Program Notes: Rachmaninoff Rhapsody

CLASSICS 2022/23

RACHMANINOFF RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI

CAROLYN KUAN, conductor

SIMON

TRPČESKI,

pianist

Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:30pm

Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 7:30pm

Sunday, April 30, 2023 at 1:00pm

Boettcher Concert Hall

MASON BATES Liquid Interface

I. Glaciers Calving

II. Scherzo Liquido

III. Crescent City

IV. On the Wannsee

RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43

— INTERMISSION —

VALERIE COLEMAN Seven O’Clock Shout

MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

I. Allegro vivace

II. Andante con moto

III. Con moto moderato

IV. Saltarello: Presto

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 38 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION

FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 7 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT!

Friday’s concert is dedicated to Paul ruttum & elyse tiPton

saturday’s concert is dedicated to raymond & suzanne satter

sunday’s concert is dedicated to Jerry e sims & carol J. Buchanan

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CAROLYN KUAN, conductor

Recognized as a conductor of extraordinary versatility, Carolyn Kuan has enjoyed successful associations with top tier orchestras, opera companies, ballet companies, and festivals worldwide. Her commitment to contemporary music has defined her approach to programming, and established her as an international resource for new music and world premieres. Appointed Music Director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in 2011, she has signed a renewal contract through May, 2024.

Ms. Kuan’s North American engagements have included performances with the Baltimore Symphony, where she returned in the 2019/2020 season; as well as the symphonies of Detroit, Milwaukee, Omaha, San Francisco, Seattle, and Toronto; the Florida and Louisville orchestras; the New York City Ballet; the Colorado Music Festival and Glimmerglass Opera Festival; the New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Washington National Opera. In the 2021/2022 season she will make her debut with the Columbus (OH) Symphony and returns to conduct Opera Theatre of St. Louis in Harvey Milk and the Santa Fe Opera to conduct Huang Ruo’s M Butterfly.

Recent international engagements have included concerts with the Bournemouth Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Symphony of Taiwan, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Residentie Orkest, Orquesta Sinfonica de Yucatan, Royal Danish Ballet, the West Australian Symphony, and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Ms. Kuan made her debut with English National Opera in Philip Glass’ Satyagraha in the 2021/2022 season. She will conduct the Borusan Istanbul Orchestra next season.

Although debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra (at the Mann Music Center), at Lincoln Center (leading the opera Blue), and Orchestre de Paris were canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Kuan has had highlights in recent seasons that include debuts with the Singapore Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, and the Portland Opera, conducting a production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. She led Mark Campbell’s Stonewall with New York City Opera in June, 2019 which helped commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Carolyn Kuan also collaborated with Beth Morrison in a project called Ouroboros Trilogy, a three-part exploration of life, death, and rebirth as symbolized by the ancient Greek icon of a serpent eating its own tail. Working with composer Scott Wheeler, she directed Naga, one of the three operas commissioned for the trilogy. She conducted the premiere of Philip Glass’s opera The Trial with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and has conducted the Santa Fe Opera in Huang Ruo’s Dr. Sun Yat-sen; and the Washington National Opera in Daniel Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas.

While maintaining a solid connection with traditional repertoire, Carolyn Kuan has cultivated a unique expertise in Asian music and contemporary works. From 2007 to 2012, she directed the annual San Francisco Symphony Chinese New Year concert. For the Seattle Symphony, Ms. Kuan helped launch the hugely successful Celebrate Asia! program with community leaders representing eight Asian cultures, and led sold-out performances for three consecutive years. She has led world premieres for Music from Japan, and has conducted multimedia productions of the Butterfly Lovers Concerto and A Monkey’s Tale as part of Detroit Symphony’s World Music Series.

PHOTO: CHARLIE SCHUCK

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From 2003 to 2012, Ms. Kuan was engaged with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and visiting composers. Some of her finest successes have bridged the gap between cultural and social issues, as in her work raising awareness of conservation and the environment through her performances around the globe of the multimedia project “Life: A Journey Through Time.” Developed by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and music director Marin Alsop, the project features music by Philip Glass and images by famed National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting. Ms. Kuan’s notable performances of Life include a presentation at the Ninth World Wilderness Congress with Orquesta Sinfonica de Yucatan; at the eight-day June festival, Change Is Powerful, with the Detroit Symphony; and at CERN’s (European Organization for Nuclear Research) historical Large Hadron Collider Inauguration, with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande attended by Swiss President Pascal Couchpin, French Prime Minister François Fillon, more than 20 other European heads of state, and dozens of Nobel laureates.

Carolyn Kuan’s previous positions include Associate Conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Artist-in-Residence at the New York City Ballet; and Assistant Conductor for the Baltimore Opera Company. In her 2012 debut album for the Naxos label, Ms. Kuan conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in various works by Chinese composers.

Recipient of numerous awards, Ms. Kuan holds the distinction of being the first woman to be awarded the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Fellowship by the Herbert von Karajan Centrum and American Austrian Foundation in 2003, resulting in her residency at the 2004 Salzburg Festival. Winner of the first Taki Concordia Fellowship, she has received additional awards from the Women’s Philharmonic, Conductors Guild, and Susan W. Rose Fund for Music. Ms. Kuan graduated cum laude from Smith College, received a Master of Music degree from the University of Illinois, and a Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory.

SIMON TRPČESKI, piano

Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski (pronounced terp-CHESS-kee) has established himself as one of the most remarkable musicians to have emerged in recent years, praised not only for his powerful virtuosity and deeply expressive approach, but also for his charismatic stage presence. Launched onto the international scene twenty years ago as a BBC New-Generation Artist, his fast-paced career, unhindered by cultural or musical boundaries, has seen him collaborate with over a hundred different orchestras on four continents with appearances on the most prestigious stages.

Simon Trpčeski is a frequent soloist with the major North American orchestras, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, and the Chicago, San Francisco, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle and Baltimore symphonies among others. Engagements with major European ensembles include all of the major London orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de France and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Elsewhere, he has appeared

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with the New Japan, China, Seoul and Hong Kong Philharmonics and the Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and New Zealand symphonies.

The long list of prominent conductors Mr. Trpčeski has worked with includes Lorin Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Christian Macelaru, Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko, Charles Dutoit, Jakob Hrusa, Vladimir Jurowski, Susanna Malkki, Andris Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Robert Spano, Michael Tilson Thomas and Daivd Zinman.

Mr. Trpčeski’s fruitful collaboration with EMI Classics, Avie Records, Wigmore Hall Live, Onyx Classics, and currently Linn Records has resulted in a broad and award-winning discography which includes repertoire such as Rachmaninoff’s complete works for piano and orchestra and the Prokofiev piano concertos as well as composers such as Poulenc, Debussy and Ravel. Variations, his latest solo album released in Spring 2022 features works by Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart.

Born in Macedonia in 1979, Simon Trpčeski is a graduate of the School of Music at the University of St. Cyril and St. Methodius in Skopje, where he studied with Boris Romanov. Committed to strengthening the cultural image of his native country, his chamber music project MAKEDOMISSIMO is dedicated to introducing audiences world-wide to the rich traditional Macedonian folk roots, which weaves the Macedonian folk music tradition with highly virtuosic, jazz influenced riffs and harmonies into one unique sound world. Since its successful premiere in 2018, Makedonissimo has performed to audiences world-wide and released a CD on Linn Records.

In 2009, Mr. Trpčeski received the Presidential Order of Merit for Macedonia and in 2011, he became the first-ever recipient of the title “National Artist of Macedonia.” He was a BBC New Generation Artist 2001-2003 and in 2003 was honored with the Young Artist Award by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

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MASON BATES (born in 1977) Liquid Interface

Mason Bates was born on January 23, 1977 in Philadelphia. Liquid Interface was composed in 2006-2007, and premiered on February 22, 2007 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The score calls for three piccolos, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harmonicas, slide guitar, crystal glasses (glass harmonica), wind machine, electronica, harp, piano and strings. Duration is about 23 minutes. This is the premiere performance of this piece by the Colorado Symphony.

Mason Bates was born in Philadelphia in 1977 and started studying piano with Hope Armstrong Erb at his childhood home in Richmond, Virginia. He earned degrees in both English literature and music composition in the joint program of Columbia University and the Juilliard School, where his composition teachers included John Corigliano, David Del Tredici and Samuel Adler, and received his doctorate in composition from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. Bates was Resident Composer with the California Symphony from 2008 to 2011, Project San Francisco Artist-in-Residence with the San Francisco Symphony in 2011-2012, and Composer of the Year with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2012-2013; he held a residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2010 to 2015, and was the first-ever Composer-in-Residence at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. from 2015 to 2020. He also teaches in the Technology and Applied Composition Program of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition to being recognized as one of the mostperformed American composers of his generation and named “2018 Composer of the Year” by Musical America, Bates has received a Charles Ives Scholarship and Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Fellowship, Jacob Druckman Memorial Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, ASCAP and BMI awards, a Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center, Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, a two-year Composer Residency with Young Concert Artists, and the 2012 Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities. Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, premiered by Santa Fe Opera in July 2017, received the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Opera.

Bates wrote of Liquid Interface, “Water has influenced countless musical endeavors — Debussy’s La Mer and Wagner’s Siegfried’s Rhine Journey quickly come to mind — but it was only after living on Berlin’s enormous Lake Wannsee that I became consumed with a new take on the idea. Over the course of barely two months, I watched this huge body of water transform from an ice sheet thick enough to support sausage venders to a refreshing swimming destination heavy with humidity. If the play of the waves inspired Debussy, then what about water in its variety of forms?

“Liquid Interface moves through all of them, inhabiting an increasingly hotter world in each progressive movement. Glaciers Calving opens with huge blocks of sound drifting slowly upwards through the orchestra, finally cracking off in the upper register. (Snippets of actual recordings of glaciers breaking in the Antarctic appear at the opening.) As the thaw continues, these sonic blocks melt into aqueous, blurry figuration. The beats of the electronics evolve from slow trip-hop into energetic drum ’n’ bass, and at the movement’s climax the orchestra blazes in turbulent figuration. The ensuing Scherzo Liquido explores water on a micro-level: droplets splash from the speakers in the form of a variety of nimble electronica beats, with the orchestra swirling around them.

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“The temperature continues to rise as we move into Crescent City, which examines the destructive force as water grows from the small-scale to the enormous. This is illustrated in a theme-and-variations form in which the opening melody, at first quiet and lyrical, gradually accumulates a trail of echoing figuration behind it. In a nod to New Orleans, which knows the power of water all too well, the instruments trail the melody in a re-imagination of Dixieland swing. The electronics — silent in this movement until now — enter in the form of a distant storm. At the peak of the movement, the orchestra is buried in an electronic hurricane of processed storm sounds. We are swept into the muffled depths of the ocean. This water-covered world, which relaxes into a kind of balmy, greenhouse paradise, is where the symphony ends with On the Wannsee. A simple, lazy tune bends in the strings above ambient sounds recorded at a dock on Lake Wannsee. Gentle beats echo quietly in the moist heat. At near-pianissimo throughout, the melody floats lazily upwards through the humidity and, at the work’s end, finally evaporates.”

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 43

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born on April 1, 1873 in Oneg (near Novgorod), Russia, and died on March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California. He composed the Paganini Rhapsody, his last work for piano, in 1934 and was soloist in the premiere at Baltimore’s Lyric Theater on November 7, 1934 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 22 minutes. The last time the Orchestra performed this piece was April 29-May 1, 2016 with Andrew Litton conducting and Kirill Gerstein on piano.

The legend of Nicolò Paganini has haunted musicians for over two centuries. Gaunt, his emaciated figure cloaked in priestly black, Paganini performed feats of wizardry on the violin that were simply unimagined until he burst upon the European concert scene in 1805. Not only were his virtuoso pyrotechnics unsurpassed, but his performance of simple melodies was of such purity and sweetness that it moved his audiences to tears. So far was he beyond the competition that he seemed almost, well, superhuman. Perhaps, the rumor spread, he had special powers, powers not of this earth. Perhaps, Faust-like, he had exchanged his soul for the mastery of his art. The legend (propagated and fostered, it is now known, by Paganini himself) had begun.

Paganini, like most virtuoso instrumentalists of the 19th century, composed much of his own music. Notable among his oeuvre are the breathtaking Caprices for Unaccompanied Violin, works so difficult that even today they are accessible only to the most highly accomplished performers. The last of the Caprices, No. 24 in A minor, served as the basis for compositions by Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and others, and was also the inspiration for Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Rachmaninoff’s work is a series of variations on this theme, which is characterized as much by its recurrent rhythm (five short notes followed by a longer one) as by its melody. Taking his cue from the Paganini legend, Rachmaninoff combined another melody with that of the demonic violinist — the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) from the Requiem Mass for the Dead.

The Rhapsody, a brilliant showpiece for virtuoso pianist, is a set of 24 variations. The work begins with a brief, eight-measure introduction followed, before the theme itself is heard, by

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the first variation, a skeletal outline of the melody reminiscent of the pizzicato opening of the variation-finale of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. The theme, 24 measures in length, is stated by the unison violins. The following variations fall into three groups, corresponding to the fast–slow–fast sequence of the traditional three-movement concerto.

VALERIE COLEMAN (born in 1970)

Seven O’Clock Shout

Valerie Coleman was born on September 3, 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky. She composed Seven O’Clock Shout in 2020. It was premiered on-line by the Philadelphia Orchestra on July 6, 2020, directed by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The same forces gave the work’s concert premiere at the gala re-opening of New York’s Carnegie Hall on October 6, 2021. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 6 minutes. This is the premiere performance by the orchestra.

Valerie Coleman, Performance Today’s “2020 Classical Woman of the Year,” was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1970 and began her music studies at age eleven; within three years she had written three symphonies and won several local and state flute competitions. Coleman received bachelor’s degrees in both composition and flute performance from Boston University, where she was two-time winner of the Young Artist Competition and recipient of the University’s Woodwind Award; she earned a master’s degree in flute performance from the Mannes College of Music in New York. Coleman made her Carnegie Hall recital debut as winner of Meet the Composer’s 2003 Van Lier Memorial Fund Award; among her additional distinctions are the Aspen Music Festival Wombwell Kentucky Award, inaugural Michelle E. Sahm Memorial Award from the Tanglewood Music Festival, first recipient in the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s Mentorship Program, ASCAP Concert Music Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists.

Valerie Coleman was the founder of the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds and the ensemble’s flutist and resident composer until 2018. She has also performed across North America and Europe as soloist and chamber musician. Her rapidly expanding creative catalog includes works for orchestra, concert band, chamber ensembles, ballet (Portraits of Josephine Baker), and arrangements for woodwind quintet; in September 2021, she was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera along with two other Black composers — Jessie Montgomery and Joel Thompson — to develop new works in collaboration with the Lincoln Center Theater. She has taught at Juilliard and the University of Miami, and in 2021 was appointed Clara Mannes Fellow for Music Leadership at the Mannes School of Music in New York.

“Seven O’Clock Shout is an anthem inspired by the tireless frontline workers during the Covid-19 pandemic,” wrote Coleman, “and the heartwarming ritual of evening serenades that brought people together amidst isolation to celebrate life and the sacrifices of heroes. The work begins with a distant and solitary solo between two trumpets in fanfare fashion to commemorate the isolation forced upon humankind, and the need to reach out to one another. The fanfare blossoms into a lushly dense landscape of nature, symbolizing both the caregiving acts of nurses and doctors as they try to save lives and nature transforming and healing herself during a time of human self-isolation.

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“A repeating ostinato pattern is laid down by the bass section, allowing the English horn and strings to float over them, gradually building up to 7:00 p.m., when cheers, claps, clangings of pots and pans, and shouts ring through the air of cities around the world. The trumpets drive an infectious rhythm, layered with a traditional Cuban rhythmic pattern, while solo trombone boldly rings out an anthem in an African call-and-response style. The orchestra ‘shouts’ back in response and the entire ensemble rallies into an anthem that embodies the struggles and triumph of humanity. Seven O’Clock Shout ends in a proud anthem in which we all come together with grateful hearts to acknowledge that we have survived yet another day.”

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, and died on November 4, 1847 in Leipzig. He composed the “Italian” Symphony in 1831-1833, and conducted the work’s premiere with the London Philharmonic on May 13, 1833. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 27 minutes. Adam Flatt was the conductor when the orchestra last performed this piece March 31-April 1, 2006.

When he was 21, Mendelssohn embarked on an extensive grand tour of the Continent. He met Chopin and Liszt in Paris, painted the breathtaking vistas of Switzerland, and marveled at the artistic riches (and grumbled about the inhospitable treatment by the coachmen and innkeepers) of Italy. “The land where the lemon trees blossom,” as his friend Goethe described sunny Italy, stirred him so deeply that he began a musical work there in 1831 based on his impressions of Rome, Naples and the other cities he visited. The composition of this “Italian” Symphony, as he always called it, caused him much difficulty, however, and he had trouble bringing all of the movements to completion. “For the slow movement I have not yet found anything exactly right, and I think I must put it off for Naples,” he wrote from Rome to his sister Fanny. The spur to finish the work came in the form of a commission for a symphony from the Philharmonic Society of London that caused Mendelssohn to gather up his sketches and complete the task.

The “Italian” Symphony is cast in the traditional four movements. The opening movement takes an exuberant, leaping melody initiated by the violins as its principal subject and a quieter, playful strain led by the clarinets as its subsidiary theme. The intricately contrapuntal development section is largely based on a precise, staccato theme of darker emotional hue but also refers to motives from the main theme. A full recapitulation of the exposition’s materials ensues before the movement ends with a coda recalling the staccato theme from the development. The Andante may have been inspired by a religious procession Mendelssohn saw in the streets of Naples. The third movement is in the form of a minuet/scherzo whose central trio utilizes the burnished sonorities of bassoons and horns. The finale turns to a tempestuous minor key for an exuberant dance modeled on a whirling saltarello Mendelssohn heard in Rome.

©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda