Program Notes: Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

BARTÓK CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA

ALEXANDER SHELLEY, conductor

PABLO SÁINZ-VILLEGAS, guitar

Friday, March 10, 2023 at 7:30pm

Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 7:30pm

Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 1:00pm

Boettcher Concert Hall

ANNA CLYNE This Midnight Hour

RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez

I. Allegro con spirito

II. Adagio

III. Allegro gentile

— INTERMISSION —

BARTÓK

Concerto for Orchestra, BB. 123

I. Introduzione: Andante non troppo – Allegro vivace

II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando

III. Elegia: Andante non troppo

IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto

V. Finale: Pesante - Presto

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 29 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!

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES

ALEXANDER SHELLEY, conductor

Alexander Shelley is Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s ECHO and Deutsche Gründerpreis winning “Zukunftslabor”. In August 2017 Alexander concluded his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nürnberger Symphoniker, a position he held since September 2009. The partnership was hailed by press and audience alike as a golden era for the orchestra, where he transformed the ensemble’s playing, education work and international touring activities.

Unanimous winner of the 2005 Leeds Conductor’s Competition, he has since worked regularly with the leading orchestras of Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, NDR Orchester Hannover, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Gothenburg Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Milwaukee, Melbourne and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras.

Alexander’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Den Kongelige Opera); La Bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Iolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan Tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier) and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North) in 2015. In 2017 he led a co-production of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel with the NACO and Canadian Opera Company.

PABLO SÁINZ-VILLEGAS, guitar

Praised as “the soul of the Spanish guitar”, Pablo Sáinz-Villegas has become a worldwide sensation known as this generation’s great guitarist. With his “virtuosic playing characterized by irresistible exuberance” as described by The New York Times, his interpretations conjure the passion, playfulness, and drama of Rioja, his homeland’s rich musical heritage. He is known for his passionate, emotive and open-hearted playing, whether he is performing at intimate recital halls, or playing with Plácido Domingo to an audience of over 85,000 at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, where maestro Domingo hailed him as “the master of the guitar”.

Sáinz-Villegas has continued to thrive over the past year connecting in new ways with his audience. He was one of the few selected artists to participate at the 2018 Grammy’s Classical event at Carnegie Hall in New York and he recorded an anticipated duo album together with tenor Plácido Domingo. Highlights of his recent collaborations with Domingo include a performance on a floating stage on the Amazon River streamed worldwide to millions, as well as a special anniversary concert at Chile’s National Stadium. Last season, Sáinz-Villegas also

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made his debut at Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival under the baton of Carlos Kalmar at the Millennium Park to an audience of 11,000 people and accomplished summer tours with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He also gave the world premiere of ‘Rounds’, the first composition for guitar by five-time Academy Award-winner John Williams.

Routinely drawing comparisons with legendary exponents of his instrument such as Andrés Segovia, Sáinz-Villegas has already appeared on some of the world’s most prestigious stages including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Known for a sound so rich and full that it does not need amplification, his concerto performances regularly inspire new invitations and re-engagements in more than 30 countries. He has played with the world’s top-level orchestras including the Pittsburgh, Bergen and Israel Philharmonics, as well as Cincinnati, Spanish National and Boston Symphonies. He made a series of important debuts under the baton of Frühbeck de Burgos, and has enjoyed fruitful collaborations with conductors including Juanjo Mena, Miguel HarthBedoya, Carlos Kalmar, Gustavo Gimeno and Cristian Macelaru.

Sáinz-Villegas continuously searches for ways to communicate with young audiences and to inspire them with music. A born communicator, the guitarist explains: “Music is among things we cannot touch and that is what makes it most powerful”. Over the last decade, he has created projects that bring music beyond the performance halls, reaching more than 20,000 children and youth through volunteering his time, establishing music programs, visiting schools and creating unique community activities around the globe. His efforts have granted him invitations to play for the Spanish Royal Family and the Dalai Lama.

An active recording artist, Sáinz-Villegas is now an exclusive SONY Classical recording artist. His next album with Plácido Domingo will be released in Spring of 2018. Billboard Magazine named him “the global ambassador of Spanish guitar” after his latest solo album, Americano, which quickly made its debut to the top 15 on their charts under the PIAS | Harmonia Mundi USA label. Most recently he recorded the three Rodrigo concerti with the National Orchestra of Spain under the baton of Juanjo Mena, thereby becoming the first in more than 20 years to capture the Concierto de Aranjuez with the ensemble.

Born in La Rioja in Northern Spain, Sáinz-Villegas was inspired to take guitar lessons at age six and gave his first public performance at just seven years old. Over the years, he accomplished an impressive collection of over 30 international awards, including the Segovia award which he won at age 15 and the coveted Gold Medal at the Inaugural Parkening International Guitar Competition. Sáinz-Villegas lives in New York City to this day.

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES

ANNA CLYNE (born in 1980) This Midnight Hour

Anna Clyne was born on March 9, 1980 in London. This Midnight Hour was composed in 2015, and premiered on November 13, 2015 in Plaisir, France by the Orchestre National d’Île de France, conducted by Enrique Mazzola. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings. Duration is about 13 minutes. This is the Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

“Anna Clyne,” according to the biography provided by her publisher Boosey & Hawkes, “is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music, combining resonant soundscapes with propelling textures that weave, morph and collide in dramatic explosions. Her work often includes collaborations with cutting edge choreographers, visual artists, film-makers and musicians worldwide.”

Anna Clyne was born in London in 1980, studied music from early in life (she recalls lessons “on a piano with randomly missing keys”), began composing at age eleven (a fully notated piece for flute and piano), and received her undergraduate training at Edinburgh University and a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music; her teachers include Julia Wolfe, Marina Adamia and Marjan Mozetich. Clyne is now a member of the composition faculty of Mannes/ The New School in New York City, and serves as Mentor Composer for the Orchestra of St Luke’s Inaugural DeGaetano Composer Institute.

Clyne’s career has been on a meteoric trajectory since she completed her education — performances by leading ensembles and soloists around the world and commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Opus 21, Janus Trio, Jerome Foundation, New York Voices (a collaboration between the Albany Symphony and the New York State Archives), ASCAP, Seattle Chamber Players and Houston Ballet; selection as a participant in a master class with Pierre Boulez in New York City; director of the New York Youth Symphony’s award-winning program for young composers “Making Score” from 2008 to 2010. Clyne serves as Composer-in-Residence with both the Philharmonia Orchestra of London and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra (Norway) in 2022–2023, after which she begins a residency with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra for the following season.

Clyne’s dedication to both education and collaboration are evidenced by her extended residency with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2010-2015), when she not only composed six works for the ensemble — including the Grammy-nominated double-violin concerto Prince of Clouds — but also conducted workshops with the Chicago Public Schools and incarcerated youth at the city’s Juvenile Detention Center, joined with Yo-Yo Ma and musicians of the Civic Orchestra, CSO and Chorus to help realize the work of young poets, musicians and composers at such events as the Humanities Festival and Youth in Music Festival, and worked with art therapist Caroline Edasis to develop an innovative collaboration between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Learning Institute and residents in the memory care unit of the Mather Pavilion Residential Nursing Home. Her additional residencies, most with community involvement, include the Cabrillo Music Festival, Campos do Jodão International Music Festival in Brazil, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Berkley Symphony and Los Angeles–based Hysterica Dance Company. Anna Clyne’s rapidly accumulating collection of honors includes eight consecutive ASCAP Plus Awards, Hindemith

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Prize, Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Clutterbuck Award from the University of Edinburgh, as well as awards from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Jerome Foundation and International Artist Sponsorship; she also received a grant from Opera America to develop a work titled Eva, about the German-born American post-minimalist sculptor Eva Hesse (1936-1970), which was workshopped in spring 2018 during her residency at the composer collaborative National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York.

Clyne wrote, “The opening of This Midnight Hour was inspired by the character and power of the lower strings of the orchestra. From there, it draws inspiration from two poems. Whilst it is not intended to depict a specific narrative, my intention is that it will evoke a visual journey for the listener.”

La Música

Juan Ramón Jiménez

¡La musica; — mujer desnuda, Music; — a woman unclad corriendo loca por la noche pura! crazily running through the spotless night!

Harmonie du soir (“Evening Harmony”)

Charles Baudelaire

Now comes the time when, quivering on its stem, Chaque fleur s’évapore ainsi qu’un encensoir; Each flower sheds perfume like a censer; Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir; Sounds and scents turn in the evening air; Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige!

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige

Melancholy waltz and reeling languor!

Chaque fleur s’évapore ainsi qu’un encensoir; Each flower sheds perfume like a censer; Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu’on afflige; The violin throbs like a wounded heart, Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige! Melancholy waltz and reeling languor!

Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir. The sky is sad and beautiful like a great altar.

Le violon frémit comme un coeur qu’on afflige, The violin throbs like a wounded heart, Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir! A fond heart that loathes the vast black void!

Le ciel est triste et beau comme un grand reposoir; The sky is sad and beautiful like a great altar. Le soleil s’est noyé dans son sang qui se fige. The sun has drowned in its congealing blood.

Un coeur tendre, qui hait le néant vaste et noir, A fond heart that loathes the vast black void Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige! And garners in all the luminous past!

Le soleil s’est noyé dans son sang qui se fige ... The sun has drowned in its congealing blood ... Ton souvenir en moi luit comme un ostensoir! Your memory within me shines like a monstrance!

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES

JOAQUÍN RODRIGO (1901-1999)

Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra

Joaquín Rodrigo was born on November 22, 1901 at Sagunto, Valencia, and died on July 6, 1999 in Madrid. The Concierto de Aranjuez was composed in 1939, and premiered on November 9, 1940 in Barcelona, conducted by César Mendoza Lasalle with Regino Sainz de la Maza as soloist. The score calls for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and strings. Duration is about 21 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra March 1, 2008, with Sharon Isbin (guitar) and Scott O'Neil conducting.

The small town of Aranjuez, thirty miles south of Madrid on the River Tagus, is a green oasis in the barren plateau of central Spain. In the mid-18th century, a palace, set amid verdant forests and parks, was built at Aranjuez as a summer retreat for the Spanish court. Generations of Spanish kings thereafter settled into Aranjuez every spring, when the countless nightingales would serenade them from the cedars and laurels, the court ladies would promenade in the cooling shade, and the men would hone their equestrian skills with the famous cream-colored Andalusian horses bred nearby. When Rodrigo sought inspiration for a new concerto in the difficult, war-torn year of 1939, it was to the elegant symbol of by-gone Spain represented by Aranjuez that he turned. “Having conceived the idea of a guitar concerto,” he recalled, “it was necessary for me to place it in a certain epoch and, still more, in a definite location — an epoch at the end of which fandangos transform themselves into fandanguillos, and when the cante and the bulerias vibrate in the Spanish air.”

Rodrigo further stated that he had in mind the early decades of the 19th century when composing this Concierto de Aranjuez. Of the work’s mood and the character of its solo instrument, the composer wrote, “Throughout the veins of Spanish music, a profound rhythmic beat seems to be diffused by a strange phantasmagoric, colossal and multiform instrument — an instrument idealized in the fiery imagination of Albéniz, Granados, Falla and Turina. It is an imaginary instrument that might be said to possess the wings of the harp, the heart of the grand piano and the soul of the guitar.... It would be unjust to expect strong sonorities from this Concierto; they would falsify its essence and distort an instrument made for subtle ambiguities. Its strength is to be found in its very lightness and in the intensity of its contrasts. The Aranjuez Concierto is meant to sound like the hidden breeze that stirs the tree tops in the parks, as dainty as a veronica.”

In his Concierto de Aranjuez, Rodrigo adapted the three traditional movements of the concerto form to reflect different aspects of the soul of Spanish music — the outer movements are fast in tempo and dance-like, while the middle one is imbued with the bittersweet intensity of classic flamenco cante hondo (“deep song”). The soloist opens the Concierto with an evocative, typically Spanish rhythmic pattern of shifting meter that courses throughout the movement. The orchestra, in colorful fiesta garb, soon enters while the guitar’s brilliant, virtuoso display continues. The haunting Adagio, among the most expressive and beloved pieces ever written for guitar, is based on a theme of Middle Eastern ancestry, given in the plangent tones of the English horn, around which the soloist weaves delicate arabesques of sound as the music

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unfolds. The finale’s lilting simplicity (one commentator noted its similarity to a Spanish children’s song) serves as a foil to the imposing technical demands for the soloist, who is required to negotiate almost the entire range of the instrument’s possibilities.

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)

Concerto for Orchestra

Béla Bartók was born on March 25, 1881 in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, and died on September 26, 1945 in New York City. His Concerto for Orchestra was composed in 1943, and premiered on December 1, 1944 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sergei Koussevitzky. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings. Duration is about 36 minutes. The Orchestra last performed this piece November 18-20, 2011, conducted by Peter Oundjian.

Béla Bartók came to America in October 1940, sick of body and afflicted of spirit. He had been frail all his life, and the leukemia that was to cause his death five years later had already begun to erode his health. Adding to the trial of his medical condition was the war raging in Europe, a painful source of torment to one of Bartók’s ardent Hungarian patriotism. Upon leaving his homeland, he not only relinquished the native country so dear to him, but also forfeited the secure financial and professional positions he had earned in Budapest. Compromise in the face of Hitler’s brutal inhumanity, however, was never a possibility for a man of Bartók’s adamantine convictions. Filled with apprehension, he made the difficult overland trip to Lisbon, then sailed on to New York. Sad to say, Bartók’s misgivings were justified. His financial support from Hungary was cut off, and money worries aggravated his delicate physical condition. His health declined enough to make public appearances impossible after 1943. His chief disappointment, however, was the almost total neglect of his compositions by the musical community. It is to the credit of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) that it provided money for the hospital care that enabled Bartók to continue composing to the very end of his life.

It was at this nadir in his fortunes that the commission for the Concerto for Orchestra was presented to Bartók. Phillip Ramey related the circumstances: “By early 1943, things had gotten so bad that two old friends of Bartók, [violinist] Joseph Szigeti and [conductor] Fritz Reiner, suggested to Sergei Koussevitzky [music director of the Boston Symphony] that he commission an orchestral work in memory of his wife, Natalie. Koussevitzky agreed and, one spring day, while Bartók was in a New York hospital undergoing tests, he appeared unexpectedly and startled the composer by offering him a commission for $1,000 on behalf of the Koussevitzky Foundation. Bartók, as fastidious as ever, would initially only accept half of that amount because he feared that his precarious health might prevent him from fulfilling Koussevitzky’s request.”

The commission and an ASCAP-sponsored stay at a sanatorium in Saranac Lake in upstate New York fortified Bartók’s strength enough so that he could work on this new orchestral piece “practically night and day,” as he wrote to Szigeti. Upon its premiere, the Concerto for Orchestra was an instant success. It was accepted immediately into the standard repertory and led to a surge of interest in Bartók’s other compositions. He died less than a year after this work, the last he completed for orchestra, was first heard, not realizing that he would soon be acclaimed as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

“The title of this symphony-like work is explained by its tendency to treat single instruments or instrument groups in a ‘concertant’ or soloistic manner,” wrote the composer to clarify the appellation of the score. Concerning the overall structure of the Concerto’s five movements, he noted, “The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.” The first and last movements, Bartók continued, “are in more or less regular sonata form,” while “the second consists of a chain of independent short sections by wind instruments introduced in five pairs (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes and muted trumpets). A kind of ‘trio’ — a short chorale for brass instruments and snare drum — follows, after which the five sections are recapitulated in a more elaborate instrumentation.... The form of the fourth movement — ‘Interrupted Intermezzo’ — could be rendered by the symbols ‘A B A — interruption — B A.’” The interruption to which Bartók referred is a parody of the German march theme from the first movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” which was in turn a mocking phrase based on a song from Lehár’s The Merry Widow.

©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda