Wolfe & Dragon feat. Chorus, Schumann, and More

CLASSICS 2023/24 WOLFE & DRAGON FEATURING YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductor DUAIN WOLFE, conductor and director, Colorado Symphony Chorus ANNA CHRISTY, soprano COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS Friday, November 17, 2023 at 7:30pm Saturday, November 18, 2023 at 7:30pm Sunday, November 19, 2023 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall

GARY FRY

To Dream Again

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Serenade to Music

BRUCKNER

Psalm 150, WAB 38 — INTERMISSION —

SCHUMANN Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish” I. Lebhaft II. Scherzo: Sehr mässig III. Nicht schnell IV. Feierlich V. Lebhaft CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 40 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! Saturday’s concert is dedicated to Ed & Laurie Bock.

PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

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PROGRAM I

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES CHRISTOPHER DRAGON, conductor Australian conductor Christopher Dragon is the Music Director of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and Resident Conductor of the Colorado Symphony. He joined the Colorado Symphony in the 2015/2016 Season as Associate Conductor – a position he held for four years. For three years prior, Dragon held the inaugural position of Assistant Conductor with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, which gave him the opportunity to work closely with Principal Conductor Asher Fisch.

Dragon has a versatile portfolio ranging from live-to-picture performances including Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, a wide variety of collaborations with artists such as the Wu-Tang Clan, Cynthia Erivo and Joshua Bell, to standard and contemporary orchestral repertoire such as Danny Elfman’s Violin Concerto, Eleven Eleven; all areas of which he has become highly sought after. Christopher has become known for his charisma, high energy and affinity for a good costume, consistently delivering unforgettable performances that has made him an audience favourite.

Recent highlights include his successful debut with the San Francisco Symphony, performances of Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton with Danny Elfman reprising the role of Jack Skellington and historic performances with Nathaniel Rateliff at Walt Disney Concert Hall and David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Upcoming debuts include the WRD Funkhausorchester, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

Christopher is highly sought after as a guest conductor and has worked with San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Utah Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Modesto Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica de Porto Alegre and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. In Australia, he has guest conducted the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. His 2015 debut performance at the Sydney Opera House with John Pyke and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was released on album by ABC Music and won an ARIA the following year He has also conducted at numerous festivals including the Breckenridge and Bangalow Music Festivals, with both resulting in immediate re-invitations. At the beginning of 2016 Dragon conducted Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony as part of the Perth International Art Festival alongside Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Christopher began his conducting studies in 2011 and was a member of the prestigious Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program in Australia under the guidance of course director Christopher Seaman. He has also studied with numerous distinguished conductors including Leonid Grin, Paavo and Neeme Jarvi at the Jarvi Summer Festival, Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival and conducting pedagogue Jorma Panula.

PROGRAM II

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

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES DUAIN WOLFE, founder and director, Colorado Symphony Chorus Three-time Grammy winner for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Recording, and Best Opera Performance, Duain Wolfe is Founder and Director of the Colorado Symphony Chorus.

This year marks Wolfe’s 40th season with the Colorado Symphony Chorus.

The Chorus has been featured at the Aspen Music Festival for nearly three decades. Wolfe recently retired as Director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus after 28 years. He has collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, and Sir George Solti on numerous recordings including Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, which won the 1998 Grammy® for Best Opera Recording. Wolfe’s extensive musical accomplishments have resulted in numerous awards, including the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Denver, the Bonfils Stanton Award in the Arts and Humanities, the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline, and the Michael Korn Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art. Wolfe is Founder of the Colorado Children’s Chorale, from which he retired in 1999 after 25 years. For 20 years, Wolfe also worked with the Central City Opera Festival as chorus director and conductor, founding and directing the company’s young artist residence program, as well as its education and outreach programs. Wolfe’s other accomplishments include directing and preparing choruses for Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Bravo! Vail Festival, the Berkshire Choral Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. He has worked with Pinchas Zuckerman and Alexander Shelly as Chorus Director for the Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra for the past 20 years.

ANNA CHRISTY, soprano Praised by The New York Times as “nimble of voice, body and spirit,” GRAMMY Award® winning soprano Anna Christy continues to impress and delight audiences with an extraordinary blend of sparkling voice, powerful stage presence, and innate musicality.

Recent engagements include a return to Carnegie Hall for the US premiere of Joe Hisaishi’s East Land Symphony, conducted by the composer and accompanied by the American Symphony Orchestra, followed by returns to the Colorado Symphony for Messiah, Seiji Ozawa Music Academy for Adele in Die Fledermaus, and Central City Opera for Julie Jordan in Carousel. Additional engagements include a debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in L’enfant et les sortilèges conducted by Stéphane Denève.

Anna made her role debut as Gilda in Christopher Alden’s production of Rigoletto at the English National Opera. She was also seen at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City as Adele in Die Fledermaus and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro at Central City Opera. Ms. Christy made a triumphant debut in her signature role of Cunegonde in Candide at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Christy was seen as Cleopatra in a new production of Handel’s Julius Caesar at English National Opera, followed by concerts of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and Stravinsky’s Le rossignol with Charles Dutoit and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo. She returned to SOUNDINGS 2 0 2 3/ 24

PROGRAM III

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES the Metropolitan Opera as Lisette in the Nicholas Joel production of Puccini’s La rondine and Toronto audiences heard Ms. Christy as Lucia in the highly-acclaimed David Alden production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. She closed the season as Emily Webb in Ned Rorem’s Our Town with Central City Opera, followed by performances of Le feu, La princesse, and Le rossignol in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges at the Saito Kinen Festival with Seiji Ozawa conducting for which she won a Grammy ™ Award (Best Opera Recording 2016).

Selected by New York City Opera, Anna Christy is the recipient of the Martin E. Segal Award presented annually to nominees by two of Lincoln Center’s twelve resident arts constituents.

She is also the recipient of a Richard Tucker Music Foundation Career Grant, the ARIA Award, Sullivan Foundation Grant, a Richard F. Gold Grant and the Shouse Debut Artist Award from Wolf Trap Opera.

Anna was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Pasadena, California. She spent her summers in Tokyo, Japan, at her mother’s family home, and is fluent in Japanese. Ms. Christy attended Polytechnic School in Pasadena and was a founding member of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus. She is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Cincinnati, CollegeConservatory of Music. Ms. Christy currently resides with her husband and children in Colorado.

COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS The 2023/24 Colorado Symphony concert season marks the 40th season of the Colorado Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1984 by Duain Wolfe at the request of Gaetano Delogu, then the Music Director of the Symphony, the chorus has grown into a nationally respected ensemble. This outstanding chorus of volunteers joins the Colorado Symphony for numerous performances each year, to repeated critical acclaim.

The Chorus has performed at noted music festivals in the Rocky Mountain region, including the Colorado Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, where it has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony, under conductors Alan Gilbert, Hans Graf, Jaap van Zweden, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Fabio Luisi. For over twenty five years, the Chorus was featured at the world-renowned Aspen Music Festival, performing many great masterworks under the baton of conductors Lawrence Foster, James Levine, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, and Robert Spano.

Among the eight recordings the Colorado Symphony Chorus has made is a NAXOS release of Roy Harris’s Symphony No. 4. The Chorus is also featured on a Hyperion release of the Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis. Most recently, the Colorado Symphony and Chorus released a world-premiere recording of William Hill’s The Raven.

In 2009, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the chorus, Duain Wolfe conducted the chorus on a three-country, two-week concert tour of Europe, presenting the Verdi Requiem in Budapest, Vienna, Litomysl and Prague; in 2016 the chorus returned to Europe for concerts in Paris, Strasbourg and Munich featuring the Fauré Requiem. In the summer of 2022, the Chorus toured Austria, performing to great acclaim in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg.

PROGRAM IV

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

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES COLORADO SYMPHONY CHORUS Duain Wolfe, Founding Director and Conductor Mary Louise Burke, Principal Associate Director and Conductor Taylor Martin, Associate Director and Conductor Jared Joseph, Conducting Intern Hsiao-Ling Lin and ShaoChun Tsai, pianists Eric Israelson, Chorus Manager/Librarian Barbara Porter, Associate Chorus Manager SOPRANO Andrews, Lottie Ascani, Lori Atchison, René Black, Kimberly Blum, Jude Bowen, Alex Burns, Jeremy Burr, Emily Causey, Denelda Coberly, Ruth Coberly, Sarah Collins, Elizabeth Collins, Suzanne Collums, Angie Cote, Kerry Dakkouri, Claudia Day, April Dobreff, Mary Eck, Emily Emerich, Kate Ewert, Gracie Gaskill, Andria Gile, Jenifer Gill, Lori Graber, Susan Grace, Maura Headrick, Alaina Irigoyen, Alicia Jones, Kaitlyn Jorden, Cameron Kennedy, Lauren Kermgard, Lindsey Kinnischtzke, Meghan Kraft, Lisa Kushnir, Marina Lang, Leanne Linder, Dana Look, Cathy Machusko, Rebecca

Mattingly, Isabella Maupin, Anne Montigne, Erin Moraskie, Wendy O’Nan, Jeannette Peterson, Jodie Pflug, Kim Porter, Barbara Rae, Donneve Sladovnik, Roberta Stegink, Nicole Tate, Judy Timme, Sydney Von Roedern, Susan Walker, Marcia Wall, Alison Wise, Rebecca Worley, Taylor Wuertz, Karen Young, Cara Zisler, Joan ALTO Adams, Priscilla Arthur, Liz Berganza, Brenda Braud, Charlotte Chatfield, Cass Clauson, Clair Conrad, Jayne Cox, Martha Darone, Janie Davies, Debbie Deck, Barbara Dobson, Kezia Dutcher, Valerie Fairchild, Raleigh Friedman, Anna Gayley, Sharon Golden, Daniela Groom, Gabriella

Guittar, Pat Haxton, Sheri Hoopes, Kaia Hoskins, Hansi Isaac, Olivia Jackson, Brandy Janasko, Ellen Jarest, Michelle Kaminske, Christine Kim, Annette Kolstad, Annie LeBaron, Andrea Levy, Juliet London, Carole Long, Tinsley Maltzahn, Joanna McWaters, Susan Nordenholz, Kristen Nyholm, Christine Owens, Sheri Parsons, Jill Pringle, Jennifer Rehme, Leanne Rudolph, Kathi Scarselli, Elizabeth Schnell, Wendy Stevenson, Melanie Thaler, Deanna Thayer, Mary Trubetskoy, Kimberly Virtue, Pat Wandel, Benita Worthington, Evin York, Beth

TENOR Babcock, Gary Bowman, Ryan Carlson, James Davies, Dusty Dinkel, Jack Fuehrer, Roger Gale, John Gordon, Frank Guittar, Forrest Hodel, David Ibrahim, Sami Johnson, Trey Jordan, Curt Kolm, Kenneth Milligan, Tom Moraskie, Richard Muesing, Garvis Nicholas, Timothy Rangel, Miguel Roach, Eugene Rosen, David Ruth, Ronald Seamans, Andrew Sims, Jerry Stohlmann, Phillip Thompson, Hannis Witherspoon, Max Zimmerman, Kenneth BASS Adams, John Carlton, Grant Friedlander, Robert Glauner, Dave Gray, Matthew Griffin, Tim

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Grossman, Chris Hammerberg, Nicholas Hesse, Douglas Highbaugh, David Hume, Donald Hunt, Leonard Israelson, Eric Jackson, Terry Jirak, Thomas Johnson, Matthew Jones, John Joseph, Jared Lingenfelter, Paul Lund-Brown, Sean McDaniel, Jakson Mehta, Nalin Molberg, Matthew Morrison, Greg Phillips, John Pilcher, Ben Potter, Tom Pullen, Jacob Quarles, Kenneth Richards, Joshua Skillings, Russell Smedberg, Matthew Steele, Matt Struthers, David Swanson, Wil Virtue, Tom West, Mike

PROGRAM V

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES GARY FRY (born in 1955) To Dream Again for Chorus Gary Fry was born on November 29, 1955 in Keswick, Iowa. To Dream Again was composed in 2002 and premiered on May 16, 2002 at Orchestra Hall in Chicago by the Chicago Symphony Singers, conducted by Duain Wolfe. Duration is about 6 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra March 11, 2016, conducted by Duain Wolfe.

Emmy-winning composer, arranger, producer, conductor and music educator Gary Fry, born in 1955 in Keswick, Iowa and a graduate of the University of Miami (Florida), has composed prolifically for recordings, films, theater, commercials and concert. Fry has written and produced over 2,500 nationally broadcast radio and television commercials for companies such as McDonald’s, Sears, United Airlines, Kellogg’s, U.S. Air Force, and hundreds of other advertisers; he won an Emmy Award in 2006 for his original commercial music for WBBM-TV (Chicago). For live performance, Fry has made a specialty of vocal works, most notably for holiday programs — he has been arranger/composer for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Welcome, Yule!” concerts for nearly 20 years, holds similar positions with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and has fulfilled many commissions for holiday music from other orchestras, universities and churches. Fry has taught at the University of Miami and Northwestern University, conducted workshops and seminars at many other educational institutions, and is active in the field of music education for children, having led children’s choirs in performances at such prestigious venues as the White House and United Nations, and on tours throughout the United States. Gary Fry’s additional credits include music for the PBS nature special To the Ends of the Earth and for several productions at the Provision Theater in Chicago.

“To Dream Again,” Fry wrote, “is the most complex a cappella choral piece I’ve written, with 24 four independent parts that were designed to feature the talents of the singers. Commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Singers, directed by Duain Wolfe (an ensemble drawn from the Chicago Symphony Chorus), to be part of a concert in 2002 of musical settings of texts from Shakespeare, this work opened the program from an empty stage. The male performers enter, one by one, singing individual contrapuntal lines that weave together into a complete statement of the text. The women also enter gradually, beginning as wordless clouds of polymodal harmony and pointillistic vocal effects as the men declaim the text. Once all have entered, at the work’s climax (‘and then in dreaming’) the women join the men on the text, building to the phrase ‘when I wak’d.’ After a dramatic pause, the women return to wordless textures as the piece closes with a solo baritone voice (“I cried to dream again”).

PROGRAM VI

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

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES To Dream Again Music! Sounds and sweet airs, and sometimes voices Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices That if then I had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again, and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches, Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 3, Scene ii

@ RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) Serenade to Music for Chorus and Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams was born on October 12, 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, and died August 26, 1958 in London. The Serenade to Music was composed in 1938 and premiered on October 5, 1938 in London, conducted by Sir Henry Wood. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 14 minutes. This is a Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Henry J. Wood (1869-1944) was one of the leading figures of British music in the first half of the 20th century. After his training at the Royal Academy of Music, he was engaged as conductor by the Savoy Theater (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame), and soon became known throughout Britain as a musician of extraordinary skill. In 1895, he organized the first of the Promenade Concerts, which proved to be such a success that the series became a regular part of London’s musical life.

More than just “pops” concerts, the Proms developed into a showcase for new music by British and other composers, and they continue today. For his work in producing the Proms, selecting their programs, and bringing countless British artists before the public, Sir Henry (he was knighted in 1911) came to be held in the greatest respect by the English musical community.

The Golden Anniversary of Wood’s debut as a conductor was to be celebrated in 1938, and he asked Ralph Vaughan Williams, then Britain’s leading composer, to contribute a work to the gala concert. Wood discouraged Vaughan Williams from writing a laudatory work in favor of something more general in character, music that could be used at any time or place. The composer had been interested for some time in making a musical setting of the well-known verses from Act IV, Scene i of The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s greatest tribute to the art S O U N D I N G S 2 0 2 3 / 2 4 PROGRAM VII

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES of music, and he settled upon these stanzas as the text for his new piece. To pay tribute to Sir Henry, Vaughan Williams hit upon the novel idea of writing this Serenade to Music for sixteen vocal soloists who had been associated with the conductor throughout his career. Each was given a solo phrase devised especially to suit the particular characteristics of his or her voice, and the initials of each participant inscribed in the score to note the association of performer and music. The Serenade is rarely heard now in its original version for sixteen soloists; most performances employ the choral version authorized by the composer.

The Serenade to Music is one of the greatest of all musical interpretations of the words of Shakespeare. It is a work of simple but glowing, sensual beauty whose rapturous mood is matched by only a handful of other compositions in the history of the art. Of the Serenade, Hubert Foss wrote, “This music stands isolated as a single work among the whole of Vaughan Williams’ large catalogue. It is perhaps the most successfully integrated, the most concordant, the sweetest on the ear, of all his inventions, matter and manner indissolubly fused.” As testimony to Mr. Foss’ observation, once the Serenade to Music is known it is impossible to hear Shakespeare’s words again without having them conjure up Vaughan Williams’ exquisite music.

Because the music is so closely allied to the text, a detailed discussion of the work is unnecessary — careful attention to the text will clarify both the essence of the music and its formal structure.

In the words of the poem: Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears. Soft stillness, and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Serenade to Music How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls.

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn!

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, And draw her home with music.

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

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus.

Let no such man be trusted.

Music! hark! It is the music of the house.

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Silence bestows that virtue on it…

How many things by season season'd are To their right praise and true perfection!

Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd.

Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

— William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene i

@ ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-1896) Psalm 150 for Soprano, Chorus and Orchestra Anton Bruckner was born on September 4, 1824 in Ansfelden, Upper Austria, and died on October 11, 1896 in Vienna. His Psalm 150, composed in 1892, was premiered on November 13, 1892 in Vienna, conducted by William Gericke. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings. Duration is about 9 minutes. This is a Colorado Symphony premiere performance.

Anton Bruckner first came to Vienna in 1867 as organist to the Imperial Court. His reputation at that time was founded only on his sacred choral compositions and his surpassing ability at the keyboard. Though his attention turned primarily to the symphony in the years that followed, his duties at court kept him in constant contact with sacred music, and his works for the Church are among the most significant of any 19th-century composer. He wrote six Masses, a Te Deum, a Magnificat, and almost three dozen smaller works, including settings of five Psalms. The last of the Psalm settings, that for Psalm 150, was written at the same time as the unfinished Ninth Symphony, and was Bruckner’s next-to-last completed work. It was originally intended for a music festival of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in Vienna in 1892, but the festival was canceled and the first performance was given by the Vienna Philharmonic.

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PROGRAM IX

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES Bruckner’s Psalm 150 is compact in musical design and stirring in its heartfelt praise of God. It opens with a jubilant proclamation of Hallelujah! by chorus and full orchestra, a refrain that recurs throughout the piece both to mark the important structural junctures and to maintain the exultant mood of the beginning. The joyful next section (Lobet den Herrn — “Praise God”) leads to a quieter episode (Alles, was Odem hat— “Let everything that hath breath”) with prominent parts for solo violin and solo soprano. The Hallelujah refrain returns before an extended, complex fugue begins, again using the text Alles, was Odem hat. One final time, Hallelujah is brought back as a coda to this majestic proclamation of Bruckner’s deep religious faith.

Psalm 150 Halleluja! Lobet den Herrn in seinem Heiligthum; Hallelujah! Praise the Lord in his sanctuary; Lobet ihn in der Feste seiner Macht.

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Lobet ihn in seinen Thaten; Praise him for his mighty deeds; Lobet ihn in seiner großen Herrlichkeit.

Praise him for his surpassing magnificence.

Lobet ihn mit Posaunen; Praise him with trumpets; Lobet ihn mit Psalter und Harfen.

Praise him lyre and harps.

Lobet ihn mit Pauken und Reigen; Praise him with drums and dances; Lobet ihn mit Saiten und Pfeifen.

Praise him with strings and pipes.

Lobet ihn mit hellen Zymbeln; Praise him with loud cymbals; Lobet ihn mit wohlklingenden Zymbeln.

Praise him with clashing cymbals.

Alles, was Odem hat, lobet den Herrn, Halleluja!

All that has breath, praise the Lord.

Hallelujah!

@ ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97, “Rhenish” Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 in Zwickau, Germany, and died July 29, 1856 in Endenich, near Bonn. The “Rhenish” Symphony was composed in 1850 and premiered in Düsseldorf, on February 6, 1851 under the composer’s direction. The score calls for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Duration is about 32 minutes. The Colorado Symphony last performed this piece March 14-16, 2008 with Marin Alsop conducting.

Robert Schumann arrived in Düsseldorf on September 2, 1850 to assume his new duties as conductor of the local orchestra and choral society. He seemed pleased with the situation: the musical forces were skilled enough to present an annual music festival that had been conducted by such luminaries as Mendelssohn; Schumann’s home life with his beloved wife, Clara, was happy; he had been composing a steady stream of new music for nearly two decades; and his position offered him the chance to live in the heart of the Rhineland, on the legendary river itself, a region for which he had harbored great fondness throughout his life. During the three months following his move to Düsseldorf, he wrote two important works — the Cello Concerto and the “Rhenish” Symphony.

PROGRAM X

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

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES The immediate inspiration for the Symphony came from the Schumanns’ visit to Cologne on September 29, 1850. The city and its great cathedral, still unfinished centuries after its inception, made such a powerful impression on the composer that he determined to write a work that, he said, “mirrors here and there something of Rhenish life.” Though he provided only the fourth of the Symphony’s five movements with a programmatic title, the second and last movements reflect the spirit and style of peasant dances, while the first shows the confidence and joy Schumann felt in his new surroundings and the third the deep contentment he found in living close to the Rhine. The fourth movement was originally titled, “In the character of an accompaniment to a solemn ceremony,” though Schumann later deleted the heading, saying that “the general impression of a work of art is more effective [than a specific extra-musical reference].” This great movement, which stands at the pinnacle of Schumann’s symphonic achievement, grew from the ritual that the composer observed at the Cologne Cathedral on November 12, 1850, when Archbishop Johannes von Geissel was elevated to the rank of Cardinal. So overwhelmed was Schumann with the magnificent service in that great church that he produced what the noted British musicologist Sir Donald Tovey later dubbed “one of the finest pieces of ecclesiastical polyphony since Bach.” Schumann, who revered and studied Bach’s music all of his life, would have been immensely pleased with Tovey’s evaluation.

The opening movement of Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony launches without introduction into its main theme. This striding melody, characterized by its buoyant syncopations and bright vitality, precedes a vigorous scalar motive and a lyrical second theme, all of which are combined with considerable craft in one of Schumann’s most elaborate developmental sections. The second movement, notable for its rich harmonic palette and its two-trio structure, resembles a slow Ländler, the peasant dance that was the forerunner of the waltz. The brief third movement, only 54 measures long, is a songful interlude similar in spirit to the many mood paintings that abound in Schumann’s works for solo piano. The penultimate movement is the composer’s depiction of the majestic ceremony in Cologne Cathedral. Its mystical atmosphere is as much the product of its exquisite sonority — horns and bassoons enhanced by the noble voices of the trombones, heard here for the first time in the Symphony — as of its strict contrapuntal style.

The finale exudes the aura of a folk festival, as though Schumann had left the shadowed Gothic interior of the Cathedral to find a sun-lit square filled with carnival revelers immediately outside.

At the climax of the movement, the Cathedral music again bursts forth from the winds and brass, and the work closes with an energetic coda alluding to the theme of the first movement. ©2023 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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A Colorado Christmas DEC 8-10 FRI 7:30 ✤ SAT 2:30 & 6:00 ✤ SUN 1:00 COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG COLORADOSYMPHONY.ORG