Program Notes: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with Olga Kern

CLASSICS 2022/23 TCHAIKOVSKY PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 WITH OLGA KERN CHRISTIAN REIF, conductor OLGA KERN, piano Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:30pm Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 7:30pm Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso II. Andantino semplice III. Allegro con fuoco

— INTERMISSION — SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 I. Moderato II. Allegro III. Allegretto IV. Andante; Allegro

CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 49 MINUTES WITH A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 8 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT! Friday's concert is dedicated to Colonel Phil and Kim Beaver & Schmitt Music Saturday's concert is dedicated to Drs. Sarah and Harold Nelson PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

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2022/23

PROGRAM I

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES CHRISTIAN REIF, conductor German conductor Christian Reif has quickly established a reputation for his natural musicality, innovative programming and technical command.

He is Music Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Minnesota, a month-long summer festival committed to commissioning new works and to giving free concerts for the community with programming that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances. San Francisco Chronicle has written: “Reif is a remarkable talent... a conductor of considerable stature… a significant musical artist.”

Reif’s 2022/23 season highlights include appearances with the Deutsches SymphonieOrchester Berlin, MünchnerRundfunkorchester, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Münchner Symphoniker, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra. In Summer 2023, he leads concerts at the Enescu Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen. He will be conducting his own arrangement of John Adams’ El Niño at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC with the American Modern Opera Company.

With an equal footing in North America and Europe, Reif has conducted the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, Colorado, Indianapolis and Kansas City, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In Europe, he has performed repeatedly with Orchestre National de Lyon, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and Stavanger Symphony.

Previous season highlights include an appearance in New York at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble. Reif enjoys conducting opera and has led productions at Juilliard Opera of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Opera San Jose of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and the Lakes Area Music Festival of Ariadne auf Naxos.

In 2020, Reif was active on the piano during the pandemic, recording a series of at-home virtual “Songs of Comfort” with his wife, classical singer Julia Bullock, ranging from Carole King’s classic “Up on the Roof” to Schubert’s Wanderers Nachtlied. In November 2020, NPR Music featured the duo in a “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” for their special quarantine edition of the series. NPR’s Tom Huizenga found it “among the most transcendent musical moments I’ve experienced this year” and The New York Times highlighted them on their “Best Classical Music of 2020” list From 2016 to 2019, Christian was Resident Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, after being the Conducting Fellow at the New World Symphony from 2014 to 2016 and at Tanglewood Music Center in 2015 and 2016.

He studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at The Juilliard School in New York City. It was there that he first met his wife Julia Bullock, with whom he resides in Munich

PROGRAM II

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

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES OLGA KERN, piano Pianist Olga Kern is now recognized as one of her generation’s great artists.

With her vivid stage presence, passionately confident musicianship and extraordinary technique, the striking pianist continues to captivate fans and critics alike. Olga Kern was born into a family of musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and began studying piano at the age of five. She jumpstarted her U.S. career with her historic Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas as the first woman to do so in more than thirty years.

Steinway Artist and First prize winner of the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at seventeen, Ms. Kern is a laureate of many international competitions. In 2016 she served as Jury Chairman of both the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition and the first Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she also holds the title of Artistic Director. Ms. Kern frequently gives masterclasses and since September 2017 has served on the piano faculty of the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. Additionally, Ms. Kern has been chosen as the Virginia Arts Festival’s new Connie & Marc Jacobson Director of Chamber Music, beginning with the 2019 season.

During the 2019-20 season, Kern performed with the Allentown Symphony, Grand Rapids Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, New Mexico Philharmonic, and the New West Symphony, as well as appearing on United States Tour with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. She will appear in recitals in Orford, Sunriver, Fort Worth (Cliburn), Carmel, and San Francisco.

In recent seasons, Kern performed with the Moscow Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, and the St. Louis Symphony, as well as opened the Pacific Symphony’s 2018-19 season. Kern was also a featured soloist for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra during the 2018-19 Tour. She also served as Artist in Residence for the San Antonio Symphony’s 2017-18 season and had her Chinese debut with the National Youth Orchestra of China tour. Ms. Kern opened the Baltimore Symphony’s 20152016 centennial season with Marin Alsop. Other season highlights included returns to the Royal Philharmonic with Pinchas Zukerman, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice with Giancarlo Guerrero.

Ms. Kern’s discography includes Harmonia Mundi recordings of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seaman (2003), her Grammy Nominated recording of Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations and other transcriptions (2004), a recital disk with works by Rachmaninoff and Balakirev (2005), Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit (2006), Brahms Variations (2007) and a 2010 release of Chopin Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3 (2010). Most recently, SONY released their recording of Ms. Kern performing the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano with cellist Sol Gabetta. She was also featured in the awardwinning documentary about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, Playing on the Edge, as well as Olga’s Journey, Musical Odyssey in St. Petersburg and in They Came to Play. In 2012, Olga and her brother, conductor and composer, Vladimir Kern, co-founded the “Aspiration” foundation whose objective is to provide financial and artistic assistance to musicians throughout the world.

In 2017, Ms. Kern was gratified to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, joining other honorees including Rosa Parks, Buzz Aldrin, Coretta Scott King, and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. This commendation recognizes Americans who “embody the spirit of America in their salute to tolerance, brotherhood, diversity, and patriotism.

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2022/23

PROGRAM III

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia and died November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg. He composed the Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1874-1875 and revised in 1889. The score is dedicated to Hans von Bülow, who was the pianist for the premiere, in Boston on October 25, 1875; Benjamin Johnson Lang conducted. The work is scored for woodwinds and trumpets in pairs, four horns, three trombones, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 32 minutes. The Concerto was last performed by the orchestra March 2-4, 2018, with conductor Brett Mitchell and pianist Olga Kern.

At the end of 1874, Tchaikovsky began a piano concerto with the hope of having a success great enough to allow him to leave his irksome teaching post at the Moscow Conservatory.

By late December, he had largely sketched out the work, and he sought the advice of Nikolai Rubinstein, Director of the Moscow Conservatory and a virtuoso pianist. Tchaikovsky reported the interview in a letter: “On Christmas Eve 1874, Nikolai asked me to play the Concerto in a classroom of the Conservatory. We agreed to it. I played through the work. There burst forth from Rubinstein’s mouth a mighty torrent of words. It appeared that my Concerto was utterly worthless, absolutely unplayable; the piece as a whole was bad, trivial, vulgar.” Tchaikovsky was furious, and he stormed out of the classroom. He made only one change in the score: he obliterated the name of the original dedicatee — Nikolai Rubinstein — and substituted that of the virtuoso pianist Hans von Bülow, who was performing Tchaikovsky’s piano pieces across Europe. Bülow gladly accepted the dedication and asked to program the premiere on his upcoming American tour. The Concerto created such a sensation when it was first heard, in Boston on October 25, 1875, that Bülow played it on 139 of his 172 concerts that season. (Remarkably, Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto was also premiered in this country, by Madeleine Schiller and the New York Philharmonic Society conducted by Theodore Thomas on November 12, 1881.)

Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto opens with the familiar theme of the introduction, a noble melody sung by violins and cellos above thunderous chords from the piano. Following a decrescendo and a pause, the piano presents the snapping main theme. (Tchaikovsky said that this curious melody was inspired by a tune he heard sung by a blind beggar at a street fair.) The clarinet announces the lyrical, bittersweet second theme. The simplicity of the second movement’s three-part structure (A–B–A) is augured by the purity of its opening — a languid melody in the solo flute. The center of the movement is of very different character, with a quick tempo and a swift, balletic melody. The languid theme and moonlit mood of the first section return to round out the movement. The crisp rhythmic motive presented immediately at the beginning of the finale and then spun into a complete theme by the soloist dominates much of the movement. In the theme’s vigorous full-orchestra guise, it has much of the spirit of a robust Cossack dance. To balance the vigor of this music, Tchaikovsky introduced a romantic melody first entrusted to the violins. The dancing Cossacks repeatedly advance upon this bit of tenderness, which shows a hardy determination. The two themes contend, but the flying Cossacks have the last word.

PROGRAM IV

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

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 Dmitri Shostakovich was born September 25, 1906 in St. Petersburg and died August 9, 1975 in Moscow. He composed his Tenth Symphony during the summer and autumn of 1953. Yevgeny Mravinsky conducted the premiere of the work in Leningrad on December 17, 1953. The score calls for two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two B-flat clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings.

Duration is about 57 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece September 20-22, 2013, with Andrew Litton conducting.

The resilience of Dmitri Shostakovich was astounding. Twice during his life he was the subject of the most scathing denunciations that Soviet officialdom could muster, and he not only endured both but found in them the motivation to renew his creativity. The first attack, in 1936, condemned him for writing “muddle instead of music,” and stemmed from his modernistic opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk. The other censure came after the Second World War, in 1948, and it was part of a general purge of “formalistic” music by Soviet authorities. Through Andrei Zhdanov, head of the Soviet Composers’ Union and the official mouthpiece for the government, it was made known that any experimental or modern or abstract or difficult music was no longer acceptable for consumption by the Russian peoples. Only simplistic music glorifying the state, the land and the people would be performed. In other words, symphonies, operas, chamber music — any forms involving too much mental or emotional stimulation — were out; movie music, folk song settings and patriotic cantatas were in.

Shostakovich saw the iron figure of Joseph Stalin behind the condemnations of both 1936 and 1948. After the 1936 debacle, Shostakovich responded with his Fifth Symphony, and kept composing through the years of World War II, even becoming a world figure representing the courage of the Russian people with the lightning success of his Seventh Symphony (“Leningrad”) in 1942. The 1948 censure was, however, almost more than Shostakovich could bear. He determined that he would go along with the Party prerogative for pap, and withhold all of his substantial works until the time they would be given a fair hearing — when Stalin was dead. About the only music Shostakovich made public between 1948 and 1953 was that for films, most of which had to do with episodes in Soviet history (The Fall of Berlin, The Memorable Year 1919) and some jingoistic vocal works (The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland).

With the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 (ironically, Prokofiev died on the same day), Shostakovich and all Russia felt an oppressive burden lift. The thaw came gradually, but there did return to Soviet life a more amenable attitude toward works of art, one that allowed significant compositions again to be produced and performed. Shostakovich, whose genius had been shackled by Stalin’s repressive artistic policies, set to work almost immediately on a large, bold symphony, a composition that was to be the greatest he had written to that time in the form — the Symphony No. 10.

The Tenth Symphony is among the greatest works of its type written during the 20th century. It can be favorably compared not only with the music of Sibelius, Prokofiev and Vaughan Williams, but, even more impressively, with that of Brahms and Beethoven. In addition to the technical mastery the Symphony displays, it, like all of Shostakovich’s works in this form, also seems to bear some profound underlying message, some implicit struggle between SOUNDINGS

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PROGRAM V

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES philosophical forces. When the Symphony was new, Shostakovich would give no hint as to the “meaning” of the work. At a conference of Soviet composers in 1954, he stated, “Authors like to say of themselves, ‘I tried, I wanted to, etc.’ But I think I’ll refrain from any such remarks. It would be much more interesting for me to know what the listener thinks and to hear his remarks. One thing I will say: in this composition I wanted to portray human emotions and passions.” Asked sometime later if he would provide a written program for the Tenth Symphony, he laughed and said, “No. Let them listen and guess for themselves.”

In his purported memoirs, Testimony, published after his death, Shostakovich was more specific. “I couldn’t write an apotheosis to Stalin, I simply couldn’t,” he admitted. “I knew what I was in for when I wrote the Ninth [i.e., the 1948 denunciation]. But I did depict Stalin in music in my next symphony, the Tenth. I wrote it right after Stalin’s death, and no one has yet guessed what the Symphony is about. It’s about Stalin and the Stalin years. The second part, the scherzo, is a musical portrait of Stalin, roughly speaking. Of course, there are many things in it, but that is the basis.” He confided no more than that. Knowing what we do about Shostakovich’s years of struggle under Stalin and the composer’s feeling of release at the dictator’s death, it is not hard to fill in what he left unspoken because this Symphony is ample testimony to his philosophy of music as a communicative art: “I find it incredible that an artist should wish to shut himself away from the people.... I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don’t succeed, I consider it my own fault.” The Tenth Symphony succeeds magnificently.

The Symphony’s first movement grows through a grand arch form whose central portions carry its greatest emotional intensity. The music is built from three themes, each of which undergoes a certain amount of development upon its initial presentation. The first is a darkly brooding melody that rises from the depths of the low strings immediately at the beginning.

As this sinuous theme unwinds in the cellos and basses, the other string instruments enter to provide a surrounding halo of sound. The second theme appears in the clarinet, the first entry by the winds in the movement. The ensuing treatment of this theme generates the movement’s first climax before this section is rounded out by the re-appearance of the solo clarinet. The third theme emerges in the breathy low register of the solo flute as a sort of diabolical waltz. These three elements — low string, clarinet and flute melodies — provide the material for the rest of the movement.

The menacing second movement, a musical portrait of Stalin, is, in the words of Ray Blokker, “a whirling fireball of a movement, filled with malevolent fury.” Its thunderous tread leaves little doubt of Shostakovich’s feeling about the murderous Stalin.

The opening gesture of the third movement, three rising notes, is related in shape to the themes of the first two movements and provides a strong link in the overall unity of the Tenth Symphony. As a tag to this first theme, Shostakovich included his musical “signature” — DSCH, the notes D–E-flat–C–B. (The note D represents his initial. In German transliteration, the composer’s name begins “Sch”: S [ess] in German notation equals E-flat, C is C, and H equals B-natural.) This “signature” and its variants are given prominence, and there is no doubt that Shostakovich saw himself as a direct participant in the program of the Symphony. The movement’s center section is dominated by an unchanging horn call that resembles the awesome riddle of existence posed by the solo trumpet in Ives’ The Unanswered Question. The opening section returns in a heightened presentation. The movement closes with Shostakovich’s musical signature, played haltingly by flute and piccolo, hanging in the air.

PROGRAM VI

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

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES The last movement begins with an extended introduction in slow tempo, a perfect psychological buffer between the unsettled nature of the third movement and the exuberance of the finale proper. The finale is both festive and thoughtful. During its course, it recalls thematic material from earlier movements to serve as a summary of the entire work. Concerning the ending of the work, the British writer on music Hugh Ottaway wrote, “The impact is affirmative but provisional: anti-pessimistic rather than optimistic.”

Shostakovich left the final interpretation of the Tenth Symphony up to each listener. It is no doubt heroic, filled with struggle and a deep awareness of life’s pains. But it is also uplifting in its dedication to the human spirit and the continuity of life against the greatest obstacles.

In the words of Ray Blokker in his book on the composer’s symphonies, “Here is the heart of Shostakovich. In this work he opens his soul to the world, revealing its tragedy and profundity, but also its resilience and strength.” ©2022 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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2 0 2 2 / 2 3 PROGRAM VII

DEC 9-11 FRI 7:30 ✹ SAT 2:30 & 6:00 ✹ SUN 1:00 Taylor Martin, conductor Devin DeSantis, vocalist Christine Mild, vocalist Colorado Symphony Chorus Colorado Children’s Chorale, Emily Crile, Artistic Director

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