finlandia could at last be heard freely in its homeland.

The hymnal theme of Finlandia has a directness and simplicity that suggest folksong, yet Sibelius insisted, “I have never used a theme that was not of my own invention. Thus the thematic material of Finlandia is entirely my own.” As a preface to this inspirational melody, Sibelius provided a portentous introduction of sullen brass chords, which are subsequently appropriated by the full orchestra, and a vivacious passage of soaring optimism. A broad statement of the hymn’s opening phrases serves as a grand coda.

o JEAN SIBELIUS: “Valse Triste” from the Incidental Music to Arvid Järnefelt’s Kuolema, Op. 44 Valse Triste was composed in 1903, and premiered on December 2, 1903 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer. The score calls for flute, clarinet, two horns, timpani and strings. Duration is about 5 minutes. Last performance by the orchestra was on January 13-15, 2006, with Jeffrey Kahane conducting.

Though Sibelius is universally recognized as the Finnish master of the symphony, tone poem and concerto, he also produced a large amount of music in the more intimate forms, including the scores for eleven plays — the music to accompany a 1926 production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest was his last orchestral work. Early in 1903, Sibelius composed the music to underscore six scenes of a play by his brother-in-law, Arvid Järnefelt, titled Kuolema (“Death”). Sibelius conducted the small string orchestra (joined by bass drum and church bell in one number) behind the scenes at the drama’s premiere in Helsinki’s Finnish National Theater on December 2, 1903. Among the music was a Valse Triste (“Sad Waltz”) accompanying the scene in which Paavali, the central character, is seen at the bedside of his dying mother. She tells him that she has dreamed of attending a ball. Paavali falls asleep and Death enters to claim his victim. The mother mistakes Death for her deceased husband, and dances away with him. Paavali awakes to find her dead.

Like the Viennese examples on which it is modeled, the Valse Triste comprises several continuous sections. It was the melancholy opening section that suggested the work’s name.

This quiet, introspective paragraph is followed by a gossamer strain played with the utmost delicacy at the very tips of the string bows, a lyrical episode led by the woodwinds, and a more vigorous section for the full ensemble before the wistful mood of the opening returns briefly to round out this lovely, haunting miniature.

o

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MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES ARAM KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978): Violin Concerto Aram Khachaturian was born on June 6, 1903 in Tiflis, Armenia, and died on May 1, 1978 in Moscow. The Violin Concerto was written in 1940, and premiered by David Oistrakh and conductor Aleksandr Gauk in Moscow on November 16, 1940 at a festival of Soviet music. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 32 minutes. Last performance of the concerto was on December 13 & 14, 1976, with Eugene Fodor as the violin soloist and Hiroyuki Iwoki on the podium.

One of the achievements of the Union of Soviet Composers was the founding in 1939 of an enclave on the Moscow River near the town of Staraya Ruza set aside for creative work and rest.

Khachaturian spent the summer of 1940 there, in one of the cottages in the dense pine forest, composing a violin concerto for David Oistrakh. Khachaturian had largely prepared the formal plan for the piece in his head in advance and recalled, “I worked without effort. Sometimes my thoughts and imagination outraced the hand that was covering the staff with notes. The themes came to me in such abundance that I had a hard time putting them in some order....

While composing the Concerto I had for my models such masterpieces as the concertos by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov. I wanted to create a virtuoso piece employing the symphonic principle of development and yet understandable to the general public.” He succeeded, and the Concerto was a great success when it was premiered on November 16, 1940 in Moscow by Oistrakh. The new Concerto solidified Khachaturian’s popularity at home and abroad; he was awarded the Stalin Prize for it in 1941.

The Concerto’s opening movement is disposed in the traditional sonata form, with two contrasting themes and a full development section. After a brief introductory outburst by the orchestra, the soloist presents an animated motif that soon evolves into a bounding, closeinterval folk dance. This theme, punctuated once by the strong orchestral chords from the introduction, continues for some time before it gives way to a complementary lyrical strain of nostalgic emotional character. As the movement unfolds, the soloist is required to display one dazzling technical feat after another, culminating in a huge cadenza that serves as the bridge to the recapitulation. Both of the earlier themes are returned in elaborated settings to round out the movement. The second movement is in a broad three-part design prefaced by a bassoon solo that Grigory Shneerson, in his study of Khachaturian, said imitated the improvisations of the Armenian ashugs, or bards. A melancholy tune occupies the movement’s outer sections while the central portion is more animated and rhapsodic in nature. The finale is an irresistible rondo, filled with festive brilliance, blazing orchestral color and sparkling virtuosity.

o MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881): Pictures at an Exhibition Transcribed for Orchestra by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Modest Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia, and died on March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg. Pictures at an Exhibition was composed for piano in 1874 and transcribed for orchestra in 1923 by Maurice Ravel. The orchestral version was premiered on May 3, 1923 in Paris, conducted by Sergei Koussevitzky. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes (second and third doubling

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MASTERWORKS PROGRAM NOTES piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, E-flat alto saxophone, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps and strings. Duration is about 32 minutes.

Pictures was last performed on January 13-15, 2012, with Pietri Inkinen conducting the orchestra.

In the years around 1850, with the spirit of nationalism sweeping through Europe, several young Russian artists banded together to rid their native art of foreign influences in order to establish a distinctive character for their works. At the front of that movement was a group of composers known as “The Five,” whose members included Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, César Cui and Mily Balakirev. Among the allies that The Five found in other fields was the artist and architect Victor Hartmann, with whom Mussorgsky became close personal friends. Hartmann’s premature death at 39 stunned the composer and the entire Russian artistic community. The noted critic Vladimir Stassov organized a memorial exhibit of Hartmann’s work in February 1874, and it was under the inspiration of that showing of his late friend’s works that Mussorgsky conceived his Pictures at an Exhibition for piano. Maurice Ravel made his masterful orchestration of the score for Sergei Koussevitzky’s Paris concerts in 1923.

Promenade. According to Stassov, this recurring section depicts Mussorgsky “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly, and, at times sadly, thinking of his friend.” The Gnome.

Hartmann’s drawing is for a fantastic wooden nutcracker representing a gnome who gives off savage shrieks while he waddles about. Promenade — The Old Castle. A troubadour sings a doleful lament before a foreboding, ruined ancient fortress. Promenade — Tuileries. Hartmann’s picture shows a corner of the famous Parisian garden filled with nursemaids and their youthful charges.

Bydlo. Hartmann’s painting depicts a rugged wagon drawn by oxen. The peasant driver sings a plaintive melody (solo tuba) heard first from afar, then close-by, before the cart passes away into the distance. Promenade — Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells. Hartmann’s costume design for the 1871 fantasy ballet Trilby shows dancers enclosed in enormous egg shells. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle was inspired by a pair of pictures depicting two residents of the Warsaw ghetto, one rich and pompous (a weighty unison for strings and winds), the other poor and complaining (muted trumpet). Mussorgsky based both themes on incantations he had heard on visits to Jewish synagogues. The Marketplace at Limoges. A lively sketch of a bustling market. Catacombs, Roman Tombs. Cum Mortuis in lingua mortua. Hartmann’s drawing shows him being led by a guide with a lantern through cavernous underground tombs. The movement’s second section, titled “With the Dead in a Dead Language,” is a mysterious transformation of the Promenade theme.

The Hut on Fowl’s Legs. Hartmann’s sketch is a design for an elaborate clock suggested by Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch of Russian folklore who flies through the air. Mussorgsky’s music suggests a wild, midnight ride. The Great Gate of Kiev was inspired by Hartmann’s plan for a gateway for the city of Kiev in the massive old Russian style crowned with a cupola in the shape of a Slavic warrior’s helmet. The majestic music suggests both the imposing bulk of the edifice (never built, incidentally) and a brilliant procession passing through its arches. ©2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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