MOZART Concerto for Piano No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
I. Allegro
II. Romanza
III. Rondo: Allegro assai
— INTERMISSION —
BRAHMS
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
I. Un poco sostenuto; Allegro
II. Andante sostenuto
III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso
IV. Adagio; Più andante; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 43 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
Friday’s concert is sponsored by Jim and sharon butler
sunday’s concert is sponsored by seth and rivka Weisberg, karin mote, and in memory oF James mote
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
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JONATHON HEYWARD, conductor
Jonathon Heyward is forging a career as one of the most exciting conductors on the international scene. He currently serves as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, having made his debut with the BSO in March 2022 in three performances that included their firstever performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. From summer 2024, Jonathon becomes Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center. This appointment follows a highly acclaimed Lincoln Center debut with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in summer 2022, as part of their Summer for the City festival.
Most recently, Jonathon completed his four-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. In summer 2021, he took part in an intense, two-week residency with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain which led to a highly acclaimed BBC Proms debut. According to The Guardian, Jonathon delivered “a fast and fearless performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, in which loud chords exploded, repeating like fireworks in the hall’s dome, and the quietest passages barely registered. It was exuberant, exhilarating stuff.”
Jonathon’s recent and future guest conducting highlights in the United Kingdom include debuts and re-invitations with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Hallé in Manchester, National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Academy of Music, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In continental Europe, amongst Jonathon’s recent and forthcoming debuts are collaborations with the Castilla y León Symphony, Galicia Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Hamburg Symphony, MDR-Leipzig Symphony, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester.
In high demand in the USA, and in addition to his Music Director positions, Jonathon conducts prominent orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic; the Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Seattle, Dallas, and St Louis symphonies; and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2021, Jonathon made his Wolf Trap debut conducting the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, and in 2023 he made his debut with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival.
Equally at home on the opera stage, Jonathon made his Royal Opera House debut with Hannah Kendall’s Knife of Dawn, having also conducted a Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s new opera, Wake, in a production by Graham Vick for the Birmingham Opera Company.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Jonathon began his musical training as a cellist at the age of ten and started conducting while still at school. He studied conducting at the Boston Conservatory of Music, where he became assistant conductor of the prestigious institution’s opera department and of the Boston Opera Collaborative, and he received postgraduate lessons from Sian Edwards at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Before leaving the Academy, he was
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appointed assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, where he was mentored by Sir Mark Elder, and became Music Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. In 2023, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music; an honour reserved for Academy alumni.
Jonathon’s commitment to education and community outreach work deepened during his three years with the Hallé and flourished during his post as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. He is equally committed to including new music within his imaginative concert programs.
YEOL EUM SON, piano
Pianist Yeol Eum Son, born in South Korea, in 1986, is renowned for her exceptional artistry and captivating performances. Yeol Eum has captivated audiences worldwide with her boundless artistic exploration and profound musicality, establishing herself as one of the foremost pianists of her generation.
Yeol Eum’s playing is marked by its poetic elegance, nuanced expressiveness, and a gift for conveying dramatic contrasts. Her artistry is underpinned by breathtaking technical prowess and a deep emotional connection to the music she interprets. She possesses an insatiable curiosity that drives her to explore a diverse range of musical genres and styles, always striving to reveal the pure essence of each piece.
Her extensive repertoire spans classical masterpieces by composers such as Bach and Mozart to contemporary works by Shchedrin and Kapustin, chosen for their quality and depth. Yeol Eum Son is highly sought after as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician, earning critical acclaim for her intelligent interpretations.
Across the 24/25 season, Yeol Eum makes orchestral debuts with the BBC Symphony at the Barbican Centre in London, Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra at Vienna Musikverein, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Yeol Eum’s past seasons’ collaborations include, the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, Castilla y León, Spanish Radio and Television Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. In North America and Australia Yeol Eum has recently made appearances with Detroit, San Diego, Sydney and Tasmania Symphony Orchestras.
Recent recital highlights include debut appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival, Rosendal and Risør Chamber Music Festival, and Singapore International Piano Festival, as well as return visits to the Helsingborg Piano Festival in Sweden, and Melbourne Recital Centre.
In addition to Yeol Eum’s intense performance diary, she has an active recording schedule with Naïve Records.
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CARL MARIA VON WEBER (1786-1826)
Overture to Euryanthe, Op. 81
Carl Maria von Weber was born on December 18, 1786 in Eutin, Germany, and died on June 5, 1826 in London. His opera Euryanthe was composed in 1821-1823, and premiered on October 25, 1823 in Vienna, conducted by the composer. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 8 minutes. This is the premiere performance by the orchestra.
Following the great success of Der Freischütz in 1820, Weber spent some time casting about for a libretto for his next opera. He rejected Le Cid and Dido, Queen of Carthage as subjects, and settled instead on a scenario by one Wilhelmina von Chezy based on a 13th-century French tale that had also been treated by Boccaccio in his Decameron and by Shakespeare in Cymbeline. “The plot,” related Sigmund Spaeth, “concerns the noble Adolar, who wagers all his possessions with the villainous Lysiart that his intended bride, Euryanthe, is faithful to him. Euryanthe is a victim of the duplicity of Eglantine, herself in love with Adolar. A ring is stolen from the tomb of Emma, Euryanthe’s sister, and Lysiart produces this as evidence of Euryanthe’s guilt. When Emma’s ghost appears, Eglantine confesses the plot and is stabbed by Lysiart, who is led away to execution, as Adolar and Euryanthe are reunited.” Weber received the first act of this dramatic labyrinth from von Chezy on December 15, 1821, and immediately began composing the music for it. The remainder of the libretto, however, arrived slowly, and he was not able to finish the score until October 19, 1823.
Weber utilized several themes from the opera itself in his overture. After an introductory flourish by the full orchestra, a phrase from Adolar’s aria Ich bau’ auf Gott und meine Euryanth’ (“I trust in God and my Euryanthe”) is presented and elaborated. The lyrical second theme, initiated by the violins, derives from Adolar’s aria, O Seligkeit, dich fass’ ich kaum! (“O bliss, I scarce can fathom!”). Preceding the development section, an eerie passage for eight muted violins presages the scene in which the ghost of Emma appears. The brilliant recapitulation represents, according to Sigmund Spaeth, “the triumph of virtue.”
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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, and died on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. He completed his D minor Piano Concerto on February 10, 1785, just one day before he played its premiere in Vienna. The score calls for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 30 minutes. This piece was last performed July 8, 2018, at the Arvada Center with Christopher Dragon conducting and Steven Lin on Piano. The last performance in Boettcher was March 18, 2006, with Jeffrey Kahane conducting and playing piano.
The year 1785 marked an important turning point in Mozart’s attitude toward his work and his public, a change in which this D minor Concerto was central. When he tossed over his secure but hated position with the Archbishop Colloredo in his native Salzburg, he determined that, at age 25, he would go to Vienna to seek his fame and fortune as a piano virtuoso. He found both, at least for the first few years, during which he gave a large number of “Academies,” instrumental and vocal concerts that were popular during the Lenten season, when regular theatrical and operatic activities were prohibited. His concertos for these Academies winningly satisfied the Viennese requirement for pleasantly diverting entertainment, and they were among the most eagerly awaited of his new music. His success in 1784 may be gauged by the length of the subscription list for his concerts, which included more than 150 names representing the cream of the local nobility: eight princes, one duke, two counts, one countess, one baroness and many others of similar pedigree.
The D minor Concerto of 1785 must have puzzled the concert habitués of Vienna. This new and disturbing work, from a composer who had previously offered such ingratiating pieces, did not conform to their standard for a pleasant evening’s diversion. Instead, it demanded greater attention and a deeper emotional involvement than they were prepared to expend. Mozart’s tendency in his later years toward a more subtle and more profound expression was gained at the expense of alienating his listeners. His aristocratic patrons were not quite ready for such revolutionary ideas, and it is little surprise that when he circulated a subscription list for his 1789 Academies, it was returned with only one signature. It is little thanks to Vienna that Mozart’s most sublime masterworks — Don Giovanni, the G minor Quintet, the Requiem, the G minor Symphony, this D minor Concerto — were created.
The first movement of the D minor Concerto “begins with a shudder and is full of unhappy commotion,” according to Mozart authority Eric Blom. It follows the concerto-sonata form that Mozart had perfected in his earlier works for piano and orchestra, and is filled with conflict between soloist and tutti that is heightened by harmonic, dynamic and rhythmic tensions. The second movement, titled “Romanza,” moves to the brighter key of B-flat major to provide a contrast to the stormy opening Allegro, but even this lovely music summons a dark, minor-mode intensity for one of its episodes. The finale is a complex sonata-rondo form with developmental episodes. The D major coda that ends the work provides less a lighthearted, happy conclusion than a sense of catharsis capping the cumulative drama of this noble masterwork.
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JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
Johannes 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 it had been gestating for many years. The premiere was given on November 4, 1876, when Felix Otto Dessoff conducted the orchestra of the Grand Duke of Baden in Karlsruhe. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Duration is about 45 minutes. The last performance was conducted by Christopher Dragon October 15-17, 2021.
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, his first contribution to that journal in a decade, hailing Brahms as the savior of German music, the rightful heir to the mantle of Beethoven. Brahms was extremely proud of Schumann’s advocacy and he eagerly displayed the journal 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 the young composer’s shoulders.
Brahms was acutely aware of the deeply rooted traditions of German music extending back not just to Beethoven, but even beyond him to Bach and Schütz and Lassus. His knowledge of Bach was so thorough, for example, that he was asked to join the editorial board of the first complete edition of the works of that Baroque master. Brahms knew that, having been heralded 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 exhausted 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 (“If one only makes the beginning, then the end comes of itself,” he cajoled), 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 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, and even his closest friends knew of no more than the existence of the manuscript. Seven years passed before he sent the movement to Clara, Schumann’s widow, to seek her opinion. With only a few reservations, she was pleased with this C minor sketch, and encouraged Brahms to hurry on and 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. It is a serious and important essay (“Composing a symphony is no laughing matter,” according to Brahms), one that revitalized the symphonic sonata form of
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Beethoven and combined it with the full contrapuntal resources of Bach, a worthy successor to the traditions Brahms revered.
The success and popularity of the First Symphony are richly deserved. It is a work of supreme technical accomplishment and profound emotion, of elaborate counterpoint and beautiful melody. Even to those who know its progress intimately, it reveals new marvels upon each hearing. The first movement begins with a slow introduction energized by the heart-beats of the timpani supporting the full orchestra. The violins announce the upward-bounding main theme in the faster tempo that launches a 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 in a splendid scoring for oboe, horn and solo violin. The brief third movement, with its prevailing woodwind colors, is reminiscent of the pastoral serenity of Brahms’ earlier Serenades.
The finale begins with an extended slow introduction based on several pregnant thematic ideas. The first, high in the violins, is a minor-mode transformation of what will become the main theme of the finale, but here broken off by an agitated pizzicato passage. A tense section of rushing scales is halted by a timpani roll leading to the call of the solo horn, a melody originally for Alphorn that Brahms collected while vacationing in Switzerland. The introduction concludes with a noble chorale intoned by trombones and bassoons, the former having been held in reserve throughout the entire Symphony just for this moment. The finale proper begins with a new tempo and one of the most famous themes in the repertory, a stirring hymn-like melody that resembles the finale of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony. (When a friend pointed out this affinity to Brahms he shot back, “Any fool can see that!”) The movement 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.
