Program Notes: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with Simon Trpčeski
CLASSICS 2024/25
RACHMANINOFF PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 WITH SIMON TRPČESKI
PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY
PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor
SIMON TRPČESKI , piano
Friday, November 8, 2024 at 7:30pm
Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 7:30pm
Sunday, November 10, 2024 at 1:00pm
Boettcher Concert Hall
RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
I. Moderato
II. Adagio sostenuto
III. Allegro scherzando
— INTERMISSION —
MAHLER Symphony No. 7 in E minor
I. Langsam - Allegro
II. Nachtmusik I
III. Scherzo: Schattenhaft
IV. Nachtmusik II
V. Rondo-Finale
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 2 HOUR AND 10 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 37 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT!
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
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PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor
Recognized as a masterful and dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian has developed a multi-faceted portfolio as a conductor, violinist, professor and artistic advisor. He has been celebrated for his musicality, an eye towards collaboration, innovative programming, leadership and training with students and an engaging personality. Strengthening his ties to Colorado, Oundjian is now Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in addition to Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, which successfully pivoted to a virtual format during the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021.
Now carrying the title Conductor Emeritus, Oundjian’s fourteen-year tenure as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony served as a major creative force for the city of Toronto and was marked by a reimagining of the TSO’s programming, international stature, audience development, touring and a number of outstanding recordings, garnering a Grammy nomination in 2018 and a Juno award for Vaughan Williams’ Orchestral Works in 2019. He led the orchestra on several international tours to Europe and the USA, conducting the first performance by a North American orchestra at Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall in 2014.
From 2012-2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra during which time he implemented the kind of collaborative programming that has become a staple of his directorship. Oundjian led the RSNO on several international tours, including North America, China, and a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival, the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and others. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.
Highlights of past seasons include appearances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Iceland Symphony, the Detroit, Atlanta, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. With the onset of world-wide concert cancellations, support for students at Yale and Juilliard became a priority. In the 2022/2023 season, Oundjian conducted the opening weekend of Atlanta Symphony, followed by return engagements with Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, Colorado and Toronto symphonies, as well as a visit to New World Symphony.
Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and in 2013 was awarded the school’s Sanford Medal for Distinguished Service to Music. A dedicated educator, Oundjian regularly conducts the Yale, Juilliard, Curtis and New World symphony orchestras.
An outstanding violinist, Oundjian spent fourteen years as the first violinist for the renowned Tokyo String Quartet before he turned his energy towards conducting.
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SIMON TRPČESKI, piano
Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski (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 NewGeneration Artist, his fast-paced career has seen him collaborate with over a hundred different orchestras on four continents with appearances on the most prestigious stages.
Simon Trpceski 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 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. Trpceski 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 David Zinman.
Mr. Trpceski’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 Trpceski 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.
With the special support of KulturOp — Macedonia’s leading cultural and arts organization — Mr. Trpceski also works regularly with young musicians in Macedonia to help cultivate the talent of the country’s next generation of artists. In 2009, Mr. Trpceski received the Presidential Order of Merit for Macedonia and in 2011, he became the first-ever recipient of the title “National Artist of Macedonia.”
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SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born April 1, 1873 in Oneg (near Novgorod), Russia, and died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California. He composed the second and third movements of this Concerto in the summer and early autumn of 1900 in Italy, Novgorod and Moscow. This uncompleted version was heard at a charity concert in Moscow on October 14, the composer at the keyboard and Alexander Siloti conducting. The opening movement was finished by the following spring, with the premiere of the finished work occurring on October 14, 1901 with the same two principals and the orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. The score calls for 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 April 8-10, 2022 with Rune Bergmann conducting and Juho Pohjonen on piano.
When he was old and as mellow as he would ever get, Rachmaninoff wrote these words about his early years: “Although I had to fight for recognition, as most younger men must, although I have experienced all the troubles and sorrow which precede success, and although I know how important it is for an artist to be spared such troubles, I realize, when I look back on my early life, that it was enjoyable, in spite of all its vexations and bitterness.” The greatest “bitterness” of Rachmaninoff’s career was the total failure of the Symphony No. 1 at its premiere in 1897, a traumatic disappointment 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. Years later, in his memoirs, the composer recalled the malady and the treatment: “[Following the performance of the First Symphony,] something within me snapped. A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. My only occupation consisted in giving a few piano lessons to keep myself alive.” For more than a year, Rachmaninoff’s condition persisted. He began his daily visits to Dr. Dahl in January 1900. “My relatives had informed Dr. Dahl that he must by all means cure me of my apathetic condition and bring about such results that I would again be able to compose. Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was desired of me, and he was informed ‘a concerto for pianoforte.’ In consequence, I heard repeated, day after day, the same hypnotic formula, as I lay half somnolent in an armchair in Dr. Dahl’s consulting room: ‘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,” Rachmaninoff continued, “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 long-
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limbed 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.
@GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphony No. 7, “Song of the Night”
Gustav Mahler was born July 7, 1860 in Kalischt, Bohemia, and died May 18, 1911 in Vienna. He composed the Seventh Symphony in 1904-1905 and conducted its premiere on September 19, 1908 in Prague. The score calls for two piccolos, four flutes, three oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, tenor horn, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, guitar, mandolin and strings. Duration is about 77 minutes.
In November 1901, Mahler met Alma Schindler, daughter of the painter Emil Jacob Schindler, then 22 and regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Vienna. Mahler was 41. Romance blossomed. They were married in March, and were parents by November. Their first summer together (1902) was spent at Maiernigg, Mahler’s country retreat on the Wörthersee in Carinthia in southern Austria, where the Fifth Symphony was composed — he thought of it as “their” music, the first artistic fruit of his married life with Alma. The Sixth Symphony was composed during the two following summers, and the Seventh in 1904-1905. In this trilogy of symphonies occupying the center of his creative life, Mahler seems to have taken inordinate care to demonstrate the mature quality of his thought (he was, after all, nearly twice Alma’s age), and to justify his lofty position in Viennese artistic life. He may well have wanted to create music that would be worthy of the new circle of friends that Alma, the daughter of one of Austria’s finest artists and most distinguished families, had opened to him — Gustav Klimt, Alfred Roller (who became Mahler’s stage designer at the Court Opera), architect Josef Hoffmann and the rest of the cream of cultural Vienna. Mahler’s creativity was invigorated by the vast extension of his social life, and in an 1897 letter to the conductor Anton Seidl, he confirmed the symbiotic relationship of his music and his life: “Only when I experience do I compose — only when I compose do I experience.”
The Seventh Symphony was a product of the happiest years Mahler knew. His career as director of the Vienna Opera was at its apex (in 1904 and 1905, he introduced his highly regarded version of Fidelio, conducted an important production of Don Giovanni with decor by Alfred Roller, and prepared for revivals of Così fan tutte and The Abduction from the Seraglio), his life with Alma was satisfying, his family had grown to include two healthy daughters, and his music was gaining recognition. Just as the Sixth Symphony was being completed at Maiernigg in September 1904, he quickly wrote the two Andantes that were to become the “night music” movements of the Symphony No. 7. His hectic performance and administrative schedule in
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Vienna during the winter months precluded further work on the new piece. When he returned to Maiernigg the following May, however, “Not a note would come,” he recalled. “I plagued myself for two weeks until I sank into gloom.... then I tore off to the Dolomites. There I was led the same dance, and at last gave it up and returned home.... I got into the boat to be rowed across. At the first stroke, the theme (or rather the rhythm and character) of the introduction to the first movement came into my head — and in four weeks, the first, third and fifth movements were done.” The Symphony was completed in short score before Mahler returned to Vienna in the autumn; the work was orchestrated, as was his usual method, during daily two-hour sessions before he left for the Opera at 9:00 a.m. The full score was finished early in 1906. It was to be the last work of that halcyon period in Mahler’s life.
Between the completion of the Seventh Symphony in 1906 and its premiere in Prague under the composer’s direction on September 19, 1908, Mahler’s life was turned upside-down. In 1907, three separate shocks befell him that crushed his happiness and hastened his early death at the age of only fifty: in March, against the continuing background of budgetary distress, hide-bound conservatism, and muted but pervasive anti-Semitism, Mahler began to feel that his tenure at the Court Opera had been a failure, and resigned; three months later, Dr. Friedrich Kovacs of Vienna diagnosed a serious heart condition caused by subacute endocarditis, and advised Mahler that he would have to cease all strenuous activity and limit his professional responsibilities if the disease were not to prove rapidly fatal; and in July, the composer’s beloved four-year-old daughter, Maria, died of scarlet fever and diphtheria. The man who conducted the premiere of the Seventh Symphony was much changed from the man who composed it. Alma recorded that he worked incessantly on revising the score’s orchestration during the long series of rehearsals, and that his stamina and self-confidence seemed particularly taxed by preparations for the performance. “He was torn by doubts,” she wrote. “He avoided the society of his fellow-musicians, which as a rule he eagerly sought, and went to bed immediately after dinner so as to save his energy for the rehearsals.” Though the local orchestra won Mahler’s approval, and the event generated considerable excitement, Alma reported that the piece had only a “succès d’estime.... The Seventh was scarcely understood by the public.” The work was heard again during Mahler’s lifetime in Hamburg, Munich, Amsterdam and Vienna, but it failed to achieve wide acceptance, and came early in its history to be regarded as something of a step-child among the symphonies; it was not heard in the United States until Frederick Stock conducted it in Chicago in 1921.
Philip Barford accused Mahler of “reworking earlier inspirations” in the Seventh Symphony, noting its similarity to the Symphony No. 5 in its five-movement, symmetrical structure, progressive tonality (i.e., ending in a key different from the beginning), and use of an exuberant, brightly colored rondo-finale. The Symphony No. 7, however, is not only different in its emotional progression, but also surpasses the earlier work in the brilliance, innovation, sonority and sheer power of its scoring. It also, according to Burnett James, “points boldly into the future: elements of its scoring, its harmony and its Expressionist ambience lead to where Schoenberg, Berg and Webern were already waiting in the wings and were already moving towards stage center.” The noted conductor and champion of modern music Hermann Scherchen said that the piece gave him his “first whiff of a new artistic feeling, one that marked the transition to Expressionism.”
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The first movement, amply endowed with such forward-looking harmonic devices as superimposed fourths and incipient polytonality, is a vast sonata design prefaced by a stern introduction (led by the tenor tuba) containing motivic germs from which several later themes grow. An embryonic version of the main theme is given by unison trombones, only to be interrupted by another somber proclamation from the tenor tuba. The horns then take over the trombones’ theme to launch the main body of the movement. A sentimental melody, very Viennese in manner, is given by the violins to provide contrast. The center of the movement is occupied by development of motives from the introduction and main theme. Solos in the bass and tenor trombones and the tenor tuba lead to the recapitulation.
The Symphony’s three central movements (Night Music I — Scherzo — Night Music II) are grouped together within the massive bulwark of the opening movement and the Rondo-Finale. The Nachtmusik I, in an unsettled C major-minor tonality, is one of Mahler’s most fantastic inspirations. Burnett James found here “a sense of tattered ghostly armies marching by night, of bugle calls and responses as well as those of birds and beasts; not so much barbarous armies that clash by night, as of remnants of those which have clashed.” Bright dawn does not immediately follow this musical night, however, since the ensuing Scherzo is among the most haunted, spectral and disquieting movements in the symphonic literature. “A spook-like, nocturnal piece,” Mahler’s friend and protégé Bruno Walter called it; Ronald Kinloch Anderson allowed that if the surrounding movements are “night” music, this Scherzo might well be “nightmare” music. “A glimpse of darkness, of the skull beneath the skin with its mocking grimace, of the essential horror,” wrote James. This devil’s waltz of a movement is followed by the delicate Nachtmusik II, whose simplicity, quietude and gentle guitar and mandolin sounds serve to quell the apprehension of the Scherzo and to prepare for the sunburst of the Symphony’s close.
The Rondo-Finale has, with justification, been criticized for a lack of coherence and an uninhibited boisterousness sometimes bordering on the banal. In the context of the Seventh Symphony, however, the finale is an appropriate emotional and stylistic closure to the expressive and formal progression circumscribed by the earlier movements, achieving a mood that Paul Stefan said is “on top of a mountain.”
