CLASSICS 2023/24
TWO TITANS: MOZART & MAHLER PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY RUNE BERGMANN, conductor YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin Friday, December 1, 2023 at 7:30pm Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 7:30pm Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall
SIBELIUS Swan of Tuonela MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216 I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Rondo: Allegro — INTERMISSION — MAHLER Symphony No. 1 in D major, “Titan” I. Lansam schleppend II. Kräftig bewegt III. Feierlich und gemessen IV. Stürmisch bewegt CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 55 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION
FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 19 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT! Sunday’s concert is dedicated to Seth & Rivka Weisberg. PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
SOUNDINGS 2 0 2 3/ 24
PROGRAM I
CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES 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. Since Summer of 2023 he is also Music Director of the Peninsula Music Festival in Wisconsin. Guest engagements in the 2023/24 season bring Bergmann once again to the podiums of the Baltimore, Colorado and Utah Symphony Orchestras, and will see him debut with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Sarasota Orchestra. Bergmann’s recent guest engagements include concert weeks with the Baltimore, Colorado, Detroit, Edmonton, Houston, New Jersey, Pacific and Utah Symphony Orchestras in North America, and the Bergen Philharmonic, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orquesta Sinfonica Portuguesa, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, Malaga Philharmonic, Spain’s ADDA Simfonica 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 Bb-Major Bassoon concerto. Earlier in his career, Rune Bergmann served as First Kapellmeister and deputy-Music Director 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 YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin Yumi Hwang-Williams, Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony since 2000, is an American violinist of exceptional musicianship who is recognized both for her stylish performances of the classics and her commitment to the works of present-day composers. Strings magazine calls her “a modern Prometheus” who has “emerged as a fiery champion of contemporary classical music.” Her interpretations of concertos by Thomas Adès, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, and Christopher Rouse have earned critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic approval from the composers. She has collaborated with the Joffrey Ballet (Chicago) in a world premiere of Bold Moves, with ten performances of Adès’ Concentric Paths for violin and orchestra choreographed by Ashley Page. The Colorado Symphony presented the world premiere of Rising Phoenix, violin concerto written for Yumi by Daniel Kellogg in 2016. In 2018, PENTATONE label released 2 disc centennial celebration of Isang Yun’s music with Yumi, Dennis Russel Davies, and The Bruckner Orchestra Linz (Austria) of the Violin Concerto No. 1, solo piece, and work with piano — a culmination of a decade-long project of Korea’s most controversial composer. Yumi is frequently heard as soloist in her capacity as Concertmaster with the Colorado Symphony and occasionally has stepped in as last minute replacement, with Sibelius Concerto in 2017, and recently with Bach Double Violin Concerto featuring Chris Thile on mandolin. She has appeared with other major orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad, including the London Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Austria), Brno Philharmonic (Czech Republic) with conductors Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Hans Graf, Paavo Järvi, Peter Oundjian, Markus Stenz, among others. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Yumi served as Principal Second Violin for the Cincinnati Symphony. In addition, she previously served as Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for 13 summers, has performed as Guest Concertmaster for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman and has been Guest Concertmaster with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She continues to play Guest First Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom she has a long standing association. Yumi began violin studies at the age of 10 in Philadelphia at the Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), a public music magnet school, one year after emigrating from South Korea. She was a soloist with Philadelphia Orchestra at age 13 and was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree. Currently, she is Adjunct Violin Professor at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music, and is actively involved in advancing the arts in the community through numerous local concerts, chamber music collaborations, and supporting the symphony. In 2021 during the heart of the COVID lockdown, Yumi and Michelle DeYoung, world class singer, co-founded ENSEMBLE CHARITÉ which donates all proceeds from concerts to the partnering charity organization. Yumi performs on a violin made by G. B. Guadagnini in Piacenza, Italy circa 1748, gratefully on loan from The GUAD SOCIETY of Denver. SOUNDINGS 2 0 2 3/ 24
PROGRAM III
CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957) “The Swan of Tuonela” (No. 2) from Four Legends of Lemminkainen, Op. 22 Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865 in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and died September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää. He composed The Swan of Tuonela in 1893, and conducted its premiere on April 13, 1896 in Helsinki. The score calls for oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, four horns, three trombones, timpani, bass drum, harp and strings. Duration is about 10 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece March 5-7, 2010 with Jeffrey Kahane conducting. In the summer of 1893, Sibelius met the writer J.H. Erkko while staying at Kuipio in the Finnish interior. As potential material for an opera, Erkko reawakened Sibelius’ interest in the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, on which the composer had previously based his Kullervo Symphony (1891-1892) and Karelia Suite (1893). In collaboration with Erkko, Sibelius devised a libretto titled The Building of the Boat, based on the legendary character of Lemminkainen. He worked on the music for a short time, but, finding the operatic idiom uncongenial, he abandoned the project. The time spent on The Building of the Boat, however, was not wasted since the music that had been intended as a prelude was reworked as an exquisite and haunting miniature for small orchestra in 1893 — The Swan of Tuonela. Lemminkainen, Sibelius’ protagonist and one of the heroes of the epic, is a reckless adventurer, always getting into serious scrapes from which he escapes through brazen exploits or magic. A note in the score of The Swan of Tuonela describes the setting: “Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river with black waters and rapid currents, on which the Swan of Tuonela floats majestically, singing.” Lemminkainen, as one of the requirements for wooing a maiden of Pojho, is charged with killing the sacred Swan. He fails, and is slain by an aged enemy. His body is cut to pieces by one of the guardians of Tuonela. Lemminkainen’s mother restores him to life by magic charms and salves. Sibelius’ tone poem depicts the legendary Swan and its darkly mysterious habitat. Though the music, like the river, flows continuously, Edward Downes suggests that its structure follows the ancient “Bar” form (A–A–B) used by the minstrel poets of forgotten days. The long melody of the Swan, introduced by the English horn, is played twice, the beginning of its repetition marked by the first entry of the horns. The third section starts with the pizzicato chords of the violins.
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PROGRAM IV
C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G
CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, “Strassburg” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, and died on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. The Violin Concerto in G major was the third of five he composed for violin in 1775 in Salzburg. The score calls for flutes, oboes and horns in pairs and strings. Duration is about 24 minutes. Scott O'Neil conducted and Itzhak Perlman played violin when the orchestra last performed this piece April 27, 2011. Mozart’s five authentic violin concertos were all products of a single year, 1775. At nineteen, he was already a veteran of five years’ experience as concertmaster in the Salzburg archiepiscopal music establishment, for which his duties included not only playing, but also composing, acting as co-conductor with the keyboard performer (modern conducting did not originate for at least two more decades), and soloing in concertos. It was for this last function that he wrote these concertos. He was, of course, a quick study at all he did, and each of these concertos builds on the knowledge gained from its predecessors. It was with the last three (K. 216, K. 218, K. 219) that something more than simple experience emerged, however, because it is with these compositions that Mozart indisputably entered the age of his mature works. These are among his earliest pieces now regularly heard in the concert hall. Mozart nicknamed the G major “the Strassburg Concerto,” as he noted in a letter of October 19, 1777 to his father after he had spent a day at the Heiligkreuz Monastery in that city. “During the noon meal we had some music,” Mozart reported. “I led a symphony and played Vanhal’s Violin Concerto in B-flat, which was unanimously applauded…. In the evening at supper I played my ‘Strassburg Concerto,’ which went like oil. Everyone praised my beautiful, pure tone.” His sobriquet apparently refers to an episode in the rondo-finale, which he said was based on a musette tune from Strassburg. The opening Allegro is one of Mozart’s perfectly balanced sonata-concerto forms. The orchestral introduction presents at least four thematic kernels: the bold opening gesture, with a stuttering rhythmic figure at the end of its opening measures; a mock fanfare; a subsidiary melody with long notes in the woodwinds supported by an undulating accompaniment in the strings; and a motive with quick, flashing notes in the violins. The soloist enters with the bold opening gesture, and continues with elaborations upon the themes from the introduction. The subsidiary melody appears again in long notes from the oboe, but is quickly taken over by the solo violin. The flashing-note motive from the end of the introduction and the mock fanfare draw the exposition to a close. The development is largely based on the subsidiary theme decorated with some rapid figurations from the soloist. A recitative-like passage links this central section to the recapitulation, which, with the exception of the cadenza, follows the progression of the exposition. The luminous sonority of the slow movement is created by muted strings, pizzicato basses and sustained wind harmonies. The description sounds clinical; the music sounds heavenly. (In fairness, it should be noted that Mozart learned this particular scoring technique from Johann Christian Bach when Mozart had visited him in London a dozen years before.) Against this languorous orchestral backdrop, the solo violin enters like a shaft of light suddenly reflected through a gemstone. The movement proceeds in sonata form with an exquisite grace and refined elegance that no composer ever surpassed. SOUNDINGS 2 0 2 3/ 24
PROGRAM V
CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES The finale is an effervescent rondo. The orchestra presents the principal theme, a happy, dancing tune in swinging triple meter. The soloist joins in at the first episode. The rondo theme bubbles up twice again (with an intervening episode) before the music comes to an abrupt stop. As though a door had been thrown open onto a party in an adjoining room, contrasting dance music intrudes: first a stately slow dance for the elders (based on the minor-mode folksong from Strassburg, given above a pizzicato accompaniment), then a perky strain for the kids. The door closes, the earlier music resumes, and the festivities move to a happy, if deceptive, ending. The cadenzas for these performances are originally composed by the eminent American conductor, David Zinman for Pamela Frank.
@ GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911) Symphony No. 1 in D major, “Titan” Gustav Mahler was born on July 7, 1860 in Kalischt, Bohemia, and died May 18, 1911 in Vienna. He began his First Symphony in 1883 or 1884, using sketches that date from as early as 1876. He completed the first version the work in March 1888, and revised the orchestration in 1892 and 1893. Mahler led both the world premiere (Orchestra of the Royal Opera, Budapest, November 20, 1889) and the American premiere (New York Philharmonic, December 16, 1909). The score calls for two piccolos, four flutes, four oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, seven horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings. Duration is about 53 minutes. The orchestra last performed this May 25-27, 2018, conducted by Brett Mitchell. Though he did not marry until 1902, Mahler had a healthy interest in the opposite sex, and at least three love affairs touch upon the First Symphony. In 1880, he conceived a shortlived but ferocious passion for Josephine Poisl, the daughter of the postmaster in his boyhood home of Iglau, and she inspired from him three songs and a cantata after Grimm, Das klagende Lied (“Song of Lamentation”), which contributed thematic fragments to the gestation of the Symphony. The second affair, which came early in 1884, was the spark that actually ignited the composition of the work. Johanne Richter possessed a numbing musical mediocrity alleviated by a pretty face, and it was because of an infatuation with this singer at the Cassel Opera, where Mahler was then conducting, that not only the First Symphony but also the Songs of the Wayfarer sprang to life. The third liaison, in 1887, came as the Symphony was nearing completion. Mahler revived and reworked an opera by Carl Maria von Weber called Die drei Pintos (“The Three Pintos,” two being impostors of the title character) and was aided in the venture by the grandson of that composer, also named Carl. During the almost daily contact with the Weber family necessitated by the preparation of the work, Mahler fell in love with Carl’s wife, Marion. Mahler was serious enough to propose that he and Marion run away together, but at the last minute she had a sudden change of heart and left Mahler standing, quite literally, at the train station. The emotional turbulence of all these encounters found its way into the First Symphony, especially
PROGRAM VI
C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G
CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES the finale, but, looking back in 1896, Mahler put these experiences into perspective. “The Symphony,” he wrote, “begins where the love affair [with Johanne Richter] ends; it is based on the affair which preceded the Symphony in the emotional life of the composer. But the extrinsic experience became the occasion, not the message of the work.” The Symphony begins with an evocation of a verdant springtime filled with the natural call of the cuckoo (solo clarinet) and the man-made calls of the hunt (clarinets, then trumpets). The main theme, which enters softly in the cellos after the wonderfully descriptive introduction, is based on the second of the Songs of a Wayfarer, Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld (“I Crossed the Meadow this Morn”). This engaging, folk-like melody, with its characteristic interval of a descending fourth, runs through much of the Symphony to provide an aural link among its movements. The first movement is given over to this theme combined with the spring sounds of the introduction in a cheerful display of ebullient spirits into which creeps an occasional shudder of doubt. The second movement, in a sturdy triple meter, is a dressed-up version of the Austrian peasant dance known as the Ländler, a type and style that finds its way into most of Mahler’s symphonies. The simple tonic-dominant accompaniment of the basses recalls the falling fourth of the opening movement, while the tune in the woodwinds resembles the Wayfarer song. (Note particularly the little run up the scale.) The gentle trio, ushered in by solo horn, makes use of the string glissandos that were so integral a part of Mahler’s orchestral technique. The third movement begins and ends with a lugubrious, minor-mode transformation of the European folk song known most widely by its French title, Frére Jacques. It is heard initially in an eerie solo for muted string bass in its highest register, played above the tread of the timpani intoning the falling-fourth motive from the preceding movements. The middle of the movement contains a melody marked “Mit Parodie” (played “col legno” by the strings, i.e., tapping with the wood rather than the hair of the bow), and a simple, tender theme based on another melody from the Wayfarer songs, Die zwei blauen Augen (“The Two Blue Eyes”). The mock funeral march of this movement was inspired by a woodcut of Moritz von Schwind titled How the Animals Bury the Hunter from his Munich Picture Book for Children. The finale, according to Bruno Walter, protégé and friend of the composer and himself a master conductor, is filled with “raging vehemence.” The stormy character of the beginning is maintained for much of the movement. Throughout, themes from earlier movements are heard again, with the hunting calls of the opening introduction given special prominence. The tempest is finally blown away by a great blast from the horns (“Bells in the air!” entreats Mahler) to usher in the triumphant ending of the work, a grand affirmation of joyous celebration. ©2023 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
S O U N D I N G S 2 0 2 3 / 2 4 PROGRAM VII
Handel’s Messiah with the Colorado Symphony Chorus DEC 16-17
SAT 7:30 SUN 2:30 COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG