Program - Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

2021/22 SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR:

CLASSICS 2021/22

RACHMANINOFF PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 RUNE BERGMANN, conductor JUHO POHJONEN, piano Friday, April 8, 2022 at 7:30pm Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 7:30pm Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall

La forza del destino: Overture

VERDI

RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18 I. Moderato II. Adagio sostenuto III. Allegro scherzando — INTERMISSION — NIELSEN Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, “The Inextinguishable” I. Allegro II. Poco allegretto III. Poco adagio quasi andante IV. Allegro

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 34 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 Schmitt Music, Mr. Paul E. Goodspeed, and the memory of Mary Poole.

Saturday’s concert is dedicated to Dr. Harold Nelson.

Sunday’s concert is dedicated in honor of Jane Costain and the Colorado Symphony Chorus.

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY SOUNDINGS

2021/22

PROGRAM I

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES PHOTO: KRISTIN HOEBERMANN

RUNE BERGMANN, conductor Norwegian conductor Rune Bergmann is currently Music Director of Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic, Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of Poland’s Szczecin Philharmonic, and Chief Conductor of Switzerland’s Argovia Philharmonic, positions he has held since the 2017/18, 2016/17, and 2020/21 seasons, respectively.

Guest engagements in the 2021/22 season bring Bergmann to the podium of the Baltimore, Utah, and Colorado Symphony Orchestras as well as the Peninsula Music Festival in the USA, and to the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and the Odense Symphony in Europe.

Bergmann’s recent guest engagements include concert weeks with the Baltimore, Detroit, Edmonton, Houston, New Jersey and Pacific Symphony Orchestras in North America, and the Bergen Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfonica Portuguesa, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, Staatskapelle Halle, Wrocław Philharmonic, and the Risør Festival in Europe, to name a few. Bergmann has also led performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia and La traviata at the Norwegian National Opera, and he made his US operatic debut in Yale Opera’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as staged by Claudia Solti, while previous guest engagements have led him to such auspices as the Oslo Philharmonic, New Mexico Philharmonic, Münchner Symphoniker, Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, as well as the symphony orchestras of Malmö, Helsingborg, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Trondheim, Karlskrona, and Odense.

2018 saw the release of Bergmann’s first recording with the Szczecin Philharmonic, which featured the “Resurrection“ Symphony in E-minor by Mieczyław Karłowicz, a piece which has since become a major focus of Bergmann’s repertoire. He has also released recordings with the Argovia Philharmonic, including Ravel’s G-Major Piano Concerto and Mozart’s B-flat Major Bassoon concerto.

Earlier in his career, Rune Bergmann served as First Kapellmeister and stellvertretender-GMD of the Theater Augsburg, where he led performances of numerous operas, including such titles as La Traviata, Der fliegende Holländer, and Die Fledermaus. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony, and has been Artistic Director of Norway’s innovative Fjord Cadenza Festival since its inception in 2010.

PROGRAM II

C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES

PHOTO: J. HENRY FAIR

JUHO POHJONEN, piano Juho Pohjonen is regarded as one of today’s most exciting and unique instrumentalists. The Finnish pianist performs widely in Europe, Asia, and North America, collaborating with symphony orchestras and playing in recital and chamber settings. An ardent exponent of Scandinavian music, Pohjonen’s growing discography offers a showcase of music by Finnish compatriots such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kaija Saariaho and Jean Sibelius.

In 2021-2022 Pohjonen performs Daniel Bjarnason’s concerto for piano Processions with the Helsinki Philharmonic with the composer at the podium. Additional orchestral highlights include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Rune Bergmann and the Colorado Symphony as well as performances of Mendelssohn’s concerto for violin, piano and strings, beside Erin Keefe, Maestro Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra. Continuing his long-standing relationship with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Pohjonen performs at Alice Tully Hall on two separate occasions this season in programs featuring works by Stravinksy, Debussy, Shostokovich and Mendelssohn. Additional chamber projects include a performance at Parlance Chamber Concerts with Danbi Um and Paul Huang and Cliburn Concerts with Danbi and Karim Sulayman. Juho will perform recitals in Helsinki and at Vancouver Recital Society.

Last season, Juho performed with the Tampere Philharmonic following his debut with the orchestra in 2017-2018 and also performed Daniel Bjarnason’s Processions with Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta.

Following the September 2019 performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra, Pohjonen returned to the orchestra in January 2020 to repeat the program at Indiana University in Bloomington. Additional highlights included two orchestra debuts: with the New Jersey Symphony performing Grieg, conducted by Markus Stenz; and with the Rochester Philharmonic performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Fabien Gabel. Pohjonen made his Philadelphia recital debut at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and returned to Howland Chamber Music Circle in Beacon, NY with a recital. An alumnus of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), Pohjonen enjoys an ongoing association with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with whom he played two performances in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Chicago’s Harris Theater.

Pohjonen launched MyPianist in 2019, an AI-based iOS app that provides interactive piano accompaniment to musicians everywhere. Designed and programmed by Mr. Pohjonen himself and infused with his keen musical sensibility, MyPianist acts as a “virtual pianist” for musicians looking to hone their skills or learn new material. MyPianist carefully “listens” to the musician’s playing and recreates the piano part in real time, matching the timing and nuances of the live performance. More information at https://mypianist.app.

Pohjonen’s illustrious resume of concerto performances reveals a musician in demand internationally. He has appeared as a soloist with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM III

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony & Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras, Philharmonia Orchestra of London, with the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City, and a large number of additional North American orchestras. This includes the Atlanta Symphony where Pohjonen has performed three times. Pohjonen has collaborated with today’s foremost conductors, including Marin Alsop, Lionel Bringuier, Marek Janowski, Fabien Gabel, Kirill Karabits, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Markus Stenz, and Pinchas Zukerman.

The pianist has previously appeared in recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and in San Francisco, La Jolla, Detroit, Savannah, and Vancouver. He made his London debut at Wigmore Hall, and has performed recitals throughout Europe including in Antwerp, Hamburg, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw.

Festival appearances include Lucerne; Savonlinna Finland; Bergen, Norway; and MecklenbergVorpommern in Germany, as well as the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. With CMS he has performed significant chamber music repertoire with Escher and Calidore String Quartets in New York, Chicago, and at Wolf Trap, among many other programs. Other highlights of recent seasons include a recital debut at the 92nd Street Y in New York, in which Pohjonen performed a program that featured Scriabin’s Sonata No. 8 and Dichotomie by Salonen. In a review comparing Pohjonen’s performance of the same piece in 2019 to his 2009 performance, the New York Times commented that the Salonen “no longer seemed nearly impossible. You might say he played it like a master.”

Pohjonen’s most recent recording with cellist Inbal Segev features cello sonatas by Chopin and Grieg, and Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, hallmarks of the Romantic repertoire. Plateaux, his debut recording on Dacapo Records, featured works by late Scandinavian composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, including the solo piano suite For Piano, and piano concerto Plateaux pour Piano et Orchestre, with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ed Spanjaard. His recital at the Music@Menlo 2010 festival was recorded as part of the Music@ Menlo Live series. Entitled Maps and Legends, the disc includes Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K. 331, Grieg’s Ballade (Op. 24), and Handel’s Suite in B-flat Major. Pohjonen joins violinist Petteri Iivonen and cellist Samuli Peltonen to form the Sibelius Trio, who released a recording on Yarlung Records in honor of Finland’s 1917 centennial of independence. The album, described

by Stereophile as “a gorgeous debut,” included works by Sibelius and Kaija Saariaho.

Pohjonen began his piano studies in 1989 at the Junior Academy of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and subsequently earned a Master’s Degree from Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in 2008. Pohjonen was selected by Sir Andras Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship, and has won prizes at international and Finnish competitions.

PROGRAM IV

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CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813-1901) Overture to La Forza del Destino (“The Force of Destiny”) Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813 in Le Roncole, near Busseto, and died on January 27, 1901 in Milan. He composed La Forza del Destino, his 22nd opera, in 1861-1862 on commission from the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg, where the work was premiered on November 17, 1862.

The score calls for woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings. Duration is about 8 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece November 22-24, 2019, with Brett Mitchell conducting.

La Forza del Destino is set in 18th-century Spain. Alvaro has accidentally killed the father of his beloved, Leonora, during the lovers’ attempted elopement. Separately, they flee. Leonora’s brother, Carlo, swears vengeance on both her and their father’s murderer. Leonora first seeks refuge at a convent, and then goes to live as a hermit in a cave. Carlo and Alvaro meet during a military encounter, and Carlo discovers the true identity of his adversary just after Alvaro is carried away, wounded. Alvaro joins the Church as a monk, but he is followed by Carlo who enrages Alvaro to the point of a duel. They fight near Leonora’s cave, interrupting her prayers, and she goes to see what is causing the commotion. As she emerges from her cave, the lovers recognize each other, and Alvaro cries that he has spilled the blood of yet another of her family.

She rushes off to help her fatally wounded brother, but Carlo, with his last bit of strength, stabs Leonora, and she dies in Alvaro’s arms. For this melodramatic tale, Verdi provided one of his most richly expressive scores. The Overture, utilizing several themes from the opera, reflects the strong emotions of the work, though it does not follow the progress of the story.

 SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 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 Concerto No. 2 in 1900-1901 premiered the work on October 14, 1901 in Moscow. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum and strings. Duration is about 33 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra on May 31, 2018 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Brett Mitchell conducted with Natasha Paremski on piano.

The greatest disappointment of Rachmaninoff’s career was the total failure of his Symphony No. 1 at its premiere in 1897, a traumatic event that thrust him into such a mental depression that he suffered a complete nervous collapse. An aunt of Rachmaninoff, Varvara Satina, had recently been successfully treated for an emotional disturbance by a certain Dr. Nicholas Dahl, a Moscow physician who was familiar with the latest psychiatric discoveries in France and Vienna, and it was arranged that Rachmaninoff should visit him. He began his daily sessions in January 1900. “Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was desired of me, SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM V

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES and he was informed ‘a concerto for piano.’ In consequence, I heard repeated, day after day, the same hypnotic formula: ‘You will start to compose a concerto — You will work with the greatest of ease — The composition will be of excellent quality.’ Always it was the same, without interruption.... Although it may seem impossible to believe, this treatment really helped me. I started to compose again at the beginning of the summer.” In gratitude, he dedicated the new Concerto to Dr. Dahl.

The C minor Concerto begins with eight bell-tone chords from the solo piano that herald the surging main theme, announced by the strings; the arching second theme is initiated by the soloist. The development, concerned largely with the first theme, is propelled by a martial rhythm that continues with undiminished energy into the recapitulation. The Adagio is a longlimbed nocturne with a running commentary of sweeping figurations from the piano. The finale resumes the marching rhythmic motion of the first movement with its introduction and bold main theme. Standing in bold relief to this vigorous music is the lyrical second theme. These two themes, the martial and the romantic, alternate for the remainder of the movement.

 CARL NIELSEN (1865-1931) Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, “The Inextinguishable” Carl Nielsen was born on June 9, 1865 in Odense, Denmark, and died on October 3, 1931 in Copenhagen. He began his Fourth Symphony in 1914 and dated the completed manuscript on January 14, 1916. It was premiered in Copenhagen on February 1, 1916. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, two timpanists and strings. Duration is about 36 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra January 11-13, 2008, conducted by Edward Gardner.

“In every man or woman there is something we would wish to know, something which, in spite of all defects and imperfections, we will like once we look into it; and the mere fact that when in reading about a person’s life we often have to say ‘Yes, I too would have done that!’ or ‘He ought not to have done that!’ is valuable because it is life-giving and fructifying.” Life-giving and fructifying: the essential elements of Carl Nielsen’s philosophy and the driving forces of his art, as he expressed them in the opening lines of his little autobiographical book called My Childhood. Throughout his life, Nielsen believed in the basic goodness of life and the ability of music to express that goodness and to confirm and enrich it. “Music is Life and, like it, is inextinguishable,” he inscribed at the head of the score of the Fourth Symphony, and continued, “Under this title — ‘The Inextinguishable’ — the composer has endeavored to indicate in one word what the music alone is capable of expressing to the full: The elemental Will of Life.”

Optimism is never completely unalloyed. In the years of Nielsen’s maturity, the years of his six symphonies, written between 1891 and 1925, it was especially difficult for a sensitive, thinking person in Europe to hold an excess of hope. The decades surrounding the First World War witnessed the collapse of continental Europe’s ruling houses, the unleashing of hitherto undreamed dark regions of human experience through Freud’s psychoanalysis, the PROGRAM VI

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES political and social upheaval of ghastly combat, and the seeming end of a cultural era. Mahler recorded his doubts and fears in his magnificent, wrenching, panoramic symphonies, and died in 1911 convinced that he would be the last musician to write such works. Sibelius retreated into a splendid but socially irrelevant musical abstraction, and by 1927 gave up composing completely, three full decades before his death. Carl Nielsen never allowed his faith in man to be shaken, and he continued to produce works that voiced his belief. In the words of Wilfred Mellers, “The victory Nielsen’s symphonies achieve is a triumph of humanism won, not in the interests of self, but of civilization.”

It is significant and indicative of Nielsen’s attitudes toward life and music that he produced a symphony about mankind’s “inextinguishable” essence during the dark years from 1914 to 1916. He said that there was no specific “program” or “message” behind the Fourth Symphony, other than telling a friend that the violent kettledrum episode in the finale meant “something about the war.” This stunning passage and the inspiring apotheosis that follows it distill the conflicts of this Symphony — anarchy and violence against compassion and hope — which Nielsen sought musically to reconcile, or at least to adjudicate, in favor of hope and optimism.

In this he was like Beethoven, who also unquestioningly chose the life force, most memorably in the grand major-tonality finales of the predominantly minor-key Fifth and Ninth Symphonies.

To create a meaningful final “victory” for his symphonic musical/philosophical essays, Nielsen, like Beethoven, had to create large, integrated structures whose emotional progression would be clear, yet which would not slip into Pollyanna-ish bathos in their closing pages. His music is testimony that he succeeded.

Nielsen’s message — that life is inextinguishable — is embodied in the content and musical structure of his superb Fourth Symphony. The Symphony comprises four distinct movements played without pause. Rather than simply a quirk of formal thinking, this plan is essential to the impact of the work, just as the direct connection of the scherzo and finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony clarifies the emotional progression of that score. The dynamic motivation driving Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony is the contention of opposing forces represented by contrasting types of music — one fearsome, demonic and threatening; the other, life-affirming, hopeful and inspiring. The single large span of music, divided into four movements, allows for the symbolic struggle between them and the eventual triumph of “good.” The victory is only as sweet and convincing as the struggle was difficult, and Nielsen built this Symphony to a luminous, transcendent climax.

The warring forces are set in place early in the first movement. The Symphony opens as if in mid-thought with a violent outburst from the full orchestra, characterized by its churning rhythm, biting dissonances and unsettled tonality. These opening gestures, if lifted out of context, would show Nielsen to be a harsh modernist. Taken as the first sentence in an expansive essay, however, their aggressive character is seen to be a necessary foil to the soothing quality of the contrasting theme that follows. The second theme, presented tenderly in close harmony by the clarinets after a brief, chattering episode from the woodwinds, is lyrical, hymnal and longlimbed. It gathers authority to reach a magnificent climax spread across the full orchestra led by the trombones. The central development section begins quietly with choppy figurations from the solo flute and violins punctuated by a curious, hammering motive on a single pitch in the violas. The two themes of the exposition engage in close combat as the development unfolds, most dramatically in several abrupt exclamations of the first theme that attempt to silence the SOUNDINGS

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CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES sweet intervals of the lyrical melody. The two achieve an uneasy truce (first theme triplets in the strings as accompaniment to the second theme in the winds) which is shattered by the ferocity of the recapitulation of the main theme in compressed form. The second theme is given in response, but not with enough conviction to carry the day.

Quiet strokes on the timpani lead without pause to the second movement, a pleasant respite from the rigors of the preceding struggle. The movement is built on a charming countrydance tune announced pertly by the woodwinds. Pizzicato strings accompany long melodic phrases for solo instruments — oboe, clarinet, bassoon, cello — in the movement’s ethereal central section. A shortened recall of the country-dance tune ends the movement and serves as the bridge to the following Adagio.

The struggle of the first movement is rejoined in the Adagio, though the venue is different.

A broad melody, intense and lyrical, is initiated by the violins before being taken over by the violas and cellos. Opposing this wide-ranging theme is the movement’s central portion, dominated by a massive crescendo built on a powerful, uneven rhythmic figure. Briefly at the close of the movement, the lyrical mood of the opening is recalled by a few bold entries in the strings that quickly die away. A sudden, whirlwind passage in the strings leads to the finale.

The final scene of Nielsen’s titanic musical battle begins with a silence, the lull before the storm. Through several episodes of contrasting character, it becomes clear that the timpani (scored for two players) represents one pole in the argument, broad lyricism the other. The climactic sequence of the Symphony directly opposes the two forces: a violent, pounding timpani assault of terrifying intensity — the most elemental expression of brute power in the entire work — is finally and heroically overcome by a transcendent proclamation from the full orchestra of the hymnal melody from the first movement. The triumph and life-affirming joy of the closing pages of Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony are matched by few other works of the 20th century. ©2021 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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